Marketing and Trends | Angelo Ponzi

   Today on the show we have Angelo,  a marketing guy based in California.  We talk about the different tips, tricks and trends in marketing. 


Website: www.theponzigroup.com

Podcast: www.businessgrowthcafe.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angeloponzi/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHdLKsy9H-VAhEdyXurlQJA

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngeloPonzi15

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theponzigroup

Transcript

Unknown: 0:01

Welcome to the Josh Bolton show where we dive interesting and inspiring conversations. And now your host, Josh Bolton. Pike today on the Josh Bolton show we have Angelo Ponzi, a marketing, businessman, entrepreneur, and just awesome guy from California. Here he is Angelo. Hi, how you doing today? I'm doing great Angelo. So we were talking before I hit the record that you are stationed in California, and you're in the marketing? Can you give me a little bit about that? Sure. So I'm what they call a fractional Chief Marketing Officer, which means that that I'm a senior level marketer, but as a fractional person, somebody buys, a fraction of my time can be eight hours, it can be a day a week can be two days a week. So it really, really kind of depends. And trusting. Yeah, so. So I'll go in and I, we call ourselves marketing architects. So we're building blueprints for growth, we focus more on the strategic and analytical side of marketing. And so from that standpoint, we work with a lot of market research. So we're digging out information on the customers and the prospects and the competition, and utilizing that information to helping develop our positioning and messaging strategies and our growth strategies. And, and that's what I focus on. And then when it comes time to execute those plans, we turn into general contractors, right. And we manage different teams to make sure the plans are being built. I mean, you wouldn't build a house without a blueprint. That's what we we look at as you wouldn't build your business without having the foundation and the blueprint to know where you're going. Right? Yeah, building a house, you have to have a plan in every step done. Because at one point in my life, I was doing construction and the boss had no plan. I'm like, what are we going to do that? Do you want us to just put two pieces of wood together? charge him? $1,000? Yeah, well, you know that I mean, it's the same kind of thing. It's really digging down and understanding, you know, when you're mapping out that blueprint, where the issues might be an understanding where the challenges and whether it's materials, whatever it happens to be understanding the competition, you know, you're going to build a house to build a multimillion dollar house in it in the wrong area, you know, therefore, the value is going to go down whatever it happens to be, right. So you're, you're really looking at those kinds of strategic questions and issues before you get to the tactical stuff. So as far as planning and strategics, for the marketing and online, similar, what are some of the trends you see recently expressed you at the 2020 lockdowns that maybe would have taken more five to 10 years? Certainly, you know, that the term that we hear a lot of courses and digital transformation is more and more companies were becoming more digitally focused and what they do that the pandemic actually expedited that the CEO of Microsoft was quoted saying, I won't get this totally right. But we've had, you know, five years of digital transformation in three months. Yeah, because we had all these remote workers now. And if companies weren't prepared for it, they had to make adaptations. And now here we are, you know, a year later, and people are used to working remote is a lot of the studies are showing the people are much more efficient and much more effective to get on to get in the car. I mean, you're you're in Southern California with me, you right? We're here and it took us literally 30 seconds or less to get on this call. But if we were meeting in person, I would have had to time this out to be there at 10 o'clock, I probably would have left it you know, 630 in the morning, everybody 10 right. So I mean, look how efficient This is. And so people can be much more productive. Does that eliminate face to face? Absolutely not. We're seeing that now. People are trying to have more, you know, lunch meetings and coffee meetings and you know, getting together certainly being safe about it. Right? To build that keep that and build those relationships, but I can see you once a month and talk 20 times to you on on zoom. And we can be effective. Yeah, the once a month just to know like that human interaction, we're still very simple, smart, but simple beast and we just want that social interaction. Well, it's true too. Because you know, when you're sitting across the table from somebody, you can look in their eyes, you can see their you know, really clearly see their facial expressions, their hand movements. I mean, you know, we're looking at each other on zoom here. And right now both our hands are below the table. Yeah, so the cut off line, right? I have no idea you know, you you could be you could be doing anything during I saw a guy the other day that it was funny, he he, he was just like we are but all of a sudden I see this cat tail. Just Doing this back and forth on the screen. He obviously had a cat on his desk and the cat was wandering and his tail was just in the screen. It was hysterical. So you don't. So we you know, that kind of, you know, distractions, if you will, when they come with zoom, you know, you're not going to get that when you're having in person stuff because again, we can. I'm Italian, I talk with my hands, you can kind of have a lot, you know, I'm holding my hands down because I know it can get distracting. And I started doing this kind of stuff. I grew up in an Italian family. It's all good. Yeah. Well, we talk with our hands. Right? Yeah. Have you get Italian to stop talking to his hands behind his back? Yes. Yes. Yeah. My, it was so funny when my grandfather is he's talking and he's passionate, and he's waving his hands. And it's like, What are you trying to like conduct an opera? He's like, my hands speak more than my words. Exactly, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To Be careful. They get a bunch of Italians in a room you think you get knocked out as a young kid? Yes. Yes, indeed. I was one of those. When I see like, the aunts and grandparents get together, it's like, I'm going over here. They're gonna frickin beat each other. Yeah, I know. It's