NaXum Reviews: Creating Compelling Content For Referral Marketing – By The Direct Selling Executives Forum

Posted by naxumadmin / September 20, 2022

The Direct Selling Executive Forum Presents:

“Creating Compelling Content In Referral Marketing”

Providing compelling content to share is key to every referral marketing channel’s success.

On Friday, September 9th we hosted 3x executives sharing their insights for our Direct Selling Executives Forum as we explore paths to creating compelling content:

We asked our speakers:

1: What is your favorite piece of viral content you’ve ever come across to promote a brand?

2: For other executives that desire to create compelling content for their members, how would you suggest they start? 

3: What is your personal process for strategically planning the content you create at your company?

4: If there’s one thing you could tell yourself 5 years ago about content today, what would that be?

See the full session here:

Ben Dixon:

Three. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Direct Selling Executives Forum open panel for September, 2022. My name is Ben Dixon your host, and I’m just honored, grateful, and excited to have the executives that we have here on the line with us today, to share with you. If you’re brand new to the DSEF these panels are not to sell anything, they’re literally a space where different direct selling executives volunteer their time to come together and discuss certain topics that are relevant to all of us inside of direct sales. And I just feel honored to host this, and I’m so grateful for Olivia, Joe and Maurice to volunteer their time and come out of all their launch mode craziness for a couple of you all it’s really busy seasons. I’m like where you probably haven’t slept at all this week, thanks for being here today. And just for sharing this hour with us today. We have folks on the line so far from Mexico, Europe, and California, right? Because in America we just pick states instead of saying the country. But we’re grateful to have you here.

Ben Dixon:

If you are just joining us for the first time and you haven’t yet joined the group on LinkedIn or the group on Facebook, where you can get access to all the replays and all the previous speakers of DSEF, do make sure you do that. If you search for Direct Selling Executives Forum on LinkedIn or Facebook, it’ll pop right up on top, apply to, join, it’s absolutely free and you could start being a part of the community and just contributing here. So, as we get started today, before jumping into our first questions, let me walk us through some intros. I’m going to go through all three real quick for time and then we’ll jump right into questions. But I’ve just added first off the have Joe Kenemore come back to speak again.

Ben Dixon:

You’re our only speaker who’s come back. You’re our second speaker to ever get to speak twice at DSEF, so we’re pop to have Joe back. [inaudible 00:01:49] and fairness, Joe was on a summary call the first time he had to come, so it was one of our broad for the year calls, not a topic centered panel. And so this was just a perfect panel. And Joe’s background gang, Joe’s not only a top executive at SendOutCards in their birth and beginning when they were first being the first direct sales company to help with communication tools. But he’s the founder of Cache Media Works. And if you’re familiar with Cache at all, you’ll know brands like Eric Worre network marketing pro was birthed out of Cache. If you look at that brand, that’s on millions and millions of dollars, generically training our space for years, who created all their events and their branding and all their messaging he’s here on the line.

Ben Dixon:

So Joe did that. He’s pretty private about that, but I like to, Hey guys, Joe had a big part to doing that. And Joe moved on, he still runs Cache but started a direct selling company called Banners Season to improve on what he had learned at SendOutCards as a new way to message to others and then transferred Banners Season into what today is called Mailbox Power. And if you haven’t yet checked out Mailbox Power, go check it out. There’s a referral marketing program, mailbox power allows you to touch people in special ways that are way better than an email. All right? And so, Joe, thank you so much for being here today.

Joe Kenemore:

Love it.

Ben Dixon:

All right. Next, Livia Fisher, oh my gosh. Livia Fisher Kane, I got the opportunity to have some breakfast with Livia in Minneapolis this last weekend with her son, Phoenix was awesome to get time to disconnect. That guy is going to change the world, 12 years old already just way ahead. He’s speaking on stage with us all at a big event and it’s like this guy. It was awesome. Livia also very humble leader. If you’ve heard of the brand the UFC, if you guys watch that on TV with your friends, Livia had a lot to do. You can see the pictures behind her, but with creating that brand from the beginning and has moved those gifts into serving referral marketing companies. And today is the acting CMO of one of the fastest growing trading companies in the space DRIVEN Trading. They have the top 1% of all TD Ameritrade traders as their traders on there, they do amazing work. And Livia is their CMO. So Livia thank you so much for being here today.

Livia Fisher Kane:

Thank you. Thank you for having me here. It’s great to share the space with you guys and I’m actually very excited to hear.

Ben Dixon:

Yeah, absolutely. We all are. I think we all are taking copious notes in these sessions. I feel that way too, we always come away from like, wow. I learned a lot just participating on the panel. Maurice, I ran into Maurice Katz years ago and Maurice, he’s literally been a distributor in the field, he’s taken his own company, he’s public before. And when I met Maurice, some of you have run into that where you have that earner in your field, the person who’s good at building a network, but they’re also like, man, the company didn’t build enough content, so I’ll make good content. He was the guy pumping out great content that everybody in the company was using for the different groups he was promoting. When I first ran into Maurice, I love that. And today Maurice is an executive at an FX startup that actually just got picked up by Youngevity. So he’s working with Youngevity’s FX division and is doing just amazing work in the space. So Maurice, thank you so much for joining us here today. Good to have you-

Maurice Katz:

Thank you so much, Ben. It’s such a pleasure and you’ve always been such an amazing person in the space and the value that you’ve always given. So I’m honored to be here.

Ben Dixon:

Well, thanks for coming out. All right, we’re going to kick off our first question, we’re only have four today, so we’re going to be good in this time. We’re going to have Joe pick up our first one. All right. So the first one we’re going to grab is we talk about creating compelling content and referral marketing here in this space today, is what’s your favorite piece of viral content? You’ve ever come across tomorrow, any brand? So what’s it been for you, Joe?

Joe Kenemore:

All right. So listen, I want to warn everybody, I’m an early adopter of technology. So way back in the day, there was a viral video. It was literally a 32nd commercial that was played on European TV and they ended up putting it on the internet.

