Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Nicole Donnelly

Nicolle. Okay. All right. Ready for him.

Curt Anderson 0:02
All right, Dan Baker we’re doing we’re just talking about you. So hopefully you’re happy. Thank God. It’s Monday, Damon. So yes, a manufacturing Monday motivation Say that five times fast. David. Happy Monday, my friend. I know it’s early out your way. How was your weekend?

Damon Pistulka 0:20
It was awesome. Other than we had the power out for 12 hours because someone tried to decide to hit a utility pole by our house, which is Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was all good.

Curt Anderson 0:33
But you survived man how to survive no internet. No electricity. What

Damon Pistulka 0:40
it was, I didn’t know how I was gonna make it. Oh,

Curt Anderson 0:43
well, here you are. You survived my friend. We’re here on Monday. And Dan, bigger. I’m all about the time. Yeah, we started promptly, guys. This is such an honor. Such a thrill. I couldn’t even sleep this weekend. Damon. There you go. Cole Donnelly in the house on our program today, Nicole, happy Monday. How are you?

Nicole Donnelly 1:03
Hi, I’m doing great. I’m happy to be here talking to you, Kurt. This is awesome. Oh,

Curt Anderson 1:08
man, you all you say that to all the guys don’t just wait, we’re gonna dig in. We have a bunch of things to talk about. And so let’s start here, Nicole. So we are we recent connections. And I’m telling man, it has been just a delight, wonderful opportunity to get to know you your superpowers. I know you’re very modest. And so but I can say superpowers. Because I feel like it right. So let’s dig into first I want to dig into your background. Okay, as an entrepreneur, I know like entrepreneurship runs in your blood. So when you first tried to figure out what you want to do when you grow up, you had no choice but to be an entrepreneur, why can you share a little bit like dad, maybe grandma and grandpa, like, let’s talk a little bit about that family history of entrepreneurship. And this is a great story, Damon, you’re gonna love this.

Nicole Donnelly 1:55
Yes, so my great grandfather, actually, on my mom’s side, he owned an oil company in Idaho called V one oil and he was man very successful. So I grew up really looking up to him because he had built this, this business really from nothing. And he ended up selling it really in his in his later life. And then my grandfather on my mother’s side started a completely different business, he he opened up a hotel right across from Disneyland, and I remember going there as a kid, and it was just so exciting and so fun to be able to be right there. And, and I started working there actually, when I was 16 years old, and I just loved it. I loved being part of that and seeing families come in and how excited they were and just just really just loved the what was what he created really, for people and friend for people that work there, you know, the community impact that that had so it was really cool that my dad I watched him grow a business from just himself as a solopreneur and up to 30 employees. So I always had this dream that I wanted to be the first woman in my family to own a business. So from the time I was probably, I don’t know, maybe a teenager I was thought man I got to do this I want to do this. I love small business. I think they’re the backbone of America and just such a critical part of our society. And I just wanted to be part of that and support small businesses in any way that shape that I could. And so that’s kind of a little bit about why I love small business and why I am where I am right now.

Curt Anderson 3:24
That’s what an absolutely awesome track record in your family. Now we have a few comments here so Gary, good afternoon, Dan and Jake Jake, happy Monday my friends. So they’re saying they have a problem with a feed Damon?

Damon Pistulka 3:36
I don’t know. I’m looking at it now. And I don’t It’s not coming up on my computer either. But you know, it’s showing you are live on LinkedIn. So we’ll see. We will see here.

Curt Anderson 3:48
So Dan and Jake, I don’t know if this helps. We’re also live on Twitter, you could jump over to Twitter and see how that works. So maybe they can see the feed over there.

Damon Pistulka 3:57
Oh, man well overcome

Curt Anderson 4:01
with try you will try it on Twitter. We’ll see how that looks over on Twitter. So in drop us a note Keep us posted and we because we want to keep this rockin room and Nicole. Nicole you pique my curiosity with a Disneyland how many teenagers get to work across the street from Disneyland at grandpa’s hotel, share a little bit. Let’s go into like, how did grandpa get to started? Share? What was that experience? I mean, it’s really not everybody can has that type of experience. Sure. What was that? Like?

Nicole Donnelly 4:32
Oh, man, well, my mom tells me that when she was a kid she used to they they at one point they lived in the back of the hotel. Yes, yes. They just they and they would swim in the pool. I remember she she has videos and pictures of her and the kids swimming in the wall, the guests and everything. So they like he started from scratch. I mean, he he graduated from University of Utah actually. And then he started doing you know, I think he worked at a bank and he just decided he wanted to go out And so we ended up purchasing purchasing this motel. And they lived in the back room for years. And built it. Yeah. built it up and, and that he became very successful. Yeah. And it’s still there. It’s actually still there today. Yeah.

Curt Anderson 5:15
And what you’re like what time frame are we talking when grandpa stole like

Nicole Donnelly 5:18
1965 65

Curt Anderson 5:20
in the early 80s. I mean, that had the foresight to have a motel Hotel. Was it a motel?

