The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 037 Joe Pulizzi

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 1 of 22
EPISODE #37: JOE PULIZZI
On this episode, Travis had an informative talk with successful entrepreneur and trusted content
marketer Joe Pulizzi. Joe, the founder of Content Marketing Institute, and Content Marketing World has
build a business that is trusted all over the world and he has written books and blogs that serves as a
guide for millions of people establishing themselves through content marketing.
Joe and Travis talks on various topics from building content marketing strategies to social media
marketing and publishing. Entrepreneurs would certainly gain many valuable insights on ways to
establish their business through the knowledge and wisdom of this successful entrepreneur.
Joe Pulizzi
– Using Content Marketing to grow your business
Travis: Hey, it‟s Travis Lane Jenkins, welcome episode number 36 of Diamonds in Your Own
Backyard, the Entrepreneur's Radio Show, Conversations with Successful Business owners that grow
your business. Sandra, my co-host and good friend is still in the center of Daytona International
Raceway for a few weeks attending to 25 race teams so Sandra can't be with us today. Sandra I know
you're listening, we miss you, as always, get back to us as soon as possible.
Before we get going I want to tell you to be sure and listen until the very end of this episode because I
have a few things that I want to share with you beyond what we'll be covering with our guest. Today
we're talking about content marketing. Of course before I introduce you to our guest, I have a quick
favor, if you enjoy these free podcast that we create for you, then go to iTunes and post a comment,
and rate the show. This would be a big help for us in impacting as many entrepreneurs as possible, and
Sandra and myself would really appreciate it.
Now as always with each and every show, our objective is to give you a seat right next to us as if we're
having a personal conversation, just me, you, Sandra, and our guest. Just the four of us at a table,
having this personal, one-on-one conversation. This allows you to be part of a conversation with some
of the most brightest entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the world; people that have found success
themselves and want to help you by sharing what they know. Everyone that we talked to has found
success doing what they teach, which is super important.
Now normally the only way you get this type of personal access to our guest beyond having a show of
your own is to join a high-level mastermind, and go to seminars, and build the relationship over time,

normally several years. Now I've spent incredible amounts of money building my network of
connections, and now I get to share these great people with you to help you fast-forward the success of
your business.
So our guest today is Joe Pulizzi, I hope I said that right. Joe writes one of the most popular content
marketing blogs in the world. Joe is also a co-author of Get Content, Get Customers, which is
considered the handbook for content marketing by McGraw Hill. He's also written Managing Content
Marketing with Robert Rose. Joe is accomplished on many other levels as well, some of which we'll
cover in our conversation today. So without further ado, welcome to the show Joe.
Joe: Travis, I'm glad to be here, thanks for having me.
Travis: Thank you. So how did I do with the last name?
Joe: You did it perfectly Pulizzi is the way you pronounce it.
Travis: Okay, great. I was afraid I was going to destroy that. One of the things I like to do before we
dive in to some of the stuff that you teach entrepreneurs, would you mind sharing some of your
personal background story of how you got to where you're at today in your success? Was your success
a straight vertical thing or did you stumble, how did you get started?
Joe: I would imagine it's like most of the guest that you have on. It's a lot of stumbling and failing along
the way. I was kind of getting to a point that maybe I personally didn't expect, but I've been in the
industry, what it's called Concept Marketing for over a dozen years, 13 years now. I used to work at a
company called Penton Media, which is the largest independent business media company in North
America, has some of the most wonderful magazines and media sites, and these niche industries. If
you're not in it you would never know or look at the magazines like Industry Week Machine design and
whatnot. But I had the entrepreneurial bug for a long, long time; I come from a family of entrepreneurs.
