Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for Small Business Owners with Guest Jay Smith

Full Transcript Jay Smith 0:00 So we pivoted on that last month and I had a client who we made a template and we pressure washed their logo. Because I saw that somewhere. I saw a company, I think it was in Great Britain who does that regularly. And so it was saying they spent, you know, $150 to have a large vinyl template made of their logo, and their downtown. So the sidewalks are old and pretty dark and all that and go out there and it lasts for, I think it's been, it's been almost a month now. And it's still there. And then, so they didn't just do it in front of their business. So they went, they kept going. You may want to write as a you may want to, you know, maybe just do some arrows or some smiley faces. And I said, I don't know, I'll put your logo in front of other people. But they got so excited because it looks so cool. Monica Pitts 0:58 You're on mission, and you just need more people to know about it. And whether you're brand new to marketing or a seasoned pro. We are all looking for answers to make marketing decisions with purpose. I'm Monica Pitts, a techie crafty business owner, mom and aerial dancer who solves communication challenges through technology. This podcast is all about digging in and going digital. I'll share my marketing know how and business experience from almost 20 years of misadventures. I'll be your backup dancer. So you can stop doubting and get moving towards marketing with purpose. Hello, again, and welcome back to marketing with purpose. My name is Monica Pitts, and I'm going to be your host today. And with me, I have guest Jay Smith, and his bio is so fun that I'm actually going to read it to you before I start asking him to tell you about himself. And okay, so But first, he's gonna tell us about guerilla guerrilla marketing tactics for small business owners. And I'm really excited. And if you guys jump over to his website, he'll give you a link to it. He's got a whole list of them like a laundry list, I'm sure that you're gonna find one that's totally going to work for your business. But Jay is a former cybersecurity nerd, private investigator, Army Veteran, trucking manager and coder with a psychology degree who fails to see guardrails when looking for ways to make his digital marketing clients standout. Wow. Okay, so with that, Jay, I feel like you should let us know how those jobs have, like, brought you to where you are today and made you an awesome Digital Marketer. Jay Smith 2:41 Wow. That's, that's quite an intro Monica. And before we get started, I just want to say how much I love your podcast, like they bring so much value to your listeners and to your guests. It's, it's really refreshing to listen to, and you have so many different angles. It's, it's, it's pretty difficult to distill all of the things that I've done in the past that have kind of narrowed down to the to the point that we are right now. Just just say, I'm multi passionate, I am always curious, I'm always poking and hacking and tearing things apart. And thing, one thing leads to another and I ended up in cybersecurity. And then I got my private investigator license, and then the pandemic kind of wipes that out because the courts were closed. So I went back to what I had been doing for over a decade, which was building websites, and doing marketing and, and because I was so heavily involved in BNI that's what everyone knew I was capable of helping them with their digital issues. So I just kind of pivoted there, and I've been doing that for a couple years now. Is there I don't have my license anymore. As a private investigator, people always love to ask our did you look at me? Did you look me up? I'm like, No, you're not paying me to I'm not gonna Monica Pitts 3:54 is there like one particular skill that maybe you learned in one of those jobs that you feel like, kind of allows you to set yourself apart from the rest or like makes you really good at what you're doing today? Jay Smith 4:08 I do. I think it's so when it comes to cybersecurity, whether you're a good guy or bad guy, you're all hackers. And it's true. It's the same tools. It's the same practices, it's just one is decided to be a criminal and one is not. And really, you know, as you're learning to break into systems or hardened systems, you you really discover that there are no, there's never there's never an answer you can't get to you just got to be able to dig to it far enough or have the resources to get to it. There's always a solution. And I think that's kind of if you read my rambling massive About Me page and why the root of pie. you'll kind of see what I'm getting at there. Monica Pitts 4:51 I think I 100% agree with you because like that's one of my biggest frustrations with other web developers and especially tech people is they get It really safe in their own little universe. And then you ask them to do something. And they'll be like, Oh, no, that can't be done. And I'm like, Oh, that is not the answer my friend, that everything can be done. It might not be fun, but it can be done. And you just gotta like, dig at it until you find it. Right? Absolutely. So how did you You wandered into business through cybersecurity and your private investigator, but you started in this business, right? And then you walked away into cybersecurity. So how did you get started web design and digital marketing. Jay Smith 5:32 Sort of so about 15 years ago, I was still managing truck drivers. But on the side, I really got interested in and enjoyed blogging. And I was kind of doing it in from a personal finance angle. But then I also started learning HTML and CSS. And then I learned WordPress. So websites and online stuff just kind of became my hobby. It's what I enjoy doing. And once I discovered that I could build basically anything I wanted, especially when I learned JavaScript. That was it, I was hooked. And that's what I enjoy so much about coding and