Grow Your Business with LinkedIn Live

Curt Anderson  00:02

Hey, Damon. Good morning. Happy Wednesday. How are you doing?

Damon Pistulka  00:06

I’m doing great. Curt middle of the week, getting lots done

Curt Anderson  00:11

with baseball, how the mariners doing the mariners tonight? Good. Not good. Alright, well, we’ll skip that. We’ll save that for another time. So everything’s going good. We’re a little weak. We’ve made it to the hump. And just Hey, today, you know what? I thought we’d talk a little bit about live streaming, how to grow your business with live stream. Now, if I’m not mistaken, you’ve done. You’ve done a couple of live streams, right?

Damon Pistulka  00:33

I have I have Curt, I think I’ve done three.

Curt Anderson  00:36

You’ve done three. Okay, so how many? How you did three last week? Are this how’s that working out for you?

Damon Pistulka  00:43

It’s working out pretty well, Curt, because you know, live streaming is a way that you can, you can really get to know people you can reach out to it’s just, it’s just a lot of fun.

Curt Anderson  00:54

Access a lot of fun. And so you know, let’s dive in. So now actually, I think you’d live stream on Monday, right? Didn’t you live stream on Monday? Yeah. So now you live stream that how did you do faces a business last night? Yes, I did. And now you see now you’re doing it today? And then are you live streaming tomorrow?

Damon Pistulka  01:11

Yes, I am. And then what are you

Curt Anderson  01:13

doing on Friday?

Damon Pistulka  01:14

I’m going to be live streaming on Friday with you, Kurt?

Curt Anderson  01:17

So do you so five days a week that you’re live streaming? Yes, I

Damon Pistulka  01:21

1. Yes, I am this week, I am

Curt Anderson  01:23

just shocked. Like, why? Why have you collectively decided to put so much time it gives you because, you know, hey, let’s play devil’s advocate. Right? People would be like, you know, dude, I just don’t have time. Damon, like, how are you doing this five days a week? Like, just Sure. Why have you made this such a priority? What’s it been? What’s it done for you?

Damon Pistulka  01:40

Well, you know, This started a long time ago, you know, during COVID time, we we didn’t really have much other option, but to use the video option to you know, connect with people meet people and do those kinds of things. And, and really what what some people helped me to realize is that live streaming is a great, great way to do your business development work or to meeting interesting people and the whole networking aspect of it. So I really embraced it. And once I did I, you just you get used to being able to reach out, talk to people get to know some really interesting people, and ultimately, that drives business. And so it’s my business development now.

Curt Anderson  02:25

Right? So so we do manufacturing ecommerce success you do faces a business. Now, one thing several years ago, you were really encouraging me. You know, David, have you noticed a trend? If you’ve noticed, like, there’s a pattern, you’re telling me something? And it takes me like a couple years to get around to it? If you notice that? Yes.

Damon Pistulka  02:42

But that’s the same with me. Curt, someone told me actually in like, 2018 that you need to get on video, you need to be on YouTube, you need to be doing this stuff. And I should have listened to him back then. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  02:52

well, hey, my wife complains about the same thing. So So let’s dive in. So one thing that you started promoting heavy, is you’re like, hey, what keywords are you putting into the titles of the live stream? Yeah. So when you’re, you know, you hear about content content we’ve got here, you know, man, content is just that dreaded word. It’s everywhere, right? Traditionally, when we think about content, it’s similar. Okay, well, it’s, I always thought blog posts, write blog posts, blog posts, who’s got time to write out blog posts. So you know, we’re talking to a lot of, you know, busy entrepreneurs, solo marketers, solopreneurs manufacturers, and like, man who has time to do this content, but by putting out video just talking about your passion, your purpose, your your expertise, how you make the world a better place. It you know, even if you’re a painful introvert, it’s a lot easier talking about it, maybe not for everybody, but it’s it’s easier talking about it, then Senator knocking down typing? Why did you decide to kind of go this route, again, aggressively five days a week? Why are you putting out so much content?