Nicole Donnelly 5:29
It was a motel. Yeah, hotel

Curt Anderson 5:31
across the street from Disney Land. My goodness, what that is absolutely brilliant. And just stuck with it and just and built a wonderful career for himself. And so as a teenager, what’s it like, you know, people travel all over the world. They were near Disney, my poor daughter, she, you know, hopefully she can hear this. But your street man how, like, what was it like being across the street from Disney?

Nicole Donnelly 5:53
It was magic. I mean, when I worked there, I didn’t really go to Disneyland too much. But what I loved was just seeing I worked at the front desk, you know, I helped people check into their rooms and answer questions about the park and you know, all that fun stuff. And I just loved interacting with people that would come from all over the world. And this was like, their big trip, right? Like they’ve been planning some of them for years and years and years. And so it just was magical. They’ve come up with something just be so excited to be there. And yeah, it was just fun to be a part of it. And it was always busy, because there’s always people coming to Disneyland. So yeah, yeah. Awesome.

Curt Anderson 6:27
You know, take from a customer service standpoint, and when you think like who set the bar for like customer service, Disney so you have that benchmark and you know, you’re kind of like, you know, capturing that opportunity. Grandpa’s an entrepreneur so like, you know, what a great environment for us kicking off your we’re so talk about your your dad started a business from scratch. shirlow. Let’s take a little deep dive into what dad did.

Nicole Donnelly 6:51
Yeah. So he started a business called us air filtration, and selling air filtration equipment. So he when I was young started working, we were in Texas, I guess. And he started working with someone that that as a partner to them, he worked for them as a company and then he decided after working there for five years, he said, You know, I think I can do a better job at this. I think I could go out on my own and offer better service and better pricing if I go out and, and do this on my own. So he just went off started on his own. He was a solopreneur for many years before he was able to bring out a store. I think it took him 10 years before he brought on his first employees. And now there’s 30 people working there. So it’s it’s been fungus. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 7:33
that is awesome. And if it gets cut my dogs howling, I don’t know if you can hear that right now. So I feel it feels like going a little crazy right now. So Damon’s used to it. And so all you. So anyway, all right. So incredible stories, what great opportunities for you to just, you know, have that front row seat from grandpa’s opportunity, Dad’s opportunity. So now let’s take a deep dive into your world. So you go off to BYU, capture your education. Let’s talk a little bit about your career and what I love to dig into and gather and understanding why manufacturing, I know you love being in this b2b world and Daymond I love interviewing women in manufacturing women and entrepreneurship. And you are really a role model for hitting that mold. Share a little bit. Why did you choose b2b space and manufacturing?

Nicole Donnelly 8:23
Great. So in college, I just really I studied psychology in college, because I love understanding human behavior. I love helping people. That’s something that’s always just driven me. And so I always wanted to do something where I could be of service and helping people, right. That’s what we all want to be doing. So at a college, I worked for a company and we were doing direct to consumer marketing programs for Big Pharma. And I loved being out there, we go out there into the community. And we do these big house ring events where we educate people about their health risks. And it was all part of this, this really big marketing program. And I love being part of that process of educating people and helping them become aware of what their their health risks were. And I just loved the marketing aspect of it. So I was like, Man, I really just want to do more marketing. So I ended up just fell into manufacturing really, and just started working in house as a marketing manager. And beyond it was there was like no marketing, right? Like they didn’t have it. Maybe we had Google ads. And that was it. We had no CRM really I think they were using like act it was like so old school, like starting from scratch, no email marketing, like nothing. So I come in, and I basically had to come up with a vision of how we were going to grow this business basically from, you know, like, barely anything. And I just thought it was just so exciting to be able to plan that out and help this this company really take their business to the next level. And I just think that there’s so much opportunity for so many manufacturers that are in kind of a similar position who really there’s there’s just there’s huge opportunity for them to modernize their marketing and scale their businesses and take advantage of all the great technology that’s out there and put together a really strong strategy to be able to, you know, continue to delight their customers. So

Curt Anderson 10:08
that’s awesome. And I know And guys, you want to first you want to connect with Nicole, check out her website. She does an amazing job, Donnelly marketing group, if you’re just joining us, again, connect with Nicole on LinkedIn or whatever social that you’re hanging out at Dan bigger hopefully you’re able to catch us guys drop a note, wherever you’re coming from love to hear where you’re at, but a couple of great testimonials that this is Damon These are quotes about working with Nicole. That’s experience working with a marketing company instrumental to helping us grow leads have doubled so and so far so again, so we want to dig into your superpowers. Nicole, so you are a HubSpot expert I know you are deep your HubSpot evangelists advocate YOU ARE YOU LOVE HubSpot. And I know Dan Biggar over the weekend was chiming in some questions in the chat and in our comments section about digging into into HubSpot. Let’s first let’s first question for you. Why HubSpot? What makes HubSpot so amazing that you love working with HubSpot?