building. I've built a few apps. I've been a part of a startup, I just I just love the idea that there's nothing you can't build. Really. Monica Pitts 6:15 Yeah. And and it solves so many problems. That's one of the things I love so much about web design. It's like I can, I can I love design, designing brochures and postcards and that kind of stuff, too. But when I build a website, I feel like I can solve a problem. And that is what makes it such a powerful tool in somebody's businesses that if you pair up with the right web developer, you can you can solve problems, like in your business and for yourself on the day to day and that that makes it really, really fun. Okay, so, um, you propose the idea of guerilla marketing tactics for small business owners, and that is like, I almost feel like guerilla marketing is kind of a buzzword. So I thought maybe we could start with what do you think that is like? What should other people think it is? Probably. Jay Smith 7:01 Yeah, I use the term because people have heard it before. And it's it's from 1984, honestly, a writer wrote a book guerilla marketing, Jay Levinson. And at the time, some of those tactics that are from the original guerilla marketing are a little gross, like astroturfing, which is basically getting fake reviews. And just overtaking someone else's event with some sort of virality. Some of these tactics, they have worked with big splashes, Salesforce pulled it off, several years ago. But I use that term, mainly to kind of shift the idea that what it really is, is looking at low cost, organic, original, and engaging ways to market as opposed to writing a check for a dashboard full of impressions, and you're not sure if that's bringing your business or not. Yeah, and Monica Pitts 7:57 I feel like right now everybody feels like there's no one way, you're just gonna post stuff on social media. And I'm like, wow, that stinks. We need to broaden your horizons, because you have access to so many more things, so many more things that you can use to market your business, I just don't think that people, they just see that one path, right, that path that writing the cheque or making that post, and they just hope that something's gonna go viral eventually, and I don't know, I don't know if it will, I don't know, like, Jay Smith 8:29 write it all, it all, it all takes either either significant amount of money, or a significant amount of effort. And it's on a sliding scale, if you want to abdicate your entire marketing to someone else, and you want it to be very effective, you're going to spend a lot of money on them. If you're only going to spend a little bit of money, you're just going to get middling results. And you said something very interesting there, it's everybody's looking for that one thing. And that's actually kind of counterproductive. Because in today's world, standing out and not being just another, I'm the best web developer, or we, you know, we we give you the best looking lawn, or, you know, we it basically if you look in your town, and you look at every plumber website, they essentially all say the same thing, or every age back website, or, and everybody's just kind of following the pack. And that's on their web developers too. And then SEO is just trying to optimize for the same near me keywords, but you're not standing out. And that's, that's why a book like play bigger, where it talks about category creation is so important. Because really, in order to if you create your own vertical, and I have a coach who's helped me really kind of delve into this stuff, that's how you can really stand out and find your, we in our industry, we tend to think niching down means okay, I build websites for a check, or I you know, I only serve this person, but that's that's not really the way to look at it to be most effective. The way is to just plant your flag and say this is this is who I am, this is who I serve. And this is how I do it. And everyone can do that, regardless of their industry. Monica Pitts 10:10 being your authentic self, that's what I call it. Because when you are just like everybody else, they don't even remember you. And it's crazy because like you use the example of plumbers and each back and what's interesting between company to company, they almost all even have the same colors. And as a human being that remembers things in chunks of color. Literally. It's like, I don't know if it were the red plumber. Okay, there's lots of red plumbers, and there's lots of red HVAC, and if they're not red, they're blue. And so it's like one of the two and so even allowing yourself to pick a different color. Like there is a plumber that I found. That is pink. Wow, hot pink. They love it. They wear it on the side of their, their vans, everything's pink, they took their staff photo, they're all wearing fluorescent pink. I remember them. And I looked at a lot of plumbers websites, but I remember them because they were pink. So I think even just being like this is us where the pink plumbers like okay, Jay Smith 11:13 like that's a that's a that's a? Honestly it does. It sounds like a no brainer. But I don't I'm pretty certain no plumbers in my area do that? No, but I would do it. Monica Pitts 11:25 Yeah, exactly. So you're saying I think what I'm hearing is that, even if you employ a guerilla marketing technique, something that's going to like, kind of set you apart or be really organic and grassroots, low costs, you still have to adhere to the principle of being your authentic self, as you're representing yourself and making sure that you're not just trying to be like everybody else, no one will remember you at that point, like, Jay Smith 11:53 Absolutely, we see it on Instagram, a song snippet on Tik Tok, the same thing, a certain song will become popular with a certain dance. And everyone will break their necks to get into their kitchen to do the same song and the same dance to try and glom on to some of that some of that engagement, which doesn't in the end of the at the end