Damon Pistulka  03:53

Well, Curt, first of all, when you’re thinking about this as a form of business development, you want to meet meet the right people. Correct. So it’s going to take some it’s going to take some at bats, as people say, to meet the right people, and you need to be doing that. But it is helping to build relationships, first of all, but the livestreaming really gives you the trifecta, people no need to create content, but we don’t want to write, or I should say, some of us don’t, don’t want to intentionally sit down and try to write a blog post do something. Well, it’s much easier, like we’re doing now to sit here and talk about a subject. And then we have the transcript that helps us to create a blog post a blog post, that on our website that has content rich, helps people, all those kinds of things. A video is also another way people can digest that to be helpful and educational. So you’re generating content with it. You can build the relationship with the person you’re interviewing on the show and learn from them and help them really express themselves and what they’re passionate about. So you’re building that relationship. And the third thing this is really just like Got a trifecta of stuff for us with live streaming. The third thing is you’re putting stuff on your website, putting stuff out on social media that helps you rank higher for Google search. And you’re filling, as I like to say, the Google eats bucket I love, right? Because they want you to they want experts, they want people that have authority, they want people to get the trust factor, all those kinds of things that Google wants, by getting experts talking with them about things that are relevant for you, your industry, or what you’re trying to do. You’re building all three of these things at once with live stream, which is why I’ve doubled down and gone all in on live streaming. Well,

Curt Anderson  05:44

I do that is awesome. Absolutely love what you’re saying there. And so let’s, let’s go into a couple examples. Okay. And so, again, from a search standpoint, you know, so keywords, you know, so, so folks listening out there, you know, whatever the service is that you provide, you know, what product you provide, you know, or make or manufacture or whatever that looks like, what are your core key words? And so Damon, what you’re saying is, is that the more you talk about those and the more that you’re putting that content out, just you know, that is that’s Seo 101, right? It’s just that basic foundation of SEO. Now, you’ve mentioned the Google eats bucket of love, can you so if people are like, you know, Google, like, do what do you say and Google eats bucket love? What does that you

Damon Pistulka  06:30

know what the acronym stands for? But an idea Kurtz will tell you explain what it is because I can’t ever remember it.

Curt Anderson  06:36

Right. So it’s E I. So Google eats bucket love is E, it’s actually it’s two E’s, right? It’s experience, expertise, authority, and trust, right. So E A, T S, right? Eats. So expertise, experience, expertise, authority, and trust. And so that’s what Google is looking for. And especially like, with AI right now, you know, you know, some people, you know, you could take advantage of it, just like I’m just gonna put out a ton of, you know, AI info AI info it, you know, but with, you know, in our case, you know, we provide solutions for E commerce, SEO, that type of thing. So the name of the show manufacturing ecommerce success. So when we came up with that name, you know, years ago, it was strategically trying to, you know, hey, it’s E commerce success for manufacturers. That’s what we’re trying to work on. Well, the thing is, you know, we tried to bring on, not try, we’re incredibly blessed, fortunate to have all sorts of wonderful guests to talk about the subject. You know, these are subject matter experts talking about, yeah, commerce, SEO, how to create content, or other things, you know, leadership, we have some inspirational folks. We talked about family business the other day. But as far as like, whatever your product your service that you offer, bring to the market, how can you just be talking about those topics over and over and over? And so that helps Phil, as Damon just said, that Google eats bucket of love Daymond? What are like some, like faces of business? What are some of the topics that you’d like focusing on? Like, when you’re looking for guests? What are you targeting?

Damon Pistulka  08:09

Well, you’re hitting some of them, it’s leadership, it’s about business development, it’s about how to run good businesses, it’s a mindset, it’s all the kinds of things that business executives are going to be wanting to hear about learn about and, and really understand better so they can be better leaders and owners of businesses, you know, unlike us on manufacturing, e commerce success, because that is one of the verticals that I work in a lot, both manufacturing ecommerce, we can, we can also use that same kind of thing and do some keyword research. And I think you’ve got some examples here, Curt, that you can show us that, you know, if you have a live streaming strategy, and you have keyword phrases that you want to rank for, you can use that effectively in your show topics, titles, and what you’re, you know, the experts you use to really rank better on Google as well. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  09:07