sometimes you wonder, are they? Are they mad at each other? Now? They're just talking yet? Yes. So we were mentioning the online trends, and remote and beating a person. But what one thing I noticed. I mean, I've wanted to do this podcast for years. I just got scared. Maybe because of kancil culture. But it was one of those I realized everything now is going online marketing, the ads. This, it's like, if I don't start it now. It's like it's too late. So from your marketing perspective for podcasting, and even YouTube, because they're like, the pillars now of content, what is your perspective? If it's now like, it doesn't even matter the niche, you should just always make one? Or is there some something different? You see? Well, you know, it's interesting, there's a strategic aspect to to podcasting. So I'm a podcaster, I have a show called the business growth cafe, and I'm into my third year, nice. And when I started it, there was only about 750,000 podcasts sounds like a lot. But but not know, considering now there's, you know, a couple million. So. So I chose business because I'm in business. And I chose to be an advice show. So not strictly about marketing, but about business advice. So the people that I talked to, could be presidents and CEOs of companies, they could be people like myself that are providing services, could be you know, book editors book, somebody who authored a book. So a wide variety, the ultimately it's about offering business advice. But when you take when I looked at it, I started thinking about the type of show, so I guessed it on a few I saw what other people were doing. I got some stats, because I'm a research guy. So I looked at some of the stats that are provided. And when you start to break down, even the 2 million start to break that down. There's niches. And I saw that the, the business segment was about 13%, I got the numbers from before, I'm not sure exactly what it is now is about 13%. But you can also drill down into business and you can look at uncategorized you can look at entrepreneurial ship management, marketing. And in there, the question became, do I try to dominate a very specific niche? Do I broaden it out? You know, who's the competition in a sense within those and how do you build so podcasting is a great form of it's one of the few I'll call it forms of communications, it's actually getting longer, where most of it's about getting shorter, right quick hits your your, your Instagram, your your Twitter, you know, those are, you know, short burst of communications, even blogs have gotten shorter, you know, you write a 2000 word blog, it's really an article, you know, they tell you to keep blogs 300 to 500 words or less, yet, podcasting will talk for an hour. And that generates tonic tonic content, and people are listening to it. I just saw a stat actually, that I won't get this totally right, because I didn't totally read the article, but it was something along the lines of there are more people listening to podcasts than they are listening to music on Spotify and Pandora. I have to agree with that. A lot of my co workers that the current job of Matt, there are a few they still listen to music just to get him through the night. But most were just listening to podcasts. They're like it's just it's nice. It feels like I'm listening to a conversation with my friends kind of thing. Yeah, I mean it and so there's great content and depending on the shows that you listen to, you can get a wide variety of inputs. And so I think You know, podcasting, and I commend you for stepping in and doing it. I mean, it is, you know, obviously, I'm doing it over three years now. So I meant, it's, it's a passion, I don't make any money from it. I wish I did, but they don't. But it's but it's a passion, it's a way to give back and to, you know, have a voice. I mean, I've been able to give voices kind of outside of my lane to things like health and welfare in the workplace, you know, suicide prevention, human trafficking, you know, I've done other things that, that I was able to give a voice to people that they might not have had, if it wasn't for my show, or shows like yours, right? It's the they're how I approach it. There's, like, seven, 7 billion of us on this earth. So there's 7 billion different stories, I think some are similar, some are not, but it's like, we all need to eventually just tell the story. And I think and it's, it's important, it just helps us in general learn and realize, oh, by holding the pen this way, it's bad. But if I hold it this way, it's good kind of thing. Yeah, well, certainly, you know, it is an education. And it sounds like you're finding out as I certainly have is, we're always learning if we're not learning, you know, where was where it was the phrase, we're not learning, we're dying kind of things. And so we're, there's always an education, not only for the audiences, but for people that are doing the interviewing, because I don't know everything. And so I hear stories, I hear people tell things, a lot of times it sparks ideas for me. And, and so, you know, gives me a reason to go listen to something else or read something else that maybe I can bring into oops, bring into my clients. Sorry about that. So good. I hit the spacebar. And, and so yeah, I think podcasting is is certainly has blown up there. There's newsletters now and magazines and trade shows. I mean, it's, it's it's big business, I mean, people are buying companies. I mean, there's somebody just Spotify just bought one of the one of the the aggregators, I guess, you know, for making millions of dollars, I mean, it's a Joe Rogan or is your anchor? I think it was anchor, anchor and megaphone. Yeah, so they you know, so all of a sudden, there's a lot of acquisitions going on, right? I mean, this is big business and podcasting dollars and ad revenue is is skyrocketing. It really we got to get in on that. Yeah. Yes, it's not too late for us. And that's one thing, I was reading the stats somewhere where it's like, for podcasters, who, like, let's say, I paid for commercial for your show, there will be 7% listeners, but within that 70% 30% will actually take an action and do something with the commercial. And I'm just sitting here going, that's an insane return on investment. Like, you know, 30% of whatever that audience is, is going to actually buy your product. You only need like two three purchases from your one ad kind of think of it's 1000 bucks. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, you know, art and science and any kind of media buying and placement, those kinds of things. So it's understanding the audience and I and I, you know, for myself, I actually run my own commercials, I'm not selling a product, but more about education about what I do, but I do have some products that I'm working on, I'm going to start trying that as well. And then I've gone on to a couple ad networks and started to populate in there to see if I can get you know, some people interested and running on my show, because it is about consistency. Right did yeah, they looked at you know, not only downloads and listeners but you know how long you've been around and consistency image yet. If you do one today, you know, do another one for six months. Good have a million downloads, but you're too inconsistent. There's no they can't count on it. Right? They want to measure. Let's say you post one once a week, they're gonna be like, oh, every week, like religion, like Angela is gonna post something. So like, yes, then we'll take you kind of thing. Yep. Yep. So for you, I want to get into more of the online and social media, and maybe some of the culture clash a little if you want to get into that part is the for one thing I've noticed as I've been doing the show, and I've only done this, like three months now is like the SEO and websites, requirements to the to get into the game correctly. What are some things you see for your clients as they're building up their stuff that maybe they didn't even realize they had to do it? Well, I think that any company that's resisting, you know, getting online, if you will, on some kind of digital transformation. I think they're missing the boat. But there's a study out McKinsey study that showed the amount of research being done by potential customer online. So by 2016, and 2019, there was an 85% increase in the amount of research that was being done online prior to ever picking up the phone to or placing an order, right. So for I going to call somebody or, or I'm going to buy their product, I'm doing research on my own. So if you don't have a presence, and you're not providing the right kind of content, to educate somebody to take that next step, you're already out of the game, you're already behind everybody else, if you're just relying on, you know, smile and dial in and whatever, you know, your your method of sales happens to be. So having that digital presence and understanding your customer and moving them down, you know, their journey and moving them down the funnel is is extremely important. But one of the other changes has happened during this COVID. In this pandemic last year, is the handoff between marketing and sales actually pushed farther down into the funnel. So now, before it used to be, you know, into awareness, interest and and then you'd kind of hand it off when there was consideration to the to the to the sales department. But marketing actually is pushed much farther down into that consideration set. Because during that same time period, there was a 239% increase of the engagement, people are actually online looking to engage. So more demos, you know, taking it much further where they're getting the education and being you know that something that on person or an in person demo might look like now they're looking for it online before they start to communicate. So there was a dynamic change in in the roles of marketing and sales. So once again, you know, if you're not there, you're missing these opportunities, because there's a lot of work being done before somebody picks up the phone. So if you're not in that, and you haven't offered up the content, so it's all about content. And it's all about placement and content and making sure you're telling a variety of stories, because you don't know where somebody is necessarily in the journey. Right? If they're beginning to look, you know, in that awareness phase looking. But if they've already looked at, they're already aware, and you're not serving up content to move them down. Again, the company is at a disadvantage. And that's the biggest thing. I've been noticing I had another fellow business marketing guy come on, and that's literally the same thing. He said, He's like, just make it he's like Jake, like Gary Vee, make multiple things is the only time you should really barf your content everywhere. Because you don't know Maybe someone's five years behind on content, and you just don't know it. But it'll, it'll click in like two months, because they finally got around to it. Yeah, he does. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, you go. Well, I was gonna say somebody today was telling me in a meeting that Yeah, every Thursday, we have a post on LinkedIn. And to me, that's great. But you need to be put doing multiple posts on LinkedIn, LinkedIn, whether it's daily or three times a week, right? Because if I posted right now, while we're talking, by the time we get off this podcast, that post is down the feed, you might have gotten 50 or 100. Other things? And how far are you going to scroll down to get my particular post? Right, so so you're so even if you look at some of the recommendations, I mean, there's recommendations, you post three times a day on LinkedIn, just so you're constantly in the feed, right? And then you also should tag some tag people or tag other people. So I get there's this guy that that has been on my show, and he follows me, he'll actually pose a question and then tag about 15 or 20 people. And you get a lot of activity, because now all these people are answering his question, as soon as you know, I answered that question. It goes out to my feet. And, and so that you have to be very strategic, because, you know, we're not the only people doing it. We're not the only people doing video, we're not the only people doing podcasting. And and how do you, you know, have to be that, you know, kind of omni channel approach? How can you be present at all places? Because you don't know when someone's going to decide Today's the day? No, and you don't. And that's where then you need like someone like a team like you for the marketing architects where you could figure out for, I'm assuming your clients are more higher end, like oh, no, really. So. So they're all over the place that I do work with, with higher end clients, but I work with a lot of startups as well, because they either are in that early stage and they're looking to focus and have clarity in their messaging and who they are. Or maybe they're still looking to further MVP, and they don't know they're building it. So I'm working with a software company right now that I started working with them last August. They didn't beta until January. We just launched a project with product just like three weeks ago. And so you know, they're a small company with with limited revenue, but we were able to work