FIR Podcast Network

Communicators who lack specific expertise and/or resources inside the organization often turn to external consultants to help with everything from strategic planning to project execution. That relationship can be amazing, delivering exceptional results. It can also be a minefield, causing sleepless nights, unsatisfying results, and even diminished trust in the communicator from company leadership.

In episode 50 of Circle of Fellows, four IABC Fellows discussed the consultant/client relationship, including…

* How to hire and manage an array of consultants in a gig economy

* How to build and maintain a corporate client base as an independent consultant

* Top five ways for consultants to build loyalty with their clients, and keep them coming back

IABC Fellows participating in the broadcast included Jim Lukaszewski, George McGrath, Jim Shaffer, and Jennifer Wah — all practicing consultants. Shel Holtz (a former consultant who has returned to the client-side) served as moderator.

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About the Panel

James E. Lukaszewski, America’s Crisis Guru ®, is a bestselling author, national speaker, and trusted strategic advisor to FPO and NPO business operators and leaders during crises, disasters, reputation attacks, contentiousness and when the boss’s future is at stake. Corporate Legal Times listed him as “one of 22 crisis counselors to have in your speed dial when all hell breaks loose.” For more than 30 years, he has confidentially guided hundreds of company leaders thru tough, touchy, sensitive situations. Lukaszewski’s strategies inspire constructive, ethical problem resolving management behavior. A powerful and inspirational speaker, he teaches executives and managers the lessons he has learned. A prolific author, he is quoted and interviewed often as one of the most recognizable leaders in his profession. Lukaszewski is on the web at www.e911.com.

George McGrath is founder and managing principal of McGrath Business Communications, which helps clients build winning corporate reputations, promote their products and services, and advance their views on key issues. George brings more than 25 years in PR and public affairs to his firm. Over the course of his career, he has held senior management positions at leading strategic communications and integrated marketing agencies including Hill and Knowlton, Carl Byoir & Associates, and Brouillard Communications.

Jim Shaffer is a business advisor, leadership coach, author, and speaker. As leader of the Jim Shaffer Group, he helps organizations accelerate results through superior strategy execution. The Jim Shaffer Group creates hard business results by translating the business strategy to the people who need to implement it, aligning systems, processes, and culture to make the gains sustainable. Jim was an architect and leading practitioner of Towers Perrin’s (now Towers Willis Watson) change management consulting practice. He designed and produced the IABC Academy Course, “Managing Change Communication to Drive Results and Value.” Some of his change management clients have included: Abbott, ConAgra Foods, FedEx, IBM, ITT, Mayo Clinic, Medtronic, Owens Corning, Pfizer, Toyota.

Jennifer Wah, MC, ABC, has worked with clients to deliver ideas, plans, words and results since she founded her storytelling and communications firm, Forwords Communication Inc., in 1997. The company operates as a strategic alliance of hand-picked professionals; all renowned for work in their areas of specialization. This approach means the right team is assembled for each project; no more, no less.   With more than two dozen awards for strategic communications, writing and consulting, Jennifer is recognized as a storyteller and strategist.

We examine three different articles that touch on various B2B marketing aspects in this podcast. The first one from Digiday and documents what the BBC went through to establish its fifth content vertical it calls Future. The channel deals with health, wellness and sustainability, and it took a lot more effort than you might think to create. Branded content is driving a lot of page views at the Beeb, as the Brits lovingly refer to it, and the reason is because of all the work that the media company puts into their creation, working with ad partners, their marketing teams and editors. An article on whether eating eggs is healthy brought in a million page views and had an average dwell time of five minutes, which is content gold.

The second piece is from Chris Penn, who does excellent marketing research. He came up with analytics that show several “happy words” — such as “pleased,” “excited,” “proud” and “thrilled” — litter the press release landscape, offering nothing in the way of real information. Does anyone really care if your CEO is having a good day because you just announced version 3.45 of some product? It might be time to eliminate these words entirely from your marketing lingo, have the language reflect reality more closely and perhaps get more reporters’ attention too.

Finally, we found this Pew Research survey that shows exactly how little the average adult knows about the digital marketing world. Pew gave more than 4,000 adults a 10-question quiz that asked things like what the “s” in “https” stands for, who owns Instagram and whether ads are a significant source of social media revenue. A huge chunk of respondents either answered incorrectly or didn’t know the answer.

