Interview with Tom Ruwitch, Founder of Story Power Marketing

Tom Ruwitch is a consultant, content-marketing expert, and founder of Story Power Marketing. Tom is a digital marketing pioneer who founded the email marketing software and services company MarketVolt in 2001 -- before most business people had even heard of email marketing. Today, coaches, consultants, and other experts hire Tom to power up their stories because most dish out the same old boring content that turns off prospects, and then they feel frustrated and stuck. So Tom helps them transform content from boring to brilliant, turn marketing from frustrating to fun, and convert results from pitiful to profitable. 

My Backstory 

I used to believe that marketing and sales was a numbers game. Knock on enough doors and make enough cold calls and prospects and sales would come. 

All that got me was sore knuckles and a raw throat. 

I discovered a better way: When you create and deliver story-powered content that reflects prospects' journeys, they tune in, turn on, and are more likely to hire you. 

I harnessed the power of Story Power to grow MarketVolt, the email marketing software company I founded in 2001. And in 2019, after I sold MarketVolt, I founded Story Power Marketing to bring that power to coaches, consultants, and other experts -- so they can transform content from boring to brilliant, turn marketing from frustrating to fulfilling, and convert results from pitiful to profitable. 

I teach simple, easy-to-scale systems to generate client-attracting, story-powered content -- without writer's block. 

Go to StoryPowerMarketing.com/Denny and enter coupon code Denny to receive 50% off the Profit Pack that Tom mentions in this episode.

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About Steven Denny: Steven Denny co-founded Innovative Business Advisors in 2018 and serves as a Managing Member of the firm. Steve has been actively engaged in M/A activities in a wide variety of industries for the last 14 years and has developed specific products to assist clients in growing their profitability and enterprise value. His specialty is working with established private companies in the lower middle market with annual revenues from $1 – 50 million.

Transcript

0:02  
Welcome to the You Don't Know What You Don't Know podcast by Innovative Business Advisors. Successful business owners who have started, grown and led businesses share their journey and direction for the benefit of those traveling the same path. So today, we're talking with Tom Ruwitch, business owner, founder of Story Power Marketing. Tom is a serial entrepreneur, and having done a number of major marketing startups, including Market Volt, which he recently sold after founding and growing that company to a digital marketing leader over a 20 year period. Tom's a graduate of Yale, started his professional career as a journalist, quickly rising to an editor position at a major Midwest newspaper. Tom is an incredible storyteller, marketing genius, and now uses his talent with Story Power Marketing to teach business owners how to attract, engage and grow their sales. Tom, welcome and thank you for investing the time to be with us today. We appreciate it. Thank you, Steve, very, very happy to be here. Great to see you. What, you know you, you were always focused on the story in Market Volt. We had several discussions, and I'm probably the worst marketing person in the world, and just about everything you've ever said is still resonating with me and kicking around in my head. But what, what made you jump into Story Power Marketing after Market Volt? Yeah, well, I'll, I'll take it back to Market Volt to really, to really fill in that blank. I founded Market Volt in 2001, it was an email marketing software company, what they call an email service provider, software to create, deliver and track email campaigns. And when we launched it in 2001 most people knew nothing about email marketing and had

1:58  
never heard of it. Well it was relatively new at that point in time. Yeah, exactly, and, and, and so a lot of our clients were coming to us and were saying, Where do I buy a list? And we would say things like, well, you don't buy a list. You build a list. Build a list? How do I build a list? And so we have this software company, but we quickly built around it an agency doing campaigns with our clients, for our clients, helping them with list building, helping them with lead generation, helping them with website development, all sorts of things. And the thing that we recognized about the businesses we worked with, and this was over a 19 year period, is that so many business owners will chase the shiny technology squirrels, give me a better tool for creating, delivering and tracking campaigns. I want a better marketing automation system. I want a better social media marketing platform. They'll chase those shiny squirrels, or they'll chase the latest, greatest tactic. I want a better funnel. I want a better trick. And when things aren't going well with their marketing, they'll blame the tool, they'll blame the tactic, the wrong funnel or the wrong thing, or they'll blame the tactician. Gonna go hire a different consultant. And the thing that we saw is 99% of the time when somebody was struggling with their marketing, probably the thing that was most important, not probably, definitely the thing that was lacking the most was the quality of the content so many people are dishing out the same old, boring blah, blah, blah information. Prospects tune out and move on. And then those businesses and those business people feel frustrated and stuck. And instead of focusing on how to power up that content, how to make it more captivating and interesting, they focus on, well, give me a better piece of software, give me a better funnel, something like that. So we were experiencing this working with our own clients, and we began at Market Volt to really lean into how can we help our clients create content that's more captivating, that's more interesting, that's more entertaining, that makes the person and the business stand out above their competitors in ways that lead their prospects to choose them. And that happened throughout the years at Market Volt, and then around 20 or in 2019 I sold the software business Market Volt to a great company called Benchmark Email. I founded Story Power Marketing to continue that work that I was doing helping my clients, helping businesses power up their creative content so that they could stand out, so that they could transform their content from ignored to adored.