together to help them take it, you know, to the next level and to get more focused and be more strategic and in their rollout, you know, not just throw it out there tomorrow, and, and then not be able to launch the product, which was my advice, don't start telling people to go sign up for it, when you were not going to have it for four or five months. Right. And so I work with startups, I work with small to medium sized businesses, probably I like to say maybe 2 million, 3 million to 75 million, depending on the company itself, whether it's b2b or b2c. So then one thing I've been hearing consistently from everyone is the need for email list, even though it's archaic, it's still the most effective for targeting marketing people, you know, the correct theory? Or is there nuances of emailing now that you see different? Well, you know, the prediction that email was dead is not true, just like years ago, they used to say, you know, network, television was dead, and TV commercials were dead. And, you know, just this turn on the channel. Right? So it's email marketing is, is actually still one of the most effective mediums. Again, maybe not on its own, but with a combination of, again, back to this omni channel approach. So your list is essential, and everything that we do should be to continually generate lists, buying lists, you know, you don't know what you're really getting. So you want to grow it organically. That's why on people's websites, they you know, offering newsletters or, you know, sign up here to get your free ebook, or, you know, I'll get a lot of these weathers on Facebook, a lot of times when I'm looking around, I'll see something that piques my interest, but I got to give up my email and some content about me in order to get that download. So I see that being used more and more, it's a great tool, because again, you just don't know when someone is going to be interested in, in what's going on. So you're you're trying to get them to give up that information. So you can market to them later on. And then back to consistency. Now there's a guy, for example, that I just met about three weeks ago, he put me on his mailing list, which I was fine with. But he but he emails every day, to now to the point where I've just blocked them. There's a cadence to it, right? It's back to understanding your customers. If you're just constantly selling, you're gonna get blocked. So what value can you give to your potential customers that make them want to download or make them want to click? Or to go watch that video? There's tons of tools that are available to do lots of different things. But why are they going to do it? If I if I sent you an email every day and said use my services, use my services, use my services? You're gonna turn me off? Yeah, it's just it's annoying. It's like, Well, okay, maybe you are good. But now that you've like, literally bugged the shit out of me, I don't, I don't respect you anymore. Get out kind of thing. Well, that's exactly right. And so there was a cadence to it again, that gets back to understanding your customer, that's a mantra of mine for years is know your customer. Because you you have to understand how they consume information. Right? If you're talking to somebody that might be slightly older, they might want still want a piece of paper in their hands a white paper, but I'm talking to somebody that's in their 20s, you're gonna watch a video. So knowing your customer, knowing how they consume information, understanding what's important to them, what value proposition that how you're going to benefit their lives, not just by told you that I have all these great marketing tools. I'm a great marketer, I'm a great marketer, you're gonna go, Okay, he's a great marketer. But if I said, I know your pains, I can help you to achieve what you need to achieve. And so you get a better job, you raise your, your capital within your organization, whatever it happens to be, that's a more interest because it's something that's going to benefit you and your organization that I can deliver versus me just telling you about how great I am. You can talk all you want. But if you can actually produce an action that means way more. I agree. There was I was listening to podcast back in the day about dieting, and the guy essentially said, He's like, Yeah, he's like, it's work. But he's like, I 140 characters less. If you tweet me, I'll send you an answer kind of seeing and he corrected a lot of my stuff. And I would always go to his link if I was going to Amazon just buy through his affiliate link to help him out. Yeah, I mean, again, he built a relationship and emotional connection with you. That's a much stronger relationship than a rational one. You know, you need marketing, but if I have an emotional connection with you, and we've built that trust over time, and, and I've given you things that gave you value, you're more likely to come Tell me when the time comes, right? Yeah, you wouldn't be the first on someone's mind. Even if they haven't thought about that topic in ages. It's like, Oh, it's like Angela, like, he'll freakin help you have everything kind of thing. Yeah. So, I want to get into, we've already touched on a few topics. So it's the more the cultural perspective of social media and marketing do using the controversies to grab attention. Is this a trend? Let's say a young business that wants to get their name known should do? Or is it more? with how triggering everything is? They shouldn't consider that? Well, you know, it's, uh, I think about when making this statement, I think about fear based marketing. And, and there's a lot of studies out there to say that, that it's, it's not good to really be negative like that. But I think you're looking for something that grabs people's attention. And so again, I think from from that standpoint, it really depends on the product or the service, or what you're trying to do. So if it happens to be in kind of an environmental issue, you can talk about kind of the the negative side of if you don't take action, right, we will I agree with a lot of that, you could sit there and say, you know, take a shoe company and talk about increased performance, right, the value proposition of that. And if you don't use our shoe, maybe you won't be as high performance. So I think there's always caution to that, and how you position yourself and in making sure especially if you're tying yourself into a charity, or you know, some kind of a nonprofit to kind of give back that, that it's, what's the word I'm looking for it is believable, it's real. And not, if you ever come across as it's just Bs, or just, you know, you're using it to draw attention, you