Ben Dixon:

Oh, on the YouTube.

Joe Kenemore:

And it hit YouTube, it hit YouTube. And I got to tell you, it was the funny one of the, it’s still one of the funniest videos I’ve ever seen to this day. And it was about dating and a phone, right? It was a telecom company. And I’m going to admit a few things. I like kind of fun humor. Gal gets in the car, he opens the door, the date it’s on a date and he’s walking to the car from the front door. Gal gets in the car, he closes the door, as he’s walking around, she passes gas pretty loudly. All right? Anyway. Okay. You may have, and anyway. He gets in the car and there’s somebody in the back seat. She has no idea there were people in the back seat as she’s passed gas and anyway, I’m a super, super funny video that actually really went viral. You’ve seen it, I’m sure many have.

Joe Kenemore:

And I just stopped to think about it and I’m a video guy, right? I mean, I’ve produced more video content in my lifetime than anything else. So I kind of looked at it and just went, wow, 30 seconds. They grabbed the attention of every single soul that watched it. Right? Because I mean, we’re all human, stuff happens. Stuff happens and stuff happens in inappropriate times as well. And for that kind of a piece to come out where it turns comical and the brand at the end, we all hung out long enough to know exactly who it was and what it was about. And it’s like, wow, check that out. Anyway. I mean, for me, as far as promoting a brand, that was about my favorite piece. There’s some others out there as well but [inaudible 00:07:32] really good, but that, it grabbed attention all the way to the end. Not just for five seconds or three seconds, but the complete piece. Enough where you went, wow. Okay. That’s who this was about? Too good love it.

Ben Dixon:

Was that relevant experience of awkwardness that makes you want to share it with your friends, right? No matter who you are, whether or not you’re going to subscribe with their service, you’re going to share that video with their friends is perfect for pre-social media. Love it. Livia, what’s been your favorite piece of content? You’ve come up when you said like, oh my gosh. That was incredible.

Livia Fisher Kane:

All right. So, I mean, I’m pretty much the opposite. I mean, I don’t really have that great sense of humor. And I’m not proud of it. Just on those things, just who I am, what can I say about that? So, I mean, content for me. So I’ll tell you one of the content that actually I produced that made huge difference, I’ll put it that way. And I know because it’s going to be very different and I just [inaudible 00:08:41] so different examples. So when I first joined UFC, we were going to launch UFC real. And I came in, and obviously you have all this Emmy winners, you have all these big time producers, you have this fancy roster of executives to work with. And they’re going very certain in the direction that they have decided. And I take on to the whole YouTube part for launching the UFC Rio. And I said, okay, I’m going to go to Rio, I’m Brazilian, I’m from Rio, I know the culture very well.

Livia Fisher Kane:

So, I’m going to go to Rio and they’re like, “So you interview the four top guys, the two top fights, and these are the questions.” I’m like, “I’m going to go, but I’m going to interview all 20 fighters in the card and I’m not going to ask these questions.” Okay, fine. Let’s go. Right? I have people say, “You’re stepping on a lot of people’s toes.” I’m like, well, one at a time. And I got there and I shoot with all 20 fighters and at the very bottom of the card. So the first fight of the night, nobody knows who those people are. Most people didn’t even tune in the TV. We had this guy that his life story was incredible. So he was like, his first fight in the UFC, he is from Rio. And I knew that for the UFC to go mainstream in Rio, and I’ve been already working with that, I shot a documentary about that.

Livia Fisher Kane:

It was really the culture in Brazil didn’t accept mixed martial arts. It was like, street fighting thing. And you have to flip that page and was a hard job to do. But these guys, the stars, these people are these fighters. They’re just so relatable. The stars are incredible. And one of them was [inaudible 00:10:28], they got interviewed. Has this one of 13 kids, most of them didn’t survive. He migrates to Rio and has the stories of actual hunger and pain and working in a farm since he was seven years old, having to share a loaf of bread between him and his 13 brothers and his moms keeping that meal. And I knew I had to tell those stories. So one, it was the facts that I settled these guys and these fighters and these athletes and prepare them to the interview. Most of them don’t want to tell these stories.

Livia Fisher Kane:

And they’re like, “I don’t really want to tell this.” And I’m like, well, but what about all these kids? What about all the youth that is right now where you were at, can you tell to them? He’s like, “Yes, I can do that.” So we shoot. And out of the 20 videos, this one video went viral. It not only went viral in social media, and UFC’s like, the most you can do is two minutes, this video’s nine minutes. I’m like, okay, I send it in and the email that I send it in, I’m like, I’m not cutting. So before they even saw it, they knew I would not cut this one. They took it, we published it, went viral. But not only went viral, all the TV stations in Brazil picked up this video. So it was going mainstream Prime TV, all of it.

Livia Fisher Kane:

And so this was the piece of content. This was one that people knew me for right off the bat, going into the UFC. And not only, of course, we turned the page. We made the UFC Rio was one of the most successful events in the UFC history. We sold out the whole arena in 55 minutes. But not only that, coming back from Rio, we’re getting on a call of the UFC and they’re saying, “Not only your videos surpassed our entire million dollar campaign over here, but the best part was that they’re like, and that kid, Jose Ma we need him in the main card.” And his contract multiplied. And he went from the very first fight to the main card. And so anyway. So it was like building culture. It was building culture and was just understanding the culture and above the trend. Culture above trend kind of thing. And then that was my one that I wanted to mention.

Ben Dixon:

Again, you got to hear when you’re understanding what Livia’s sharing. The pattern she just shared in content is called the hero’s journey. And you need to write that down. If you want to understand the power, you’re like, why did a nine minute video captivate people and keep their attention and entertain and pull their heart? It was the hero’s journey. So it was the struggle that was relatable, the challenge that connected with the audience and then the Phoenix rising from the ashes that’s called the hero’s journey. And when you’re thinking of your type of content that fits your culture, there’s all sorts of flavors of viral shareable content, Joe opened up with humor. Humor’s huge today, we see stuff like Harmon Brothers and everything else in the space today, or the folks. I could grab just a couple different ones. But if you look at Ads from Kiziks or Chatbooks or dollarshaveclub.com and all these and the Pooping Unicorn with Squatty Potty, all these campaigns that have built entire brands on YouTube, chose humor inside of a path.