5:00  
And you work with companies of all sizes, really, I mean, I know you work with solopreneurs to major corporations in that regard. Yeah, absolutely. And the focus of the work is if, if you are a business owner, a business leader who effectively is packaging and selling your expertise to serve clients, then you're a good fit, because what you're trying to do is share your knowledge, share your expertise, shine as somebody who is a thought leader and, and a leader in your industry, but you need to do it in a way that doesn't just sound like everybody else. And there is so much content being dished out right now that sounds like everybody else. And so, yeah, you're right that that in some cases, it can be with a big company, but more often than not, these days, I'm working with coaches, consultants, professional service providers, the kind of people who are being hired to share their expertise to help others and

6:12  
and and storytelling is a great fit for them. Interesting. Yep. I don't know of a lot of people that do what you do in the marketing world and back in the Market Volt days I mean, there were several major companies that come to mind that did email marketing in that regard, but, but give us a little bit more insight into the things that really make you guys kind of special and different than other companies, particularly those that are in your space. Sure, sure. So, so there are, there are a few for sure, who-- Okay. And there's a lot of buzz around storytelling for business. And I think I'll, I'll answer your question by doing a little bit of myth busting. Okay. Because there's some very, there's some very common myths that are being perpetrated by some of the so called experts in the space. Okay. Myth number one is that the place to start with storytelling for business is by telling your origin story. Oh. In fact, a lot of people, a lot of people, when I talk to them about storytelling, they'll say, Oh, I don't have an interesting story. I, you know, I don't have a story to tell. So there are a few problems with this. Number one, when we talk about storytelling for business, we're talking about stories plural, not story singular. It's not about a single story to define you and define your brand. It's about developing a storytelling habit, developing a way to share what you know with elements of story that make it more captivating. So first myth is that it it's all about you. It doesn't have to be all about you. You don't need to lead with your legendary origin story. Here's the garage where I invented the widget. Here's the ditch that I crawled out of. Nobody cares about any of that unless the story is relevant to them. Unless your story reflects on their story. Then you can begin to connect the dots between here's my background, and here's why you should care, because I know you, I know your story, I know what matters to you, and here's how my story reflects back on that. So that's thing number one. Thing number two, and this one is really critical, is it doesn't have to be so darn complicated. There are all these storytelling coaches out there who talk about, I have a 10 step thing for, you know, managing stories, or you have to memorize the elements of the hero's journey. Or, here's Freytag's Pyramid for doing a dramatic story. Or here's how Aristotle did stories. Or it has to be like a screenplay with, you know, conflict and resolution and heroes and villains and so on and so forth. I had a client who came to me after going through one of those programs, and he said, I'm just trying to write a darn email, and I don't want to have to sit down and, like, keep track of, Oh, did I get the sixth element in the right place? And it doesn't have to be so darn complicated. I mean, call me simple, but when I hear about a simple 10 step plan or a simple 10 step process, feels like seven steps too many. So we have a very simple framework that we call the 3E framework. And if you really understand and master this framework, you're well on your way to getting this right. And the 3Es in the framework are empathize, envision, enable.

