David Newman (of Do It! Marketing) Interview Transcript

(From time-to-time you’ll hear Damian’s 5 year old daughter and 20 month old son play

yelling in the background. Aaahhh, working from home.)

Damian:  Hello to anyone watching this on the internet. My name is Damian Niolet. I’m

an aspiring entrepreneur and as such a student of Western Carolina University. I’m in

their Master’s of Entrepreneurship program. I’m currently in a marketing class within that

program and one of the assignments involves conducting an interview with a marketing

expert. I sent out a request for an interviewee on Twitter because most of my 50

followers (a meager number, but growing), are marketers. This makes sense when you

think about it. Marketers should know best how to use marketing tools like social

networks. All of them likely searched for marketing as a keyword, saw that I was talking

about marketing, and followed me in hopes that I would look them up for my marketing

needs. David Newman, founder and CEO of Do It! Marketing, was one such marketing

expert and he was the only one to answer my request. So, you can be sure that David is

the expert I will be going to for the marketing needs of my companies. And, it should

pay off nicely for him. I’m going to try my hardest to make sure that it does because I

really do appreciate his taking the time to do this interview.

Damian: So, David, I’ve got 15 questions for you. Some of which may get jumbled

together. And the topics range from your personal experience to more probing theory

questions regarding marketing. Sound good?

David: Fantastic, Damian! And thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.

Damian: No problem at all. Thank you. So, let’s get started. Number one, up front, can

you provide a little bit, a brief overview of your experience - your background - to include

your education, but leading up to your marketing experience if marketing was not your

first career choice? 

David: Well, marketing was not my first career choice. I’ll give you a very, very quick

rapid fire summary. I actually started college in the pre-med program. So, I thought I

was going to be a doctor but it just didn’t work out when I failed out of chemistry,

physics, and calculus all in the same semester. So, I had to abandon my plans of being

a highly paid medical practitioner, and just for the “money making potential” I switched

over to drama and theater. So, I actually graduated college as a drama major. I have a

master’s degree, an MFA. I then went on to two years of graduate school. I have an

MFA in theater directing. I did a lot of stage directing, assistant managing, assistant

directing, literary managing in New York City. Off broadway, off-off broadway,

Manhattan Punch Line, River Side Shakespeare festival, all kinds of fabulous things.

Did that for about three or four years and my part time job during that whole time was

teaching English as a second language at the graduate school where I had graduated

from ... which was City University of New York. And a friend of mine said “Hey, you’re

pretty good at this teaching thing. You could do that teaching thing for companies and

they call it “corporate training.” And you might even be able to make a better living in

corporate training than you can being a theater flunky. So, I did that and got my first

corporate training job in 1992, and that led to two other jobs. I always worked in the

corporate world. I always worked in either big consulting firms or technology firms. So,

that’s my background as far as the industry. I worked for a small boutique, technology

consulting firm in Delaware. I then moved on to work for a big global HR consulting firm,

Towers Perrin. That job was in Philadelphia here in my hometown. And then I moved

from that job to working for PeopleSoft, which is a big tech company. Since that time

they were bought out by Oracle, a big sorta financial and HR database systems and

things like that. So, 2001, the very end of 2001, left the corporate world not knowing

what I was going to do and I went out as an independent trainer-coach-speaker guy.

And I made every mistake in the book, Damian. I mean talk about being in school and

learning all of these different things. I went to the school of hard knocks when it came to

sales, marketing, business development. I went out with no specialty, no niche, no

game plan, no nothing. And three or four years into it I realized “You know, this isn’t

very successful”. So, what I need to do is focus on a topic and focus on a market and

focus on a message, and that’s when I decided that small business marketing and

entrepreneurship was really where my passion was and that’s what people were coming

to me for naturally. So, as soon as I made the decision to make that easy and do what

people were coming to me for the flood gates opened. And I’ve had my head screwed

on straight now for about seven or eight years.

Damian: Okay. So, was that when you actually started up Do It! Marketing? Seven,

eight years ago?

David: Well, I started my company in 2001. So, I’m on my... it’ll be coming up on my

eleventh anniversary actually this month. A little later in August of 2012 will be my

eleventh anniversary of business. But again, for the first few years of that I had a

different company name So, it wasn’t focused on marketing. It was focused on...it

wasn’t focused at all. So, eleven years of entrepreneurship, about seven or eight years

focused on small business growth/small business marketing. 