doesn't. What is that? Like? What what does that bring you? And we do it in the real world too. And it's not. It's not like horrible to do. It's, it's a survival tactic. Like, okay, if this is what everyone else is doing, this must be what works. If I go stand on an island by myself and try to do something way out there and crazy, I might crash and burn. So it's like that safety and numbers kind of thing. And, you know, oftentimes, a lot of people do things, because that's what works. But if you if you're trying to break through, you're gonna have to rip off a band aid and try something new. In many cases. Monica Pitts 12:51 Yeah. And the Instagram or Tiktok video that we remember is the person in the panda costume, or the person that falls flat on their face and is brave enough to put it up. Monica Pitts 13:04 You gotta love those ones, right? Jay Smith 13:06 And then 100 People will intentionally fall on their face with the same music in order to try and just get that same count of impressions. And it's like that. What does that get you? Monica Pitts 13:17 Not not? I don't know. I don't I don't love the blooper videos, they like they're I'm old enough that America's Funniest Home Videos. You know, must see TV and now it's just YouTube. Right? They always Yeah. Okay, so tell me more about Guerilla Marketing. I want it like give me some tactics, tactics, something I can like, start making ideas with what are some things that you think are really cool, that might work really well for a small business. Jay Smith 13:48 So, okay, and I, like I see a lot of your customers are nonprofit, right? And I do I do work with a nonprofit here in Louisville. I don't work with many nonprofits. I work with one, just because I'm more of a services based business marketer. But what we did was we partnered them with high school students. If if you're in a market where you have several high schools, one or more of them is going to have a Social Media Club. One or more of them is going to have a graphic media club or a classes like mine does. And you're also going to have Future Business Leaders of America. You're going to have all kinds of clubs and organizations in that school with students who are eager to do something other than interview baseball players every Thursday night. And that's what we discovered here at our local high school we would they have a graphic media magnet program. These kids learn videography, they learn logo design, they learn everything they need to be digital marketers right out of high school. And we partnered with them and we started taking them to area businesses and doing work for them with them. So the kids are getting great experience in the real world. These businesses are getting work that would normally be extremely excited. ensive and they're getting the coolness factor of working with high school students, which leads it to a lot of social media fodder to use. So that's, that's where it's important to talk to people outside of your bubble outside of your sphere, don't, don't talk to, you know, if you're a nonprofit, don't sit at a table with 15 other nonprofits and say, We got to figure this out. Because you're all in the same bubble, you're reading the same books, you're, you're listening to the same pot, you're listening to make create, which is nothing wrong with that, but but if you were to bring in, bring in five high schoolers that, that do that or talk to somebody who runs their own retail store, they will glean a whole lot of information from you, and you will glean it from them, because you all are not listening to or consuming the same information whatsoever. And even when you're individually talking to people who help you with your marketing, you're getting totally different messages. Because no one talks to a nonprofit thinking like a retail marketer. But that's so that's what I mean by by organic guerilla marketing is like, you got to get away from the, okay, now I have a website. Now I need to pay for SEO and no need to pay someone to post on LinkedIn every other day. Those things are all just, they're just tactics, they're just deliverables, they are not what is really going to endear you and engage you and make you stand above other companies or nonprofits in your area. Monica Pitts 16:29 I like to what you said about how you need to go outside of your own bubble. Because I feel like having ideas in a vacuum is really difficult. I like I do most of the marketing for may create and it's not easy. Like it's not and I'm a marketer, if I have like a like impostor syndrome, sometimes like people will be like, hey, I want to do a consulting session with you. I want to talk to you about my nonprofits marketing or about my company's marketing. And I'm like, Oh, I mean, like, I just don't do I build websites, like I don't know. And then like, I get into the meeting with them, and they start talking and I'm like, oh, shoot, I got this all day, bum, bum bum bum 17 ideas, they're like, completely overwhelmed by all the ideas, I just, like, vomited at them. And, but it's just like, I can see it so clearly when I'm on the other side of the fence. And so I feel like having people that are on the other side of the fence to converse with, and, and bounce ideas around is a really powerful thing, because they're gonna start just like connecting dots that you've never seen before. I mean, and it can be really simple stuff, like I was talking to a nonprofit the other day, and they're like, well, we want to get more parent involvement, because they find that they they have involvement of young people. And then when people have kids for a while, they understand they're going to drop off. And then once they have kids that are older than they, the kids get involved, but they have a hard time getting the parents back involved. And I'm like, well send a flyer home with the kids after camp and invite them back for a like, here's what we did like gallery showing right there with the stuff that they did at camp and