10:00  
So you start by putting yourself in your prospect's shoes. What are they feeling? Where, what are they frustrated with? What's keeping them up at night? And a lot of people will say, Oh, Tom, I don't want to go there. That's fear based marketing, and that's manipulative. But the thing to remember about that is that you are serving your clients. You are providing a valuable service and to begin that journey with them, you have to meet them where they are. And most times, if you are providing a service, your, your, your clients, you're solving some problem, some challenge. You're helping them overcome and clear some hurdle. And so you have to meet them where they are and talk about that. It's manipulative only if the service that you're providing is snake oil, is fake, is not really a service, and it's manipulative if all you do is agitate the problem to trick them into buying something that they otherwise don't need. That's manipulative. --them more money to stir and agitate with, yeah. Yeah. But if you're providing a real service, and meet them where they are and empathize, feel their pain, envision what's on the other side of the mountain. Where is it that they want to go? What does it look like? What will they feel like? What will they experience if you provide them, you know, with the value that you're going to provide, which brings us to the 3rd E, enable. Your products and services are the enabler, are the bridge that get them from that before to after. And those journeys from before to after, those are the stories. All of our prospects, all of our clients, are on various journeys, from frustrated to relieved, from fearful to confident, from stuck to zooming forward, from lost to found. Whatever it might be, our product and service enables that journey, and it's those journeys that are really the heart of the stories. Those journeys are the the outline or the key ideas that you're going to be putting out in your stories. If you can keep those 3 Es straight and really discover what it is that makes your prospects tick on both sides of the journey, then you're going to be really well positioned to tell powerful stories in whatever framework you want, whether it's an email, a social post, an About Us section of your LinkedIn, the front page of your website, whatever it may be, it doesn't have to be so darn hard.

12:38  
And it's, it's fascinating. You mentioned all those different places. Do you, do you focus your clients on making sure that the story is consistent then in all those, in all those places? So it's not just, it's just not just writing emails and sending people emails, it's. No it's not just emails. And you use that, you use that term, the story is consistent, it's a flow and never ending flow of stories. Better description, yeah. Okay. And so as a, as an example, I have worked with an executive coach who her fundamental work is to help business owners escape the hamster wheel. And so when we talk about the stories and the journeys, you know, the, the what--  
I'll tell a story about, about her. Okay. She, before she hired me, she wrote a blog post about delegation. And that blog post was like 8 million other blog posts about delegation. It began, Delegation is a very important skill that business leaders must master if they want to run a good company. Here are the five tips to delegate, you know, and you've already lost everybody, you know, with that first paragraph. That's what I call information only blah, blah, blah marketing. Well, what, what is at the heart of this? Why are we talking about delegation? Well, we're talking about delegation because of the journey that the prospects want to take when they cross that delegation bridge. So delegation is the product or the service or the skill or the lesson that the coach is bringing. But what's the real story? What's the real message here? And we talked about that, and what came out of the conversation was she told me a story about a business owner who had run a company for 20 years and had never taken a vacation longer than a long weekend. Had never gone away for more than three or four days in one, in one trip. And the reason was, the guy was terrified. If I leave, it's all going to fall apart. If I leave, I'm going to be stressed out. If I leave, I'm going to come back and spend the next two weeks or three weeks firefighting, and it's not worth it. I'm just going to stay.

