A Marketing Genuine and an NFL Referee | Peter Shafer

Peter Shafer is Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Everest Communications. Everest is a digital communications firm that provides counsel and program execution support to companies in the areas of analytics, social media strategy, and digital reputation repair.

Having worked for prestigious polling organizations such as Gallup and Harris, as well as large global PR firms, Peter is the ideal person to shed light on how using data effectively can vastly improve your digital marketing campaigns.

Your audience is going to love his advice — regardless of whether it is made up of high-level executives, marketing experts, researchers, or business owners yearning to effectively communicate their messages and build long-term engagement with their brand.

Peter believes strongly that context, content, and collaboration are the keys to success in today's competitive digital environment. He wants to share insights with listeners to enable them to start building better digital strategies that will not only work but will exceed their expectations.

Transcript

Josh Bolton: 0:01

are you doing? Um, well, how's it going? Doing pretty good too?

peter Shafer: 0:06

Excellent, excellent. What's, uh, what's going on in your world today? Anything fun?

Josh Bolton: 0:13

Um, I just got off work. Now I'm chatting with you. So all's good.

peter Shafer: 0:18

Even better. No, no, no. April Fool's pranks have hit you yet or anything like that.

Josh Bolton: 0:23

Honestly, I think everyone for kind of was April Fool's today.

peter Shafer: 0:29

Yeah, well, that was that was the first set of slacks that came out to our company this morning was just remember, think twice before responding. Oh, okay. So yeah. Yeah, so so far everybody's heated it I think, for the most part, but

Josh Bolton: 0:47

I would say like a playful one, you know, here and there. Like, that's okay. But like, actually the kind of like, oh, we'll do this like, oh, no, don't

peter Shafer: 0:53

do it. Exactly. Exactly. Well, it's good to meet you. Good to

Josh Bolton: 0:59

meet you, too. Um, so we're up station down.

peter Shafer: 1:03

I actually live just north of Baltimore, outside of Baltimore. So. Okay. And so we our company has gone completely remote, even though we're based in Indianapolis, Indiana. But But yeah, so all of us are all over the place. And I I used to work in Washington DC for 22 years. So it was an easy commute in from from here. I shouldn't say easy, but it was a commute. So but were you based out of California near La? Oh, good stuff. Which which part LA?

Josh Bolton: 1:33

It's southern. Like what part of La Are you familiar with?

peter Shafer: 1:37

Well, actually, I lived out there for a while. One of my clients is in Century City or essentra. City. But I lived in PV for a while down towards the City of Industry along the coast there.

Josh Bolton: 1:49

Oh, okay. Yeah. Do you ever like Claremont? California's?

peter Shafer: 1:54

Yes, I do. Yeah.

Josh Bolton: 1:55

I mean, that general proximity.

peter Shafer: 1:57

Oh, excellent. Very cool. Yeah. It? Yeah. I I went kicking and screaming out to LA. And then when they transferred me back to the East Coast, I went kicking and screaming back. Did you like it in LA? Yeah, exactly. I was like, Oh, man. So but I actually yeah, it was it was I had a great time. So yeah, I was at Claremont college is down, or I'm on University. Now. Write this down, Nick. Yeah, that's where you are? Yeah.

Josh Bolton: 2:28

Yeah, they got all the the big, like pen names like dark mouse and all that.

peter Shafer: 2:33

Very true. So um,

Josh Bolton: 2:36

so what do you do? Are you working on your own? Or you work for a company?

peter Shafer: 2:40

No, no, I work for a company called Evers communication. And it's a subsidiary of a company called the PROSPER group we do. Mostly digital marketing for major corporations, political campaigns, big not for profits, where we do both the creation of their digital ads, but also the placement of it in, you know, Facebook and YouTube and wherever they wherever they try to get there. Either either build their audience or try to get their message out on a particular issue or something along those lines. So interesting. Okay.

Josh Bolton: 3:19

Only before I get too deep in the woods, because I'm liking how this is going anyways, can we get a little quick synopsis of you? What? Sure,

peter Shafer: 3:24

absolutely. So I'm Peter Schaefer, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Evers communications, and the PROSPER group. I have been in either the public relations space for the polling political polling space for the last 35 years. And my background is in data analytics research, using data to get media attention from the major news outlet major news outlets, whether it's in the US or globally. And then my background is in marketing communications as well. So I've done a lot on the ad testing side on, you know, ad placement, what works, what doesn't, you know, those types of things and worked on a couple major branding campaigns. But the thing that I get most asked about in my background is that I'm a part time NFL referee. And certainly, yeah, yeah, so I work for the NFL part time. And so I often get a lot of questions, even from my clients about what happened, you know, the past Sunday, what you know, why was that pass interference? What was it all all those fun things? So, but, you know, if so, we you know, it sometimes that that seems to be a more interesting, you know, normal business to

Josh Bolton: 4:45

think he's actually in the trenches. Why did you do that, Peter, we were yelling, couch.

peter Shafer: 4:49

Exactly why it's funny. I was telling this story a couple weeks ago. This has been a long, long time ago, the CEO of a company I was working for we were going to this big pitch and if I could isn't in California. And so he's pacing around like a, you know, just a cat, like he's just so nervous and all this nervous energy or whatever, I'm just sitting there kind of like this. And he said, he goes, Why are you nervous about this? And I said, John, I said, nervous is when you throw a penalty flag, with 20 million people watching and you get it wrong. That's nervousness. I said, this, this is nothing, we're gonna go pitch to dead people. Easy. So, yeah. So you know, anyhow, but so that's that. But, you know, most of my background is, like I said, been either in polling and data collection and data and analytics, or on the PR side communication side.