No doubt. And so like, you know, for example, so manufacturing ecommerce success, what we do is we offer e commerce training primarily for manufacturers or in a b2b space. So for example, so just you know, here back in March, you know, we did a little workshop and we you know, written the headline b2b e commerce readiness training. So we put that right there in the headline and so you know, you look at so when you go to the video section, let’s just for giggles let’s take a look here. Okay, so I click All right, so I do a search, and I’m looking at b2b commerce e commerce training eight there’s a crazy bald guy right there. Do you recognize that guy? So that dude I’m not here. So right here first and second, we captured those videos for that that portion and then what we’re doing is then in the video, we’re putting a lot of meat in the in the description on you know, training that we offered. that type of thing. So again, this is a really competitive keyword right here. b2b e commerce training. Now, this was an interesting one right here. Okay. We did. We just did a show a week ago Monday, right? It was a week ago Monday, and it was b2b e commerce solutions were like, we went to Google Keyword Planner, Google Keyword Planner. And we’re like, you know, hey, this is a heavy traffic keywords and let me see. I’ve got the tab open, but you know, it’s a it’s a heavy traffic key term. Okay. So we’re like, hey, Damon, let’s just for giggles let’s do an episode on b2b e commerce solutions. And so you know, when I go over here to videos, now, we didn’t get the 123. But here we are. We’re here, this spot and this spot. And this was just from right here. You see, it’s just a week ago. Yeah, this is a very highly trafficking keyword. And so this was, this was a funny how we brought in RJ, a friend of ours that has an E commerce agency. We talked to him about b2b e commerce solutions. And now it’s coming up immediately. Damon, what are your thoughts here?

Damon Pistulka  11:05

Yeah, I mean, this is really a powerful way to give yourself a boost in the in the Google search, and to become, you know, to show up real, real high in the rankings on the pages for the search results.

Curt Anderson  11:21

Yeah, absolutely. Let me see if I have, um, you know, I have Google. Let me let me grab this one. Okay. Can you see Google Keyword Planner now? Yes, we can. Okay, so let’s go into a little Google Keyword Planner session if we if we could. So alright, let me come back to you. I think you’re right here. There. Okay. So we take a look and see, let me move this up. Okay, so you see, this is Google Keyword Planner, this is a free tool doesn’t cost a single penny, you know, I’ve been using this, you know, our SEO friends out there, you know, you have other tools that you might use. I love Google Keyword Planner, you go into Google Keyword Planner, and you can populate your keyword right there. And then you just do your search results, I hit get results, I come down here, let me move this up so you guys can see it. And you know, so the nice thing is, it gives me some helpful information here. Let me make this a little wider. So right here, we see Google Keyword Planner. And so there’s b2b e commerce solutions. And then here’s the traffic for the month 1000 to 10,000 searches per month. And then I slide over here Daymond. And check this out. People are spending $50 per click $50 per click for that keyword. So when we see that type of spend for Google ads, we’re like, man, they’re you know, remember you said you so many Sam, remember that guy? Remember that? Yes. What did he say? Man? There’s gold in them there hills never used to say that all the time? Yes, he did. When you see a keyword like this, and people are spending Daymond check this out. Twitter, there’s $40 per click $45 per click $65 per click. So you know, these are expensive, you know, keywords that people are spending enough, you know, a fair amount of money on. And so what we want to do is like how do we take advantage of your key words? Yes.

Damon Pistulka  13:18

Yes. And when people do this with live streaming is really, you know, it takes a little bit to get to get the the Google authority with your I mean, because you can’t start out at zero, I don’t think this will work. But as you do things over time, and you build up your your authority, and you start to really show that you are consistently producing content, this this is you can own what you want to on on Google over time.

Curt Anderson  13:46

Right? And that’s and so the thing is the sweet spot here. And so we’ve got our friend Henry pops in and says, Hey, content should be relevant, something that they can relate to and will bring change in their lives. Man, that’s a drop the mic right there as it is to you and to your guests. And of course, to your audience. Henry happy. What is the theme and Wednesday? I think it’s hump day, right?

Damon Pistulka  14:06

It is Wednesday.