15:02  
So what happened was we ended up writing a blog post where the subject line was, or it was an email first, and then a blog post headline, subject line was, How a Stressed Out Owner Let Go and Got Away. How a Stressed Out Owner Let Go and Got Away. Now, imagine that you are the owner of a business who is a prospect for this service, for the coaching service that this person offers. Empathy, this this coach has demonstrated I understand you, I know what you're feeling. You're feeling stressed out, you're feeling stuck, you're feeling like you know, you, you can't get away. What do you dream of? What do you really wish for? No one's waking up in the morning and saying, Oh, I sure wish that I could delegate better. That's not the story. That's not the story. And so if you as a coach say, Oh, I'm going to tell the world how to delegate better, and they're going to read that, and they're going to read those five tips, and they're going to pick up the phone and they're going to call me, because I've told them how to delegate better. No, you told him, Hey, I get you, how to, how a stressed out owner let go and got away. So, let go, got away. Picture with the blog post in the email was a guy on a hammock on a beach at the sunset. All right. Wow, how, how the, I mean, the the headline implies, I'm going to give you the answer to how that happens. Hmm, well, let's read this. And in, in the post, she tells the story, here's a guy who never went on vacation for more than three or four days in 20 years, but he finally was able to do it. When he did it, he had a ball. When he returned, the place was running better than before, and the company is stronger than it ever was. What changed? Delegation. Now I'm going to tell you how to delegate more effectively, and everybody is reading to the bottom of that post, because everybody can relate to that story. I'm feeling stressed. I want to get away. That's the journey. Delegation is the bridge, and now she's told a story that gets to the essence of it. She might tell another story about, you know, she might have a class or a program or an element of her coaching that's all about time management. Well, within the time management thing, there could be another story. What's the journey that somebody is taking regarding time management? It's probably also a journey from feeling stressed out to feeling together, feeling overwhelmed, to feeling on top of things. Understanding what it is that you're really selling and what it is you're really selling is the story, the journey is what enables you to then put content out there that's resonant, that's meaningful, that's relevant, that's entertaining, that's memorable. And that's what I'm helping you do. And it's an ongoing flood of stuff. You can do it in a headline of a email or post. You can do it in a very short social post, you can do it in a very long sales letter. You can weave it into a stage presentation. It's a way of thinking and a way of expressing what you do, why you do it, how you do it that changes the game for you if you master how to do it. And clearly engages your audience, right? Oh yeah. Makes them stickier and helps improve your business. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's incredible, and you do it incredibly well. So I've just I read your blog posts that come out each week, and it's it's become, in a very short period of time, one of those emails that you know, you begin to hunt for every Monday morning. I've got a few emails that I'm looking for, and yours is one of them. Thank you. I appreciate that and and really, you know, when I use that expression transform your content from ignored to adored. Yep. That's, you know, that's what you're going for, what I'm going for, and what I'm hearing you say. One of the problems with content marketing is that so many people are doing it because they've been told content is king. You must put content out there. And so they put it out. They have this sense that no one's paying attention. Why am I doing this? This is not fun and it's not rewarding, and that's because you're struggling to create the content because it is hard if you don't understand the frameworks and the systems to make it easier and more fun. And it's not rewarding, because everyone is ignoring the content rather than adoring it, reading to the bottom, picking up the phone, filling out the form, doing whatever your call to action may be. So it's not just being adored for being adored sake. It's about driving business, which is the really powerful outcome when you do this right. So you, you help companies put together these messages. Do you also help them put together the mechanisms by which they actually, you know, exercise on these messages and get them out there and share them? Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you asked that question, because if you asked it, I don't know, three months ago, two months ago, I would have said we, we can within our own coaching program that I run will provide advice on that front, but it's not really something that we do. Okay. Today, the answer is yes. And the reason that the answer is yes is because we were finding that too often we were, we were working with a client in our coaching programs, or a direct consulting client and and we would help them, for example, create, let's say, a better landing page. They're, they're attracting people to their site and building their email list by providing some free resource, like a PDF for a video training or something. Okay, great. We help them with the copy for that landing page or the copy for the PDF or the or the script for that video, and then we say, good luck. Go get them. And then they're thinking, Hmm, how do, where do I build this? How do I do this? The technical hurdle, and what we came to realize is that, wow, we really should be helping them with the technical piece of this as well. After all, I ran a company that did that stuff for 19 years.

22:02
Yeah, for you it's second nature right? Yeah, for me it's second nature. And part of I think what happened is, after doing that for 19 years and realizing that the most important thing, the foundational thing, was to get the story right, I sort of stepped away from all of that technology stuff, and said, No, that's not what I do. But now I realize that the two things have to operate hand in hand, and indeed it you do have to get the story right and the content right, or else none of the other stuff matters. You can have the fanciest funnel in the world, but if you're putting garbage into the funnel, it's garbage in, garbage out. Yeah, you got, you get a low, low opt in rate, you know, it's just not much there, right? Yeah, yeah, what's, what's the point? And if you, even if they opt in, if you're not getting people to read and to act and to move forward, what's the point? Yep. So back to your question, yes, we recently introduced technology that we make available to our clients, whether they are coaching clients of ours or not. We make this available and it has email marketing functionality. It has, it has calendaring and booking. It has follow up capability. It has all of the marketing tools that you need, so you can move from concept and copy to actually execution with our help. And if, anybody who wants to know more about that, I'd be happy to tell them about it. My contact information, we'll share it at the end of this and be happy to talk about that in more detail. Very cool. Well, you, as we said in the intro, you are a serial entrepreneur. You've had some really exciting businesses that you've built and sold over the years. You're early on in this one. You're what, almost three years in at this point? Yeah, yeah. So Market Volt we sold at the end of 2019. Yeah. 