Josh Bolton: 5:40

That's interesting. So actually, what I've been doing is looking into getting to pay per clicks on Facebook, but also like Google, and it's the one thing I'm not sure. So it's like, perfect, I can just pick your brain.

peter Shafer: 5:52

Very true. Yeah. And, you know, there are obviously some upsides and downsides, but, you know, for the, you know, depending on number one is, it's a lot less expensive to invest in than people think. Even though the numbers do sound a little bit big. The second is that you would be absolutely surprised at the number of conversions or click throughs, that actually do happen. And really, yeah, and it's it as percentages, if you think about it from percentages, it oftentimes doesn't sound significant. But when you look at it from the roll numbers, it is significant. And, and I think that's the the the one thing that I've talked about with a lot of my clients is that the percentages, while they are accurate, don't necessarily tell the full story. So you need to kind of go look at the roll numbers to say, hey, actually, you had a lot more reach than we thought, and it got to the people, you know, especially with the way we're able to track IP addresses, it got to the people we really wanted to have see it. So

Josh Bolton: 6:56

that's good to know, I would say the first one for you. And you would know this is especially with iOS 14, how does that has that greatly affected the click through rate?

peter Shafer: 7:05

Yeah, it really has. And you've I mean, you figure that 21 22% of the people that have a device are on, you know, an iOS, whatever version of the iOS is. So that's a significant number of people that it impacts. And so it has challenged not only, you know, creators like you and other people to kind of think about new ways to get to those people. But in, interestingly enough, though, that a lot of the iOS users have figured out ways to get to content, even though their privacy is protected. So you know, it's kind of a double edged sword in that you've got, you know, an iOS user, of which I am actually now seeking out this knowing that it's blocked from me. So I feel good about it being blocked. But I also feel like, Hey, I'm missing something. So I'm going to go search for it. Which is, which is good news, because, you know, you're probably on multiple platforms. But it has it has caused a significant rethink about not only just content placement and ad placement, but also the strategy on how to get, you know, you to actually do another search for lack of better way to put it to get to your content. So

Josh Bolton: 8:31

well, like for me, well, I'm Android, but like, I look at everything. And it was funny, when I first started this show all my people I could see the data was apple, and I was pulling in right, three 400, even at a young age, and suddenly it looks like my shows dying, because I'm like, there it looks like I'm only getting maybe two downloads and like there's not two, I know that for sure.

peter Shafer: 8:51

Right? Well, and you make a really, really good point, Josh, and that is that a lot of a lot of clients, and a lot of my clients didn't adjust their metrics for the drop off. So all of a sudden, if you're just looking purely at the metrics, like you mentioned, you'd be going like, wow, this is really going in the wrong direction, or Wow, this is an in one regard, it all's it is is just taken out a metric that that had, you know, some significant portion of your number, so you just realign the metric and go with it from there. But that's a really good, that's a really good point. I you know, I don't think a lot of people have taken the time to look at that, that aspect of it. But it's, I do think that if if there's any saving grace is that Apple as a company, continues to look at ways to maintain the privacy without and maintain the, and not compromising the amount of data that they have, but still allow people to get the content and you know, I really respect that fact that they're still fine tuning it? I didn't, I don't, we weren't really thrilled by frankly, they took such a hard line. Oh, but but on the opposite side, it wasn't that inconsistent with their past decisions. I mean, they're usually pretty black and white about their policies. But I do think I, you know, I do think it will become a competitive disadvantage for them at some point, because it's just, you know, some of the stuff that they walled off was something that the their users embraced, and their users are finding different ways to get to it. So

Josh Bolton: 10:38

seriously, well, like the biggest one. I one of my mentors for like, general coaching, he said, um, he was mentioning how, like, maybe on Facebook, they do see an ad, but it's not, not the most well placed kind of ad, it's more of like a general pool. And I was like, Okay, I said, Wouldn't it? So it'd be like, essentially a TV ad for Facebook, essentially, he's like, Yeah, you don't know who the hell you're hitting, but you're hitting someone.

peter Shafer: 11:03

Right? Exactly. And that's it, that's actually a really good way to describe it is that, you know, we become so addicted, the wrong word for it. But we've become so adept with the statistics that we get, and, you know, the granularity that those statistics allow us to see in the data, is that, you know, it's kind of a reversion back, it's, you know, I actually was on a call about two hours ago, that one of the great upsides of digital is you get all this data, one of the downsides of digital is you get all this data. And that, you know, if you're, for example, like you said, advertising on TV, and you wanted to, you know, you know, you're hitting people, you just don't know, what happens after that. So, you know, digital gives you that comfort, but it also, you know, kind of has some restrictions where, you know, but that's a good analogy. I hadn't really kind of thought about it that way. It's, but you're right. So yeah, it

Josh Bolton: 12:01

was just one of those, like I told myself, it's like, it's like TV ads, or the radio, like, you know, you're paying for the time, you know, X amount of people can hear it, but like you were adding, like, we don't know, where, where they picked up? Or if it was they heard two months ago, and then they act. That's yeah, think about internet, we can actually just see that?

peter Shafer: 12:18

Well, exactly, exactly.