Curt Anderson  14:07

It is Wednesday, all day. It’s Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, my friend. Thank you for dropping that note. So, you know, again, let us drop a note, let us know that you’re out there. But what we’re talking about is, you know, you want to separate yourself from the competition. So we’d love that book, Blue Ocean Strategy. What? So anybody out there? If you haven’t read Blue Ocean Strategy, stop what you’re doing. Jump on Amazon Kindle, wherever you buy. What is Blue Ocean Strategy?

Damon Pistulka  14:35

Well, it’s really about it talks about the blue ocean, the red ocean is where all the sharks are and everybody’s fighting for the food that’s there. And that’s where most people live in a competitive environment in their business. And really a blue ocean strategy is find a way to get out into the open ocean where no one else is at where their fish out there that you can get. And this is customers and this is just another metaphor for that. But realistically by you You being one of a few are one of the only in your industry to be out there doing what you’re doing on live stream and sharing other people’s expertise by suppliers by other people in your industry that are thought leaders that are really helping the industry, you become that that source of knowledge for the industry, and are a source of knowledge for your geography. And really, that is how you develop this blue ocean strategy. Because you no longer are trying to do business development by talking to to a potential customer and going, Hey, would you like to buy my products or services? Because that’s, I mean, everybody has to do that if they’re if you don’t have some other way to really build relationships. But now you can do it so much better with your livestream show by going, Hey, you’re doing some cool stuff. Why don’t you come on and talk about it on my show? Because I think people would like to hear about it. What what is a better icebreaker for someone that you know, you want to connect with this person in this company doing whatever they can do? If you can go have them come on the livestream and do it. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. If they come on and do it. And even if they don’t, you can still use that as a way to to start building a relationship. I’m not selling anything. Right. So so if you can’t get on the show, is there something you would like to share? Is there somebody else you’d like to do in your company that would be good for this. I mean, it’s, it’s all about shining a light on other people, you do a great job of this, Kurt and helping people really make sure we’re doing that. But it’s a completely different way to to get that initial relationship built. And then over time do business development. Yeah, I

Curt Anderson  16:44

mean, I couldn’t agree more. And I had to I had the script flipped on me. For example, remember our buddy Rob house? Yeah. Rob reached out to me a couple of months ago, and he was like, hey, Curt, he goes, I have this little live show. Would you want to come on it? And I’m like, Are you kidding me of like, what I’m so honored and flattered. Yeah. Rob would read on he was on our show, you know? Yes, years ago. And he’s just, uh, you know, I don’t know, anybody has an enthusiasm. And I actually knew his father from a previous life. Yeah, Maryland. And his dad is just just a legend in my corner of the world, and so I’m on his live show tomorrow. He puts out a post, you know, he has like, 50 Some people come into his live show, you know, that’s awesome. So again, so it’s flipping the script. Now, here’s Rob. Creating content, just you know, showing his expertise passionately, just shining bright light on other people. Hey, Harry says one of my favorite books of all time, Harry. Hey, Dan. Happy Wednesday. Harry. Man.

Damon Pistulka  17:42

Thanks for being here. Harry.

Curt Anderson  17:43

Appreciate your comments we have here what’s your best advice to build a blue ocean Martin Thank you for joining us happy Wednesday to you my friend Damon, what’s your thoughts best advice a built a blue ocean?

Damon Pistulka  17:57

First of all, don’t go where everybody else is. I mean, it is it’s really that’s what it is. And when you look at it, and you go Curt, what are we doing here today? What are people doing in E commerce? What are people doing in in the kind of work that I do in businesses and even in selling businesses? There’s not many people that are live streaming and certainly live streaming the way that we do. And you know, Martin, you really have to think how can I do it differently enough that makes it fun for the people involved and makes you so unique and desirable. And that I mean to look at us really in a different way. It’s like we’re it’s desirable because it’s fun to be on the show we have a good time all that good things but you know you really have to stand out and different and and the right people will come to you as you begin to do this. That’s