Improve your brain health with the right neuroscience programs. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Dave Kenney (http://aha.pub/DaveKenney), the Co-founder and Executive Director at Emergo Recovery, which is a private residential recovery and wellness center focused on a brain-first approach and which specializes in Actualized Recovery.

Dave is a certified brain health coach, a master certified brainwave optimization technician, a certified life coach with a certification in Self-Management for Addiction Recovery (SMART Recovery). His vision is to help people who are struggling to reclaim their lives after struggles with addictions, anxieties, depressions and other debilitating challenges.

To learn more about Dave, go to http://aha.pub/DaveKenney. To get in touch with him, visit https://emergorecovery.com.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* The point of pain for people who are struggling is not knowing how to overcome their pain and have a fresh start in life. #BrainHealth https://emergorecovery.com @DaveKenney

* Neuroscience can help answer how the #Brain drives behavior and feelings. Do you know what drives your behavior? https://emergorecovery.com @DaveKenney

* A #BrainFirst approach to recovery and wellness can help address the psychological issues of people who are struggling in life. What approach are you using? https://emergorecovery.com @DaveKenney

* The right #BrainHealth program can help people who are struggling in life and set them on the path to happiness and well-being. What programs are you participating in? https://emergorecovery.com @DaveKenney

* Many years of experience in neuroscience and psychology can give one the credibility to help people who are struggling in life to get on the path to recovery. Consider getting help from someone credible to help you recover. #BrainHealth http://aha.pub/DaveKenney

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.

Marketing is super simple, right? All you need to do is get some folks on your website, retarget them until they are ready to buy, and bada bing, bada boom, you have sales! If it were only that easy, right?

The thing is marketing is tough and retargeting website visitors with the right message at the right place at the right time is truly a science. It entails a great deal of research and a well-oiled machine to get the gears all working together. But, when your message resonates with the right person, when they are ready to buy, the magic starts to happen.

Today on AMP Up Your Digital Marketing we’re speaking with Daniel Daines-Hutt, internationally recognized and certified Digital Marketer, Public Speaker, and Marketing Consultant. He dives into the importance of proper research and the effects it can have throughout your entire business when trying to have a one-to-one conversation with a potential buyer of your product. By failing (yes, you read that right), you become a stronger and better marketer in your advertising and retargeting efforts.

In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, you’ll learn from Daniel:

* How the process of proper research can drive success beyond our retargeting campaigns.

* Why the process of creating a one-to-one message can be time consuming but an absolute necessity for your business.

* How to fail as an adult. We’re all pre-wired to want to be successful, but to be an effective marketer, failing brings success.

* The four types of non-buyers, and how you speak directly to each of them.

Position yourself for failure, you have our permission! It will open your eyes to being a better marketer and will help you understand why proper A/B testing and retargeting can be infinitely effective in driving conversions for your business. And who knows, marketing may become super simple after all — or at least your retargeting ad strategy might.

Daniel’s Bio: Daniel is an internationally recognized and certified Digital Marketer, Public Speaker, and Marketing Consultant. He runs the retargeting blog Inbound Ascension the website Amp My Content, which marries together the two worlds. He is also an Englishman living in New Zealand and built Inbound Ascension while traveling as part of a 66 day challenge to grow a business to 10,000 email subscribers and 130,000 site visitors. If you want to reach Daniel, you can contact him here.

Want to appear on AMP Up Your Digital Marketing? Contact Us and let us know how our listeners can benefit from hearing your message.

Before the days of radio and TV, where marketing could reach volumes at one time, there was a practice called word of mouth marketing that seems to have fallen behind. Broadcast advertising charged the world by storm, creating a generation that eventually was so used to broadcast advertising they tuned it out. And like a vintage road sign, word of mouth suddenly became cool again, positioning Ted Wright and his word of mouth agency, Fizz, top of mind.

In this episode, Ted discusses the differences between working with a real advocate versus an influencer. Take a bike and a motorcycle – both have two wheels, a seat, and handlebars. To someone who has never seen either, they share marked similarities. But what if you took the wrong one onto the highway? Now you’ve got yourself in a pickle.

In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, you’ll learn from Ted:

* How the practice of word of mouth communication dates back even before the earliest religions.

* The difference between influencers and broadcasters and why it matters.

* How Oprah was the queen of word of mouth marketing.

* You will have more success with digital marketing if you do not forget the word of mouth conversation that is taking place at the same time.