Damian: Okay. Gotcha. Could you describe some of the success of  Do It! Marketing in

terms of stats, figures, your clientele?

David: Boy, well, I think the biggest success ... and, again, I’m dealing with

entrepreneurial marketing. So, most of my clients ... most of the work I do is for very

small companies or even companies of one. So, a lot of solo consultants, speakers,

authors, independent professionals, business owners, CEO’s of small three, four, five

person companies. That’s where I operate. The biggest success there is seeing people

take the potential that they’re already sitting on, whether it’s marketing potential, product

potential, service potential, any fabulous thing that they’re having a very hard time

communicating it’s fabulousness to the market place, deciding who are the best buyers,

who are the most likely prospects, how can I offer value, how can I earn attention to

make them aware of what I do and the value I can bring. Have them implements a plan

we work out together, and then see the results. So, one example, for example, if you’re

asking for a success story, for instance, I worked with a barter network, like a barter

exchange service. And they were having a really hard time getting new members. They

were having a really hard time facilitating their barter network exchange. And what we

decided was simply this: their price was too low. So, we took their price and we tripled it.

They had a small sales team, about three or four people. Sales people were incredibly

resistant to tripling the prices. “Oh, no one’s going to buy.” and “People aren’t going to

sign up and we’re going to be much worse then when we started.” Well, the CEO

believed in what we were working on together insisted that they triple the price for at

least 90 days. They got more new members in that 90 day period...and they kept the

price, the new price, long afterwards. But they had got more members in those 90 days

than they had in that entire year previously after they tripled their prices their prices

went way up, because the perceived value went way up and the trust went up. I have a

million success stories like that were people making small changes or sometimes big

changes and seeing terrific results because they stuck with the program. 

Damian: Gotcha. Very interesting. So, what was the most difficult part of the startup

process?

David: Well, I remember ... you know, I’m sure if you ask a 100 business owners what

was the most difficult part of starting your business you get a 100 different answers. You

know, initially, when you declare a specialty, and you declare a niche, and you say

these are my people, this is my tribe, and these are the folks I’m dedicated to serving

the big fear that keeps you up at night is “Oh my gosh, no one is going to come. I’m

cutting myself off from the rest of the market. I’m leaving all this money on the table by

saying ‘I don’t work with these people, I don’t work on those projects, I don’t do this kind

of work’”. And the biggest obstacle is in most business owner’s heads. It certainly was in

my. And it’s that scarcity thinking versus the abundance thinking. So, as soon as you

realize that if you dedicate yourself to a particular group of people, a particular group of

prospects, a particular industry, and if you focus your offering on a small narrowly

defined high value set of products and services you will automatically distinguish

yourself from all of the competition. People talk about the differentiation. Differentiation

is no longer enough. I think we’re now at a level I call distinction. So, the only two jobs in

marketing, and, this is the hardest part to answer your question, is how to articulate your

distinction. How do you put into words what you have to offer, product, service,

program, whatever it is, is better, faster, smarter, cooler, cheaper, more fabulous, more

effective, more powerful than any other alternative? So, a lot of the times when people

are starting a business, they’re So, focused on the competitive analysis and the

competition that they forget that sometimes the biggest competition is your alternatives.

And by alternatives I mean “do nothing” is a huge alternative and very attractive. “I’ll do

it myself,” is a huge alternative and very attractive to some people. Sometimes buying

from the competition isn’t even on the radar of your prospects. But the stronger

alternatives are 1) do nothing - ignore the problem - 2) do it myself - get out the duct

tape, get out the glue, get out the hammer, and fix the problem myself, and the third

option is work with someone like you but if you’re the person who is in front of the buyer

at that point they’re not doing a lot of comparison shopping. It’s either you or one of the

other alternatives. Once I learned that lesson... that was the difficult part of my

business, is not being worried about the competition and really understanding that I was

really competing with the mortgage check as you are always doing when you are selling

to small and medium business size owners. And how to thrive in that environment. How

to make that value proposition. How to make that articulation and distinction clear for

myself was the biggest hurdle.