Josh Bolton: 12:21

I just told him like, as a customer, it's great to know that I'm not being tracked, but as like a market and aspiring marketer and helping as like, this is shitty, like, take it away, take it away.

peter Shafer: 12:31

Exactly, exactly. Well, you know, and, you know, you bring up a really good point in that, that the, the evolution of some of these metrics have also changed the evolution of the way we make decisions around some of this stuff. And, and, and I, one of the things as being, you know, kind of a semi entrepreneur is the same thing is you want to be nimble, and you want to be creative, and you want to, you know, respond to what's what's going on. But, you know, in one regard, you do want to trust your gut, because, you know, hey, I think I'm onto something here. And sometimes it takes, you know, 3060 90 days for those metrics to actually actually kick in for you, regardless of whether what platform and I think, my fear is, that some of the really, really good and substantive ideas are being abandoned too early, because the numbers don't support it. And they're incomplete numbers, or, you know, like you said, it's, it's, we're using kind of the, you know, shoot Ready Aim, thing, because we, that's what we want to get it out there, we want to make it. And if the initial response isn't a standing ovation, we move to the next thing, you know, and, you know, I think, you know, this, consumers just aren't that, I mean, they're reactive, but they're not that reactive. Sometimes it takes them a little bit of time to, you know, kind of get used to something. So, but anyhow, I'm glad that your coach is giving you some good advice on it.

Josh Bolton: 13:57

No, it was really good. And because that was one of them. I was picking his brain. I said, I have a show, but like, I've heard is kind of taboo to run ads to get yourself known as on a show, but I was like, what if I have like a coaching program? And he's like, oh, yeah, that's fine. Like, but you're gonna have to get good at your video, your copy and your photos to catch attention, but he's like, usually, that's fine.

peter Shafer: 14:18

Yeah. Well, and you know, you just brought up something that I really I'm finding even more and more is that you know, as as we all get more professional about our capabilities in audio, video, you know, even scripting and things like that, is that I think in some regard, we've lost the the concept of guerilla marketing, which I you know, is that if you come on and just rather than try to script this out and get the perfect video and whatever, if you're authentic about it, and you're really you know, that's going to come through and that's probably going to make more difference than some Glossy advertisement or or thing or or something you painstakingly, you know, went through saying, Okay, I gotta get this really, really right. And, you know, we do a lot of work advertising work with political campaigns, and, you know, and causes. And in oftentimes, it's just that, you know, man in front of the camera kind of thing where you're going like this. And speaking from the heart that actually gets the better reaction, or does cause or create an action that, you know, regular advertisement might not necessarily produce. So,

Josh Bolton: 15:32

so I didn't, I'm very familiar with guerilla marketing. But I've always, I've joked, because I do I do martial arts, and I used to teach it. I said, it's kind of hard to do guerrilla marketing online. So how would you do is that the short, rough, unedited kind of thing?

peter Shafer: 15:46

Well, that's, that's, that's, that's one way to go about it. I think the other part too, around guerilla marketing is how to respond or, you know, in, in a way that is kind of building, and I think, I've seen this happen on multiple occasions is that the assumptions we make about what we want to have happen, you know, we try to plan out, we try to make, you know, rather than responding and pivoting, and this is, you know, if we've learned anything from Twitter, that you can respond and pivot in ways that you can kind of continue to build out, and I think sometimes is that we're so adherent to the plan, that we miss those opportunities to kind of take or, you know, expand to that next level. And I see that, you know, or the opposite, where we react to something that we shouldn't have reacted to, and it takes us down a tangent that we don't necessarily want to have happen. And so from a gorilla standpoint, I think it's really like you said, it's, it's kind of, from my mind, it's, it's three particular areas. One is, you know, not necessarily getting the content perfect, but getting it right enough to get it out there. The second is to plan on how you would respond versus how you would react and reaction would just be like, oh, you know, this, but a response would be like, Okay, I'm only going to really talk about this in this next phase. And then the third area is, is what are those ancillary topics that I can build off of, based on the feedback that I'm getting that I can show my expertise? And so I'll use this as an probably a bad example. But during the NFL season, I can't there's no, I can't really do social media about anything I'm doing with with the league. Um, and so, you know, if I were though, I'd have to kind of figure out if I made a comment about, you know, the Los Angeles Rams, it's a mega super bowl game and a call that happened there. I'm gonna get responses back from that, you know, Well, I disagree with this, or whatever. I may say, you know, what, I'm not even going to respond to people I disagree with or I'm, or if I'm going to fight, I'm gonna fight him on, you know, rulebook things. And, you know, but you know, that that last part is, okay, how would I educate somebody about the six different categories of pass interference based on this place? situation? You know, so that, you know, people would be like, oh, there are six different categories of that. I didn't know that, you know, and so, you know, it just, that's a little bit of a microcosm of it, but it's, it's the same principle is that, you know, if, how can I extend it so that I can extend the conversation to keep at least, you know, keep it fresh and keep it disruptive enough, where it's not just me reacting to your negative comment or positive comment. So

Josh Bolton: 18:51

I would say you definitely have more experience with this than I do with when it comes to angry people. Especially when it comes to when it sports holy shit there.

peter Shafer: 19:00

Yeah, I've had a few few run ins, but yeah, so.

Josh Bolton: 19:03

So as a side question, cuz you mentioned PR and all that. So how, how would you you as a person, were you recommending a client, let's say they get themselves, not necessarily the air, quote, cancel, but a lot of people are yelling at him, how would you tell him to handle it?