With this insight, you’ll further understand how relevance, authenticity, and being interesting drive the strongest conversations. Deeply understanding the differences, and the conversations already taking place in your market, can help your brand continue a conversation offline.

Ted is the CEO of the global marketing company Fizz, an agency solely focused on word of mouth advertising.

Want to appear on AMP Up Your Digital Marketing? Contact Us and let us know how our listeners can benefit from hearing your message.

Who would have guessed beat boxing on your first day would lead to an epic social media promotion?

If you are the folks at CHG Healthcare, you knew it would be an instant hit and ran off to make some MAGIC. Fostering a culture of employee engagement, their social strategy is defined by the value “people first” and it shows. Social media channels are dedicated to telling the stories of present, past, and soon-to-be employees, garnering attention and engagement while fostering their MAGIC engagement model:

Meaning

Autonomy

Growth

Impact

Connection

In this episode, Michael Waterman, VP of Communications and Creative Services at CHG Healthcare speaks to how leveraging the MAGIC model led to the growth and development of their highly-visible social channels. Engaging their employees and encouraging them to contribute content from the field helped CHG Healthcare secure a coveted spot on the Fortune magazine’s “Best Places to Work For” list for not just one year but the last ten consecutive years.

Listen to the Podcast Below

In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, you’ll learn from Michael:

* Don’t be afraid of new ideas. Figure out what works and what doesn’t. Try something new and see where it goes. Your audience doesn’t need perfection. They need content that engages them, makes them laugh, or inspires them.

* Commit to actively managing your social channels. Give your team members clear brands to support and the autonomy to make social work for them.

* Video isn’t the future; it’s now! YouTube recently announced that their users upload more than 500 hours of new video every minute. That 30,000 hours of new content per hour, and 720,000 hours of new content per day. It’s a powerful way to share stories and highlight the best parts of your business. And it doesn’t have to be perfect.

With this insight, you’ll learn how they empower field teams to capture and contribute content to their company through employee advocacy. By leveraging different social media channels, CHG Healthcare has segmented their content for different audiences and use cases: Twitter for job postings, LinkedIn for career and culture tips, and Facebook and Instagram for culture, stories and videos. At CHG Healthcare, when you can see the impact of your job, and your job is more than just a job, it’s so much more meaningful.

Michael’s Bio: Michael Waterman is the Vice President of Communications and Creative Services at CHG Healthcare, a healthcare staffing company. His company is responsible for placing doctors, nurses, and therapists in hospitals and clinics throughout the United States and even internationally. As the largest physician staffing business in the country, CHG Healthcare is known for their award-winning culture and celebrates ten consecutive years on the Fortune magazine “100 Best Companies to Work For” list.

You can find CHG Healthcare on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Michael can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Want to appear on AMP Up Your Digital Marketing? Contact Us and let us know how our listeners can benefit from hearing your message.

In the past, if you stuffed the right keywords into a piece of content, someone might find you but they may not find your content helpful. Today, 90% of content has been created in the last two years so keyword stuffing simply doesn’t work and content creation is becoming a never-ending process. This is a challenge for any content marketer – get people to find you via content so that you can increase brand awareness and drive people to the site.

In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, Erin Balsa, Content Marketing Manager for The Predictive Index discusses how to make your content marketing efforts go further by harnessing the power of your employee network. What happens if your employees are just not writers? They can help, too! Erin delves into how getting executive buy-in led her team to amass 3 gated pieces per week as well as 5-10 well-thought-out blog posts, all while leveraging the strengths of employees even outside of the marketing department.

Listen to the Podcast Below

In this podcast Erin shares tips on:

* Writing content to improve lives, solve a problem, or to address pain points of your ideal audience members.

* Keyword practices on how to determine what to write about, semantic matching, and keyword intent.

* Creating content at scale with a lunch and a bit of budget to empower employees.

* Getting executive buy-in and creating a culture of collaboration to highlight talent while creating helpful tools and topics for their audience personas.

With these tips, you’ll learn how every single person in your company can be a content creator. If you arm them with the tools and knowledge to be confident in their process and let them write or create what they know, you can harness your employees to create amazing content to help with your marketing efforts.

Erin’s Bio: Erin Balsa is the Content Marketing Manager at The Predictive index. In her role, she oversees the writers, editors, videographers, and photographers to ensure that great content is being put out every day. You can reach her on LinkedIn, where she is fortunate enough to be the only Erin Balsa on LinkedIn.