Damian: Gotcha. And that does actually lead into the next question which concerns

your marketing strategy. You’ve described how integrated the marketing strategy is with

your actual business model or the way you actually move forward with the operations.

So, and you’ve explained how that evolved, thank you for that. Next up, we’ve got a

question regarding your view or your opinion on the changes in the marketing realm

over the last 15-20 years.

David: So, let me give you...I’ll break it down further beyond 15-20 years. I’ll say that for

about 3,000 years we’ve been in the era of people buying from their friends. So,So,So,

starting with the cave man, starting with the Greeks, starting with the Romans, starting

with the medieval people that lived in castles. You know, when you were buying meat

you knew the butcher. When you were buying candles you knew the candle stick maker.

When you were buying bread you knew who the baker was. So, we bought from people

who we were already familiar with. Then around 1950, we have the era of TV and radio

advertising. So, mass marketing. Now we bought because TV told us to buy, or the

radio told us to buy, or the big advertising billboards and magazines told us to buy. And

that last until about 1995. In 1995, we entered the era of the internet. Internet shopping,

amazon.com, whole bunch of commercial websites came online. Now you didn’t need

the ads. You didn’t need your friends. You were like “Oh my gosh! I can buy a book on

amazon.com! I can buy boots from LLBean.com! This is fabulous! This is awesome!”

And that lasted about ten years of internet web commerce. Around 2005 when social

media first started to get popular, Facebook was still just for college students. LinkedIn

was around for a few years already. There was no twitter. A few people were blogging,

not a lot, nowhere near what there is today. And people started to realize “Hey, I need

to buy from experts. So, I don’t just need to go to the plumber down the street. I want to

go to the plumbing expert.” “If I wanna buy a flower arrangement for my favorite

client/my wife/my girlfriend/my boyfriend I want to go to a flower arranging expert.” So,

after the internet era, starting in 2005 all the way until today, the way I characterize

marketing is: we buy from experts because of our friends. So, word of mouth marketing,

who have you used, who have I used, who has a great review on Yelp, who are we

talking about on Facebook, who are we connecting with when you put an email out to

your friends. “Hey where did you get that fabulous refrigerator when I came to your

house for that cocktail party/that picnic? Yeah, this awesome refrigerator. Where did

you get that because I would like a refrigerator just like that? And that’s how we buy

things. And that’s how commerce happens. So, that’s how marketing had to adjust. And

when people say, “Oh my gosh, you know, word of mouth and the customer is So,

empowered and everything is about transparency now,” you have to realize that’s

exactly how it was for 3,000 years before 1950. And it shouldn’t be upsetting. And it

shouldn’t be a surprise. And it should be the way business has always been done. We

simply took about a 50-60 year detour from that with mass marketing and the internet,

and now we’re back. And now it’s magnified and amplified by the internet, but it’s still

the same way we used to do things in the 19th century. That we buy from people we

know and trust.

Damian: And it seems that the time at which you figured out your exact marketing

strategy and your business model was the same time the that social network really took

off. So, would you say that they go hand in hand? That you figured out the social

networking thing?

David: Well, Damian (garble), which I appreciate, I would say it was probably more than

accident. But I will tell a very quick and funny story not to toot my own horn but to just to

show how important some of these social networks are. Around that same time around

2005-2006, I went up to a big association meeting up here in Philadelphia. And part of

the agenda was how to use LinkedIn for business. This was 2006. So, this was six plus

years ago and it was a pretty edgy topic at that point. Well people said “Hey you know

what we’ll do” ... and it was a facilitator, it wasn’t me, I was just in the audience. The

facilitator said, “Let’s bring up your LinkedIn profile up on the big screen here, on the

projector behind me, and let’s see who you’re connected to in this room.” Which I think

was a pretty cool exercise. Well, one person raised their hand and said, “Hey, you

know, my name is Little Suzy Cream-cheese.” He went into LinkedIn did a search and

found them and said “Okay, you want to connect with somebody else in the room?” And

somebody else in the room raised their hand. Now I didn’t know either of these people

all that well or hardly at all to my knowledge. One pairing, when LinkedIn shows you

who’s the common connection, their common connection was David Newman...was me.