peter Shafer: 19:18

You know, that's a great question. Really a great question, Josh. Obviously, every circumstance is a little bit different, but they're there. But they're, for particular things that I've mapped out for most everybody and that is, number one. You need to really be clear about where it is your stand. What is your stance on this? And how far are you willing to go to fight? Because and to that, kind of next level is are you playing the game that you want to play? Or are you starting to play the game that they want you to play? Because if you go down that game route, for somebody else's game, you're just going to get trapped into To even worse situation. So if you know, so from a cancel perspective, if you fall into that trap, you're not going to really get out of it that that easily. And then you're going to ask for more trouble. So the first thing is, just understand the game and know your stance within that, you know, this the second. The second is, how much of this is an emotional fight versus how much of this is a factual fight. And I think a lot of times, we think we can fight emotion with facts, and you just really can't, you just, it just, it's gonna make it worse in some. And I mean, I, there are certain circumstances where you need to make statements just to clarify, or you need to make statements to kind of maybe level set so that everybody, but you know, you're you're not going to win an emotional fight with with facts, at least at the outset. The third thing I tell clients is that you all are lucky that most people's attention span is less than one new cycle. So if you give this a week, and it's still percolating, or it's still kind of, you know, appearing or popping up, or things like that, is that then you may have to go to a different type of strategy. But in one regard, most of our attention is, especially now that most people will forget about it within seven days. And unless it's something really, really direct in terms of your career, you're not going to get any more contracts or things like that, you might be able to take the posture of I can just let this and then re emerge out of it. And then the fourth thing is that it's so easy right now, to fall into the trap of how many people you know, that the noise overwhelms the actual number of people that saw it. And I'll use this example, we had this happen a couple of weeks ago, we had a client come to us, needing reputation repair, they have individually, they're fine, their company has been pulled into a scandal. The company name is not that widely known in in the scandal involved a political situation or political campaign several years ago, and the woman that's involved, the principle it's evolved is like, I'm losing business, people are searching me online, and blah, blah, blah. And when they do search, they come to the one story that rises to the top, and she's like, What, can you fix it? And because it is so far at the top compared to number two, number three, and number four, it's almost going to be impossible to to move that down. So the question, you know, the, the question is, do you go fight that? Because that's going to be, you know, a long, long battle? Or do you come up with an alternative strategy that says, I'm going to actually fight this and say, Hey, how I survived a hit piece from x publication, and put that out there and then start using that to kind of turn the turn the narrative a little bit more risky, because it says, you know, I'm going to bring back I'm gonna bring attention back to the original issue. The other option, and we talked about this with her was that there are thought leadership things that she could be doing, not just, you know, fighting this, and, and positioning yourself as an expert in it, and using her company as the front versus or so I'm sorry, using her individually versus our company, because she was using everything in the company. And then that way, it kind of starts turning it as well. So you know, some of this is just really understanding kind of how the, the, the structure of the way the story worked. But if she was to go fight this publication, it would be, you know, just a losing battle for the short term. And so their, their, you know, their alternatives to be able to fix it, but that was just not going to be the best alternative four.

Josh Bolton: 24:13

Okay, so then it's just more like, acknowledge it happened, but Build Content, prove that you're otherwise just keep going. Eventually, they'll understand.

peter Shafer: 24:21

Yeah, and you know, one of the things we recommended to her was that it is that if, if you go to a website and you read something, you know, that, especially if it's if it's a negative piece, is that you're allowing somebody else to define the narrative for you. So why not just at least get ahead and you don't have to go through this huge explanation. You don't have to go through a bunch of things. You know, just acknowledge Yes, it did happen. No, this is what happened. This is why this is, you know, such a pain but it doesn't preclude me from working with you because I think they'll have these, you know, six things to offer that kind of thing. And I think because of the relationship she had with her client base, she could actually do that in a more effective way than trying to go say, Hey, I'm fighting this publication out here and whatever, and almost take on that, that, you know, kind of semi hero status. So, which could actually come to bite you in the eyes? Because, like I cheered, yeah. Very true. Very true. And, you know, and, and you, you know, this probably, just from your experiences, you know, if you happen to pick a fight with the wrong publication, it's not going to end pretty for you. And, you know, it's in some of these situations, you know, you just pick the fight with the wrong person and go, Well, you know, that's, that's, that wasn't a smart move. So,

Josh Bolton: 25:49

yes, I haven't gotten to the point where the rain hit pieces on me at least Yeah.

peter Shafer: 25:55

Well, it, you know, I, you know, after going through it with various people, you know, one of the things that you just have to understand is that, for as much as they will hit your ego, it's, their intent is not necessarily to bring you down, it's to sell newspapers, or to sell magazines, or to sell ad space, or things like that. And, and those types of things are a commodity for them. That's thought that's what that's what they're in the business of doing. And the the ego part of it is just, it's a price of doing business for them. But for you, somebody who owns it, somebody who's passionate about it, somebody who's authentic, and, and really invested in it, it's hard to separate that out. But it's, you know, for them, it's a business transaction. And for you, it's, it's a lot more than that. So,

Josh Bolton: 26:48

right, well, I'm gonna see he can see it, I don't have that I'm not gonna do a video on this one. I've been reading a lot on trading. So like, a lot of the mindset of okay, even though I lost is, it's just the price of doing business, cut it off, keep going kind of thing.

peter Shafer: 27:01

Yeah, that's, that's actually a really good example. You know, and you think about all the people that have the mindset that they're like, it's almost like going to Vegas, you know, instead of, you know, I, you know, I'm gonna win win win, win win, and you got to, it's not, it's, it's a binary, it's a binary equation, you're gonna win some and lose some. So right? You just,