24:10  
And I officially launched Story Power Marketing at the very beginning of 2020 right before the pandemic. So that timing was interesting. Yeah. But a lot of what I was doing and talking about, and a lot of the stuff that I was working on with my clients predates that. In the, in the last several years that we were operating Market Volt, I was spending time working on storytelling and content creation and powering up your content with my Market Volt clients. It became official at the beginning of 2020. So, yeah, we're about three years in, and it's been great. Well, so far, what, what would you say you're most proud of so far in the first three years in this, in this particular entity? Wow, I think what I'm what I'm most proud of is sticking to my guns regarding what I believe. Okay. And so it would be really, really easy for me to go out there and sell, I'm going to teach you how to do your origin story, or, or to sort of play to the crowd. There's more searching on, on Google about that than, than what I'm doing. And so that, I'm proud of the fact that, that I believe I know what works, and I have a proven track record doing it, and I'm bringing that to my clients without compromise. The second thing that I'm most proud of is this recent transition that I was just talking about. I, I've been involved in marketing and seen a lot of coaching programs, both as somebody creating them and as somebody consuming them. And the thing that happens in the marketplace of knowledge is that there is a a whole lot of learn it and leave it going on. People will consume a course, whether it's a free download or whether it's something they pay for. And they learn it, and they feel great about, you know, learning the stuff. Incidentally, a large percentage of people will buy stuff and not even get all the way through it. Yeah, isn't that astounding? It's astounding, yeah. But it happens. And so, you know, the numbers are like 80% 90% of the people who buy programs don't really implement. And, and I want to flip the script on that. And that's one of the reasons that I have introduced the technology platform around Story Power Marketing. Because what I want to do is help my clients not just learn how to power up their content, but also learn how then to implement what they've learned and to make it as easy for them as possible so they're not thinking, Well, that's all easy. You know, that's all good. Well, yeah, now I know how to write a better email, but I don't know how to get them out. I don't know how to build a funnel. I don't know-- yeah-- how to do that, so we're teaching that, and we're providing the technology to do that. And I just don't want to be another one of those coaches who says, yeah, thanks for your money, knowing that eight out of 10 people have paid me and they're not going to get the outcome. A lot of coaches will say, well, that's how it goes. That's not my responsibility, that's theirs. I guess there's some merit in that. There's only so much that I or those other coaches can do, but I actually believe there is more that I can do, and so I'm doing it, and I'm, I'm really proud of where the business is headed in 2023.