Then the person did it a second time with two completely different people. So, it’s like

“Oh! Person A wants to connect with person Z over there. Who’s the common

connection? David Newman.” And this running joke because people were pointing to

me in the back of the room going “Hey who is this guy?” Now again that was 2006 and

that was a very non, you know, and I include myself in this ... that was a very non-social

media savvy group because LinkedIn was just getting wide recognition as a social

networking tool for business. But you’re right! I think you’re absolutely right that the

evolution of social media and blogging and all of the tools we now have at our

disposal...If you do have a good grip on your articulation and distinction, like I did back

starting around 2005, it’s a huge magnifier. It helps you spread that articulation. It helps

you spread that message. It helps more people be aware of you So, you can invite

engagement and offer value. And I know one of the questions we’ll talk about later is

“What’s your definition of marketing? What’s the most important part of marketing?”

What I just said right there I think is key. If you redefine marketing as inviting and

offering; number one, you’ll get all the negative connotations out of your head; but,

number two, it’s going to become very easy to say” Well, what can I offer this prospect?

What piece of content? What piece of insight? What piece of advice can I offer my

prospect to help them be more successful whether they buy from me or not. And, then

how do I invite engagement in case they want to go beyond that initial nibble, they want

to go beyond that initial bite that I’ve baited my fishing hook with, and they want the full

meal. So, how can I invite them into a deeper relationship with me and my business?”

So, inviting and engaging I think is the new flavor of marketing. And, certainly, what you

said, the social networks, LinkedIn, blogging, all the social media tools that we have

make that within every business’s reach, especially today.

Damian: Okay. Now you mentioned you would do these things whether they buy from

you or not. So, what would you say to those who suggest that using social networks as

a passive tool for just conversation only is time wasted because you’re not actually

focusing on leads or focusing on sales?

David: Well, you know, there’s a middle ground. So, you bring up and excellent,

excellent point. I’m not suggesting that we use social media just for purely social

passive, “Hey, I’m here. How you doing? What’s up? What’s cooking? Here’s my kid at

a baseball game. Here’s my new car. What’s everyone doing this weekend?” But I think

on the other end of that spectrum, people who use social media just for selling ... And, I

had a guy a couple years ago who just made me insane. “Everyone of my social media

postings has to have a link,” and I would say, “Well, linked to what?” He says “Linked to

one of my sales pages, linked to a product, linked to a service, linked to a selling

opportunity.” If I don’t put every single tweet, every single Facebook post, every single

LinkedIn message...If it doesn’t have a sales link it...I’m just putting a whole bunch of

dead end junk out there and I’m never going to sell anything. So, he took social media

180 degrees the other way where, “Hey, social media is great! It’s 10 new places to

market my crap! And I can push my services and products down people’s throats

unwillingly.” That’s a huge mistake. So, what’s the middle ground? The middle ground

between being totally passive and totally sales focused is be prospect focused. And it is

a huge difference between being sales focused and being prospect focused. If you think

of a prospect and think of yourself as a trusted advisor. The definition of a trusted

advisor which might be your lawyer, your accountant, your best friend, your dad, you

mom, we have all kinds of trusted advisors everywhere in our lives, a trusted advisor,

the definition is someone who puts your interest above their own. That’s So, important

I’m going to repeat that. A trusted advisor is someone who puts your interests above

their own. So, if we’re out there in a social media marketing/social media selling

situation the most effective way to do that is with what I call “trusted advisor marketing.”

Trusted advisor marketing is “What do these people need to know or say or do? What

templates or tools or articles or blogs or videos could I create that would help them

become more successful whether they use me or not?” That’s a very important quote

that I’m glad that you underlined, because when it does come time for them to reach out

for paid professional help, or when it does come time to invest in a product or a service

that I can provide, I’m going to be top of mind because I already built that trust. I already

built that relationship. They already know they can count on me to help them in a non-

buying mode, So, when they’re ready to buy I’m choice number one on their speed dial.

Damian: And that’s exactly the case here with this interview. Sounds good. Besides

social networks, what other mediums do you believe to be invaluable?