Josh Bolton: 27:24

you gotta know when to cut your losses, like, was it? No one to hold them? Exactly. Now he was spit more truth than I realize it's true. So here's, I want to tie back to the paper clips real quick. So let's say I'm a hypothetical client, and I have a coaching business to help strategize and grow. How would you recommend me building a campaign on let's say, Google ads and Facebook,

peter Shafer: 27:54

the first thing would be to define as clearly as you can, what your outcome, what your preferred outcome would be. And then, and then we can modify that. So for example, if you want your campaign to create 10, new coaching clients, over the course of the next three months, or whatever that number would be, at least you now have an outcome that you can work with. And that's that's kind of the first thing that we talk about with, you know, what is it that, you know, would be the thing that you want to say, I'll use this example, when we were when I was a Gallup poll and, and worked at Harris Poll, excuse me. And we talked with people who wanted to have their polling data covered by the New York Times or, you know, Washington Post, or whomever it is, it's like, what would that dream headline look like? What is it that you would really want that to say? And that's kind of the outcome part of it? The second would be just to be clear about of that outcome, what audience would you really, really like to have, so in your coaching business, it might be entrepreneurs that are, you know, really getting started? Or it might be, you know, just as cleanly as you can define what that, you know, ideal client would be for you, right? And it doesn't it and I think this is where it doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be like, you know, I need to have soccer moms that make X number of income, you know, it's just like, it comes down to it's like, okay, who from a coaching perspective, what I want to work with individually who, you know, what are their traits? And, and, you know, and what, what, what do I feel like I can give them that is going to help them propel so it's that you know, now your outcome has got those those elements of like, these are the people that I think or I know can really use, the interaction, the inner the collaboration that I bring to the table, and also, more importantly, they can embrace the content to kind of escalate the third thing would be just to have at least an idea of location for those people. So it might not necessarily be geographic. It's for example, you know, are they on LinkedIn versus thinking? Right Facebook? Are they you know, you know, Google Plus is that, you know, I mean, how, you know, because as you go to the larger platforms, you start to have a different algorithm in terms of who and what to select from. So it's, it's kind of like, if you feel like that you're audiences, entrepreneurs, let's say, is that, you know, am I going to get enough through Facebook to fill that funnel and look at it? Or is it LinkedIn? Or is it some other, you know, some other thing? So those would be the three particular areas that I would kind of focus in on at first and then this is a tougher question to answer. And this is kind of that that next stage is that if I had those people, and I was able to get to them, what is it that I would say that would make me different than other people? And I one thing that I find, and you'd probably interviewed a lot of people about this is that is that we undersell ourselves? We don't? Oh, yeah, we don't? We don't actually, we talk about it in kind of sometimes transactional language versus transformational language, where it's like, how do I really make this? Like, wow. And I think oftentimes that that, like I said, that might be some of the that that's the hardest question to answer, because you're short, you know, but but if you can answer what it is I, I give, and what it is, I think somebody gets, then you've got your pitch, you know, together, and that's that, that that kind of fifth thing is just listing out all the different ideas that you would have about, okay, now I know who I'm going after, now, I know where they are, here, all the different things I can do to attract them, and get them to work with me. And, you know, that list could be, you know, fairly exhaustive. This, this came up in a conversation I had about 10 days ago, where we were doing a marketing campaign for somebody, and they were trying to decide whether it was supply a white paper, or make an offer for somebody to do engage. So you know, it's a customized offer, right? And so we wound up debating, okay, is the White Paper free consulting with somebody know, what they want to do with it? Or is the offer too much for somebody is it too much work for them to go through the click process, to give you the, you know, their information, and then have you follow up, and they ultimately opted for the white paper, and they got great response on it. Because it was, it was basically a proof of concept, or at least, it was a easy way to introduce what it was. And now, we were able to collect all the names and addresses of people who were able to click through that. And now they've got a target list that they can go after. Okay, you know, so so, you know, from that standpoint, and what I just outlined, you could probably do in less than an hour. You know, and just as you as you kind of go through it, and the one thing that I would also both advise, but also caution is friends and family are great in terms of like being able to, you know, network for you and help you but oftentimes, they're not that great in terms of the marketing, you know, yeah. And so, you know, as you seek advice and saying, Hey, is this compelling is this does this really, you know, you know, just make sure that you're going to people who are able to respond to you, in a, you know, like, your coach probably would be good because he could give you or she could give you a better and more realistic reaction to what you did. But that's, that's kind of the process that we go through is that, you know, you know, what is it the outcome they want? What is the audience that you want to reach? What would you say if you had that audience in front of you? Why is it really, you know, why would somebody really want to talk to you, and then you know, where are they and can we get them so

Josh Bolton: 34:24

100% Yeah, the only reason I asked about the coaching game so like coaching consulting thing is what convinced me to like get into the game was I was working security at this big trucking company and ePHI Yeah, huge company. And it was just one of those I was like an underpaid clerk. Essentially, I would take the drivers info punch into a machine and then set min and me being me observing keeping tabs on people. This one guy will come Billy I don't really remember his name, but he had like a Hells Gate tattoo on his neck, or fryer and demon spawn and everything. Coming out of it. And it was just one of those I heard Billy coming in and he said, Oh, man, I wish I got in a car crash and die. Why is that? Well, can I break my leg and go home for six months? Instead of working here for one day, and I was just I took a note. And this old guy came rolling up in his POS Ford Ranger of man's work stupid money could have bought himself a new one kind of thing. And he just said some we were meeting were chatting before we walked in, and he he's like, Hey, Josh, you're observing what's wrong. Like, this is my, my baby that launched me to where I'm at in the company. Why is my baby dying? I said, well, that gave that their neck tattoo. He's Oh, yeah, billion. Like, he literally just said he wanted to break his leg instead of coming here. So I'm like the word Morales has more power than what's happening here. Right? I'm like, How long have you been hiring manager? And he's like, oh, like 20 years. I'm like, dude, you've already forgotten what it's like to be in the trenches. He's always here. I'm like, but you're not in the shit with them. You don't know. I said, Remember, when you were a manager, you were rooting for your team to do good, because then you could take the company card, go buy the expensive taco guy you've always wanted to try. But it's their money. So we get to try it first. And you all had a great time. And he was like, Yeah, I said, they're not doing that anymore. Yeah. So I told him just simple game of vacations. How much do you make? How much can you put aside like 500 bucks a week personal cash? And he's like, yeah, that's like two steak dinners. I'm like, Man, I want to try that place. You're paying though?