28:02  
Yeah, there's a lot of satisfaction if you're truly interested in helping your clients succeed and, and addressing the issue that they've hired you to take care of. Yeah. There's the satisfaction of watching them actually get what they came for is, you know, for, for many entrepreneurs, more important than the money that they may see from it. That's right. Yeah, it's an amazing thing. What, on the other side of that, what have been some of the challenges? You've, you've done multiple startups, what have you seen this time around that were challenges that were either surprising to you, or maybe different than you expected them to be. Well, I think I mentioned a moment ago that I started this thing in around January 2020. Yeah. And, you know, the world shut down in what March, April 2020. Yep. And so that was an obvious challenge. And what's also come with that, I don't know the stats off the top of my head, but since early 2020, the number of people out there who are calling themselves coaches or advisors or consultants, who are hanging their shingle and saying, Pay me for what I know has just increased exponentially. Yeah, it has exploded, hasn't it? The market has just been flooded with so called experts, so called coaches and so forth. And so that's a challenge. That's, that's noise to rise above. I'm in the rise above the noise business, so I like the challenge. But it, it's, it's been noisier and more crowded than I anticipated. The most recent and interesting challenge is the arrival of the machine learning, copywriting tools, chat GPT, I like to call them the AI copyright robots. AI, AI is here, right? Yeah. It is here. And I think that you know, if you go on to places like Reddit or into groups on LinkedIn and listen to some of the copywriting communities talk about it there are some people who are in an absolute state of panic. There are some people who recognize it for what it is, which is an interesting challenge. Those who are not focusing on how to make their content more human, more captivating, more interesting, different, there, they will lose. They will fall behind, because the haystack of sameness is growing exponentially. Because, you know, I mentioned that blog post about blah, blah, blah delegation this, delegation that and so forth. And that was written by a human being some years ago, and I made the comment that it's like 8 billion other blog posts that were written about it. If you Google, give me delegation tips, you'll find that blog post you know, or blog posts like that many times over. Well, if there were 8 million such blog posts today or two months ago, there are going to be 8 billion of them now that the machines are unleashed. Anybody, you know, you could go on to chat GPT tomorrow and say, I want you to write a blog post with five tips about how to delegate and why it's important. And it would write that blog post for you in 12 seconds and that blog post would do nothing to set you apart. And then if you said, well, make it funnier. Chat GPT could do that. And AI copyrighting could do that. Write it in the style as if it's a Rodney Dangerfield stand up routine. AI would would drop all sorts of jokes about your wife into it and how you get no respect. And it would be funny, but it wouldn't be you, and that's what we're talking about. It's a challenge, because now there's going to be more news, noise, there's going to be more content, and for me, there are going to be more people who say, Well, why do I need to get help with this when I can just get a robot to do it for me? And my answer is, because if you want to stand up, stand out beyond that giant haystack of sameness, you have to develop your voice, learn how to be creative and entertaining beyond what everybody else is doing, and stand out so that when people are getting to their inbox on Monday morning, they're saying, I want to, I want to go find that guy's email. And just as you said you do with, with mine. And if you can get to that point, then again, you'll be the one, they're reading your email they're ignoring the other email. You're the one they're choosing to work with as opposed to your competitors, and you're standing out. You're not just another needle in that giant haystack of sameness. You're you, and people are choosing to hire you. Yeah, Yeah, and it's, it's funny, as I was reading about this, I don't have any real practical experience using this AI, I, in, in our space on the finance side, I am firmly convinced that it's going to make a huge difference in our space as well as maybe it's doing in yours now. But you know, part of it is that it gathers all of its information from the from the public well, so it's all the garbagity gook, as you said, the haystack that's already out there. So if you bring your unique voice, I mean that really resonates with me. Right. When you just said that, you really will be in a position where you can stand out in that regard. Right and right now with, with version 3, 3.5, and so forth, it's not very good at distinguishing fact from fiction. Yes. There is a lot of factual garbage that it spits out, and so don't think that you can use it as a fact finder and a research tool. It's very usable if you bring facts to it and say, interpret this or or help me figure out a different way to present this and things like that. Again, those are things that can be helpful and save you time. That's not a substitute for what, what I'm talking about, developing it within your voice and so forth. But, yeah, it, it's a very powerful helper that I'm already using in my work, but it's not going to replace me in my work, and the people who are learning from me are going to stand above it. If those who are using it as the sole, you know, basically as their as their low cost copywriter, they're not going to stand out. Right. Yeah.

35.30  
It is fascinating how technology becomes relatively, relatively ubiquitous in a in a short period of time these days, so. Oh yeah. I think for somebody like you that's adopting this and really figuring out how you're going to be able to work with it and and really make it distinguish your organization going forward, that's, that's where success comes from, right? Everybody else is waiting, waiting till the end. Terry and I, my partner, as you know, we feel the same way about financial AI, and we're investing and working on tools in that regard, because we just think that two or three years from now, if you're not already there, you may have missed the boat. Yeah, yeah. And you know, Steve, I've known you for a long time, and I know that you and I share this philosophy that you have a choice when you face a challenge, or when something comes along that's different and and maybe even frightening, you can, you can sit passively and let it act upon you, or you can face it, learn from it, figure out how to benefit from it. It's an opportunity as much as it is a threat, and you can then use that opportunity to further yourself and your business. That applies to AI, that applies to any threat or challenge that you face in your business. You know, it may knock you back a step, but then what are you going to do? What are you going to, you know, it's about failing forward. It's about learning how to face the challenge and overcome it and work with it and and move forward. And I know that that's been your philosophy for a long time. It applies to this. It applies to anything we do. I, it's, I know it's one of the reasons you asked this question. Tell me about a challenge, we learn from talking about the challenges. Without question. Yeah, it's a badge of honor over here in North America. It's one of the things that that we definitely wear with pride, and that makes us unique in the globe. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, and again, as you said, we've known each other for a long time. So, you know, it's fascinating that three years ago, we would have been having the same conversation in a meeting room someplace, probably a technician behind us and a camera, trying to figure this out, right? And here we are doing it in the confines of our own spaces. How are, as you're building your company out, are you using, are you, are you building out the people in your organization and the tools and so forth from you know, your local community, or are you embracing the opportunity that that the web and other other technologies give us to basically expand your reach in that regard?