Nicole Donnelly 11:12
Great question. I think one of the huge things that I love about HubSpot is just how intuitive it is. It’s so easy for people to use it and adopt it. And let’s be honest, salespeople do not like CRM, let’s they don’t want to be working in a CRM, right. They want to be out talking to people they want to be out meeting their customers, nobody wants to deal with the hassle of having to update a CRM and put their notes in and you know, keep track of deals like it’s it’s a headache. And frankly, salespeople are much better at being out and talking with their customers and prospects and trying to close deals right and finding solutions for their customers. So what’s great about HubSpot is that it takes so much of the administrative work of selling off of the shoulders of the sales team, and just handles all of that on the back end. So that the automation that’s built into the platform that you can do. This really streamlines things I mean, from as simple as just being able to track your emails to see who’s opening your emails, and who’s clicking on your emails and when they’re doing it. And if you’re sending emails, HubSpot actually allows you to be able to just automatically have all of your emails sync up to the contact record. So you don’t have to copy and paste any information. It’s all just going to automatically go and live in that contact records. If you ever need to see a full history of your communications with that person, you can see the full trail the full history right there so that you have really great context when you’re talking to your prospects and your customers about you know what you’re you need to help them with. So

Damon Pistulka 12:42
and that’s Yeah, that’s so important. I mean, two things there. We as salespeople you just hate to the the amount of details that you really should track. The the whole test taking the time to do it stinks, right, but you know, you should do it. And that’s one of the things I do like about HubSpot is and when you look into deep dive into the systems, it it puts it out pretty easy because if you and I were in HubSpot, and we and our interactions together, I can see really easily what what the interactions were even if it’s Kurt and you had interactions and you and I had interaction, we can see them we can see them easily. And your team can really understand where you’re at with that person, and and personalize your service because that’s what we all want. We want personalized service on the other end. And HubSpot really helps to enable that by giving you the information or anyone on your team that information.

Nicole Donnelly 13:39
Yes, absolutely. It’s it saves so much time. Yeah, like, like you said, it makes the the experience much more personal for the customer. You know, so there’s just so many great features there. I mean, even just as far as you know, just being able to, you know, automate your canned messages, right. I’m sure salespeople always have, you know, messages that they send over and over and over again. And with HubSpot, you can actually save those and with a simple hashtag, just drop in a message that, you know, you don’t have to rewrite over and over again each and every time. Yeah, so those are just like a few small things. But I think another really great thing that I love about HubSpot is just the support and the culture there. The company is really focused on listening to customers, and they really walk the walk when it comes to that. I mean, they just they’re just fabulous at you know, adding more new features and listening to what customers are sharing with them about what can be improved and how to improve the platform. And I think that’s what’s make them made them really stand out in the marketplace to where now they I think recently I just saw on Jeetu crowd, they’re now the number one CRM rated the number one serum in the marketplace even above Salesforce, which is like huge. So they’ve really come a long way. And I think people are really seeing that. Yeah, they really do. Like walk the walk when it comes soliciting the customers and trying to make the tool work work for their customers. Mm hmm. So cool.

Curt Anderson 15:05
Nicole, let’s go here. So I’m assuming that you’re familiar with other SEER CRMs. If somebody is just starting out like say, let’s just throw a hypothetical. My friend Dan bigger and Jen Berg lino add up Tessa just a total hypothetical. But it is Dan said, like he’s been living in, you know, using CMS CRMs for many years. But let’s take a step back. And then we’ll come back to Dan. Dan, this program is all about you. But we’ll come back to one second. Let’s see there. opener or maybe independents out there. Talk a little bit. Are you familiar with other CRMs are what makes HubSpot so great for like that? solopreneur. That’s, you know, I need to get out of my Excel spreadsheet or my email or Outlook. Well, how, how walk that person that’s brand new, maybe a little bit intimidated? How could they get that first step into HubSpot CRM?

Nicole Donnelly 15:53
That’s a great question. So the CRM with HubSpot is free. First of all, it’s very,

Curt Anderson 15:58
I didn’t hear you what’s really guys. skinny version, right, that’s free version for those entrepreneurs that are just starting out, I’m sure Exactly,

Nicole Donnelly 16:08
yeah. So that’s great. So I think they design the platform to really scale up. As you grow, you know, you pay based on the number of contacts that you have. So as you get more contacts, of course, your pricing is tiered, and it goes up in that way. So you know, if you are a solopreneur, it’s a great, you know, just you cannot there’s no risk to just try it out and see how it works for you. Of course, you know, the more hubs that you have with HubSpot, the just the more powerful that it is. I mean, I think HubSpot has come a long way. And they started as a marketing automation platform solely when they first launched. And now they’ve really evolved into like a full business like technology platform where they have the sales hub, the marketing hub, they have a service of the operations of Anna CMS. So you know, they’re really like, and that’s the future really, businesses really need a platform that can from one place be able to do everything that they need to do within their business. So yeah, so I think that’s, you know, it’s great for people just starting out, too.