Ben Dixon:

And then there’s other brands though, that we could go down that same list that used the hero’s journey to tell their story. And that’s what Livia just unpacked for us today. And you got to hear that as like, oh, is that the way to tell our story? Because I know some people on this line and you think content, when you hear humor and you think, does it all have to be humor? Is humor the only path? It’s like, well, humor’s really fun, I like humor. But no, there’s actually brands where they don’t use humor at all and they still go viral with incredibly emotional stuff. There’s a bunch of Asian Ads actually for Asian life insurance companies, of all things you can look up that have gone incredibly viral. That are stories about little kids running to the grocery store, and coming back with no words. First, just open up your mind of what’s possible as we walk through this today, just thank you, Livia, for sharing that, that was awesome. And what a way you impacted that young man’s life by challenging him to open up. That’s incredible. I love to hear that.

Ben Dixon:

Maurice, for you, what’s been your favorite piece of viral content when you peel back the onion and think about it? You’ve seen a lot of stuff over the years.

Maurice Katz:

Yeah. I’ve seen a lot. And I would say that it may not be the most viral content, but it kind of hits to home because it’s somebody that I know very personally. And I remember when they were talking about creating content like this. And so we were in a hotel room hanging out and it’s a friend of mine, his name is Chris record. You may know him, obviously. Ben.

Ben Dixon:

I know Chris. I know Chris well.

Maurice Katz:

Yes. So what ended up happening is he’s like, “Look, I want to start doing videos with rap.” That’s what he wanted to do. He’s like, “Look, I want to start rapping on videos, I just want to have fun.” And so I was like, “Oh, that’s cool.” And my brother, he does rap. So they were doing freestyle in the hotel room and I’m bringing this up because it’s personal and it’s pretty cool how things develop. So he’s talking about doing this whole rap thing and then about six months later, he starts putting content online of him rapping these different songs. And where it caught my attention was, it was during the time of 2017, 2018, when the cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency is a craze, just like it is in 2021, 2022, it’s kind of settled down right now. But what he did that was so genius is that there was a term called HODL and HODL means to hold on for dear life.

Maurice Katz:

H-O-L-D, hold on for dear life to the coins that you believe can potentially go up in values. Right? So as the coins are going up and down, the whole premise is, don’t sell your coins because you don’t want to risk it going up and then you missed out. So there was a whole terminology that came out that was called HODL. And so he created a video that was a music video with called HODL Gang. And it got so much attention that at first I was like, oh, it’s kind of cheesy. I thought a lot of his videos are cheesy, but this specific one got the most amount of views, went the most viral and ended up on Tosh 2.0. So Tosh was actually commenting on this video and making fun of it. But yet it still went viral. Now, now you’re taking it from YouTube and it ended up on another third party show.

Maurice Katz:

It also ended up on the news. I saw it one time on the news and they were referencing it. They’re like, oh yeah this… So what happened was a simple video that was on YouTube, ended up getting on the news as well, as on a show that they make fun of videos Tosh 2.0. And to think that it was all from a simple idea in a hotel room. But the biggest powerful thing that he did, is he did what’s called bridge marketing, right? So you take something and a terminology or you take something that’s trending very hard, which at the time crypto was trending very hard, the terminology, cryptocurrency and everything. And so all he did was take that, run with it and it was amazing. So for me, it wasn’t the most viral video, but because I knew him and I saw it on the news and I was surprised that it actually made the news as well as Tosh 2.0, it was a cool experience.

Ben Dixon:

It’s so wonderful. Had the blessing, I’ve known Chris now for it’s how old? 16 years. Chris and I actually used to live in the same house before I was married. So we actually had a home together in California. So Chris and I owned the company I owned before running Naxum was Chris was a co-owner in that company. So I know Chris quite well. What’s funny is, he would write raps all the time about everything and you never know which one would hit, but what was great was he would, you talk about bridge marketing, he would write it to an influencer as love to them so that they would then promote it out to the world. So a good example, we all know, the internet marketer Russell with Clickbanks, is just a good example. I know Joe, you know that whole group. So Chris also made the ClickFunnels rap video.

Ben Dixon:

So he literally made a video about them and here’s Russell sharing it with his millions of followers. Like, look at this funny guy who made a video about our software. So he didn’t ask their permission to make a video about their software. He just made it and then that huge community became liking him on YouTube from that. And that originally started because Chris, he was the brand manager for Beachbodies, Tony Horton. So the man who created P90X. And so it all came out of managing Tony’s online brand and realizing how these partnerships worked. And that’s where Chris got through over the years and wish him all the best. And so it is really cool to see that. And the cool part about the HODL Gang and bridge marketing is, there is these trending relevant things going on all the time. And instead of creating demand for what you have, many times, it’s just stepping into where demand already is.

Ben Dixon:

There’s a young group of young video producers, I’m talking about these guys haven’t made more than five commercial videos. And I met at a [inaudible 00:20:27] last week, they took all American rejects song, all the small things and redid it to all the listings and made a video for a local realtor and went completely viral in our town. 300,000 views on Facebook in a week. Brand new one, because they just went shot for shot with a famous music video from the early 2000s with changing the lyrics to this guy talking about being a realtor. And it was that funny and that silly that a gazillion realtors were all liking and sharing and people are sending to their friend who’s a realtor and this young realtor is now getting all this traction and following. So it’s a powerful thought to think about. So you heard humor, you heard about creating those relatable stories that cause people to want to share your story with Joe.