38:27  
Yes and yes. So, I'll, I'll again cite my experience running a software company. Yeah. Where I learned, sometimes the hard way, what things require this sort of person with this sort of skill set, and what things can be delegated to this person with this skill set, and when it's appropriate to work with people overseas who might not have the mastery of the language, and when it's appropriate not to. And so I'm building a team that combines people who are here with me in St Louis, Missouri, some of whom have worked worked with me at Market Volt, people whom I trust 100% to have a conversation with a client and solve a problem on my behalf and have a have a constructive conversation with a client. Then I have virtual assistants who are overseas, who communicate well enough with me to manage tasks and work through projects, but they're not going to be client facing, either on email or on telephone. Then I have some other people whom I'm teaching and moving along and developing their skill sets and and beginning to delegate responsibility to them. So it's different than building a business with employees in the office, which has been what I've done in the business before Market Volt. I was mentioning this to you previously, Steve, I, we, I co-founded a company that grew from two to 85 people in 18 months, and we had all 85 people-- in this one big room, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that was a that was a different kind of thing that would not happen today. Yeah. And, in Market Volt, we had everybody under one roof in, you know, a series of offices. And there may come a day where I have that business again, but for now, it's, it's sort of a virtual workforce, some in the US, some overseas, different skill sets. And I think I've learned a lot running the companies that I've run over the years on on how to build that. And I think my my clients benefit from that. Couldn't agree more. I think that's been a big challenge, right, adapting to that, but it's quite satisfying, because not only are you building a workforce from outside, but you're, you're taking down the barriers of dealing with clients from, you know, far flung geographies. So nobody, nobody has to wait till the Yellow Pages comes out and see, see your ad at the top of the page right, and figure out your address and pull into your building anymore. Now they can, they can pretty much find us anytime. Yeah, and you were talking about Zoom a moment ago, and I was having a conversation about this technology that I'm bringing to my clients and one of the things that I know being a content strategist as well as somebody who for 19 years ran a help desk for or ran a company that had a help desk for a software application, is how to, how to turn customer interactions, even even support calls, where the customer may be a little frustrated, into content creation, into building a knowledge base, leveraging the things that we've told them in an email or in a telephone call into something that then can be reused over and over and over again for helping and instructing our clients in a more seamless and straight to the answer kind of way. And now doing this stuff with Zoom, it's even better. So a client calls up and they have an issue, and this might be somebody who has an issue with technology that we've rolled out, or it might just be a question about, you know, what's the right subject line to write for this email? We can answer that with a video that we then save, crop, transcribe, and we've created valuable content that we can then share with our other clients, that we can use for marketing purposes. That's really, really powerful. And the old, the old models of telephone support and so on and so forth, you could do it, but now that we're doing face to face stuff remotely, there are actually all sorts of really cool things and just a broad tip for any and all of you that that the conversations that you're having on Zoom are really valuable. Record them, transcribe them, figure out ways you can reuse them for your marketing, perhaps your customer support. It depends on your business, of course. But really, really valuable. So again, this technology, this idea of a technology challenge, we have remote workforces. How do we manage it? How do we, how do we make this work? There are a million opportunities that have come from that that we're discovering every day and that we're putting into place every day. So look into the future a little bit. Yeah. Where do you, where do you see your business going over the course of the next three to five years in that regard? Yeah, it's a, it's a good question. And I think that, you know, my primary goal, as stated earlier, is I want within, you know, a year to three years, to be able to look at a core group of clients who are working with me consistently, not, not in then out, but who are working with me consistently to generate results. So I, my model is not take the six week coaching program and go away and I never hear from you again. My model is to in an affordable way basically be the person who's at your side, helping you figure out week after week, month after month, how you're going to stand out, and then figuring out how to take the words and ideas and the pictures and the videos and so forth that that you've dreamt up and put them into the right technology tools, so that they reach your target market on a consistent basis. So whether, what the exact numbers of people may be, I don't want to say, but I would rather be serving a fairly small group of people very, very well. Quality, versus having gazillions of clients who may or may not, you know, 80% may just walk away. So as far as sort of the the transition for the company, I love what I do, I wake up excited to do this. So when I've built companies in the past, there's always this sense of an exit plan, I'm building to sell something. Yeah. And this is, this is not that kind of business. I'm building to have ongoing relationships with people who choose to work with me, and I don't expect to walk away for, you know, a while. I'm still young enough to do this for a while, and I want to do this for a while. So I hope that answered your question. Ah, absolutely. That's exactly where I was leading as you, as you read my mind pretty well in that regard. So, you know, you built some amazing companies and to incredible scales and then exited, right? But this time, you're choosing to really build it a little differently and emphasize what I'm hearing you say, emphasize the qualitative portion of the relationships you that you're able to have with these folks and and keep yourself excited and engaged for the long haul, right? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and it goes back, I don't want to keep beating on this drum about AI, but the world is becoming more and more mechanized, and with that it, it feels less and less personal and human. Yeah, we gotta, we gotta fight this 1984 thing, right? Yeah, exactly. We gotta fight-- Yeah. And I, I'm, I'm interested in the power of human connection. Yeah. And, and that's not just a, you know, woo, woo sort of thing. I believe that it's better for business when they're making human connections with clients and pro-- and prospects, and that the real opportunity in the years ahead is the companies that are more human, and the consultants and coaches who are more human are the ones who are going to stand out, and are the ones who are going to make the business building connections that we we rely on to profit. And so it's, if at the end of the day in 10 years, I'm looking back and saying that, you know, I made human connections and built meaningful relationships with a good, solid group of clients, and, you know, built a nice business that supports me and my family as part of that, I'll be very happy.