David: Well, it’s So, funny that you ask this because I’ve always preached this. This is

our problem in marketing, and I think you’re in the same situation here as an emerging

marketer, emerging entrepreneur and student of all this. By the way, I also consider...I

have to give you credit because So, many people start out and they go through a

program or they emerge from some previous career, some previous adventure, and

they immediately label themselves a guru or an expert. I tell people “You know what, I’m

not an expert. I’m constantly seeking expertise. If you really look at that work expert.

The root of that word, expert, is really about studying. It’s about studying and learning

and always being open. And the top experts in the field, certainly the top experts in the

marketing field, that you and I are in, always are learning. They’re always going to

conferences and seminars. They’re always interviewing their peers like you and I are

doing right now. They’re always learning from each other and connecting the dots. So, I

don’t consider myself a guru and I think that people that label themselves a guru...run

the other way as fast as you possibly can. So, I started saying that I started preaching

this and teaching this a few years ago. Never did it myself. Never did the strategy

myself. The strategy is hand written notes. Not email. Not phone calls. Not mail merge

letters. Not batch and blast a thousand letters to a mailing list you buy off the internet.

Hand written note. Hand written note to people that you know. Hand written note to

people you don’t know. Hand written note to people you would like to establish a

relationship with. Hand written note to someone you met at a networking event or a

conference or a convention. It’s amazing to me! So, I got back from a convention in July

and I wrote out about 20 hand-written letters ... hand-written notes. I have a fun little

letter head, a little Do It! Marketing letter head that I put this on. And I stuck these in an

envelope, and I hand addressed these, and put a stamp on them. Well, I can’t tell you

about all the things I’ve tried. My mailing list is about six or seven thousand people now.

I’ve got a whole bunch of followers on all kinds of social media platforms. The reaction I

got from those 20 individuals, some of whom were friends, some of whom were new

friends, some of whom might be prospects at some point in the future, some of whom

might be prospects immediately. The reaction I got, the thank you notes, the emails, the

phone messages, the tweets, the texts...I mean, if you go to my Facebook page right

now, this is mostly just for you Damian because I know this interview is going to be

evergreen. But right now, I’ve got on my Facebook wall it says “Oh my God! Dude,

thanks for that letter! You’re awesome! You’re incredible!” Now, you and I could send a

100 emails. We could send a 100 social media messages, we could leave a 100 voice

mails. Nothing, nothing is as powerful as that hand written note that says “Hey, I took

the time and the energy to invest in a personalized message from me to you.” People

get it. And, again, this might be going back to 3000 years ago, 1000 years ago, 150

years ago. The person-to-person connection, regardless of the internet, regardless of

web, regardless of email, maybe even because we have So, much electronic

communication as our fingertips the person to person email/voice-to-voice phone call is

important now more than ever. Jeffery Gitomer who is a huge sales author, sales

expert, sales guru. He says “You don’t need more prospects, you need more friends”.

And I totally endorse that quote. He this like 15 years ago, like 1995. He didn’t mean

Facebook friends. He meant real friends looking forward to receiving your note, looking

forward to seeing your name on their caller ID on the phone. So, the hand written note...

I can’t tell you how that personal touch makes a huge huge impact no matter what your

selling or marketing.

Damian: Very Interesting. So, what company besides Do It! Marketing do you believe

exemplifies marketing at it’s best?

David: Well, again, thank you for that embedded compliment. Let me correct you. That

story that I just told will tell you that Do It! Marketing does not exemplify marketing at it’s

best. Now, teaching marketing, perfect! Actually doing it for our own business...that’s a

developing skill. It’s like the shoemaker’s children have no shoes because you’re doing

a great job for other people but when it comes to applying this to yourself “Oh, I don’t

have time. I’m too busy.” There’s always a million reasons not to do it for yourself, even

though you’re coaching and consulting and teaching other people to do it and they’re

getting terrific results. I’m not one of those folks to hold up as an example of doing this

in my own business. Although I’m learning. Like the hand written notes story, I’m

starting to implement my own medicine. Let me answer your question this way...it’s sort

of a non-answer. One of the most frustrating things as I go around the country I do

these marketing seminars, I speak to association groups, I speak to companies, all

kinds of groups. If I go in there and say “Okay, you’re running a 10 person plumbing

company,” or “You’re running a 100 person IT consulting firm.” If I come in there I say