Curt Anderson 17:10
That’s perfect. So let’s man, you threw a lot of juicy stuff right there in that sentence. So let’s, let’s break some of those pieces down. So again, let’s, we’re talking to somebody that’s, maybe this is new to them. They’re not particularly familiar with the language. Let’s break down some these different pieces to like CMS marketing, automation, inbound marketing, let’s pick one each one apart, if you don’t mind. So marketing automation. What, what is this? It sounds really attractive. And I’m so newer, maybe hypothetically, I’m 53 years old, I’m a little I’m a digital immigrant. I’m a little challenged with tech, which is me. So why what is marketing automation? How does that make my life easier?

Nicole Donnelly 17:47
Very good question. So I like to think of it as it’s kind of like the invisible admin that’s working behind the scenes to run your business. So you know, like, for example, let’s just say that you have to use a lead magnet on your website, for example, and someone downloads that lead magnet, well, HubSpot can automatically enroll them in a workflow where you can send them targeted information at time points that you decide that you want to send, that’s going to give them more information about that problem, they came to your website looking to solve. So that’s one example of how you can nurture them. And so that, that your responses are timed appropriately, at certain points, you can automate tasks to team members to follow up with those people at the right time. So So that’s one way that you can use it. So So email marketing is one thing that you can automate really, really easily and well through through through HubSpot.

Curt Anderson 18:44
Okay. Alright, so that now we’re gonna segue right into so email marketing, perfect. So what I’m loving what I’m hearing, I’m hearing automation, would you say invisible assistant? Is that what you said?

Nicole Donnelly 18:56
Yeah. Admin, yeah.

Curt Anderson 18:58
And invisible admin. So that’s okay. So I’m totally digging that. So again, is this is brand new to me, as I’m understanding you. So now it’s a one stop shop. So it’s HubSpot. So could be my CMS. What on earth is a CMS? So that landing page as you call the lead magnet? I could have a website with let’s take share with everybody. What is that lead magnet? What is cms? Let’s walk them right through that process.

Nicole Donnelly 19:24
Yeah, absolutely. I’ll give you an example of one that we use for one of my clients. So a CMS is a content management system. So any website that you come across on the web is it’s basically managed by a CMS on the back end. So any the content that you want to put on your website, you put it in the CMS so HubSpot has a CMS that basically runs your website. And so for example, let’s say you have a landing page and you want to be able to offer your customers let’s say a product, you know pricing calculator, let’s say that you have a, you know, manufacturers a lot of times they have, you know, products or have to become Customize, you can’t just buy it off the shelf. So you could have on this this landing page that’s hosted on your CMS, you know, a product, you know pricing calculator that walks the prospect through a series of questions, they answer these questions. And based on the responses that HubSpot could send them as a follow up a recommendation on Okay, here’s the you know, product that we would recommend for you. This is the size this is, you know, these are the dimensions, that kind of thing. And this would be the ballpark price. And so that’s how HubSpot can basically integrate all of that intelligence. And then once you capture that contact information through the landing page through the form that you have, then HubSpot now has that in the platform, and you can continue to you know, nurture them and follow up with them and create really cool workflows from that point on to continue to help that person through their journey solve their problem. Hopefully have them buy from you.

Curt Anderson 20:53
Let me get this story straight here. Nicole, are you telling me that what I’m hearing is my website could potentially do all the work for me? Is that what I’m hearing? That’s pretty wrap up Damon woods, one of our favorite favorite words on a planet when it comes to e commerce website management. That configurator right? Yes, yes, yes. Anybody that’s willing to listen to us? Our dear friend Christina Harrington at Gen alpha, she would be so proud right now. Yeah. So I absolutely love what you’re describing here, Nicole. So again, I’m a manufacturer. I’m an older dude, I’m an I’m an I’m a little bit tech, you know, this is a little overwhelming, but I’m really digging what I’m hearing right now. Okay. So what you’re saying is a customer, a prospect, a new lead, could land on my website, I could have a series of questions lined up. And you’re telling me that HubSpot would do this for me, where it’s almost like a survey, but so it’s a survey to the customer. But to me, they’re actually creating a product that I want them to create. They’re entering sizes, dimensions, whatever these questions are, and then we’re gonna spit back a price to them in my phone that correctly?

Nicole Donnelly 22:07
Yes, that’s exactly right.

Curt Anderson 22:09
And there’s a website that would actually do that. And they’re going to capture the client information. And I could have a series of emails following up saying, Hey, mister missus, manufacturer, guess what, here’s your price. Here’s your quote. You didn’t have to wait for a day a week months for a price to come back. You just hit submit. And now I could have a follow up sequence of like, Hey, here’s maybe a guide. Here’s a helpful How To video or I could have other content following up to help them make that buying decision. Am I understand that correctly?