they were like, Oh my gosh, that's crazy. But what's the I wouldn't have thought of it if I was sitting in their shoes though, right? Like, as simple as send a flyer home? Just, I don't know, it's hard. It's, Jay Smith 18:21 it's a lot easier. I don't know what it is. I don't know what the, you know, the psychological terminology is for it. But we, you know, it's it's your inside the bottle, trying to read the label kind of thing. Like we can sit there and talk to someone else about all their business and their challenges. And we have all these ideas. But it's largely because we're Snowblind to what we look at everyday like, for what we do, we are obsessed with. It's all we think about, it's all we talk about, whether it's for us, for our clients, all we're talking about, it's all we're ever thinking about. It's all we consume. So, and I know that people who are tasked especially with a nonprofit where you know, your your job is to really grow and in most cases, you don't have a product. So you're you're trying to sell good feelings, which is which is difficult, especially when people are getting tighter with their money. Monica Pitts 19:13 Yeah, agreed. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. And that doesn't mean that it's sometimes not the right answer either. I think that's a hard piece that people often think, well, I need to sell. I need to give a gift to ask for a gift. And I don't know if I always agree with that. It's funny, my daughter just went and did a fundraiser for her school. She was just super motivated by the fact that she was going to get this remote control blow up robot if she sold 15 cards. And she went to every house on the street drug her dad with her like asked everyone she could find people she didn't know she was like I just have to sell 15 cars so I can get the Rock and Roll blow up robot. Okay, yeah, but not but adults don't always function like that. Okay. I know don't ever want the robot, I'll just do money Jay Smith 20:04 that reminds me of those slimy magazine campaigns and almonds, they used to make ourselves child labor when we were in elementary school. So we could try and win a pizza party for our class, because we sold the most for this company, it was just so gross. Monica Pitts 20:18 I know. And there's so motivated by it, I was just so proud of her because we're new to town and she, she's just gonna get it. She's gonna figure out how to sell these 15 things. But I feel like that's the tenacity that you can put behind. Guerilla Marketing is like, I'm gonna go get it doesn't matter. I'm gonna go walk by myself, I'm gonna go take the dog with me, I'm gonna make my dad take me I'm gonna go to this other street over here. Like, I'm just gonna do it. Because I'm getting the blow up remote control robot. Jay Smith 20:50 I gotta see this robot. Monica Pitts 20:51 Oh, I should get it from downstairs. It's weird. Doesn't even hold air that well. Oh, okay, so tell me about some of your favorite examples of guerilla marketing that you think are like really easy to implement, that somebody could just like, especially a new business might be able to just take and hit the ground running with. Jay Smith 21:14 Um, I mean, that's it's very, very dependent on on what you know how large your market is, and what other businesses are available. But one of the quickest ways is to really borrow someone else's market and authority. And that is, like we're doing get on someone else's podcast. But in a local sense, it's to partner with an established business, to your to your example, for nonprofits. And in with the holidays coming up, I would do some sort of gala event in your in your facility. So you've already got the facility taken care of spend a little money on food, have either an art show. And honestly, that's what I would do is have an art show and involve local high school students, because they love showing their art somewhere outside of the classroom. And then I would invite local small businesses to donate gift baskets of their products with their marketing materials in the baskets, we've we've done this to great effect in several nonprofits in Louisville. And so they get basically free advertising because their cost is nowhere near what they're charging for those products. But we've had they give away services, you know, a fleet of free plumbing upgrade, or a free, you know, car detailing, things like that, but it's got their branding all over it. And, really, that's just making use of all of your connections. Another, you know, it's not necessarily guerilla marketing, but for any nonprofit, I would encourage if they don't know about BNI, find a BNI chapter in your town. Because if they're anything like the ones out here, nonprofits are free to join and know that. Yeah, and that gives you access to 20 to 40 other business owners, who then are helping give you referrals, and and oftentimes are doing these kinds of events with your nonprofit. And that costs nothing but your time. So like I said, it's gonna be a sliding scale money or time, right? Monica Pitts 23:08 Yeah. So let's say that you're in the service industry, though. That's one that you work with. So I feel like one of the things that people need to do is just look around and be like, What do I have that is actually an asset that I didn't think of? So for example, my new office is on a really busy street. And Monica Pitts 23:28 I could put up a sign. Yes. And it's also above a bar. Monica Pitts 23:32 And I could go downstairs and I could ask them, Can I put table tents here? Just like so many tiny things that you have access to? And I'm obviously I'm a web designer, but there has to be things that like plumbers or HVAC, I mean, like any type of service industry could do that would make sense. Where would they need to look? Jay Smith 23:54 They need to look at what they've got, what their challenge is, and what they can do, honestly, with what they've got. So this you said, plumber, so it brought it to mind because this