My dad was in the restaurant business; my uncle and grandfather were in the funeral home business
which is a whole another podcast we could probably do, talk about funeral home business. But in 2007
I decided to launch a company, what is now the Content Marketing Institute. I have this passion about
the idea of content marketing and we could talk about that. But I was at a point like a lot of
entrepreneurs and by 2009 I didn't know if we were going to make it. We were struggling making ends
meet, making sure that we had enough money, the business model frankly wasn't working, made a
couple of changes, did the notorious pivot in 2009, and now we've just seen some amazing things
happen with the business Content Marketing Institute which is the leading training and education,
organization for content marketing. We have the largest events called Content Marketing World. Last
year, we had over a thousand marketers attend our big event. This year it'll be in Cleveland in

September, we do events in Australia, we have a magazine called Achieve Content Officer, and just
kind of enjoying the ride as more and more businesses are looking to get in to the content marketing
industry.
Travis: Right. How long did you go at this before that pivot happened and what was that pivoting point?
Joe: We were actually running an online matching site, it's called Jump to 42 from 2007 to 2009, and
basically it was the match.com or eharmony.com for the content marketing industry. Basically what
happened is if you were a brand, if you were business that needed content to grow your business, we
would match that business up with multiple agencies and contractors that could help you tell your story
a little bit better. It worked really, really well we had over a thousand projects from some of the largest
companies in the world sign-up for that, but the business model wasn't working so well and we're not
seeing the financial impact that we needed to grow the business and changed to a media model.
Basically if you ask me what Content Marketing Institute is from a financial standpoint, I'd say, we look
and act just like a media company. So we have a magazine, we have online content, we have a
webinar, we run two webinars, educational webinars every month, we have the events, and basically
when we made that decision in 2009. I said look, "Before I get back and get a real job", which I was
actually thinking, "Oh my gosh, this is not going to work, the experiment failed, I'm going to have to go
back and work for somebody else,” which I was devastated. I said, "I'm going to get one last try." And
we went all in with this new media model, and really tried to become the leading experts around content
marketing, and I think we were able to do that, and now the business model is just humming.
Travis: So it sounds like what you were doing is initially rather than providing done for your type
services, you were just connecting them with the people that could do the done for you type services
and it sounds like maybe the problem was is not enough thin margins or something like that?
Joe: Thin margins, and really we targeted the wrong audience. We target basically, our target audience
right now are marketing decision makers, marketing directors, marketing managers, VPs of sales and
marketing, those types of people. But the old model we were targeting agencies to buy the services
which, if you are familiar with any types of agencies out there, they're notoriously cheap. They don't like
to spend money, so we put the whole business model on the back of an audience-based that didn't like
to spend money.
So we changed that and said, "Let's go to the brand side, let's go to the corporate side where they have
lots and lots of money,” and that just worked tremendously well. And I just made a mistake, but you
know what, we learned along the way and I don't know if I'd do it differently but we changed our target
and said, "Well, who's really spending the money out there for these types of services?” And it was a
different group of people.

Travis: Interesting. So really, from my perspective, what you basically did is cut the middleman out?
Joe: That's exactly right, we went straight to the people that were making the decisions on the type of
products that we offered and boy that made all the difference in the world. And what's great about the
model that we have now, it's so flexible. We use a lot of people all over the world to help us out, a lot of
contractors. We were able to move faster than any of the large media companies in our space and I
think that's one of the reasons why we were successful.
Travis: So that addresses another issue on a supply side because a lot of times businesses gets stuck
with trying to produce that they're so overwhelmed on the supply side of things, of producing that they
can't move on and bring in more sales, so your system sounds like that you increased margins, took
them through the roof and then your capacity was already there, right?
Joe: Well what's interesting is that--we have about 10 full-time equivalents if you were to ask me how
many full-time people do you have? I would say it's about 10 but really we have 2 employees and we
use at anywhere from 10 to 30 contractors on the outside to help us get our job done. What's amazing
in the workforce population right now is the number of people that love flexible schedules. They won't
work 10 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours. They're passionate about what they do but they don't want full-time
work. Luckily, we're blessed with tapping in to that network. We've got a lot of passionate, wonderful
people that don't want full-time work, and that works with our model. And against the media company
that others, let's say our competitors if you will, they're very used to, "Oh, we've got to hire these
employees, we got to have them full-time, we got to pay them benefits.” We can move faster than any
of those people because I think they're into a mentality that may have worked in the past for media
company but doesn't word very well today.