“Well, you know, let’s look at some of these brilliant marketers. Let’s look at Apple

computers. Let’s look at Walmart. Let’s look at, you know, what is Dell doing? Let’s look

at Comcast. Let’s look at all these big giant companies.” I can give you a 100 reasons

why Apple is a brilliant marketing company. You as a business owner, if you’re running

a 5, 10, 15 person company, there is no usefulness. There is no less you can learn from

Apple above and beyond admiration and “Oh gosh. Wow. That’s really cool.” But you

don’t have a 1000 people working in research and development. You’re not able to

spend 500-600 million dollars on marketing of your products and services. So, I think

one of the big disservices that I no longer do, and, I use to be as guilty as the next guy, I

had great examples from all these big giant companies, and these people would come

up to me after my program and say “Well, how do I do what Apple is doing? How do I do

what Dell is doing? How do I do what Walmart is doing? How do I do what Heinz is

doing? How do I do what these giant corporations are doing? How do I apply that to my

business?” And I would say “You know, that’s a great question. I don’t think you can.”

So, I stopped using those examples on purpose of these big giant companies unless

you’re also running a big giant company. So, what can Samsung learn from Apple?

Well, plenty! What can you and I learn from Apple? They do a great job at marketing.

They have a million times the resources that you and I could every hope to implement.

So, beyond and interesting case study sharing big giant company examples with small

business owners is really irrelevant. It’s interesting, but it’s not really relevant.

Damian: Gotcha. Alright. So, now some theory questions. Is there an ethical code

within marketing? And is this code debatable?

David: I think the larger question is...you know, take out marketing. Because sometimes

marketing and sales are both demonized as “Oh, there’s no ethics in marketing.” and

“There’s certainly no ethics with sales people.” Ask yourself “Is there an ethical code in

business?” If there is an ethical code in business, then it applies to human resources,

and accounting, and finance, and strategy, and marketing, and sales, and operations,

and distribution, and everything else. If there isn’t an ethical code in business then it

doesn’t matter if you’re in marketing or sales or any of those other functions that I just

mentioned. Should there be ethics in business? Absolutely. Do most people practice

business ethically? Absolutely. What makes the headlines in the Wall Street Journal

and New York Times and USA Today, it’s when people don’t practice business ethically.

And, you know it’s funny, with all these ethics scandals going all the way back to 2008

you could look at Enron and AIG, Lehman Brothers, all the way up to the most recent

scandals of the day, whatever they may be, it was never the marketing department that

caused any of this. It was embezzling money, covering things up, cooking numbers. It

was accounting. It was finance. It was taxes. It was reporting. It was all these

operational financial things. I don’t think there’s ever been, I could be wrong, I don’t

think there’s ever been a major major lawsuit or a major major scandal around unethical

marketing or unethical selling. In 1970’s and 80’s there was a whole thing about truth in

advertising, but there was enough lawsuits with truth in advertising to make disclaimers

and things like that that those laws passed with flying colors. And we need those laws

by the way. So, not disparaging those. But all the major major scandals, it’s never been

around the marketing function or the sales function. It’s always been around finance and

greed and lying.

Damian: Right. And, I’d agree with you but just to play devil’s advocate here I’ll throw

out an example perhaps. Maybe not a very good one but in order to see how you would

react to it. Take McDonald’s and people who said they made them fat. How would you

address that?

David: Well, I don’t think McDonald’s marketing made them fat. I think McDonald’s food

made them fat. Same thing with cigarettes, right? Now cigarettes there was a huge

lie...now go back to truth in advertising. Back, and, again, in the 1970’s and 1980’s, this

is why every pack of cigarettes now says “These cigarettes will kill you.” Pretty much

point blank. “These cigarettes cause cancer.” “These cigarettes cause birth defects.” If

you’re an adult person at age 18 or 21 or over and you still say “Hey, I’m going to buy

these cigarettes that are proven to shorten my life, cause cancer, stroke, or heart

attacks and birth defects. Is it my God given right to do that cigarette?” Sure. “Is it my