was just last week. So my coach I work with he challenged me because we were talking about this this direction. And he said, Well, you know, this is all this all makes great sense for someone who comes to you who has already got five star reviews and got their website on point and this is the one we're going to do moving forward. He said what happens when a plumber comes to you with three and a half stars? So that's a great question. Because there's quite a few of those if you look in your local market, and if somebody came to me with that challenge, the standard would be okay, we need to go have this massive campaign to get you more reviews to basically bury, you know, bury the stars, but I'm like, Wait, why do we have to do the boring thing everyone else is doing? So I looked around and I found a plumber here in town that had about 3.8 3.9 stars which sounds okay, but out of five you know, you know how we treat those. So I looked through their poor reviews, and their entire score is being drawn down by two one star reviews with people complaining about the way they We're driving on the road. Nice about the service they provide. So I contacted the plumber, and I asked him about it. And you know, they're like, Yeah, you know, yeah, it's there. We don't know what we can do about it, you know, they won't take it down or nothing. And I said, here's an idea. Here's an idea for you to send your entire team have paid for and have them take the student driver course that has the little yellow cone, take pictures like crazy, and then blast it out on social media, have him wear the 3.9 stars on a t shirt. Make it your story, just like Domino's did when they were like, hey, our pizza stinks. Guess what they did? They doubled double their profit because it became a story and and, you know, now you know that plumber needs to prove themselves. So they are, Monica Pitts 25:46 you know, they fix holes? Wasn't that what Domino's did? Jay Smith 25:50 Well, yeah, that yeah, they were out there fixing potholes, because you know, they were like, that's your pizza should, your pizza is only worth, you know, filling a pothole or something. But all that takes is a couple $100 to pay for the drivers. And I would definitely pay just to have you know, the student driver in the yellow cone and have the owner of your company in the car just like a 16 year old, with an instructor learning how to drive take pictures like crazy. And then you know, get the little certificate and have pictures on your Facebook page. Look, we learned how to drive that wouldn't just get your reviews up. It would be a tremendous story in your local market. Like all of a sudden, you're the only plumber that's worth talking about. Monica Pitts 26:29 A memorable story. Right? Jay Smith 26:31 Exactly. And what did that cost you other than, you know, a couple of hours of your time and probably seven $800 To have your whole crew trained, you can do it with one person if you're on a you know, on a thinner budget. And I suppose you can fake it, I wouldn't fake it. Because I'd want to be with a memorable like a local student driver organization to also give them some free credit. Yeah, with their social media, you know, Monica Pitts 26:54 that's a really fun idea. I love it. Man, I want to keep picking your brain, see if I can come up with more. Jay Smith 27:01 Well, and that's that's just it, like I was a little nervous just because when you you sent me kind of a rough outline. I was like, Ah, it's very tough for me to just say do this, do that. But when I can talk to you for a few minutes and find out what your challenge is, what do you already have? What's the sawdust that you're brushing off the table as you're making your two by fours? What is that stuff that you already have available that you can take advantage of? That you're just not thinking about? Because you you've got blinders on, you are focused on the business at hand. You really want to grow your business, but your job is to take care of your employees to take care of your clients to handle and you know, you're an expert, plumber. But you just you need sometimes you need another voice to say, Hey, this is what we have available. Let's let's let's do some things like this. Monica Pitts 27:47 I always tell people to look within their processes to to find that little golden nugget of opportunity to make marketing happen. Like what are the things that you do like when I was in college, I thought that I always thought I would run my own business at like some point. But the business that I originally thought of was going to be putting up posters inside of bathrooms. Because I would have a captive audience. And I had, and I was like, Oh my gosh, I could just put posters inside of bathrooms. And then it could get even bigger. And I could like have at the time like, like Wi Fi and Bluetooth wasn't exactly the thing, right. And so I then I was tasked with how was I going to put monitors inside a bathroom so I can add so that we didn't have to go replace them inside the bathroom stalls every single time. But then how was I going to plug them in was like going to have to take them off the bathroom stalls and charge them Okay, that wasn't going to work. So it was just like all this list of things. But friends, if you've got a bathroom stall, I swear I should do a whole episode of ways to like mark it in your bathroom because you have a very captive audience. And that's true. But during the checkout process, during the wait the time where people are waiting, and you know, that makes me think about those nonprofits again. So if there is a if there's a nonprofit that knows of a person who owns an establishment where that is frequented by the public, why couldn't you do something like have like, let's say you serve kids, and maybe your kids do a project and the projects go up in the establishment for a while and get you some notice like those things are things you're doing anyway. You don't have to put out extra work to get them done. You