Travis: Yeah, that's a great point. And I've even been stuck in that shift were you think you need to
have everybody on staff working 40 hours a week. And the businesses that are not only survive but are
extremely profitable are more agile like what you're talking about, rather than paying someone 40 hours
a week, just because you can. Bring them in for 7, right?
Joe: Absolutely, do whatever you need to do and we--what's funny is our first major hierarch, and
Michelle, our content director, currently or based in Cleveland, but she lives in Detroit. I actually didn't
meet her until 9 months after we hired her. Most of the people that we've worked with and started
working with we didn't even meet because we basically met them on social media sites. I saw their
work, I saw their blog, I saw what they were capable of doing, I saw their passion, and a lot of people, I
think a lot of businesses are afraid to make that jump because "Oh, we got to interview them, we got to
meet them, we got to see them." No you don't, you don't have to do that anymore because their work is
right in front of them and we only have to Google them to find out what they're made of.

Travis: Yeah. I agree with you 1,000%. Put a time line, how long did you struggle before this light went
off?
Joe: Oh it was a solid two years; I was practically two and a half years into the business. We were
doing a lot of speeches, talking about content marketing, why businesses need to think more like media
companies and publishers talk less about their products and more about what drives their business, the
passion behind it, really creating helpful content, helpful information, I was writing the books, we were
doing all that stuff, and then the business model didn't work. So once we got to that two and a half year
mark and I said, "Well, we're going to have to make this pivot." That's when it really all came into play.
Then once made about 6 months after we made the pivot then things really, I knew almost right away
that this was going to be the right model because there's so much education that was needed in this
area, and I knew there was but I didn't know there was this much and there's such an opportunity with
anything, online marketing, content creation, these areas that, so much education--there was a huge
opportunity, we just had to package that in the correct way to make the business model work.
Travis: Right. Well you know, an interesting thing, kind of an underpinning of what you're talking about
and it's something that I deal with on a regular basis with, with business owners is a lot of people don't
understand the pricing model and so they may have a service that they have 40% gross profit on, right?
And so the problem is, like your first business model, it's too thin of a margin based on the overhead
expenses and so what happens is when they shift that model, if they increase their price by 10%, 10%
normally increases the profit margin by a 100%. Now of course there's some math involved there but it-
-so what happens is explaining the underpinnings of what happen when you change that business
model, is if you can increase your retail price to your prospects by 30-40%, depending on your backend
numbers, a lot of times your margin goes up by 3, 4, 5, 6, 800% and all of a sudden the metrics of your
business change and it's no longer like trying to push something uphill, a car uphill, right?
Joe: Well, what you just explained is exactly what happened with our business because the old model
that we had, we had to see 5, 6, 7 projects come through a week just to make ends meet and that really
wasn't even enough. And Molly said, "How can we sell less and make more?"And that's exactly what
we want to and it's made all the difference.
Travis: Because it's physically impossible to focus on quality when you've got an assembly line going
and you're not making margins, you're not profitable. You've got to have a profitable business and
you've got to provide quality at the same time so it's better to slow down and produce quality rather
than vice versa, and that's what you dialed in there and that was the turning point for your business.
That's really kind of the underbelly of what I hear you saying also.

Joe: Yeah, and that and I think it goes along with the idea I think what you're saying is focus. We didn't
have to be all things to all people, what we wanted to do was be the very clear expert on one or two
offerings that we could get out to this group of people and really seen, we tell this to our clients all the
time, when you're creating content or you're communicating a message about whatever that niche is,
can you be--ask yourself this question, where can you be the leading expert in the world at that niche?