peter Shafer: 36:26

Yeah. Well, yeah. You know, and just to bring up something that's really good is that I, you know, the power of observation. And the power of being able to translate that observation into something that's actionable. is something that I think a lot of coaches miss. And because the coaches are so focused in on teaching techniques, and not running the play, if that makes sense. Yeah, what you're just what you just described is running the play not teaching a technique, like you didn't tell him, like, here are five ways to go tell Billy, what to do, you know? Because that wasn't gonna work. But, you know, yeah. And I and I, you know, and you also brought up something that I think is important, too, is that the farther people get away from their center on this, and like you said, the guy that, you know, that the less and less, they have to contribute to actually solving the issue or addressing the problem. And I think, you know, as as, you know, you go through the coaching phases, and, you know, I see this happen a lot in the NFL as well, is that, you know, some of the best coaches are not have never been players, you know, some of the some of the worst coaches or players that can't disconnect from the competitive side, because they can't they can't, they can't translate. I can't translate that passion to you as a player. Yeah, that's got to come from you. So but yeah, that's that's an interesting point. Well, you know that, but that's a great observation, though, that

Josh Bolton: 38:12

well, and then that's, well, let's say, hypothetically, he was making because it's a warehouse like 100k an hour. And it was about a he was making like, almost a million a day. After my told him I said, simple gamification. I said, Should you save for a WT worker 100 bucks is game changing. It's really sad to say, but it's true. Give 100 bucks to Google or Amazon or food kind of thing. Do run this for a month and see what happens. And then but like obviously, for you, you want to like the who the top five, the had no injuries, highest production without hurting themselves. Like you get 200 bucks and everyone else gets 100 kind of thing. I said we humans love games. Even if it's a non competitive person, we'd love games for somebody don't know why. And they're gonna devour it, and they're gonna start calling each other out. Like you're not ruining my $1,000 bonus at the end of the month. Yeah. And, and then literally, he went from making a million a day to almost 3 million a day. And it only costs him maybe, maybe 10 grand total of everything. And I was like, it's such a small price is so simple. You when you treat him like a human. They're not a robot. They're not the equipment. They are humans. They got emotions. Once you see them for them, oh my god, though, the willingly break their back to help you out. Exactly. That you break it back though.

peter Shafer: 39:34

Well, and you even you know, you're told him what motivates those guys. And that helped probably paved the way to a quicker outcome. Because it wasn't like we're going to make this program and we're gonna do all this other shit. I mean, it's, it's like it's no it's as simple as this. If I you know, like you said, if I gamify it, and this is, you know, a is gonna lead to be I was gonna leave the seat. You don't need to have a pro for him to do it.

Josh Bolton: 40:01

And that's where, after all that it was like a month and a half. And suddenly everyone's calling him saying, Wait, you were the laughingstock of the company. Why is it suddenly better? He said, Yes, it was a security guard. So he literally came out. I said, Alright, how much do you want me to pay you? Here's my personal check. And I was like, I'm thinking to myself, Oh, 10 grand. Like, jokingly, I didn't realize until afterwards how much I made him money. He's like, Oh, yeah. Alright, here you go.

peter Shafer: 40:27

Yeah, never underprice never underprice. So. But that's a great story, though. That's it? That's that's, you know, you know, and I'm sure you have a was it a front row seat to a lot of that kind of stuff. So

Josh Bolton: 40:40

Oh, yeah. And that's one of those. That was always one of those. Wow, that's a lot of money. And I was a kid and I'm holding the cheque. And then I kind of like put it away. And then it was just one of those as I think about it, because I've always been asked weirdly, by a lot of very successful people my second to take, and I actually have a client right now. He's, he's trying to play cheap. And I told him like I will, without ruining value, hyper distill everything, give you an action plan. I said, my, my goal is literally to have you fire me within six months, because it's like, Josh, I'm doing great. Thank you very much kind of thing. Here's your final check it out kind of thing. Yeah. And also, my goal is to kind of make your assistant because he wants to be treated this assistant like your assistant, so well trained, that she actually can turn around and say to you, unless you pay me like 4550 an hour, my skills way more valuable. I can go get that somewhere else. So I'm trying to make this inexpensive, but as productive as possible for you.

peter Shafer: 41:33

Right. Oh, and cut through right through the bullshit and get right to the point on it. Yeah. So

Josh Bolton: 41:39

and that's, that's where he's trying to nickel and dime me. I said, If you can't, like, I'm actually giving you a really nice price. I said I would go lawyer rates like 500 an hour, kind of thing. You I'm doing a much I'm doing like half or even a three thirds of that. So he's he just sits there. But it was funny cuz he even said once, he's like, You were very good at doing this. And that's, I'm trying to figure out okay, how would I say that an ad is the this whole big question. Yeah, it's like, you

peter Shafer: 42:07

know, we get to, you know, I mean, it strikes me and again, not that this is a, you know, quote, unquote, free consulting or anything, but, you know, that it strikes me that one, everything that you just mentioned, is common sense, human behavior. You know, and, and I think you know, that there's this, there's a really bad assumption, or there's several bad assumptions out there right now that everybody understands common sense. And they don't miss as you think. No, no, exactly. It's, it's, it's pretty rare. That the second thing that you talk about, and this is what strikes me in terms of that the coaching is that you're going in with a, you're not going in with a prescription as much as you are going in with it, like a mirror to the organization to say, look, you know, and I think, you know, a lot of coaches go in with a preconceived notion, or a pre prepared curriculum, for lack of a way to put it like this is that this is the technique you do. So regardless of what your problem is, it's, I'm going to make it fit my prescription. And, you know, and I know, and while I, you know, I would, for you, I wouldn't say customized or whatever. But it's, it's, it's really more, you know, this is not, it's really not up here, it's, it's down here at the practical, day to day level. And, you know, all I'm saying is that, you know, within six months, if it doesn't turn around, we're good. And, you know, and I think I, you know, I think in some regards, that invitation is enough to get people's attention, because you're confident enough to make it, but you also have the anecdotal data to back it up. It's not, you know, and, I mean, you've, you've interspersed some key points of data that I think they, you know, have gotten their attention. That's, that's, that's a critical component of it, too. So,