48:25  
That's awesome. Well, Tom, this has been great. It's been great to see I really appreciate the time. If people want to get in touch with you and learn more about your company and what you do, and potentially, you know, explore this relationship with you, how do they go about doing that? So there, there are a few things I would suggest. Number one, okay, is go to StoryPowerMarketing.com, that's all one word, StoryPowerMarketing.com and when you visit my website, you'll be prompted to sign up for my email list. You can see me practice what I preach. You don't have to read every single one, but you might want to. And so go to the site, join the email list, and also look for the tab that says Free Resources, or Resources, I think, is what it says. Because there are some things that you can get access to, some short trainings and and downloads, free reports, those sorts of things that you might be interested in as well, it's StoryPowerMarketing.com. The other thing I wanted to share with you is that we recently released a product called the Story Power Profit Pack. It's 52 strategies, tactics and tips to transform your content from ignored to adored. 52, 52 of them, and it, it dives pretty deep, and it's a really good starting point for everyone. And if you go to StoryPowerMarketing.com slash Denny, as in Steve Denny, d e n n y, you can get the power pack if you use the coupon code Denny, d e n n y for 50% off. Wow. So, Story Power, StoryPowerMarketing.com, slash Denny will offer the power, profit back to anyone for 50% off using coupon code Denny. I imagine Steve will put that in the show notes. And then also Tom@storypowermarketing.com, email me if you have a question, if you want to know about the technology, if you have any questions. If you let me know that you reached out because you heard me on this podcast, I will, I will get back to you, and I'll be happy to answer any questions and maybe even connect with you in a follow up conversation if it makes sense to do that. So, thank you, Steve, really appreciate that. Oh, phenomenal, that's great, Tom, thank you so much. That's very generous of you to make that offer to to the listeners. So, hope a lot of people will take advantage of that, and I just want to go back to endorsing that email. Sign up for that. You know you won't be disappointed. You'll be intrigued. You will be fascinated. You will find useful, actionable items in Tom's email on a regular recurring basis, and you'll want to read it. And it's, it's, it's one of the things I certainly highly endorse, and I hope everybody will at the very least take advantage of that offer and get on your list. So, Tom, again, my pleasure. Thank you, Steve. Great to see you. Wish you all the best, and we will be in touch soon. Good to see you. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you for listening to the You Don't Know What You Don't Know podcast. We invite you to visit www.youdontknowwhatyoudontknow.com and sign up to receive updates on upcoming episodes. You can also let us know if you'd like to be a guest or recommend a business owner to be interviewed. Find us on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube, where you can like, follow, share and join our efforts. Thanks for listening. We hope you join us again.