And what a lot of businesses do and a lot of our customers do we do as well, we went why? "Oh, we
want all these people,” and we had all these different types of customers, and really what I want people
to ask is no, "I want go very, very small and then be the expert in that area." You can always go bigger
from that standpoint but where can you be the leading expert and today in the social media
environment we're in, that model can work because there are people out there that will find you if you're
the expert because you are their problem-solver, and I think going very focused is the way to make it in
online marketing today.
Travis: Right. So would you say that this, you were at a crossroad here--the name of the show is
Diamonds in your own Backyard, and it's really based on discovering something that either broke you
or almost broke you that actually turned out to be the pivot point of success and just taking things to a
whole new level. So it sounds to me like that was probably the major turning point for you, is that
correct?
Joe: I've been in the media business for as I said 13 years and when I left and started the business in
'07, I said, "No, I want to cre...,” basically we were creating a software matching service so we're more
a technology company than anything else but it was a service that leveraged technology. And then I got
back and end of this 2009-2010 area I'm like, “Oh, my gosh!” What I really understand well and I
understand the financial mechanics behind the tooth of the business model is the media model, the
publishing model. And by the way, that's probably the easiest model to look at if you're trying to build a
business online, is really look at publishing model. It kind of just went back to the basics and said, "You
know what, we can make this work, I can still do what I'm passionate about but I don't have tosell 10 of
these things matching products every day. I could basically focus on educational services, package
them this way and make it work." It wasn't a huge departure from what we were doing, really from the
mechanics of it, from the type of content we've created, but it's the way we packaged it and the way we
promoted it that was different.
Travis: Ah, interesting, okay. So tell me, explain, content marketing is thrown around in very loose
terms and if you look at people's actions rather than what they say. I hear a lot of people say that they
understand content marketing, but when I look at their message, it leads me to feel that they don't
understand content marketing on a deeper level. Do you agree and how would you explain content
marketing?

Joe: Well, first of all there's a lot of confusion about what content marketing is or isn't. I started using
the term back in 2001 and the reason why I would put everything behind that term was the fact that as I
was meeting Chief Marketing Officers around the country, that was the term that resonated with what
we were trying to help them accomplish. So, if you go just take a little trip into the past, this industry
was called custom publishing, custom content, branded content, branded journalism, brand storytelling,
all those types of terms. Content marketing works because if you're talking to marketers you got to
keep it very simple. Oh I'm going to market through the use of content. Okay that's a start but what
does that really mean? It means that we're going to think and act more like a publisher than like selling
a product and service, and my good friend Jay Baer who is author of the Now Revolution says it really
well. He says, "Every company is now in two businesses. You're in the business you're in and you're
also in the publishing business." It means when you're thinking about content marketing, you're not
talking about your products or services and you got to remember that your customers don't care about
you, they don't care about your products, they don't care about your services, they care about
themselves, they're very selfish. So the content that you create has to be extremely helpful, compelling,
relevant, it has to be set-up to the right channel so you can reach those people, it has to be actionable.
And if you think about it that way that's not nothing about your products and services, that's about how
you're going to take them to the next level and help them be more successful in their jobs, or in their
careers, or in whatever in the personal lives, whatever your goal is, and that's just like what a media
company does. So we try to teach these businesses no matter what side, and I don't care if you‟re the
biggest of the big company or you‟re just a small one-person band trying to get this going. If you want to
make your way and have something working for you and your reputation build online. You have to
figure out what your paying for are of your customer's, what's keeping them up at night, and you can
solve that through information, through content marketing, and that's really what we're talking about.
And it's hard because both businesses, they understand marketing but they don't understand how you
market through not selling. And that's really what content marketing is, you're never selling directly your
product or service, but you're building trust and authority because of the information you‟re giving.