Josh Bolton: 44:20

and the crazy thing for him, and this is where I've been working on a campaign is his turnover rate was insane. It was like 60 70% turnover. So he'd like every 10 You lose seven. Yeah. And, and essentially, I told them, like, that's where I'm thinking of like a, an ad like is the great resignation kicking into chops is your turnover rate over 40%? I have an industry secret that no one's talking about. And it's simple to implement kind of thing. Would that work?

peter Shafer: 44:52

I tell you what, I You had me up until you say secret, I think interests people. I think people are a little desensitized. To the hype around secrets or whatever, you know, I often think that these problems are simply, you know, their problems in plain sight, or the solutions are in plain sight. Nobody has the courage to step up and, you know, say, Hey, this is this is the problem, you know? Or they don't say it in a way that is that makes the solution apparent, if that makes sense. What everything that you said, though, up to that point, I think, works, I wouldn't, I wouldn't mystify it in terms of secret, because then it's, you know,

Josh Bolton: 45:39

secret MLM? Well,

peter Shafer: 45:42

less MLM, but maybe, you know, I, you know, especially with a lot of these executives, is that they don't want to take the time to figure out the secret. You know, give it to me shave it. Yeah, it's like, just Yeah. And, you know, to your point i, this struck me is that probably 95% of the conversations that they have during the day are not straightforward conversations. It's somebody trying to kiss their butt, somebody's trying to sell them something somebody tried to, you know, that or, you know, that's, that's overly. So, you know, the straightforward approach, I think, is always usually the best. The one thing that I would say that, and maybe this will be helpful in terms of thinking about it. Number one, is because you are small and nimble, in terms of where you are in your practice already, right is that is that you have the advantage of being able to use multiple advertising taglines in different situations. So it's not like one size fits all. So I would, you know, just to kind of say, you know, hear like three or four words or elements that I always want to get across. And that's, you know, that's, that's kind of that, you know, and that's the good side. The second is you have, even though they're not, quote, unquote, case studies, you have case studies, you have examples of how this works. And the third is, is, and this is my only advice would be, just make certain that you really are addressing their immediate point of pain, because you brought up something a second ago that I think, you know, some people might brush over. And that is, for example, when you were talking to the guy is that he has 70% turnover, meaning seven out of every 10 people, like you said, come through, is that really his point of pain? Or is it that, you know, is or is it something else? And if you address the turnover, then like, Aha, you know, but if it's, if he's not worried about the turnover, but he's worried about, you know, something else, you just want to be clear about that. And that's, that's one of the areas that that, you know, I think, oftentimes we get stumped we stumble around in is that number one is I really can't clearly articulate what my pain is. You have to figure that out. But I'm going to give you a lot of clues to figure it out, you obviously are attentive, you watch you listen, you observe. And you might just go back and say, hey, look, before we go any farther, I just want to make sure is this what really is bothering you is this is it, it is if we solve this problem, does that you know, as you know, does it help you? And if they say yes, then you know that coaching, do you know now how to make a coaching direction work? Does that make sense?

Josh Bolton: 48:38

Yeah. Yeah, I was. The I just made that copy of just on the fly kind of thing. Like I just secret seemed the best word for me. Would would protocols, or something like that?

peter Shafer: 48:52

I would say something like, like, proven, proven tactic. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, you know, road tested, battle tested, you know, usually get some good things, you know, elicit some, you know, but but those types of things would be, you know, more kind of, what's the word I'm looking for? Maybe more transparent. That's not the right word. But I think you know, what I'm saying just don't make it too hard for them to figure out what it is that you do. Because if they can't figure it out, within a minute, they're probably, you know,

Josh Bolton: 49:24

who's gonna swipe right on?

peter Shafer: 49:26

Yeah. You know, and, you know, one thing that you mentioned earlier to and I wanted to get i Sorry, got off on a tangent there. It's okay. That the way digital advertising works now, as you probably will know, is that it doesn't cost you a lot to do a lot. Right. You know, and so, you know, I think in one regard, what you had mentioned earlier about, you know, having maybe one advertising campaign is that you might want to break that down a little bit and just, you know, because I think for, and this is this is a little bit difficult to explain, but I'll try to a lot of consultants walk into a lot of coaches or people that are trying to help other businesses, they walk in thinking that they have to target a specific industry category or a specific, you know, whatever up, you know, HR problem, you know, whether it's a finance problem, whatever. And in one regard, that helps kind of narrow the field down for you, but it doesn't narrow the field down for them. Right. And I think if you kind of flipped it, and said, Okay, what is it that I can go in and say that it's going to narrow the field down for them. And, you know, you mentioned a couple of things, just, you know, one is, I can help with morale, I can help with productivity, I can help with utilization, which is, you know, just putting the people in the right places, you know, these are enough of a buzzword, they'll get their attention, but it's not like you're coming in sound and, like, Oh, my God, I've got to get a degree from MIT to understand what Josh is trying to do here. You know, and I think I think that's the, you know, and, but then to be able to say, Okay, from a coaching perspective, it means, you know, I'm going to meet with you on a regular basis, which might mean, 10 hours to you might mean, whatever that, you know, right. But, you know, and because now what you've done is you've made it real for them, you've brought down this, I can solve your problem. And by the way, here's how we will jointly work together to solve that problem. And, and, you know, they may have questions, but I mean, obviously, it's not as simple as that flow. But that's, that's how we would map it out would be right?