know, that kind of stuff really backfire on you. And it takes commitment. I have a friend of mine who gives that I think it's 10% of her quarterly profits, to charity. And so loud, she's been doing it constantly. And so she leverages that. And her actions, she's, she, she goes out of her way to work with organizations that that need support and help. And then she follows through with with donation. So I mean, as part of her entire business, matter of fact, hurting businesses is about being a change agent for the world. And, and so she delivers on that brand promise, but I think other people are just leveraging it as a way to get in the door, and it's not really truthful. Or they can't commit to really deliver on it, I think it can backfire. And it also comes back to the reputation problem. If you build a reputation of this sleazy guy that just wants your money and your email, and Linda blows up your email, he puts a foul taste in the mouth, and you're like, I don't I don't know anymore. If I can even recommend someone this for anything, I'm gonna tell him like, don't don't even consider this website kind of thing. Right? It is about reputation, right? Ultimately, it boils down to to the reputation. And and, and that takes a long time to build a brand, whether it's your personal brand, or a product or a service, in today's world, instantaneously can be destroyed. Yeah, it doesn't take long for something to backfire. So you're always having been nurturing that brand and making sure that the things you're doing and you're saying and following through that there's a commitment in in the integrity. I was telling a story to a guest I had on my podcast yesterday. And I was telling her about, you know, a client and how they were very disruptive in our, in my agency when I had my advertising agency. And so we ended up firing the client, because they treated the people poorly. And they were very disruptive in the workflow. And while they are paying a lot of money and fees, at the end of the day, I had a whole lot of people that were unhappy and you know, refuse to work on the account. And when I told her that story, her response was, you've just confirmed to me that your integrity because I believed you have that was we're getting to know each other. But you're telling me stories are constantly reinforcing who you are as a human being the kind of person I want to do business with. So I mean, I think there's different aspects of that brand reputation that you need to define and nurture along in what you're doing. If for anybody. Yeah, it is and is, like the I think it's Warren Buffett or one of them where it's like it takes 20 years to build a reputation and only takes one minute to ruin it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Again, especially you know, and in days past when social media and you know, didn't exist a long time or never, you know, just look at the the papers going on, you know, today and talking about some of the politicians and some of the stuff they're getting caught doing, you know, 20 years ago or 25 years ago, whatever it is now Nobody would have ever known any of that stuff, maybe in their small community, and maybe it would have gotten in some of the local papers. Maybe even a national paper, but certainly wouldn't have got the covers it is getting its constant flow. Right. So it's really important that, that, you know, reputation management becomes extremely important. In today's world. It is. It's the, the few things I've noticed with just how everything shifting online, it almost takes the team just to manage your business alone on just social media. And reputational Can I think, and that's where like, guys, like you were saying, Can you give me a blueprint and architect of whatever I should do? And then I can go figure out where I need to outsource from there. Yeah, I mean, it is a plan, it ultimately is a plan that people need to follow. And the inconsistency I tell clients all the time talking when the other day and they said, yeah, we want to, we want to continue to blog. And so I went on their site, and I said, Well, the last time you blog was six months ago. So you're not continuing to blog at all. As a matter of fact, it looks like you either too busy, don't care don't have enough to say. So you're too inconsistent, I I say take it down until we can build up an inventory. So we can have a regular cadence. And I tell people that all the time. Don't try to be on every channel, if you can actually execute on every channel. Why? Because if they go to it, and you tell me put a you know, a YouTube link in your website, and I click on it, and the last video you posted was six years ago, that doesn't do you any good. Right? I think it does more harm. Because it's the Okay, well, 60 years ago, maybe they were a different person back then, than they are now. Or it's like, is this content relevant? Is their business relevant kind of thing? Yeah, exactly. So I say use fewer channels be consistent. And then you can add more channels later on. And once you get you get a going? And, and and depending on the business, you know, a lot of times it'll be you know, we've given the social media activity to you know, the, the person at the front desk. Well, you know, that's, that isn't necessarily always the right way to go. But if there's a plan and a cadence, and this person is following through, then yeah, it works great. There's always somebody and there's always virtual assistants, there's always, you know, people that can help execute. And, and I say, don't try to do everything that you don't necessarily need to do. But make sure that there's consistency, there's people to help. Because again, doing it once or twice and not doing it is useless, you're better off doing less content, and maybe once a week, but consistent then, every day and it's just the slowly the quality disappears, because you're doing it every day. Yeah. So then I want to get into kind of like your up and coming story why you chose marketing. In your path getting to this point. Well, you know, part of it was school. I like this to to always have the strategic side, you know, that kind of the visionary and thinking things through I mean, throughout my career, I was always that person doing the research, the writing the plans, I'm not, I'm not a Kree. And I understand creativity, I do creativity, but I can't draw to save my life. It was never that person that was creating, creating the visuals for the ads or anything like that. A lot of tools out there. Now, I've actually gotten pretty good at it. But that was not the part of marketing that I really liked. I like digging into the data. I like