can find these opportunities by pairing with people who have the same values as you but have access to something that you don't which is the people that traffic Yeah, come into their office. I'm sure one thing I saw you mentioned in your guerrilla tactics was sidewalk chalk. Jay Smith 29:57 Yeah, that's that's more of a traditional Actually, I that's the idea. But we pivoted on that last month and I had a client who we made a template and we pressure washed their logo. Because I saw that somewhere. I saw a company, I think it was in Great Britain who does that regularly. And so it was so they spent, you know, $150 to have a large vinyl template made of their logo, and their downtown. So the sidewalks are old and pretty dark and all that and go out there and it lasts for, I think it's been it's been almost a month now. And it's still there. And so they didn't just do it in front of their business. So they went they kept going down. Right, so you may want to you know, maybe just do some arrows or some smiley faces and I said, I don't know about putting your logo in front of other people but they got so excited because it looks so cool. Monica Pitts 30:52 Well, I mean, like imagine you've got an ice cream shop, right? And so if there I mean, you got an ice cream shop so why not have like an ice cream cone and then your logo and then a smiley face and then an arrow and then just keep going that it's such a smart idea that is so cool. Jay Smith 31:08 Why just do it the middle of the night when no one's paying attention Monica Pitts 31:11 when they won't notice the power washer. Jay Smith 31:14 No Jay Smith 31:17 that's more traditional guerilla marketing. And there are so I have I have actually worked with there is a there's actually a like a chalk art event here at the river. That's kind of a big deal. I didn't realize it. But I did speak with a chalk artist and you there are trucks they can use. They're practically paint that will last several weeks and if not a little longer to kind of depending on your weather and all that. And that that's really effective to particularly if you're the only or the first one doing it on your street. Monica Pitts 31:48 My daughter decided to mix my youngest child this this summer decided to mix washable markers with water. She just like dumped the markers into like a cup of water. And so she had cups of all these different washable Munger inks and then she went out into the driveway and made all of these pictures with this paint that she had made and my driveway was painted with washable markers for quite some time. So if that gives anybody any idea, so it was it was pretty great. Jay Smith 32:19 You know if you if you have a large wall, put up a mural that people are going to want to take selfies at. Yes, that is still not played out. We have quite a few of those in town I've noticed when I visited Brown County, Indiana or Nashville or Cincinnati, any city around those are all over the place. And we even have a selfie Museum. Oh yeah, we have a selfie Museum here in Louisville. Monica Pitts 32:45 There was one idea I had for a local museum where I thought that they should so they were doing an exhibit for a specific person. I'm like I think we need to have a life size cutout of this person or like a sticker on the wall so that we people can take pictures of them like with them in like do something fun like that I don't think never came to fruition. Jay Smith 33:07 My my podcast partner Angie, she is a T shirt designer and she works a lot of pop up shops and, and things like that. And she was doing one in a microbrewery. And behind her desk I had been harassing her forever. She has a life size cutout of Joe Dirt. And I was like put this thing up right now. And sure enough, as soon as it was up, people started coming over to the booth and getting their picture with Joe Dirt. How can you not Monica Pitts 33:32 Joe Dirt? And was he wearing a t shirt? Jay Smith 33:35 Yeah, he had the cut off the cut off plaid shirt and the jean jacket and he's just looking up like real pensive up into the sky. It's it's perfect. And now when she does pop up events, or she does the flea markets, selling all of her T shirts and stuff like that. Now people come and take a selfie with Joe Dirt, like Monica Pitts 33:54 on the same thought for trade shows. Once Okay, so this was a good one, I have a nonprofit, okay, so they are they work with people with disabilities. And they were trying to like remove certain words from our vocabulary. And so they had everybody like you had like, your card, like your speech bubble, and you would write something on it. And then you would take a picture of yourself with the pledge and like put it up on social media. So like, if you're trying to make a point or change a belief, you could actually put a lot of momentum behind it by just having people take a pledge do something simple like, since then I have never used those words like I do not they don't like they don't they're not like I maybe I used them like mistakenly and then I was like, Wait a second. I said I wasn't gonna say that anymore. I'm not gonna say those words anymore because I said it wasn't going to. And I think that I didn't even really realize that they were offensive until they told me they were offensive. And then I was like, Okay, well now I know. So I don't want to do that anymore because I'm not a jerk, like on purpose. Jay Smith 34:59 Well, they also anchored it to an activity that you engaged in, which made it way more memorable. Like you could have read that those words were offensive in a blog post somewhere, and you wouldn't have forgotten it immediately. But because you were engaged in the process, you know, that's, that's another thing that I've seen it at some nonprofit events is, you know, they'll have people do write on a signature wall, they'll have them take, you know, get into a video booth and talk about why that nonprofit is important to them. And that gives you a lot of social media fodder