Nicole Donnelly 22:39
You got it. You said it 10 times better than me? Oh, no

Curt Anderson 22:42
way I have been studying studying for Nickerson last two weeks. David. So yeah, she was we were studied well rehearsing before we came on this program. So Nicole, I’m a manufacturer’s Sign me up. So let’s take let’s go another step further. Okay. So now okay, I have this awesome website, I understand what a CMS is. Now. Thank you for explaining that. I understand that this pricing little configurator thing can do I understand that? You’re telling me that there could be an email sequence? I am totally digging that. I’m still the best kept secret. Talk to us a little bit. What is inbound marketing? If I’m a manufacturer, I know I’ve heard this word marketing. I know kicking and screaming, I’m supposed to do it. But share with me what is inbound marketing? What does that mean?

Nicole Donnelly 23:28
Great question. Kurt. That’s a really great question. So inbound marketing is is kind of a way to think about attracting customers and prospects to your brand brand, and having them come to you rather than you having to go out and find them, right. And so it’s a way of creating a process or an experience where you’re educating your customers, your prospects, you’re delivering value to them, you’re helping them solve their problems first, by just being really generous with content. And this could include for example, blogs, webinars, podcasts, you know, any type of medium that you can get out there and really help your customers solve their problems and putting that first and really delivering value to them first so that when they are looking to buy or they have a problem that needs to be solved and they’ve got to purchase something, they’re going to come to you because they’re going to remember you because you’ve been that expert that’s helped them along the way to find the solution to their problem. So inbound marketing is all about you know, just really just delivering value and having a way for your prospects to find you and that’s you know, like I said that’s done through content creation and content marketing. And by doing all of this you’re bringing them to you they’re coming into your your your funnel then you can nurture them that way.

Curt Anderson 24:47
Man, Nicole, this is like a dream come true. Right now am I understand you correctly that if I do inbound marketing I could get customers are going to come to me is that what you’re saying? You guys Kurt. Let’s, again we’re doing little roleplay here, man and I we are we’re, I know, it’s I know, it’s gonna come as a surprise. We’re not the youngest guys on the planet anymore. So we used to at one point in time, but you know, so we’re, we’re digital immigrants. And so let me see if I have if I understand this correctly with what you’re saying, Okay, so now I’m a manufacturer, boy, if I wanted a blog, I would have gone to journalism school. So that’s a little overwhelming. However, customers knock on my door, and we keep answering the same questions over and over and over. So do you mean to tell me that maybe if I recorded that if I did a little series of videos, or maybe if I just even recorded myself and got the transcription, so now I don’t just sit here and type it, that I could actually create my own content? Is that what you’re saying? Nicole?

Nicole Donnelly 25:47
Yes, absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. That’s what I’m saying. Kurt, you got it.

Curt Anderson 25:52
To be that would be considered inbound marketing. Is that correct? Oh,

Nicole Donnelly 25:57
absolutely. So like any video content that you create your social media, you know, content that you have on your social media channels, anything out there like that, that drives people back to your website to learn more about you is all inbound marketing.

Curt Anderson 26:13
So if we deem ourselves as educators and we dedicate ourselves to helping and serving Dan Biggers, like, one of the greatest, you know, go givers that you’ll ever meet fierce networker you to definitely need to connect. But if I could go out there and be the educator and just be dedicated to serve, you know, you know, lead by by giving, and I could be an inbound marketer. Is that what you’re saying?

Nicole Donnelly 26:40
Yes, exactly. Lead by giving a love that that’s exactly right. Lead by

Curt Anderson 26:44
giving Okay, now. Okay, let’s dig back into HubSpot. Because I’m still brand new to this HubSpot concept. Okay, so now what I’m hearing if I were to create this content, HubSpot will actually what will have what would their role be? Would they actually host this content? Where could I put this content?

Nicole Donnelly 27:01
Yeah, absolutely. So if you have your website, in HubSpot, your CMS, then all of your content would be hosted there, your blog content, you can create unique landing pages and web pages that would host your video content, your blog content, your webinars, all that content would live on HubSpot. And then you’d be able to just share those links, wherever you need to whichever channels marketing channels that you decide you want to share them up. So your social media, on your website, your YouTube channel, that kind of thing, you would be able to do it that way.

Curt Anderson 27:32
Man, this HubSpot sounds like a really amazing tool. That’s that’s that is that what I’m picking up on is that I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. I’m hearing really powerful tool.

Nicole Donnelly 27:44
It’s so powerful. Yeah, absolutely. But I will say that what makes it even more powerful is when you have a really strong marketing strategy, combined with the platform. So you know, you can’t just you know, you can’t, it’s technology is great, but you also need to have a solid strategy. Along with that to really see see the results that you want to achieve. So yeah, it’s those two things combined, that really make it say,

Curt Anderson 28:09
Okay, so let’s, let’s play. We’re gonna continue a little bit of roleplay here, if you don’t mind, I appreciate you playing along with me today. So let’s say I’m a manufacturer Demond. I are manufacturers and we’re like, Man, this sounds amazing. Nicole, however, we are busy, you know, supply chain challenges, labor shortage, we’re running around like crazy. And we’re not the best marketers on the planet. Do you know anybody? Do you know a marketing firm that we could hire? That would help us with our marketing services? Hypothetically, do you know any marketing firms?