Curt Anderson  18:51

right. So you know what David I have to Martin Great question shamelessly if you don’t mind i i In in and out on businesses that have just taken a product and blown it up okay, I’m gonna give you two examples Martin Sony, you check this out Google if you want to. So as Damon Have you heard of liquid death? Have you heard of the Why have so is so if you guys google it liquid death if you haven’t heard of it, if you’re heard of it, you know the story. So it’s, it’s it’s Canned Water, not bottled water, it’s Canned Water. And when you see it’s got like a skull and bones, you know, whatever. A guy was at, you know, a lot of other pools. Like he was at a concert. It was just everybody was, you know, just it was sweltering hot. People were dying of heat, and everybody’s drinking energy drinks the whole day. Well, you know, after your third or fourth energy drink, it actually makes you more thirsty. Right. And so people were just dying for water, but it just wasn’t really cool to drink bottled water. This guy saw the blue ocean what Damon if I came you said hey, Damon, I’m going to start. Let’s start bottling water. Like Kurt seriously like Is there a product that is more commoditized? Or more saturated than bottled water? Right? This guy takes an oversaturated market didn’t. And now it’s more sustainable. Puts it in a can make and who does he appeal to? 18 year old skateboarders hardcore, right, you know, rocker, you know, data. But liquid death is a great example of somebody that saw a market exploded it and went into a blue ocean was something that was just you. And the guys doing nine figures he’s doing over $100 million with liquid death. That was what other comments we have here. Yeah, we

Damon Pistulka  20:38

got a great one from Stephanie here. She’s a safety consultant, should I do live streams, product focus and should feature function benefits? Or should I have it structured in a way that will be I’d say, I think a mix of both and something like this, because if you’re a safety consultant, I think you can identify problems you see in the field, and then some of the common solutions and bring people in to help you highlight the different ways different companies, different people are helping to solve these problems. Because you’re out there in the field, maybe identifying problems, and helping people solve them, by you, understanding all our knowing all the best solution providers. I mean, you become that source of information for your your customers, which I love. And that’s why I like getting experts on on this show and on on the face of business because man, if someone asked me, Damon, what do I need to do for this? I probably know somebody. You know, we know some people now we go.

Curt Anderson  21:40

Now, Damon, you know, Stephanie, and my my cousin Stephanie Anderson here, by the way, so just we’re kind of like, you know, eighth cousins or something. But Stephanie, thank you. Awesome question. Would love to connect you further? Yeah, this is an we, man, do I geek out on this? How could you become the subject matter expert on this? You know, you’re the safety consultant, hey, what about getting the ISO standard person on your show and talk about them? Because now you can, you know, what have you created like a nice referral network of other people that are targeting the same same customers that you are, but you know, different subjects? You know, so like, you’re the safety guru. Well, what about you bring in the efficiency guru, or you bring in the, you know, you know, whatever, you know, OSHA, whatever, you know, I mean, you’re bringing out all sorts of different subject matter expertise of helping your ideal customer. And Stephanie shamelessly, then what do you do? Bring on your customers? Yes, I have your customer. Come on your live show and just say, hey, Damon, you know, boy, when we can your place, nothing personal. But man, you’re like an OSHA disaster waiting to happen. Let’s just talk about how we went through that safety, my Stephanie Anderson, Guru safety checklist. And we went through step by step. And Damon’s like, Hey, Stephanie, you were the greatest. This was awesome. You took us from unsafe to safe, and now you get this shameless, wonderful testimonial. And so anyway, I could be Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  23:06

yeah. Stephanie, you’re right. You’re right. And this is why we believe in live streaming so much. And you know, Curt, and I believe in it so much that we’ve we’ve actually created a course on live streaming as well. So I think he’s going to drop the link in that in that post on this and the live chat about it. But it’s, it’s, it’s something is really blown us away. And and we think that it’s, it’s a, it’s a blue ocean, it’s a blue ocean, I want to do 70

Curt Anderson  23:37

This can be a separate thing for anybody out there. And obviously, you know, so Damon, you know, I got an E commerce in 1995. Probably everybody on the call was even born then. Right? Yeah. So at that time, it was like, hey, you need a website, you need a website, then you gotten into 2000s? And was like, Okay, well, I guess like, I can’t use my phone book anymore. I need to get a website. I personally feel livestream today is what websites were 20 years ago, where you’re like, Okay, you have to have a website, this in man, why not get into it early Daymond. What’s it cost to start a live stream show? It

Damon Pistulka  24:10

is very low, it is very low. I think you can just see if you can get into a pocket change really for in some of the free versions and stuff you can do. But you know, it is and we talked about this a lot. What what is the evolution of the of the buyers and they want to find out more and more information before the purchase. And if you’re the source of that information, you are where they’re going to be looking. And if you provide that information, then they’re going to be looking for your solution.