Want to appear on AMP Up Your Digital Marketing? Contact Us and let us know how our listeners can benefit from hearing your message.

On this episode of AMP UP Your Digital Marketing, Nick Pavlidis, Founder and CEO of Attorney Marketing Institute, joins host Glenn Gaudet to discuss social media marketing in the legal field. Nick explains why lawyers need to begin all content with the end in mind by explaining what you can do for clients, rather than what your background is. A former attorney himself, Nick founded Attorney Marketing Institute in 2014, where he helps attorneys and law firms connect with potential clients and influencers to grow their business.

Listen to the Podcast Below

In this podcast you will learn about:

Why many lawyers are resistant to change, and what changes they should make.

How to build great content with your clients wants in mind, including blog posts, social media posts and even your website.

How to build a social presence in the area you’re targeting.

Why your website shouldn’t be about you.

What to consider when deciding which social media platform to focus.

You can connect with Nick and find his contact information at attorneymarketinginstitute.com

Grow your business to over $1M in government contracting through simple process steps. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Neil McDonnell (http://aha.pub/NeilMcDonnell), a speaker, trainer, and author dedicated to the success of small businesses with less than 1M in revenue contracting to the federal government.

Neil formed and operated seven small businesses, including three federal government contracting firms focused on IT consulting and the HUBZone Chamber of Commerce. He helps small business owners to earn revenue from federal agencies while competing with multi-billion-dollar companies. Neil also runs the Small Business Success Club, a monthly membership-based organization that answers questions that small businesses have about their specific next steps.

To learn more about Neil, go to http://aha.pub/NeilMcDonnell. To get in touch with him, visit https://www.govconchamber.com/.

Here are a couple of AHAmessages from this episode:

* The pain point of many small businesses with less than $1M in revenue is not knowing how to navigate the quagmire of the federal government to do business. #GovernmentContracting https://www.govconchamber.com @NeilMcDonnell

* Small businesses with less than $1M in revenue can be overwhelmed by how complex #GovernmentContracting is. How do you navigate this complexity? https://www.govconchamber.com @NeilMcDonnell

* Small businesses that want to do #GovernmentContracting can benefit from knowing the steps to follow and the pitfalls to avoid. Consider learning from one who has the knowhow! http://aha.pub/NeilMcDonnell

* Over 20 years of federal #GovernmentContracting experience as a small business owner can give one the credibility to help other small businesses succeed. Consider learning from one with years of experience to help you! http://aha.pub/NeilMcDonnell

* #GovernmentContracting is not a secret, it is a process. What processes do you have to help your small business succeed? https://www.govconchamber.com @NeilMcDonnell

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.

Grow your sales effectively through sales training and optimizing your marketing tools. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Wes Schaeffer (http://aha.pub/WesShaeffer), HubSpot CRM expert, sales trainer, author, speaker and podcast host at The Sales Whisperer.

Wes conducts sales training seminars and keynote presentations for salesmen in order for them to improve their marketing strategies and accelerate their sales. He coaches his clients and creates memorable marketing that accelerates sales in any industry, any economy and at any time to sell more, faster, and at a higher margin with ease. Wes is passionate about helping his clients find the exact tools and programs they need to grow.

To learn more about Wes, go to http://aha.pub/WesSchaeffer. To get in touch with him, visit https://www.thesaleswhisperer.com/.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* The pain point of many salespeople is that they don’t know the exact tools to use in order to market their products and services effectively. #GrowYourSales https://www.thesaleswhisperer.com/ @SalesWhisperer

* Knowing your products and services can help salespeople to choose the right #MarketingTool for your business. How well do you know your products and services? https://www.thesaleswhisperer.com/ @SalesWhisperer

* Marketing tools are essential so that salespeople can make every sale faster and easier. They should consider working with an expert in order to help them effectively use their marketing tools. #GrowYourSales http://aha.pub/WesSchaeffer

* Using a marketing automation strategy can help salespeople to accelerate their sales with ease. Are you using marketing automation to #GrowYourSales? https://www.thesaleswhisperer.com/ @SalesWhisperer

* Many years of experience in implementing and optimizing marketing tools can give someone the credibility to help salespeople grow their sales. Consider getting help from someone who is credible to #GrowYourSales. http://aha.pub/WesSchaeffer

To learn more about thought leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.