Ben Dixon:

You heard the hero’s journey with Livia and how that captivates your heart and pulls you into stay longer. And you heard this idea of bridge marketing, where you create something fun and silly for an existing community where an existing large community people say, “Oh my gosh, did you guys see this?” That gets your content there. So with that, we’re going to go reverse now. We’re going to do the whole, when you’re playing a board game, go reverse. We’re going right back to you, Maurice. So you have a chance to think about this. Number two, for executives that are here on the line, that desire to create compelling content for their members. How would you suggest they start? They’re on this call because some of them have plans and already doing things and some of them aren’t. And they want to know how to start empowering their field with content that’s shareable and that’s going to get results for their business. How would you suggest they start?

Maurice Katz:

I think the biggest thing is knowing who you’re going to market to, who you’re talking to. The biggest thing is knowing, we always talk about knowing your avatar. The person that is going to listen to your message. Who do you want to hear this, resonate with it? And I think that, where the market is going now specifically in marketing, people talk about and especially content NLP and all these different things. But what’s happening at this point is people are just looking for someone that is authentic, that’s sincere, that really cares about them. And people are seeing past all this high level copywriting that seems manufactured that was working 10 years ago, eight years ago. But now people have seen it so much that they’re just like, “Look, just be honest with me. Just be open, be sincere, be transparent and just share from your heart.”

Maurice Katz:

And I think that if you can create content to speak to that individual, and it’s not about you, it’s not about your product, it’s not about the features that, it’s all about the benefits that can bless that individual that’s seeing that video, seeing that website, seeing that content. And it’s coming from a place of authenticity and it’s not coming from a place of trying to convince them about anything, then I think your content will hit home. A lot of times when people look at my content or they look at when I’m speaking publicly, the biggest thing that comes off from whatever I produce is they’re like, “Man, I could tell you really care about the people you’re talking to. I could tell you’re really authentic. You’re not just saying something to convince us about anything.” And I think right now in the world we live in, I think authenticity is really, really important. Especially if it’s related to that particular individual that you’re trying to attract into your business or your company.

Ben Dixon:

What I love about you shared, if you’ve read Simon Sinek’s book, we do a lot of book recommendations on the panel. Start with Why is a fantastic book because once you identified, okay, this is our audience who we want to go to, the way you can come off as authentic is instead of starting with what you do, start with why you’re doing it. There’s a viral TED Talk that’s got about the Golden Circle. You look up Simon Sinek Golden Circle it’s gone around forever, it’s going to be the best 20 minutes of your life gang. Check it out on YouTube and… All right. Outside of meeting Jesus, it’s the best 20 minutes of your life. And you’re going to go ahead and watch this because it’s going to change the way you impact people in your life with your story. And so love that, Maurice, thanks for sharing. Livia, where would you suggest people start?

Livia Fisher Kane:

I mean, in house, maybe in the community, maybe. I think it’s about people that care enough. It’s about expression. It’s about truly being expressive and going all in of that. For me, it doesn’t matter what direction you take in terms of, no, yes, be strategic with direction you take. But I’m just saying from my experience, I’ve seen so many people going so many different directions with their marketing. And here’s the thing. It is the people that hold the foot back at all the times, that they’re just overly cautious about their timelines. There’s a lot of people that do that or trying to stay inside a square where your entire audience lives outside of it. It is that kind of thing that I think it’s the biggest problem with business marketing today. So you have to be bold enough. I mean, marketing for it to be successful has to be bold enough.

Livia Fisher Kane:

So it is just that’s my main thing. And I think everybody can think of what they’re trying to express or a powerful message or being funny. It is just literally you don’t allow yourself to go there. And you’re like, you stay conservative and just throw that away. For me, for my creatives, especially people that come from education where I have a lot of people that don’t, but a lot of people that come, the first module you go through is unschool yourself. Because people try to box you in for so long and your creativity. Please throw that away before you start working here. So I think that, that’s pretty much my thing going.

Ben Dixon:

It’s such an incredible thought because, we all live in this noisy world. Super noisy. We’re all seeing messages all day long. So what’s going to cut through the noise? That’s a great question.

Joe Kenemore:

Yeah.

Ben Dixon:

Love hearing that Livia. That’s awesome, Joe. I know you got a couple thoughts here.

Joe Kenemore:

All right. All right, I do Livia. I hate being put in a box, let me tell you what, do not put me in a box, whatever you do because I will break out of that son of a bitch for sure. All right. I want to speak directly to executives right now. Listen, I want to speak from the 57 year old white guy. All right. What the hell do I know anymore? What do I know anymore? What I know is that if I create a team and I allow them to be creative and create an environment, we’re not telling them what to do, I’m not putting my thumb on their forehead, I’m asking and collaborating with them, I get the best results ever. That’s the deal, is to really lead as an executive. You’re not telling anybody, you’re collaborating. And you are offering suggestions and ideas or maybe giving a direction, but not telling them exactly what to do.

Joe Kenemore:

Who the hell wants to hover over your employees mouses and do it for them? I don’t. I just, what collaboration. And I got to tell you, one of the boxes that I was put in that I absolutely loathed, loathed was, oh, you’re a network marketing company. No, no, I’m not a network marketing company, that’s how I choose to compensate people who sell my product. That’s it, that’s it. That’s what that deal is. And then I move to an affiliate marketing plan and oh, you’re an affiliate marketing company. No, I’m not an affiliate marketing thing, stop putting me in that box again. And really when it comes to creating this content and compelling content, you have to touch everyone and a 57 year old white guy, I’m not touching everyone anymore. As a matter of fact, I’m just going to touch this big of a piece of the audience.

Joe Kenemore:

And then there’s this whole lot of audience out there that needs to be touched. And I can’t touch him with just this brain, right? I’m a creative guy all day long. I love creativity. You just let me go. I mean, it haunts me at night for sure. I want to mush ideas together and make stuff happen and make it work and have fun. And this idea of not telling, but creating that environment of creativity where people feel empowered and feel like they can actually say anything that comes to their mind without being put down, that for me as an executive, that is the message I would want anybody to hear, especially younger executives that are just starting to manage. They may feel a little empowered their head and might have gotten a little bit big. I’m not going to say I’ve ever been there, maybe I was just once or twice. But anyway, you know what I’m saying.