Curt Anderson  24:40

And Stephanie, if you caught the early part of the program, if you didn’t I apologize as a suggest this go back and remind we were talking about the SEO benefits. So David, how about this? You know, Stephanie, if you did a show on, you know, safety, you know, safety expertise, you know, wherever we’ll have to connect on LinkedIn, so I don’t know what city you’re in. Let’s say you’re in St. Louis, I don’t know where you are. But let’s say, you know, safety consultation, safety consultant in St. Louis, a safety consultant in wherever you are, when you put those times when you use your key words in your headline on your livestream show, because now you’re telling Google like, hey, Google, this is what my expertise is, this is what I’m an authority on. This is what people trust me for, this is what I’m put on this earth to make it a better place. Because I provide safety solutions or any other listeners, whatever it is that you provide, get those in your headline, and now you start capturing, you know, SEO ranking. So now you’re getting an enormous amount of content. You’re capturing SEO rankings, you’re building this vibrant, robust referral network? Yeah, just you know, the benefits go on and on. Let’s see, she says,

Damon Pistulka  25:47

um, at the end, she wants to be a consultant, not a product peddler. So this is awesome. And this is right. I mean, you you’re not going to be selling the products on your show. But you’re going to be showing how these products solve the problems and you’re giving your and customers the, the information they need, right? I want to know how to do this. Well, you can use this product. And this is why it’s good. And this is why we have it. But you are the conduit to get it there. So

Curt Anderson  26:13

I know we have a hard stop. And we’ll come to here. Here’s here’s a here’s a perfect example for you. So we do e commerce, obviously manufacturing e commerce success. I have a we’ll talk we talked about our referral network. So somebody my referral network reaches out to me and said, Hey, Kurt, we have a company who needs an E commerce solution. But I’ve never heard of this, this E commerce software before. Are you familiar with it? It’s called Big commerce. Ironically, we’ve had five to six individuals from Bigcommerce. On our live show. A month ago, in June, we had the vice president of education from big commerce, big commerce is a publicly traded company, we’re very tight with them. We have five or six episodes. So now I eat the person says, Hey, he has a pick an E commerce provider, you know, my me or my competitors? I said, Yes, I do. No big commerce. By the way. Here’s an episode by interviewed the vice president of education. Here’s Lance, oh, wide, who’s the head of sales? Here’s my friend, Jessica Williamson. And here’s my friend Paul, you know, so I sent three or four of our live streams. Now I just created social, you know, street cred and social, you know, social credibility, right? Social proof is what I want to say, and street cred with this person. So now it just you know, now we’re in we got the kind we got the the client so there’s a so many benefits here. We could go on and on. Dana, we have like a minute left. Close this out. Brother, what do you have for our friends out there? Well,

Damon Pistulka  27:42

I just think I think if you haven’t taken a look at live streaming, you can look at it take just go out and do some research on and see what you want to do. If you want you can connect with us further on this and then check out the link that we’re going to if we haven’t already, we drop it into the post for live streaming. And of course, we’ve got it’s got a lot of good information and and and man, it’s just it is a powerful tool. That’s all I say.

Curt Anderson  28:05

It’s a powerful tool, Stephanie. Thank you, man. Great chat. Thank you, everybody. I’ve seen Saul’s out there. And everybody else. Harry Martin, thank you for your questions. I met Henry. Guys, Happy Wednesday. God bless you. We wish you just amazing credible keep crushing it reach out to us. We’d love to continue the conversation. Daymond we’re here Friday, and we’re bringing on a guest a client of ours who he helped them take a live stream and it’s gonna be your Friday 1230 Eastern 930 Pacific, and we’re gonna be going deeper into this conversation. We’re very passionate about this. Have an awesome awesome rest of your day.

Damon Pistulka  28:39

See everyone. See you guys

Curt Anderson  28:45

because I need to close that up right now.