Travis: Right. I see a lot of interaction on social media and people that are wanting to get their book or
their product or their service out there and this is prevalent, this is the majority of people, they talk about
themselves and their product, and that immediately reveals the fact that they don't understand content
marketing because they should be talking about how they're helping people or really themselves should
take a backseat to the whole process and it should be all about the problem your solving. And so few
people seem to get that, and these are even pretty high level or reasonably high-level people that are in
some masterminds that kind of blow my mind.
Joe: Well if you look at the--look at any company, and look at the information that they have and what
they communicate out. In most cases 90% of that content is about the products or the services. And if
you look at that type of content, that type of content is needed, but it's only needed at a very small

portion of the funnel. So basically right before they're ready to make a decision and they're looking at
the different products and services available then they want to get to that, then they want to look at your
case studies, then they want to look at your testimonials, then they want to look at all your features and
benefits.
But the majority of the people are not in that. They're trying to figure out, "How do I--is this a real
problem that I have? How do I get other people in the organization to buy into this? What are we really
talking about when we're talking about this, this pain point that I have. All that content, that's what we
really need to focus on because that gets them into the product and service information. So what we try
to teach most of our customers is to flip that, you need to have about 5-10% of your content about
yourself which frankly is only that very small portion of the buying process and everything else, it's
going to make you search run, your social media run it's going to generate online leads, all that stuff.
Stuff that nothing about your product or service.
Travis: Right.
Joe: Hard to get your handle around that because we weren't taught that way in marketing class. We're
talking about the 4 P's and all that stuff and frankly I think there's a better way to market today.
Travis: Yeah. So I've been in business 22 years and for the first 11 years it was all about one-step
marketing. And so a quick example is I use a Radio and T.V. and so it would be something like,
"Looking for home improvements? Call XYZ, where job quality is number one." That's one-step
marketing, right? And so it's really to use a common phrase, it's blind archery. I was broadcasting to
everybody that potentially needed our services hoping that someone that did need it would say, "Oh,
okay, I've been looking for one of those guys and they call us back." And a lot of people still think in that
way rather than taking the educating approach. And I also see people replacing, instead of using a
compelling headline that instructs and intrigues, they write headlines that are confusing and esoteric.
It's almost as if it was designed to make you say, "What?"And they think just because they've got you to
say what that you're going to read it and that's not true.
Joe: It's--we're getting out of this. Look at the press release today, right? Most people are in that
mindset, "Oh, we got to get a press release out, talking about our product and services. Yes, there's a
time and a place for that but boy that day and age has passed. If people look at sites, I'll give you a
couple of examples because people listening can probably go to them and see how this actually works.
And I don't know Travis if you've been to American Express' Open Forum site.
Travis: No, I haven't.
Joe: So get a chance and go to that. It's targeting small businesses and basically open forum. Every
day they have 5, 6, 7, educational articles about helping small business with financial issues, scalability

issues, how to market, how not to market, those types of things. In the content they never mention
American Express which do you know what that site has done, that's driven more people to sign-up for
American Express open credit cards than anything else they've ever done. And 99% of that content
doesn't talk about American Express open cards, which is exactly what we're talking about because
let's say that you want your message to be spread on social media or you want people to find your stuff
on Google. You're not going to be typing in for the most part your exact name, most of those people will
type in the problem that they have, or the people that are going to share your content, that guy's going
to share it because your product, your service got rated number 1 by this that and the other. They're
going to share it because that solves a particular problem and they want to share that out because it
says something about them. Those are types of things we need to focus on and that's just a really good
site to look at if people try to get it just for what I'm talking about.
Travis: Yeah, I'm there right now, it's interesting. They're talking about Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki,
building traffic, all these other things, nothing about film other than their logo, right?