understanding, you know, what the nuances are within an organization and a client I worked on a couple years ago, we were able to dig into the data to the point where we knew that, that if a customer bought today, they weren't going to buy again, for three years, that was a historical pattern for 30 years. So spending tons of time beating that guy's door down. And year two didn't make any sense. You want it to be more of a value, add more of a consultant approach to let them know you're there. They can maybe add some ancillary products, but you shouldn't be putting forth an entire, you know, full court press on these guys because they were never going to buy. So just that shift and understanding strategically how to approach sales freed up the salespeople to actually chase new business and do other things. To me, that's, that's marketing, right? People tend to want to say, I'll get a phone call says you know, I need a I need a marketing guy. That's great. What do you need? Well, we need a new website and social media. Well, that's, that's the tactics. That's the end result. That's how we take it to communication. So so that has always been a focus of mine. As a matter of fact, whether it was the agencies I worked for, I've had my own marketing agencies I've worked I've been on the client side from international product matters. You're up to cmo and Chief Strategy Officer. I also had to research companies. I actually have one right now called strategic market intelligence, which is the research research arm of this organization. I also was in the action sports industry for 13 years with a research company called board track, which focused on surfing, skating and snowboarding. And so that actually, I did research for Pacific Sunwear for about nine years as a client. And then after hearing, guys like Bob McKnight of Quicksilver, and Bob Hurley, of Hurley say, Matt, we there, we wish there was more research in this industry, I decided to launch a research company and and, you know, over the 13 year period, it became, you know, the place everybody turned to for data and strategic consulting. Yeah, it's the, especially like, we can all find whatever data on Google, but it's not the refined, you can say, I've done research and specifically service first words hurt today surfing, that, they'll be like, Oh, well, it's nice that that's free, but I'll pay him the extra premium because it's specific to me kind of thing. Right? So that's where proprietary research comes in. I mean, if I'm doing a study for you, and you're the only person right so that, to me, that's where a lot of the great insights come in. There's secondary research, which is information that exists, right, we go on Google, we start doing search on podcasting, and we gather all this great data, and we can refine it and use it to our advantage in our conversations. But we didn't create it. So we don't ultimately know the methodologies behind it. And so I tell people, when you're using secondary research and data out of an article to support a position, you've got to dig a little deeper to understand where it came from. Right? If I tell you McKinsey, you know, McKinsey is a reputable global research company. If I start referencing Bob's really good research, we don't know, Bob, and, you know, I got an I don't know, what's his background, I get to know their methodologies. A lot of times, I'll read it, I'll read an article and then I'll, and they're quoting all these stats, and they'll look down and see it was a qualitative study, and they talk to 10 people. Right? So secondary research can be is fantastic. And there's a lot of data out there. You know, from an unstructured standpoint, it's just out there. And you can utilize that then then there's a lot of syndicated studies, actually, with that board track, I was talking to you about the action sports, we were primarily a syndicated research study, which meant that I produced it, I owned it. And I packaged it and sold it. So you all got the same material. So if I sold it, you know, one to you, you got the same thing I sold a Quicksilver I sold to her earlier, I sold the DC shoes. Now I can go back and customize and rerun the data to make it a proprietary because I own the data. And then there's the proprietary research where the data is yours. Right? Nobody else has it. So you know that? Yeah, that so there's different ways to look at research and, and and you know, how you utilize it and developing your position and whether it's for business or anything else? Indeed, and especially with all the different tracking nowadays is eerie as it is for marketers, it's the best insights ever. Yeah, well, again, to your point is it's, you know, all the analytics, whether you're just running Google, or you're doing some other kind of analytics on your website, I look at mine all the time to figure out where people are going. I'm in the process of rebranding right now. And I'm looking at read, as I'm redoing my website, I'm thinking, Okay, does anybody ever go to this content page? You know, is it important to have in maybe it's my fault, maybe there's not enough SEO heading that way, or whatever it happens to be. But yeah, I'm getting those insights I can set triggers up, which I do, like, for example, on my podcast, even though I have a podcast website, I also have it on my personal my business website, and I have a conversion on there. So if I see people coming in, and know that they're going to that page, I know that some of my marketing is working, not necessarily again, making me money in the conversion, but I know they're doing it. And then there's just a lot of other data. I mean, that that's out there. There's there's, there's a company I was working with a few years ago, and there was there was about footfall analysis. So they're literally tracking people's movements that they could go and to, you know, XYZ store and say, Hey, Angelo Ponzi, you know, that being very specific, but Angelo Ponzi this guy walk, these people are walking by your store every day. So let's launch a digital campaign that when they get close, we'll ping them with an ad. Don't tell them to go in and buy a cup of coffee. So I mean, you can get really sophisticated and I think you made the comment. It's actually really scary in some of the data. And now with some of the changes, I mean, as soon as you hit a website and you hit the cookie thing, next thing you know, people are giving you phone calls and sending you emails and you never actually asked for anything. I know it's crazy. I had luckily Google smart and has a list now but I was getting like five six calls. I just went to an HTTPS some like whatever. Ad clicks because