Joe Kenemore:

So some of us, we get off and a little bit at times, but I’ve really found as the years have gone on it’s about empowerment, it’s about that collaboration, it’s about that creativity and allowing it to, or giving an environment to foster that creativity for everyone to be able to speak without fear of being put down or shame. There you go, that’s what I had, that’s it. And then of course, just get started. If you haven’t gotten started yet, turn this thing on and get started. Because really, that’s the bottom line. If you get started, you’re probably going to screw it up and you’re going to come back and you’re going to go, oh, if I had to do that, I’m going to do that a little different next time and next time and next time and next time and eventually you’ll perfect where you’re headed. Anyway, I’ll shut up now. Thank you.

Ben Dixon:

What’s so great about what Joe’s saying, gang, that I think that if you hear Maurice and Joe and Livia, you’re going to hear that, once you figure out why your company exists, the high level vision stuff and you’ve shared that. If you’ve hired the right people on the team that are aligned with making that why a reality, then you have… Now it’s time to let them do their job. And one thing that Maurice shared that I think, I’ve seen this a lot in my consulting side of business is that, there’ll be no one in the room on that team, that is the who, the who that Maurice was talking about in his part, right? Hey, who are we actually going after? I’ve experienced this. I’ve been in rooms where every executive in the room, no one’s been there less than 25 years.

Ben Dixon:

And you’re like one second, none of you or even our target customer, and you’re all here in the room trying to make decisions. And once you define as a leadership team, why you exist, you need to then go bring people into that team who actually understand, relevantly, what’s going on in the people’s lives who are your consumer. If you look at some of these Ads that have just knocked it out of the park that are so hilarious, you could dissect the Ad for Chatbook 64 million views off of Facebook. Starts off with a woman in a bathtub and you think what is this? And you walk in and the woman’s in the bathtub, and now she stands up, she goes, “Bath, I’m fully clothed. You think I have time for a bath with young kids?” And the whole Ad’s about motherhood and how busy and how hard it is it being a mom.

Ben Dixon:

And it’s hilarious, she’s walking around the room and their kids are booby trapping things, Legos on the floor, all kinds of funny stuff. But dads and moms alike connect with the Chatbooks lady and are relevant and say, “Oh my gosh, honey, did you see this?” So dads are sharing it with wives, wives are sharing it with their other lady friends. They found their audience and knew how to communicate their message. Kiziks the shoe brand where you don’t tie your shoes, you snap your healing. They just did the same thing two weeks ago with talking about how hard it is to even take time to bend over and tie your shoe. And they also picked on motherhood of all the things, it was a court scene that connected everyone, it was a mother’s life. Opening scene’s a woman stepping on a bunch of Legos. If you haven’t seen it, so Legos find their way into a couple of these motherhood Ads inside of that.

Ben Dixon:

But you could go to Dr. Squash, we could go to the Old Spice man with how they sell to men and that the idea that you’ll be sexy and you’ll attract women if, and only if you don’t smell horrible is their core hook. They feed on your insecurity, of how sweaty you are as a man and want you to smell better, to attract beautiful women into your life. So you can go get what you will from those campaigns. But you’ll see it, you’ll laugh with it, you’ll understand it. And simple themes, dollarshaveclub.com. I’ve seen multiple direct selling clients, literally take dollarshaveclub.com’s award winning Ad and copy it. I’ve seen them go like frame for frame because what it’s selling is why buy from the big guy?

Ben Dixon:

We’re the little guy and we do it better, so give us a chance is, what the message is. When you really take it all apart and it’s just such a great Ad. When you take it all apart, it’s very directed raw, and it cuts and it brings through this. But if you didn’t understand the relevance of who was buying from you and you didn’t have those people in the room, on the team to execute, you’re not going to make good stuff. That’s it. So what you have to hear is, be out there and be clear with your vision of who you are and then go hire people that are a part of that demographic that you’re selling to. Because that’s where you’re going to get the right kind of messaging and the right kind of writing to work with your vendors, whether it’s in house or out of the house with a vendor.

Ben Dixon:

So back to you, Joe, what’s your personal process? Just strategically planning the content you plan to create, to grow Mailbox Power these days. When you’re done with your team, what is your process after all these years? I’d love to hear that. Yeah. Oh, you’re on mute, Joe. Sorry. All right.

Joe Kenemore:

Sorry. Let’s just assume that we’ve all, cut figured out who our customer avatar is, where they hang out, where to fish for them all that stuff. That’s all done.

Ben Dixon:

Yeah. That’s done at this question, exactly.

Joe Kenemore:

That’s done. We’ve passed that, we’ve crossed that bridge, so now what? And of course it can be tricky depending on the type of business you’re in. I’m creating content for customers and I’m creating content for my affiliates to use, to draw more customers to me. So there’s two sides to this coin. It’s like, well we are the company and we want to represent ourselves in a certain way and we want to communicate certain messaging. Currently we have a lunch and learn and that lunch and learn happens weekly. Every Wednesday at 11:00 AM Pacific it’s myself, another executive and we teach. That’s what we do, we just teach. We use StreamYard, we push it out to seven places at one time, including YouTube, we get good engagement.

Joe Kenemore:

But then, well what about something that would come from that content that would be a piece of an engaging image versus just that video? And really starting to tie everything to a machine. It’s like, “Oh, well, three weeks from now, we know we’re doing this and we need to be creating content ahead of time and getting it into Hootsuite or whatever you use to plan for your future posts.” But I think it’s always also just constantly paying attention. Luckily I’m in a business where I get thank yous almost every single day. I send gifts out, people, they thank me often. And a lot of my affiliates, the same thing happens. So why wouldn’t we share the most obvious? “Hey, use our platform, get these kind of thank yous, along with referrals and a few other things and you’re a win.” So I think there’s a couple pieces to it. There is that planning piece, that process, that strategic process. But I think you’ve got to be able to work on the fly.