Joe: That's right, and it's great, and they're saying--they're building credibility because they're saying
they're building credibility because they're saying, "Yes, we're proud of the fact that we're able to bring
you this content." There's a lot of other--there's another good site from Procter and Gamble called
HomeMadeSimple.com, it's all about organizing the home, how can I make quick recipes when I've got
kids in skill and I'm running all over the place, what do I need to do. They've got over 10 million people
signed-up to get regular updates on that site. How do you like to be a company and you have 10 million
people signed-up and say, "Yes, I would like to receive your marketing, would you please send it to
me?" That's exactly what that is but it's marketing without selling, it's like the ultimate non-selling. I think
that if people realize kind of the mechanics of how sharability works online, it really is all about helping.
Travis: 10 million people, wow.
Joe: That's an estimate by the way, that's the last I heard of it, I think they've got many more than that.
But Procter and Gamble, of course, they're notorious for that ever since they helped create the whole
soap opera mentality in obviously telling stories and how stories resonate, and they've taken that, and if
you look at all their specific buyers, they create these types of content platforms for everyone of their
buyers that they have.
Travis: Let's go a little deeper in the communication from an email standpoint, I have some feelings on
this and I'd be interested to hear what you have to say. What do you feel like--so let's say that someone
decides that they really like what you're teaching and they sign-up on your list, they opt-in. What do you
feel like is the sell to value ratio, is it still the same even in email marketing? Do you promote products
5-10% of the time still in this format, what are you thinking on that?

Joe: I have a little bit different take out. First of all just on email, email is the most critical channel for us
as a business, I'm talking for content marketing institute. Everything revolves around getting the email
address so that we can keep communication and own that database. And I harp on this over and over
because we talk to businesses, especially small businesses they are like, "Oh, I want likes on
Facebook and followers on Twitter." You know what, that's great, that digital footprint, all those things
help, but in the end of the day Facebook owns their likes and Twitters owns those followers and you
don't own them. They could change tomorrow and change the rules and done, you don't have any of
that anymore. But if you focus on email, that's a channel that you can own. It's own media, it's all about
content marketing is, creating your own media channel so you can communicate, so we want email
first, and if we focus on that, if we just deliver on the promise of why they opted in. And maybe your
right, 95-98-99% if the time, you're pushing that great content. The reason why they signed up, you
want to fulfil that content promise. And you know what, and when you do promote on occasion and say,
"Look, we've got this great offer." They don't mind because you give them so much quality every day,
and they'll ultimately when they're ready to buy, because you've built that loyal relationship, they will
buy from you over anyone else because you're the one that's solving their pain points and helping them
with their problems.
Travis: Well, I'm signed up on a lot of list, I like watching the processes of several different marketers
and businesses, and I get really frustrated when they're constantly pounding me for--your webinar
starts in 10 minutes, oh I didn't sign up for a webinar, that's what I'm thinking. And everything is an
offer, and I don't have a problem with sales, that's how I make my living. But they're constantly
pounding me with offers and so, I think this goes even deeper into segmenting the list. You can break
the list into--if I know that you're interested in ABC and EF and G are not an interest of yours, I may
send you one email about E and if you're not interested in hearing about that you won't hear anything
else from it and that comes from segmenting. Do you get that deep with your list?
Joe: Oh absolutely. And by the way we are always in the process of improving it because we can
always do better but we're trying to get it segmented to a point where if we're talking about a financial
piece of content I want the financial marketers in one boat. I want the manufacturers in one boat, and I
want the health care people in other boat. And that's how sophisticated we have to be because if we're
doing a webinar for health care marketers. I can‟t send that financial that's a sure way to get opted out,
just like what you're saying. Especially if we sign them up for something and say, "Oh, you're signed
up."And they didn't sign up, forget it. That we're getting all opt outs all day long because we did that.
Or if I'm promoting our Concept Marketing World, Sydney event to our United States audience and
they're like, "Well what do you doing this for?" We've got to be smarter than that and really, all you have
to do is think like a human being and I think everything will work out fine in the long run.