God given right to jump out of airplanes and do cliff diving and bungee jumping? Are

those things dangerous?” Of course. So, I think there’s an element of ethical messaging

and there’s also an element of freedom of choice. You could make the same argument

with guns, tobacco, alcohol, lot of things are bad for you. I remember, I’ll tell you a quick

story just about the sort of whole ethics in marketing thing. I walked around the

neighborhood a few years ago on Halloween, Trick-or-Treating with my kids and one of

the dads, there was like four or five dads, four or five backpacks of kids, and the kids

were going up to the door and going ding-dong, Trick-or-Treat, get the candy and come

back. And the parents were staying on the side walk. One of the little girls comes

out...one of the dads I was walking with lit a cigar. It was a beautiful fall night, he had

some cigars, he offered the rest of us dads cigars. I guess he offered the moms cigars

too if they wanted them. Little girl who was trained apparently by the school system that

smoking is not ethical, smoking is not healthy, smoking is bad for you. This wasn’t her

dad by the way, this was another dad. She comes back from the Trick-or-Treat door.

She looks at this other kid’s dad and says “Oh, you know, smoking is bad for you.” Now

without missing a beat he turns to this little kid and says, “Compared to what?” Smoking

is bad for you compared to what? I could be doing crack-cocaine. I could be over

indulging and get alcohol poisoning, and drink a quart of whisky. So, you can’t say this

is good, this is bad. The answer really is compared to what. So, is there ethics in

marketing? Well, sure. Are there some flaws like with McDonald’s? Are there some

ethical lapses in marketing? Yes. How bad are they? I don’t know. Compared to what?

You know, compared to killing babies in Africa? Well...I don’t know.

Damian: Right. Alright. So, you mentioned the milestone in the 50’s with the advent of

the television and the radio, and how marketing changed because of that. Do you

believe that change was or had a positive or negative impact on society in general not

necessarily in terms of marketing?

David: Well, I think it had a negative impact and I’ll tell you why. And this is also new

So, this is a whole new environment that I’m about to share with you does not apply So,

much today. But, you know, 1950’s, 1960’s, very popular TV show MAD MEN is all

about this era, people were trained, American public, maybe even the global public, was

trained to buy what they were told to buy and do what they were told to do. So, if you

had enough dollars to buy enough TV ads, radio ads, billboards, magazines, newspaper

advertising your message could be every... you could actually brute force your

marketing and your message and your products and your services on to a pretty

compliant public that weren’t really quite like sheep, but pretty close to it. And, we

managed to train ourselves to buy whats on TV. That’s breakfast cereal and all kinds of

other junk food and fried food, fast food, candy, cigarettes, toys, video games, whatever

it was if you could throw enough advertising dollars into it you could basically brain

wash the American public. So, I think that had a negative impact from a larger social

perspective simply because people were very open to messages that other people were

putting out there for corporate profit. And people were not making decisions for there

own good but because everyone else was making that decision too. And there wasn’t a

lot of peer to peer information...word of mouth...the word of mouth network was either

write someone a letter or pick up the phone and do a phone call. No web. No email. No

social media. No 24/7 CNN online access. Things were very very limited today you

almost say people were isolated back in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, before the internet, before

email, before social networks. So, they were more likely to buy because they were told

to buy. Is that a good thing? I don’t think So,. I think, you know, now, today, fast forward

the picture, all the power is with the consumers. Consumers don’t even listen to

messages, marketing messages, that they don’t want to listen to. So, between TiVo and

DVR’s on the TV; your iPod, Pandora music no one listens to radio advertising.

Everyone gets their news off the web So, newspaper advertising is decimated over the

last 5 or 10 years. We sort our physical mail over the recycling bin So, you can’t junk

mail through. Do not call list and caller ID that totally messed up telemarketers for

good...this is all for good by the way. So, the consumer, whether I’m a business-to-

business consumer, or a business-to-consumer consumer, but I’m buying goods,

services, products programs, I get to listen to what I want to listen to. And we’re living in

an attention economy. And the attention economy simply means this: first you have to

earn their attention and then you get the chance to earn their dollars. It used to be

the other way where the big advertisers, they could force their way into attention. They

could buy up all the TV time, all the radio time, all the full page ads in the papers and

magazines and glossy magazines. Not So, anymore. Now it’s voluntary attention and

it’s voluntary buying. And people buy what they want to buy for their reasons, on their

time table, with their friends as their advisors or their peers in the business world as

their advisors. And, you don’t have much control anymore. So, the power has totally

shifted I think in a good way, a healthy way, that people have to do their own research,

come to their own conclusions, and make their own buying decisions. Their not buying

because I saw the commercial on the TV 175 times.