Nicole Donnelly 28:41
Donnelly marketing?

Curt Anderson 28:43
Cool. Let’s take a deep dive in at Donnelly marketing. So you in man, you had me at hello, and right below, you know that. So you and I’ve teamed up we are working on numerous projects together. So let’s dig into. Alright, I’m digging what I’m hearing. I like this HubSpot thing. I now know what CMS stands for. I can’t spell it. But I know what it stands for. Now, I know what email marketing, you’re sharing some of these other things. Take us into what are some of your superpower marketing strategies that you would love to apply to manufacture we just dug into some this morning, share some marketing strategies that somebody could apply to their business?

Nicole Donnelly 29:21
Very good. So typically, the way that I work with my clients is the first thing that I do is we take a deep dive and we look at the customer’s three phases with an engagement. The first phase is the diagnosis phase. So here we’re actually taking a deep dive at your customer. Because the research shows that when a company is oriented towards the customer and focused on serving the customer first, they’re going to be way more successful. So that’s what we do. First, we really want to understand who your customer is. We want to know what their challenges are. We want to know what their pain points are. And we do that by just talking to customers. So that’s the first thing that we do in engagement is we want to get to know your customers. Well You know, have interviews with them. And then we do some, some quantitative research to, or send surveys to try to understand as much as we can about them. Okay, so that’s step number one. Once we know your customers and their pain points, then we can put together a marketing plan for your business that’s unique to your customer that’s unique to your market, you look at your competitors, and we see what the market looks like. And then we put together a marketing plan for you that’s customized just for your business. So this is no cookie cutter approach. It’s customized just for you. And that plan can include a variety of different marketing tactics. So it could, depending on your web presence, it could include SEO optimization, which would be doing a lot of keyword research, where we find out which keywords we want you to rank for, so that you can get on the first page of Google, right, everybody wants to be on page one of Google, right. So that may be a play that we do as part of your marketing plan is trying to put together a really solid strategy to increase your Google ranking so that more people can see you online. Another thing that we might do is launch Google ads, so that we can really try to get you out there quickly. Because organic really takes some time to build. So something something that we do sometimes is we’ll combine the, you know, the SEO optimization with, you know, launching some Google ads, for example, or, depending on the client, we may launch some social media as well, so that we can really get them out there quickly and try to get more traffic to their site. So those are a couple of strategies. Email marketing is huge. You know, being able to learn to earn to nurture your existing customers, and creating campaigns to really help engage your your current database is a huge way for you to try to get in, increase your customer retention, and then that kind of thing. So those are a couple of examples of some different strategy strategies that we use. And then content marketing is huge. So we do a lot of video creation with create video series of frequently asked questions that customers are asking that you can share in all of your social media channels and email and that kind of thing. We do blogging, ebooks, webinars, any type of content that’s going to answer questions that your customers are having, so that you can help them solve their problems.

Curt Anderson 32:17
Good, so and so Dan bigger and John Berg lino of Tessa they are actually what a dynamic duo. It’s almost unfair that Dan Biggar and John biglietto are in the same team demons. Yeah, it’s almost like the two guys in the kickball team that it’s just not fair. You know what I mean? But Dan John Jobson? No, Nicole Donnelly is amazing. We call I think they might be over on Twitter. I can’t see the comments on Twitter. So guys, thank you for joining us today. You definitely want to connect with Nicole. So Nicole, I absolutely love this. So let’s take a deeper dive man. Are we are you having as much fun as I am today? This is good.

Nicole Donnelly 32:54
I’m always having fun when you’re here, Kurt.

Curt Anderson 32:57
Thing I am. I paid her to send you that Starbucks gift card, I promise. So let’s take a dive into it. Man. I know I could keep you all day read time. So anyway, well, two more questions and then we’ll let you move on. So two questions died today. How about the roleplay demon I manufacturers I’ve gone through that timber to write theme and I are manufacturers we really have like no email list to start with. Okay, which is so common with many manufacturers a little bit intimidating? Where How do I like? I’d love to start email I don’t even know where to begin. Do you have any advice? Or any suggestions? How does a manufacturer get started? When they’re at zero? How do I just rip off that band aid and get an email marketing for the first time? How does that work?

Nicole Donnelly 33:45
And with a list of zero that’s a tough challenge. Man I would say you got to start with the inbound approach. You got to start creating content creating content and getting the word out so that’s that’s where I would start is just trying to you know, start blogging create a lead magnet create a you know a webinar series you know, whatever you’re comfortable with if you like being behind the camera, great, but start creating content and create a wave where you can start to capture the contact information so you can start to build your list.