to, it's getting people involved in your process, Monica Pitts 35:34 it would be okay, so here's a funny thought. Imagine that you're, like a pumping company or like a septic company. And your challenge was that people just don't know about septic health because they don't. And I could just see people like holding up the number of squares of toilet paper that they use, or like something weird like that, you know, because I had to have a talk with my nine year old the other day, I was like, girlfriend that was like 25 squares. Like, I could literally wrap it around your body like four times, you don't need that many squares. She's like, Mom, how do you how many do you use, I was like, four or five. That is. She's like, I'm like, I know, honey, you're gonna clog the system, and I'm gonna have to get it. Jay Smith 36:22 Now you're talking about some viral Tiktok stuff, the family and the family holding up the squares and the ones taller than the little kids. So as they get older, it's shorter. Monica Pitts 36:33 See, okay, friends. So you can see though, there's all kinds of crazy things that you can do. And I feel like you can even do the same thing as everyone else. You can just do it a little differently. You know, it's like the pink plumbers get everybody has a truck. It's just those there's a pink, or there's a church in town that their sign is not like, and like, I'm trying to convert you into a Christian sign. It's always like a funny quippy thing about God. And so when we drive past we're like, what is the sign say today? Just because we think it's fun. But then when they need us to know something like we're having a garage sale. We read it, right? Because we just ignore all the other ones and down. So even if you're using the same asset as somebody else, you can just use it differently. Like get your pink truck. I don't know. Yeah. Jay Smith 37:29 Yes, plant. Yep. plant your flag, as people like to say plant your flag. Yeah, claim, just say this is this is who we are. This is what we do. This is who we serve. And we're unapologetic about this is it? Of course. Now, if you're somebody who thinks that it's okay to offend everybody, then that's not going to work very well. Because you know, you're going to be Yeah, you're going to be who you are. And you're gonna be alone. Monica Pitts 37:50 Yeah, or hanging out with other people who are really offensive, I guess that maybe they might be attracted to you. That would be an interesting one reasons why may create does not get involved in any politics. No, we do not do this thing. You want to talk about colors? Like of the color wheel? Yes. But what's funny is as like a statement of I am not going to be like everybody else. You know how you can pick your skin color in the thumbs up icons, like in Slack and in emojis and stuff? Oh, yeah, I think it's stupid. So I made a purple thumb emoji, and I will only use purple people in my emojis because I should not have to be yellow. I can be purple. There you go. Like, what if my skin color feels purple? And sometimes it does. So. So um, one question I did want to ask you, before you wrap up is that you have a lot of testimonials on your site, which is kind of like a really cool thing. And I always have people ask me, like, how do I get testimonials because it's not, and they kind of I feel I feel like they maybe feel outside of their wheelhouse or they feel uncomfortable asking for a testimonial. So I just want to know if you could give people any advice on how to maybe get that wheel turning. Jay Smith 39:12 Okay. So I used I use software that allowed me to create a video ask, send it in an email, and then they can recorded a video. So it was I did it highly technical. But I've also taught so I talked to a show, a show for company owner a few weeks back, and he you know, compared to the bigger this is Louisville, so it's all bourbon, like bourbon tours and Kentucky Derby. So the chauffeur companies are pretty competitive, and some of them are quite large. And his company was not. And he didn't have near as many online reviews as these other companies and because near me searches for that kind of thing or big deal. I said, When are you asking for reviews? So I'm kind of not like well, there's the first challenge. I said, but instead of I said you have an email list right? He's kinda, I've got it here in there. And in stripe, I was like, Alright, let's get all that together, we will send out a campaign, make it very personal, make it very, like, this is what I need to help me grow and provide for more people like you. I said, however, moving forward, we're going to make a QR code, we're going to put it on a three by five sticker and put it in the door jamb of your chauffeur, I said, you are taking girl trips, you're taking people from out of town on Bourbon tours, everybody is so happy with you. Right? As that tour is ending, that's when they need I said, You need to have that QR code. And those five yellow stars that visual cue in their face during the whole trip. And they're gonna they're sitting in a car for an hour to get home from their great bourbon tour experience. What are they going to do? They're on their phone. Yeah. So they're gonna give you reviews while they're in your truck. If that's you don't want to wait until they get home, they forgotten about it. Yours is kind of like a once a year type of service if that. So they're not going to think of you again, it's not like an ongoing thing, since you need to capture them when it matters much like. So if you know, if a nonprofit were to do an event, you can leave a Google review for somebody for any reason whatsoever. Just like our plumber friend who had the bad reviews for driving on the freeway aggressively. So if you're going to have an event, why not capture those things during the event while everybody's enjoying the event? And they're in the mindset of helping out your nonprofit? Get those reviews while people are in that situation asking for him posthumously, just