Joe Kenemore:

Be quick on your feet, know that something’s coming up. You’ve got a new product or you’re reacting to a competitor or reacting to the United States postal service and how slow they could be at times. And get the light of that and having fun with it. There’s all kinds of things that kind of come up where you have to be on the fly. But strategically, it’s putting something in place where you actually have that calendar, that calendar of events and things that are coming and we have to work towards that messaging.

Ben Dixon:

What’s so helpful about what Joe just shared and as we discussed gang, and Livia and Maurice, you can ask what Joe’s piece too. But what I’d love about it is for those that aren’t very strategic in the content they create, you’re just full of vision, you’re full of stuff in your heart, is that Joe’s approach is actually very similar to someone like Grant Cardone’s approach in the space, gang. What Grant would do if you’re familiar, top 10 business influencers in the world and Joe, they both just are like, “I’m going to go on live, for two hours, at this time, every week and I’m just going to deliver.” And then it’s putting a staff member on, who’s going to go look at that two hours of content and what do we have today? We have Reels, we have TikTok, we have Instagram TV, we have YouTube, we have all the stuff.

Ben Dixon:

And so many times it’s having a gallery guy who’s your platform person, just literally watching the live and check. “That clip from four minutes and 50 seconds in to seven minutes in, I’m going to recut that as an Instagram TV clip. Oh my gosh, those things are going to be Reels. I’m going to mark that.” So they’re sitting there marking times on a pad of paper gang, this is the practical. And it’s like, they’re going to take that two hours and they’re going to cut out 50 little clips from that. Some are going to be Reel, some are going to be three minutes long, some are going to be YouTube videos. And it’s all these little sign posts out there, all across social media and all across web that are going to link back and drive traffic back to the main deal. They’re going to be the shareables that are inside of your apps, that your affiliants are tapping and sharing in social media that are the little seven second or 22nd clips on social that gets their friends off of social media, into your landing page.

Ben Dixon:

That stuff comes from a source and you have to decide, how do we as a company generate that? In addition to what Joe shared, Joe said something about saying, thank you. We have a lot of clients who will put a postcard, they’ll grab sophistical postcard. They’ll put it with their packages when their physical products go out to their customer and it will say, send us your story or send us your before and after picture or send us your video testimony for a chance to win $100 gift card or more product or whatever that is each month. If you’re a company like Beachbody, who have thousand bucks a day to get these. So think about that for a moment. But, with those cards, I’ve seen a feedback loop of free content of not just the company, creative free content, but of content pouring in from your customers. That’s coming into [email protected] and your technical team just sitting there, making Reels out of that content, making shareables out of that content because people submitted it for a chance to win a gift card.

Ben Dixon:

So here, those strategies of just creating places where content just is created, sometimes we’re just missing. Back to you, Livia, what process and strategy look like over at Driven. How do you guys plan this stuff out? What’s the intentionality.

Livia Fisher Kane:

Right. I mean, obviously we’re community based. So everything comes from the community and it’s just about directing them, the demographics already there. Obviously what you said about having the right people obviously is very important. That’s why you have a lot in your community, in your audience and the thing that you said of the cars, right on spot too. When it comes down to the creative team though, yes, you’re definitely don’t want that group of lost people in the room. The way I shape that, I train my team into, it’s deeper than cultural immersion. We call it the method because the method of acting, that’s my background. Just like you got to really feel. You really got to go into the bubble. But it’s not just the bubble of the shallow content. That the first thing you go into a bubble, you’re going to get a lot of shallow content. That is good because you will start understanding the demographic. But really allowing a creative team to go deeper, to really emerge themselves and create a method where they really understand how these people feel, where they’re at mentally.

Livia Fisher Kane:

And if you can train a creative team to do that. To really live in there rather than spend 10 minutes looking at what was trending today, that’s when you’re going to build the true narrative, right? That’s when you’re going to build layers. And that’s when you’re going to build a brand that is meaningful enough to stand out kind of thing. So that’s where everything that all of you guy’s saying is right on the spot and just making sure that you develop a system for your creative team to be able to deliver that for me is what’s very important.

Ben Dixon:

What’s really important to hear, gang, about the ideation piece that Livia was just sharing with everyone is, she’s saying you take the time of you have the idea, and then you go deeper and deeper and deeper into that idea. That actually plays into the algorithms of all the social networks today. If you haven’t read it yet, there’s the YouTube formula from Darrell Ads, it’s one of the first guys who left doing email marketing Ad promotion stuff. As his main work in the early 2000s and YouTube came to do video marketing. Is he had the largest crowdfunded campaign ever for video, he produced a show called the chosen about the life of Jesus through other people’s ideas, if you haven’t seen it, Darrell was a part of that team. But the YouTube formula talks about what Reels and what social media and what YouTube wants is what’s next.

Ben Dixon:

So, just a good example of this is if you look up, how to create Eggs Benedict on YouTube, the next video is then going to show you how to make biscuits and gravy or how to make perfect bacon. YouTube’s not going to keep you on their website by having 1000 videos of how else to make Eggs Benedict. They’re going to then so, “What’s next for this person? What else would they like?” And one of the magic things in your strategy and your content of going deeper to Livia’s perspective of this idea of you get the main concept, is you say, well, if someone saw how to make money for X trading and Livia’s niche. But what’s next? It’s like, daily habits of a trader. How to keep your emotions strong when you have a bad day. You just go down the list of what would be if I was going to create a bingeable event of somebody just being sucked into my content and watching it for five hours in a row, because if that’s what they’re doing, it’s like what would be the natural, [inaudible 00:43:55] of what’s next for that person?

Ben Dixon:

And that only comes when you create space for it. So some of the advice I’ve heard from other executives to latest this point is getting together. Many of your teams are remote, sometimes it’s going in and renting an Airbnb and getting together in a place where you can collaborate or go renting some studio time where you can have fun and go make some stuff. Sometimes just changing your physical environment can create the space for your team to get those creative juices flowing and to go deep enough to build a real plan that’s something you can execute on. So that was awesome Livia, thanks for sharing. Wrapping over to you Maurice, personal process. I’ve never asked Maurice this question. I’m excited myself. What is your personal process for strategically planning the content you guys are creating together?