Damian: Awesome. So, let’s jump in the time machine again and go to the future. So,

what does marketing look like in the future? Near term changes that we can expect or

completely a new revolution on a distant horizon. What do you see?

David: Well, I think on one level, you know, the technology is always going to change.

So, you and I were talking about Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and all these

social things. In ten years it’s conceivable, not likely, but conceivable that people will not

know Facebook. “Facebook? Gosh, what was Facebook?” That was a very interesting

historical perspective kind of like laser discs on the TV which came in between VHS

tapes and DVD’s. It was a totally extinct technology. So, it’s possible Facebook will go

by the wayside, Twitter will be replaced by something new, LinkedIn will be replaced by

something new. What’s not going to change is relationships, and resources, and

reciprocity. And those ... I call those the three R’s of marketing. So, relationships, like I

said, for 3000 years we made purchasing decisions based on our relationships.

Resources is that servant mindset, that servant leader mindset, that trusted advisor

mindset. What resources can I share with you that can improve your condition, be

valuable to you whether we decide to do business together or not? And then reciprocity

is “Hey, you gave me something fabulous. You did something great for me, now when it

comes time to spend my hard earned dollars I’m going to reward you with that

reciprocity, because you helped me for free. Now I’m read to buy I’m going to look at

you as one of the top people that I can buy from because you were So, useful to me as I

was getting ready to buy. That’s how I’d look at marketing to by the way. Marketing

used to be marketing to strangers and marketing 24/7 at anytime, anywhere, morning,

noon and night. Now I think we have to redefine marketing as we are marketing to

people who are in the process of getting ready to buy. So, it’s not a numbers game now,

it’s a timing game. I might be ready to buy tomorrow, I might be ready to buy next week,

I might be ready to buy next month or next year. But if you look at most of where your

customers come from, especially in professional services, you know, more service

businesses than products. You can buy detergent this week, next week, last week. That

doesn’t matter. But when you’re looking to chose an accountant, or a consultant, or a

webmaster (someone to design your website), you are going to be ready at a certain

point and time. Until you’re ready you are researching, learning, collecting information,

collecting data, things that will help you make a...be a more educated consumer and

make a better decision. Sometimes that decision is to not do it at all. Sometimes that

decision is to do it yourself. Sometimes that decision is to buy from the person that is

So, helpful to you. But, anyway, if I look at the marketing process, buying facilitation, I’m

going to help you buy or help you make a buying decision at some point in the future. I

don’t know when that future is, but the more people I help to buy the more number of

those people will buy from me. I guarantee it. It’s true in my business. It’s true in your

business. It’s true for anyone listening to us in this conversation. The more that you help

people to buy, in general, the more of those people will buy from you.

Damian: Very nice way to cap this interview off. This has been absolutely excellent.

Very insightful. And, you have made more sense of my questions than there was

actually sense in the questions. So, thank you for that. David can you go ahead and

provide your contact information?

David: Yes, absolutely. Well, there’s a ton of free resources on my website which is

www.doitmarketing.com. There’s a blog there. There’s a link right on the homepage for

free resources. So, there’s free downloads, free marketing e-books, free tools, free

templates, free worksheets, help yourself to anything and everything there. There’s also

a 97 page strategic marketing e-book that’s yours for free. You simply go to

www.doitmarkting.com, you’ll see the big cover of that ebook, all my social media links

are there, my email address is there. If I can helpful to you in any way please let me

know.

Damian: Awesome. I definitely plan on going to your website and partaking. David,

thank you again.

David: Damian, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. It was great talking to you.

Damian: Good talking to you. Alright, take care.

David: Alright, thanks So, much.

Damian: I trust that anyone who was listening to this interview on the internet found it

just as insightful as I did. Please do look up David Newman at www.doitmarketing.com

for any of your marketing needs. As you could surely tell he is a well spring of

information regarding marketing. And, though he would not like to be called a guru or an

expert, I most certainly will. If you would like to learn more about me personally you can

visit my blog at www.blog.damianniolet.me hope to see you there! Take care.