Curt Anderson 34:18
Absolutely. So what a great way so again, guys if if you’re new and I have I’ve worked with so many manufacturers where they’re in this they’re like you know geez, I know I probably should start from scratch at zero. It’ll start with your current customers then start blowing up with customers that were in your pipeline at one point in time. And then exactly what Nicole was saying. You just don’t have a choice. You can’t be the best kept secret anymore. You have to start putting some content out there. And again, let’s figure out the best way figure out the way that works best for you like Nicole just said hey if your camera if your camera shy, go a different direction. Let’s do some blogging or some content if you love being on camera that’s hit that hard and dig into that. So Nicole is we are are starting to wind down our conversation today with some tips as far as social, okay, so I’m a manufacturer, game and I are manufacturers and we’re like, hey, we want to dip our toe into this social world, as you say, Nicole, what’s a great place that we would start there from a social standpoint,

Nicole Donnelly 35:16
I love LinkedIn for manufacturers, I think it’s a great place to start, because you can get really targeted, LinkedIn has some great targeting, and you get some, you get much better organic reach, meaning you’re gonna you’re when you put content out there, more people are gonna see it on LinkedIn. And if you go on Instagram or Facebook, so think LinkedIn is a great place for manufacturers to start. And my recommendation is, if you’re, you know, an owner or a leader at your company, start posting on LinkedIn, you know, your customers want to hear from you. People love founders, they love to hear from founders, they want to hear from you. And the more that you can kind of create, make your brand feel personal, and they can see put a person to your brand, the more they’re going to connect with you. And the more they’re going to build that relationship with you. So that would be I mean, I think LinkedIn is a great place for manufacturers to be so yeah,

Curt Anderson 36:05
perfect, perfect answer. Okay, so now we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna geek out we’re gonna geek out hard. We have to keep pulling out John and Dan are brothers over it up at us up. So their high level they are They’re fierce on LinkedIn, they’re past a lot of this, you know, early stage conversation that I’m you know, asking for, let’s go higher level. So you’re talking to like, you know, we’re at Advanced grade, you know, client, and digging into HubSpot. Let’s go into like a like preliminary grad class. What are some high level tips or advice that you have for Dan or for John, on what makes HubSpot so amazing, or what they could take advantage of? I know I’m a little broad there. But what would just be some high level tips for these guys?

Nicole Donnelly 36:46
Yeah, no, that’s a great question. I think the great thing about HubSpot is it’s so customized. So I would actually map out your customer journey. So from the time that someone come becomes a lead, what does that process look like, you know, when they become a customer, what happens after the sale, I would map out what that looks like now. And then figure out a plan for how you want to create or, you know, kind of curate a customer experience for them at each phase of their customer journey with you. And then figure out how you can build that in HubSpot. So because what’s great about HubSpot is it’s not just creating automation on the front end of the sale, right, you can create some really cool workflows to the whole process. So if you map out your whole customer journey, and you can say, you know, I really think that at this phase, you know, we could really, you know, add some more content here, we could, you know, create this, for example, an onboarding process after someone comes on maybe we send them an onboarding email that includes the specific video from the founder, for example of welcoming them to our community, you know, maybe you create a workflow for an onboarding workflow that that welcomes people in, and then just map it out, and what you want your dream kind of experience to be like for your customer. And then you just kind of build your automation or your workflows from there.

Damon Pistulka 37:59
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. moment, as I sit here, write notes, you know,

Curt Anderson 38:04
moment of silence. And, Nicole, we’re just making our lives easier, God forbid, right. I mean, like, you know, it’s like, it’s an it’s what the challenge is, and I, you know, stopping and saying, hey, you know, like we’re asking answering the same questions over and over, what your advice, your suggestion, your strategies. Let’s stop, let’s bucket those questions. And let’s get those automated, right, let’s get the buyers journey. So instead of like, you know, repeating it over and over with these new customers, this bottle it and just make it make your life more efficient in what you’re doing. You’re doing yourself a huge favor, you’re doing the customer huge favor. And now you can dig in and create other engagement opportunities instead of repeating you know, we’re wasting I hate to say it and I’m talking to myself, nobody else. I’m wasting my time having those same conversations over and over one on one when I could get it’s more respectful to the customer, actually, to give them that information and then take that deep dive. Last question for you.

Nicole Donnelly 39:03
Okay, I’m ready. I’m ready. Okay.

Curt Anderson 39:07
We were talking about pillar pages explained to me if anybody’s out there and we have Gary in Charleston West Virginia love Charleston West Virginia gotta go mountain Arizona if your mountain man love the mountain yours if when you if you guys are out there so again, our friends at up Tessa they have an amazing, incredible SAS product and you guys should definitely connect. I think you’re probably targeting a lot of the same folks. If you find out there a pillar page is a great opportunity to create a guide or a resource guide. Walk everybody through like what do I mean by that? What is a pillar page? And how could what is the value of having like a nice meaty juicy guide on your website?