Maurice Katz:

Well, first of all, you got to figure out the content, what is the result that you want the content to produce? So you need to know what is that individual’s action? What action do you need them to take based on the content you’re producing? Meaning that, is this content, am I only looking for them to like a video? Am I looking for them to click through that video to come to a webpage? Or is this content to put in an email? All I’m looking to do, is get an email on a landing page. Or is this content to supposed to close them or obtain a commitment so that they could actually buy your product or get your service? So you start with the end in mind, that’s how I start. And my process is like, whatever content I’m looking to produce, what do I want the customer or the person on the other end, what do I want them to do?

Maurice Katz:

So for instance, like an email, somebody say, “Well, you got to put a headline so you can get them to open the email. And then once they open them email, what are you going to put in the content to make them click through?” So I start with that. Then, so I’m going to speak from, especially, for if you’re a profit for business, a business for profit, at the end of the day, you’re looking for sales. No matter how much content you produce, how much buyer reality you want to create, at the end of the day, you want customers, you want to create sales. So I focus very heavily on that portion of it. Once the customer comes in, how can we convert them from just a lead to a sale? And that’s where I spend most of my content creation is in that place.

Maurice Katz:

So I work a lot with creating a webinar and a PowerPoint that really compels somebody to obtain a commitment that they want to move forward or I’ll put together a video that, that video gets them to say, “Look, I want move forward with you. And yeah, I want to buy that product.” And so once I determine that, then I go, what can I say? And I start now and I say, what can I say that I could say something so engaging. So eyeopening to where they’re like, whoa, it’s something that’s got to stand out. Something like Livia was saying, something very bold. Something super bold that almost will get people off guard. And say, well, so now you stand out with the content, but then you have to substantiate if that’s like a claim, you have to substantiate that. So you first, you come up with your bullet points or your content that you want to hit these points that are super compelling because it’s going to grab their attention. But then you have to have the content to back that up.

Maurice Katz:

So you can’t say something that you don’t have content to back that up. So you do that and so you create your headline and you create your opening slide or you create your opening line and your video, that’s really going to grab their attention. And then you’re going to have a couple other strong openings that or strong headlines within your video or within your content, your PowerPoint, that’s really going to keep them engaged and keep them wanting more. Keep the content short enough that they want more but long enough, not too long to where they get burned out and they’re clicking off the webinar because it’s been too long. So you got to have that beautiful, happy medium. Once you do that, you filled in the middle between those hardcore bullet points that really are going to hold the attention, grab the attention of the people.

Maurice Katz:

You want to say the wording in a way that’s not like the rest of the people that are in the marketplace. You want to come up with terminologies that no one has said before, that you could just make up on your own because you can define a word that you made up or define a sentence that doesn’t sound like the rest of every other person in that niche has said. So you’re going to catch them in a place to where it’s like, “Whoa, I’ve never heard this before.” Now it’s the same thing, but you’re just saying it in a different way. But because you’re saying it in a different way, you’re holding their attention. Versus if you say something that they’ve already heard it’s a preconceived notion comes up, “Oh, I’ve already heard this already.” So you say things that they’ve never heard.

Maurice Katz:

So I really spent a lot of time, how can I craft this sentence or this paragraph in a way they’ve never heard, they feel like, wow, this is something new. And then whatever claim I make or whatever sounds outrageous, I back it up with proof, whether it’s through a testimonial, whether it’s through just research that I can show, “Look, this is what the research has shown.” And then towards the end of the content, really connect with them through storytelling, make them understand and feel comfortable where they know, “Look, I know where you’ve been. I know what it’s like to be in your shoes, but let me tell you, you’re willing to partner with it. If you’re willing to go ahead and take the plunge for yourself,” it’s not for us. You always want to make it about them. We’re going to have customers, we’re going to build our business, but if you could see what we’re doing, we’re here to really change something in your life and help you.

Maurice Katz:

And this is for you. This is for your benefits. So if you’re willing to take the risk on yourself and you’re willing to move forward, then hey, we’re looking to partner with you. We’re going to work as hard for you that you’re willing to work for yourself. So if you’re not committed to yourself, then we can’t commit more to you than you’re willing to commit your to yourself. And that’s kind of like where the end is. And then all I’m doing is basically inviting them to make a commitment. I’m not trying to close them, I’m saying, “Look, if this seems right, if this is resonating with you right now and you really feel, and you could sense that this is something that is speaking to you, then go ahead, get started with us.” And that’s kind of like how I build out my content.

Ben Dixon:

You know what’s magic about what Maurice’s saying, gang, we haven’t talked about handling income claims and product claims and all this stuff, I have seen what Maurice is sharing used in all kinds of companies. I can give quick examples and many you’ve seen large companies in space with the two day cleans or the five day cleanse or the seven day cleanse. So instead of making claims about their product or weight loss or pound loss or anything else, they’re just like, “Oh my gosh, here are these amazing stories of the two day cleanse.” And by calling it the two days cleanse, the experience, whatever you name the experience, you can blow up that experience and then your products are getting that result. A good example. I have a client named Wealth Space on the West Coast, just spoke at their event at the Venetian. They sell life insurance, not that sexy, right? Gang.

Ben Dixon:

And all of us have the guy at church that’s trying to sell us life insurance every day of the frigging week. We all know that person. So if you’re international here, gang on the line in America, lots of rules about selling life insurance, not that sexy. So what did Tom do over there? As a content strategy, he created the legacy banking system. What the heck is the legacy banking system? It’s nothing, but he created it. He invented the words, the legacy banking system. So they invite you to watch videos about the legacy banking system. They invite you to come to dinners about the legacy banking system and that the legacy banking system part of living the legacy banking life is having whole life insurance. And so what do you know? They sell life insurance to you when you should… And gang, you got to hear that some of us get so stuck in what we do, where you could create a name that has nothing to do with income claims, has nothing to do with this.