Josh Bolton: 51:42

Because each person's unique, maybe like, they want training for whatever. And it turns out, kind of like this client. Turns out, that's not even the problem. It is all the backend stuff you just don't want to look at.

peter Shafer: 51:54

Yeah, exactly. You know, and you mentioned, like, the guy's assistant, you know, with it, that she's potentially underpaid or whatever. That may be the problem may be he or she may just, like get up and go, but But you know, what I'm saying? I mean, I think, you know, I and, you know, I, the the one thing that I think Joshua have going in your, at least from an advantage standpoint, is how plain spoken you are about what it is you can accomplish. And you don't back away from that. And so I think, you know, in some regard, like you're the guy who's trying to nickel and dime you, you know, he may just try to be pushed you to cut your price. He may push you, but you know, you it sounds like you've stayed on script with him. It's not like you're trying to adapt. It's not like you're trying to create a circle out of a square, now you're still selling them the circle, or you're still trying to convince them the circle. One, one thing that I've seen a lot of coaches do is that they become chameleons, just to get the business and you know, sometimes that doesn't work out sometimes it does. But, you know, it sounds like you know, that's not your style anyway. So I would just you know, stay true to the stuff that you know you can do, because it sounds like you do it very well. So, you know, that'd be the positioning of it.

Josh Bolton: 53:11

Thank you, Peter. It's actually kind of funny how you said the chameleon I used to sew a long time ago, when I was in high school in junior high. I had bad bullying and all that back then. But I learned if I was a chameleon, I could change to whatever they want. I wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily get hurt. But then a lot of work for me try and remember what I said kind of thing. And so now, like, less grim story, essentially, I was on heavy prescriptions for a long time. So now that I've been clean for three years, I'm just kind of like, Nope, I'm not doing that anymore, as well. He more work than it's worth. Very true. Like you either like me or you don't.

peter Shafer: 53:47

There you go. So well. Good stuff. Hopefully this has been helpful. I mean, you know, you know,

Josh Bolton: 53:52

it's super helpful. Like for me, this is one of those. It's like I said, I've been mulling over how a pay per click works. I've been running a few here and there just to get used to with like Facebook, just more like good. Generally no one on my show. I create little soundbites, run on Instagram, see what happens. Yeah. And, but that's one of those who like to get known as the shows a great, like marketing point of view. But not everyone listens to a podcast. So like, do I need to get on YouTube? Do I need to? I don't like you. But do I need to get on Tik Tok kind of thing? Do I need to pay to get seen maybe I just make an ad and pay tick tock to do it kind of thing.

peter Shafer: 54:29

Yeah. Well, I I you know, I will tell you that, you know, just based on the statistics that we're seeing it just kind of in the in the larger frame of things. You know, YouTube and Tiktok are really, really widely read or widely, widely seen. I was thinking one area that I think you might want to just kind of do a little bit more education on an explore is Reddit. You know, we're talking about the traders. We're talking about traders earlier. There is so much going on on Reddit right now. that, you know, and probably for coaching would be similar, but I would really, you know, commend you to take a look at that as an option as well. Instagram may not necessarily be the audience you're looking towards, but you know, it is it's a it's a great scatter, you know, I mean, you know, it's, it's, uh, I mean, it's one of the top three platforms in regard to traffic. So, you know, you certainly can't go wrong there. I would also, you know, consider taking a look at, you know, like, maybe LinkedIn is an option.

Josh Bolton: 55:33

Yeah, don't cut more costly, but the more I write, when I can tell that a little more effective to

peter Shafer: 55:38

Yeah, I use this actually in a in a client meeting a couple days ago, is that he, it may be a little bit more expensive, but you have better data and better targeting, as attributes, for lack of a better way to put it coming from LinkedIn, and the, that community is getting more and more open in regard to these types of, you know, ads, and, you know, and not even promoted ads, just, you know, things that thought leadership, those types of things. So, you know, and I, my guess is that for some of the people that you would be targeting LinkedIn would be in the top two or three that they would be on on a regular basis. So

Josh Bolton: 56:31

Oh, absolutely. That's actually one of those. One of my guests a while ago has even said like the way you are, and you who you're looking forward to, like, you might want to update your LinkedIn game. I'm like, okay.

peter Shafer: 56:42

Yeah. What was it? It was funny because I, when I started doing the podcasting, one of the things that popped up was that I had to change my LinkedIn profile, because you as a podcaster would go look at it and be like, Well, what? Who? Why would I want to talk to him? So, you know, anyhow, I do apologize. I have a hard stop at three Eastern so, so good,

Josh Bolton: 57:03

then I usually I'm going out questions Where Can everyone get you out?

peter Shafer: 57:07

They can reach me at my email addresses probably the easiest. It's Peter at Everest, e v, E r, E S, T. coms. CO mm s.com. Everest communications. And you know, that's probably the best way to reach me. And I'm on LinkedIn in there under Pete shaver. So we'd love to connect with whomever and you know, that those would be the two easiest way to get a hold of me. Perfect. absolute honor and a pleasure to chat with you. Oh, no, Josh, there's a lot of fun. Thank you so much for taking the time and a really great day and I'll talk to you hopefully soon. Yes.