Nicole Donnelly 39:45
That’s a great question. A pillar page is like a blog post on steroids. So it’s just basically like if you’re an expert on a note you for your manufacturing business, there’s you’re an expert on something. So what that person pages is maybe it’s your in depth guide to, you know, all of the problems that someone might have related to that particular. Oh, I’m rambling here the problem that you’re trying to solve for that customer, right? So it just goes really in depth on a topic that’s relevant to your business. If you’re an expert on metrology, for example. Yeah, then this pillar page would go into great detail about all the questions and pain points that the customer might be asking about this topic. And so you’re basically educating them and positioning yourself as an expert. And what’s great about it is that when you have a really solid big pillar page like this, it’s got a lot of really great keywords in it that Google loves. And so Google sees that sees that it has all these great keywords and content, maybe you have video on this page, which Google loves to and it’s just really got a lot of rich content that Google is going to give you bonus points for that and it’s going to help you rank higher in the search engines. So what does that mean if you’re on the higher in the search engines, more people are going to see your page they’re going to see your business so then you’re getting more traffic to your page and more people contacting you.

Curt Anderson 41:10
And bigger Nicole Dolly has star earrings as she is the star of the show. There we go. Oh man. Drop the mic on that. Dan. You are so observant you are man that was a stupid I didn’t that’s awesome. I didn’t think of though that one so Okay, guys, let’s just recap here and then we will wind down because I know the call we could go all day. So guys, I know recap. Automation, CRM, having that automated messaging to your ideal customers to these new prospects to these new leads be the expert put that content boy just be the go giver, give that information get out there and on a keyword strategy but I love what you’re talking about Nicole, is we were talking this morning you know niches are in the riches are in the niches riches are in the niches or niches, especially with your keyword strategy, right? So if we want to try to go real broad, you know, Damon, we always use our I got to go there, Damon, I’m going to do it. Do it. You’re ready. All right. Choose where am I going? Pink running shoes. Yep, purple shoe laces right. Every workshop,

Damon Pistulka 42:18
running shoes, the purple shoe laces you gotta know what you’re selling.

Curt Anderson 42:21
If you target shoes were way too broad. Even if you go running shoes, you’re a little bit too broad. If you niche it down. And with that example, Damon I always used to have a picture when we do our webinars, pink running shoes were purple shoelaces what my point is, think about what are your purple shoelaces so try to niche down when you come up with that guide is Nicola saying that’s a great opportunity. Stop being the best kept secret and we can capture those first page rankings. So Nicole, we’re gonna wind down so again, we want to give a shout out to your She has amazing family. Her wonderful daughter’s birthday was this weekend. So we have so fast Charlotte. Charlotte just turned seven. So Nicole. First off, we want to thank great grandpa for being a fearless entrepreneur, we want to give thank you to grandpa, we want to give a shout out to mom and dad for building their business. And we want to salute you for being a fearless entrepreneur for bringing your talents your skills, your superpowers to manufacturers, helping them figure out this whole little marketing world if you will. I know you’re digging into E commerce, Dan bigger says Happy Birthday to Charlotte. So tell Charlotte. Everybody on our program today says Happy Birthday. Or last night for the day. Nicole what advice you have for everybody we want it like we’re trying to get this darn COVID thing behind us. We would love for world peace for every everybody to kind of settle down right now is we could focus on building our businesses. What advice do you have for manufacturers out there to just go out there and crush it for 2022?

Nicole Donnelly 43:51
Oh, man, that’s a big question. Sheesh. I would just say my advice is focus on your customer. Don’t focus on your customer focus on what your customer needs focus on what what what you can do to help them and I feel like if you’re always leading with that, if that’s your north star and you’re focused in on them and how you can solve their problems. You’re gonna win. You’re gonna you’re gonna you’ll be fine.

Curt Anderson 44:17
Mike Damon, that’s it right there. My advice, get out there and do it. Stop talking about it. Dan bigger agree with you 100% Brother agree with you just get off the sidelines, get off the sidelines, just get in the game of talking to the guy this morning. Damon, I think through a suggestion for you to connect with this guy. And he said, you know, he goes, Man, he goes, he goes don’t go back to my first podcast. I’m a little bit embarrassed by it. And I’m like, You know what, I think the reed Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, if I have that correct, he said, if you’re not embarrassed by your first outing, you’re too long, you know? Yes. So Damon, we embarrass ourselves all the time. So we’re, we’re every day we’re perfectly comfortable, you know? Yes. Anyway, okay, guys, we’re gonna wind down the call. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your expertise, your passion, your experience. Your entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial spirit is just so addicting and so contagious. So thank you for being a dear friend. And in I preach I can’t wait to I’m excited for our 22 Dan bigger says get HubSpot for sales and attesa for production. And there you go. Get Nicole get Nicole for marketing, get a hold of Daymond help sell your business and man. One big happy family. So guys, we’re gonna wind down the coast stick with us. Guys have go out and have an amazing week. I know it’s a little stressful time in the world. We are stronger together. Daymond are we not strong? Yes, we are. Stronger Together. That’s we’re in this. Let’s focus on business man. Let’s just hold that. So guys have a phenomenal week, March 1 Tomorrow, new month. We’re going to crush it demon. We have a phenomenal guest on Friday. No wait. And so guys, we’ll see you on Friday. Have a killer Monday.

Nicole Donnelly 46:06
Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

Curt Anderson 46:08
Thank you