Ben Dixon:

One program Livia’s done. That thing is awesome is they have the alpha training. And who doesn’t want to be a financial alpha? That’s hot. And there’s no claims about the millionaire mastermind. It wasn’t about you’re going to make a million mugs in one week. It was just like, come have the mindset of an alpha. And it’s like, okay, I want to be an alpha. So they’ve used words that bring an emotion in our life that bring us into this. Gang, we’re going to wrap up, we’ve run, reach to our time today, which is awesome. But we’re going to actually go back to Joe, we’re going to give Maurice a second to think about, because he just gave us, dropped so much knowledge on us. So we’re going to start with Joe, Livia, Maurice here. We’re going to say if there was one thing you could rewind the clock, tell yourself five years ago about content today, knowing all that now, what would you tell yourself? I mean, Joe, I’m mute again. It’s going to be gold. All right.

Joe Kenemore:

I’m good at it, I’m good at it. Okay. Folks. Jeez. All right, listen. It’s really this. If it was just one thing, it’s create content that you can consistently repurpose. And I’m going to point at one person, one of my favorite and brightest marketers I know Eric Worre. I mean literally six years ago, I had no idea why he is asking me to drawing down time code backstage and have somebody do that of important moments of every single person that spoke on his stage. Well, it didn’t take me long to figure it out. It’s like, oh one, three hour general session created 150 pieces of content. It’s like, wow, that is a powerful way to engage with your community and create content that is record it one time, repurpose it, reformat it for everything across the board, every platform, that’s it. I mean, really five years ago, that is it. And it still is relevant to this day. I still see it to this day. This, what we’re doing right now could be repurposed.

Joe Kenemore:

I didn’t deliver much gold, but these two did and there are these little pieces that they delivered that could be taken and bam, I mean, literally a one, two minute piece that has value to your customer base. What is it that delivers that value that they just go, wow, I got to have more of that. Anyway. There you go. That’s it

Ben Dixon:

Love it. Love it. Love it. Livia, What would be your one thing you could rewind five years and tell yourself about the future? What would it be?

Livia Fisher Kane:

I mean, the metaverse is coming. Right.

Ben Dixon:

It’s real. Bitcoin. Five years ago. I would’ve told myself that too. I know.

Livia Fisher Kane:

Right. That’s pretty much, but I’m well positioned to say the least, so I’m happy. And I think I had it in the back of my head, no matter what. So all good.

Ben Dixon:

That’s so true. Amen. I wish we could all see the future and it’s going to be something else next year. It’s all there. Maurice for you. What would be your one thing?

Maurice Katz:

I would say the one thing that I would tell myself from five years ago, not to worry about is don’t beat yourself up when you make something that’s not as good as you thought, or you make mistakes. Because what tends to happen is, especially if you’re a high level producer and you make mistakes, you can really harp on that. And you could really hinder yourself from moving forward because in the back of your mind, you’re like, man, if I would’ve done this different, the outcome would’ve been different. And instead of being bothered by it learned from it. And so there were seasons in my life where I made decisions, whether it was content or whatever, where I was like, man, I could have really made a better decision and you’ve got to learn to let that go. What’s already happened, has happened. And don’t, what’s happened in your past, into your present because it makes no sense because then you’re going to bring it into your future.

Maurice Katz:

Especially if it was something that you regret doing or you did something wrong or whatever. And I think that’s the biggest thing I would tell myself five years ago, look, just know how to move forward fast. I know how to move over a mistake super fast and just learn from it and don’t worry about it. Don’t hold yourself and don’t beat yourself up to that simple mistake. It’s not worth it.

Ben Dixon:

You know Maurice, I think that’s such a powerful thought too. Because we have to remember that the markets who votes at the end of the day. One of the things I love the most about Joe’s comment and yours for what you just shared is, and Livia is right. The world’s changing, metaverse, it’s all changing so fast. When you go create those 150 pieces of content or whatever it is, not all are going to be winners. And so when you’re shacking those things out, whatever you’re doing, make sure you’re in a place where you’re tracking. And because here’s what you find out, is the real magic isn’t the first idea or the second or the third.

Ben Dixon:

If you’re looking at feedback loops, whatever those are for you, whatever metrics, if it’s views or purchases or shares, maybe you even have some of the smart apps in the space where you can see, oh, these are the contents the reps are willing to share, and the content they’re willing to share. These are the ones actually getting us sales. We do that type of work. I see that type of work in the space right now and it makes a big difference. Because you’re seeing, oh, okay, this is the stuff my reps are willing to share and out of that stuff, this is the ones actually moving people to the front of the sales process, by having a practice like that inside of your process of continually creating lots of content and then continually looking at what are people willing to share and what out of their willing to share is working, you can let go of the end result emotionally, Maurice of needing every single thing of content you touch with your finger to be a home run.

Ben Dixon:

Because like, Hey, I’m just looking for the 10% of this that gets me to the next golden goose. And that’s really healthy, is knowing that your next best piece of content, you’re going to come up with the feedback you got from the last round you just did. And that tomorrow’s going to be better than today in that hope. Powerful. Gang. Thank you so much for being here today. We went right up to the minute. This is our longest DSEF forum ever. You guys are fantastic. Our next session will be announced shortly on the LinkedIn groups. If you loved today’s event, share it with other executives. This will get transcribed and will be posted back in our LinkedIn group and on the YouTube channel. I just heart full of gratefulness.

Ben Dixon:

Livia, thank you so much for just sharing your experience and your heart and everything you’ve learned with us today. It’s awesome to have you. Joe, awesome as always keep kicking butt brother. Love, love, love the difference you’re making people’s lives and Maurice all the best to you and your new venture and this whole new adventure you’re on right now, excited for you and wishing you all the best. Thank you so much gang for being here today, have a wonderful day. We’ll talk with you soon. Bye for now.

Maurice Katz:

Thank you. Bye.