makes it a little more difficult to have an ask. And the response rate? No, I think I have 15 of them on there. That doesn't mean I didn't send out 50 requests. Monica Pitts 41:38 Yeah, I mean, because it takes, it's just like any other prospecting. Sure. One thing that I find helps me a lot. I have one of my vendors that I work with, he's asked me for a review, and I forgot, like I put it on my thing to do and I just forgot. And then he sent me another email, guess because you should ask more than once. And he said, hey, here are some of the things just to get you started. And he gave me like a bulleted list of things from us like working together, right, that might be good in the review. And it made it super easy for me to write the review for him. And it's not like I'm not ever going to copy exactly what you gave me because that's not me. But I find it I've just found it so much easier to have something to work with. But yeah, and I love how you said that it should be during the process, right? So like going back to that process. You guys all have these processes in your business and your nonprofit. They are assets that you're not using, like you can use them to get whatever problem solved that you need to solve back to what Jay said earlier, you know you what problem are you trying to solve? And then what do you have to solve that problem, and you can find it in all kinds of ways from parallel Washington. Monica Pitts 42:50 Bathroom? Yes, Jay Smith 42:51 knowing knowing what your goal is, is crucial to developing. And oftentimes if you actually are intentional about looking into that, and discussing it with other people and discussing with people outside your bubble, as we talked about, those solutions are going to start forming for you as you talk through things rather than just saying, Alright, what's everyone else doing online? Because that's just that's just adding to the noise. You're just you're just saying me too, and nobody's interested in me, too. They want different. Monica Pitts 43:19 Yeah, don't try to solve the problem in a vacuum. I actually was sitting in a committee meeting the other day for an event that they're having in town, just to meet people, really, because I wanted to meet people. And I was amazed. We had like, work at home accountants, we had somebody who does landscaping, somebody who makes trophies for a living person who sells cars, like people who work for the chamber. And they came up with the best ideas between all of them, I was like, what a think tank, I wished that I had one of those for my marketing. So maybe that's what it really is, like, find, find your supporters and make yourself a think tank. Jay Smith 43:58 That's, that's what's so effective about coaching programs, when you you know, if you decide to invest in that, really, it's just having access to other business owners who are having the same challenges as you but they have different experience, they have different customer base. So the it just it brings together all these different creative ideas. That's why you know, like I said, you know, you don't just hang out with everybody who does the same thing you do. Find people who are succeeding in totally different industries or different parts of your, your economy. And you'll be amazed at what they're doing and how you can take those ideas and put them to use in what you do. Monica Pitts 44:39 Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing all these thoughts and brainstorming with me. I love ideas that makes it to like, when I get a podcast that I that like starts my brain like clicking along and it's like the ideas are flowing. I'm like, Oh, this is I'm in my happy place. Happy place. is, so tell us where people can go to learn more about your business. Jay Smith 45:05 Um, they can go to my website, which is root of pi pi.com. They can also check out my just fledgling podcast, more gooder ideas that I do with Angie Patterson, every Wednesday, we're on all the platforms. And if you're in Louisville hit me up. I love nothing more than doing one to ones with cool and interesting business owners. And growing your referral market is like my secret sauce for everyone. Like that's a whole other podcast on its own. But, you know, like I mentioned, BNI is a good start if you're not already doing that. But that's, that's key and getting in front of people one on one face to face when you can. I mean, Zoom meetings are great, we all got used to him for last three years. And Monica and I are doing one right now. But if you can meet someone in person, that's going to exponentially increase your relationship with them right off the bat. Monica Pitts 46:01 Well, thank you so much for hanging out with me. And we'll make sure to get the link to all of those examples of guerilla marketing techniques, even above and beyond the ones that we've referenced today. And get the link to your website and everything else on the show notes on our website. So thank you so much, everybody for hanging out with us today. And until next time, go forth and mark it with purpose, to get a copy of the show notes. Monica Pitts 46:27 And all those links that we just heard from our guests, head on over to May create.com and may [email protected]. And of course, I have to tell you the things that all podcasters are supposed to tell you at the end of your episode, like if you thought this was awesome, you could subscribe and then I would like get to tell you when I have new stuff for you to learn and new episodes, new people to meet new stories to tell. Monica Pitts 46:53 And of course, I would really love it if you left a review. So head on over to May create.com for those show notes, ma y e CR ea t.com. Or maybe even contact my team about building that next website. We can do it for you. And we even have our better than DIY website program that teaches you to plan and build your own website. So head on over to make create.com and may yecreat.com. I'll meet you over there Transcribed by https://otter.ai