they weren't let me in. And then literally a robo call right after and I'm like, Whoa, yeah, so it's very intrusive these days. And so it's it's hard and you know, in, and then you know, with retargeting and all the stuff that goes on. So I mean, you're just constantly you click on I clicked on a code ad. But four months ago, that was an interesting looking coat. That that company's retargeting ads pop up on, everywhere I go. It's really, really annoying at this point in time. And then, yeah, so I mean, it's it, there's so many different ways back to the conversation we've been having. Why because so many more people, especially because of the lockdown in the digital transformation are doing their work online doing their searching, buying their groceries, I mean, you know, the the the online ordering for food and those kinds of things is increased. And a lot of that won't go back, you know, a lot of what we transformed to because of the pandemic, the pendulum won't swing all the way in the other direction it if it does, it's going to be my opinion, brief, and then it's going to come back. Because, heck, I can go on Amazon and order everything I need don't even have to leave the house. So yeah, we all know we're paying like two three bucks extra, but it's like, I don't have to leave. I'll give you the extra two $3 right now. Yeah, considering the price of gas here in California, we we save ourselves money. Oh my gosh, that's so annoying. The price. It's like we're ready a buck 50 above everyone. And then it's almost gone up a narrow dollar. He's like touching that 450 I think last I checked my area. Yeah, I you know, the plus side of the pandemic is I might tank some gas or lasting a lot longer. But I get fearful every time I think about going to the gas station, we got certain people talking about it. And somebody was saying that there was a Texas or someplace in the Midwest are paying like, you know, two something, 235 or whatever. And we're getting close to four and a half. Yeah. And well, especially with the Texas trees out. Just natural gas in general. That's going to we're going to feel that all throughout America, that kind of thing. Yeah. And everyone's like, Oh, it's just Texas is like, if you actually know how the market works. Yeah, it'll be there for this like month or quarter, but it's gonna slowly come to our side too. Well think about it. I mean, the Oh, here in California, you know, oil price might go up or a refinery, you know, the refinery there. And Torrance has an issue. And gas prices skyrocket? Oh, wait a minute that the supply and the manufacturing and the production of this is not that quick, right? The supply chains not that fast. But there's just an excuse to jack up our prices. And so I'm always fearful when if reget shut down or something happens or that the refineries have an issue? We we immediately get we feel that immediately. Yeah. Yeah, it's the because the companies they probably how like exxon mobil and Chevron work. They already know, like, two months before we even know that this is happening. I've adjusted according to accordingly. But we don't feel it until the price goes from $2 to 350. And we're like what the hell just happened kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. And then we have a lot of taxes on our gas out here as well. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the only thing they haven't tagged but I'm sure someone will figure out is clean air. Yeah, other than that, they text us on everything. I think you're taxing us on taxes. I think so honestly, the way they do it. It's like what because I paid this tax, you have to tax me for the tax. Then there's a tax for the taxes like I need an accountant. I don't understand this. So actually, I love it right there. I got a couple of closing questions for you. What has been different for you for these 2020 lockdowns, what have you been doing to keep busy like Netflix, Amazon, podcasting, etc. Yeah, you know, so as a as a fractional, I actually had been working out of home office. I've been working out of that for seven years now. Okay, so the pandemic didn't affect me that way. What is the impact was that I just couldn't go anywhere. Because I also did a lot of meetings off campus and a lot of lunches and breakfasts and things like that. So that was kind of the quickest impact on me. Marketing is a lot of times looked at as an expense versus an investment. So in the, you know, the March, the April, May, a lot of clients, a lot of companies cut their marketing budgets, so that certainly had an impact, but you actually Got me writing a lot. So I did a lot of articles and, and webinars and seminars on why they shouldn't be cutting their budgets and they shouldn't be investing. And I did a lot of proof points for that. My, my Netflix consumption certainly did go up. And, and so did you know, the purchase of Disney and a few others so. So from that standpoint, that was the escape, right? I mean, it's, you know, going to the grocery store, and TV. I mean, that was that was it. And, you know, listening to podcasts and you know, reading more books and things like that, before I used to when I was drive a lot, I'd get audiobooks. Okay, I wasn't driving. So I stopped listening to audiobooks. And so, you know, podcasts have kind of replaced that I do miss audiobooks, but I've been downloading actually more digital books now, because I'm sitting at my desk a lot. And as a lot of times my breaks will be just, you know, to go read some more of a digital book. Do you prefer the digital book? Or do you still like the paper one who just, you know, I fought it for a long time. And I find that I do go digital now. It's just easier because I can just carry it around with me and not have to worry about it. I do get I still buy paper though. Yeah, I still I still, I would say out of every 10 books, and maybe three are still paper. Like, I think I'm what it is, like, for me this book, I've been reading slowly that he doesn't even have a digital or if he does, it is more expensive. It's just mindset and how people use their creativity. And it's just one of those I couldn't find online. So I'm like, Alright, I'll just gonna go into the store and just buy one kind of thing. You actually went into the store? Yeah. You found a bookstore. Still functions to Barnes and Noble? It's strange. Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, we have one down here that I probably was couple years ago, I was in it. But, you know, again, whether it's laziness or, or, or, or just the ease of use. I mean, it's, you know, most of the books I buy that are paper are off of Amazon. It's just again, just quick, or somebody somebody was talking about, I was in a meeting, and somebody was talking about their book. And I went in and bought the digital book, because I really liked what he was saying. And then at the end, he said, and if you send me an email, I'll send you a free book. I was like, holy crap, say, damn, he can't get a refund. Yeah, but I find it just easier to hit the digital. And before, you know, I read a lot of mysteries and those kinds of things that we know, reading for pleasure actually hasn't been as as frequent as reading for business. And yeah, just being a geek about it. Yes. Then, final question. Well, before we get your stuff up and running, what are some tips and tricks for young entrepreneurs wanting to get into the marketing industry? mindsets, and maybe skills that are not as taught or thought about we kind of thing? Yeah, well, certainly, depending on where they're at, whether they're in school, or certainly out of school, and depending on the degree that they have, I mean, honestly, internships, you know, again, depending where they are in their career, I highly recommend the value of an internship in getting an opportunity to learn different skill sets and see how it actually works in, in a real world, we asked the difference of school and the real world, right, you can be taught a lot of things and to get into the first, you know, work situation, and it works nothing like it did in school. And so internships actually add a lot of value. It's also a good entry point into a potential career in a job. And then, you know, ultimately looking at what is that lane? You know, a lot of, you know, millennials and Gen Z, now we're coming. And they're focusing on kind of that digital world, because that's what's changing. And so there's lots of career opportunities, whether you go on the corporate side or agency side. I like, I like the agency side, initially, and the reason why is because you're dealing with lots of clients. And so you're getting a much broader exposure to different industries versus you go take a job in a corporation, I mean, that's the corporation. That's all you're going to focus on. So, you know, my path was that path to get into an agency exposure to a lot of different things, a lot of different disciplines, got to do a lot of things and I realized that I didn't like doing those things and here's what I really liked to do and I was able to focus that way. I'd say continue to to learn. I went back to I've been back to school 10 times. Really And, and sometimes for certificate degrees, sometimes just for classes, because things are changing, and you got to kind of keep up on what's going on, there's a lot of courses now you can buy, I just downloaded a course actually from Fiverr. It's like a 10 part course cost me 50 bucks. I mean, it's actually really good. Yeah, so it's a good way to stay fresh on things that are going on and trends that are going on it, you know, I can't speak for you. But for me, I'm an inundated every day with educational material and articles and, and, and reports, and i a lot of miles setting, I'll save and then I'll read later, somebody just throw away but so there is not that not to assume that you know, everything, but that constant education and learning and talking to people and taking advantage you can find a mentor, that's, you know, willing to help you along and, you know, kind of be that person you bounce stuff off of, because ultimately you don't know what you don't know, the path that you start today may not be the path that you're on, you know, 10 years from now. So, you know, you'd have to learn that skill set. And, and understanding gonna be client facing me not be client facing or going to be more on the tech side. You know, do you have that skill set? Do you need to learn that skill set? Yeah, it's the constant learning. And the recently, as I've talked to people is realizing the mentorship. But it's actually easier than people realize if you're polite and respectful about it. You could reach out to like a C suite and be like, Hey, I appreciate you. I like to pick your brain for like 30 minutes lunches and coffees on me. We just talk about you and tips and tricks. Yeah, people don't realize that we're like, great. I get free lunch like, absolutely. How much do you want to pick from my brain? Can I think? Yeah, I mean, I think that's great. I, I am a mentor at some of the universities and some of the startup organizations where, you know, I go and I listen to pitches, and these young entrepreneurs trying to get their, their their businesses off the ground. And then, you know, some of them call me and say, Hey, can we have a one on one with you? And yeah, of course, you know, we got some cool little toys up here. I got from helping a toy new toy company last year. Nice. Yeah. So they're, they're pretty cool. I actually, I like them a lot. So they're sitting right here on my shelf. And, and, and so you know, people are willing to help. I mean, and I think I did have probably six or seven companies last year, where they just called me and talk to me and, you know, ask for some advice. And, you know, it's just, you know, I like doing it. That's, that's what somebody did for me many years ago. And they told me one day, you'll have an opportunity to play it forward. And that's what I do. He really uses if you truly are humble and learn from a good mentor, and you pay it forward, you don't look at it as an expense you just look at as now I'm going to hand the torch to them, and they do it in the future, too. Exactly. Exactly. Like we all have a lot of knowledge that we've accumulated over the years and, and you know, you can help somebody out, keep on the straight and narrow and it you know, it's great. It really is. Well, Angelo, that was wonderful. I'd like to cut it there. Where can people reach out to you, your website, your podcast? excetera. Sure. So my website is the Ponzi group, calm PNZ AIG euro up calm, Ponzi group calm. My podcast is actually on my website. But the podcast is called business growth cafe. You can find me and I have a website for that very specifically, or Frankly, I'm on any podcast platform I'm on. You know, Apple, Google. I'm actually on Pandora, Spotify. I'm on Amazon. I mean, I can pretty much find me anywhere. And then certainly on LinkedIn. And I'm always open to connecting with people. Awesome. And I'll make sure his links are in the description. Thank you again, and I love to get you on in the future. Yeah, absolutely. Any time I enjoy. I enjoy sitting on this side as much as I enjoy sitting on your side. Yes, yes, it is fun. All right. Thank you. Appreciate you very much. Already. Thank you.