Travis: Yeah, you can send a message saying, "Hey Travis we've got an event in Sydney, Australia. If
you've been wanting to have a good excuse to travel there and write it off as a business expense, I
thought I'd let you know. And then if I don't respond, if I don't bite to that, then I shouldn't really get any
more messages on that. However, a lot of people will just broadcast everything to everyone all the time,
that would be one way you could reel me in. Because I might turn to my wife and say, "Hey, we've been
looking for a reason to go to Sydney, now, there‟s an event there, let's go!"
Joe: Exactly, but I think if you're looking for a process we use seven to one. So every morning at 10
o'clock, if you're signed in for our daily email updates, you get that daily email. It has a couple offers on
the side and stuff but basically what you‟re getting is the content. And then at one time during that week
you'll get some kind of offer for a webinar, or a special promotion, or something like that, but I want to
make sure that if you're getting 8 emails from me, which is a lot. And during a week‟s time that 7 of
those are content that's going to help you solve your pain points and one of them is going to be a very,
very relevant offer that you'll be interested in, hopefully if we do our back-end database right.
Travis: Well I don't think 8 times is too much. It's the value thing, just as long as you're not making--
there's times where I feel like I'm treated like cattle. You know.
Joe: You're right, there's a couple of ways to look at it. Like I get a question all the time from business
owners, they‟ll say, "Hey, I'm doing a blog post Joe, how long should that blog post be?” It's as long as
it needs to be to be helpful. I don't care if that's 200 words or a thousand words, as long as that's
helpful and you're saying what you need to say and that's great, I think the same thing as with email. If
you're pelting somebody 3 times a day, but those are 3 amazingly helpful pieces of information, they're
not going to care. It's funny because I get questions, business owners will say, "I don't want to do a
monthly E newsletter, that's just too much," and I'm like, "What?" It depends on what you're talking
about. If it's really helpful you can do it every day and they're not going to mind but you have to set-up
the expectations for that.
Travis: Right. I watched a group on execute, I'm not a big coupon-type person and I've watched them
execute and boy, they will drive you in the ground, have you experienced any of that?
Joe: Sure, it's absolutely crazy with some of the stuff and by the way, that's why there's an opportunity
for everyone listening to this, because there's so many people that aren't doing it right, and aren't
respecting their customers, and prospects, and readers, that you can come in with truly valuable
information and cut through that clutter and be the information provider for them.
Travis: Right, great point. As a matter of fact, let's segue to that with--so entrepreneurs; a lot of
entrepreneurs are in the DIY phase, do it yourself. So what do you feel like is the lowest hanging fruit

for entrepreneurs to start getting some results, faster. I know there's no overnight success but what do
you think the lowest hanging fruit for most entrepreneurs would be?
Joe: You have to look at your online footprint and what you're trying to build. I would start at base--first
of all I would set expectations for, just getting started, don't expect too much in 6 months. You have to
build this building one brick at a time and just because it's online it doesn't mean it takes less. It‟ll take
less time but still you have to build it and you have to build up that credibility. When I started blogging in
April of 2007 I blogged everyday and for 6 months I heard crickets, and the only one that ever read my
blog post was my mom and she had no idea what I did. I mean there was nothing going on, you had to
build that over and over again, and then it happens. So I would start with “Who is that buyer you're
targeting? And what is it..?”To complete what I call bio persona, complete that bio persona. This
Jeremy, Jeremy works at IT and Jeremy gets up and drinks coffee in the morning. Jeremy's problems
are this and this. Jeremy has a family. Really get a good visualization of who you're communicating
with and then once you do that you can really figure out what Jeremy's pain points are. And if you don't
know how to do that, just ask your customers or your likely customer what's keeping them up at night.
Write down all the list of questions of things that they need to solve in order to, at the end of the day,
buy your product, but what are all those problems that get in the way. Answer those problems, and
that's kind of a good way to start, figure out what your publishing schedule would be. You might say, "I
could do reasonably, myself as a DIY, I can do two times a week.” Great! Start with 2 times a week,
and then really, along with your own content, you've got to figure out, and this might be a whole another
conversation Travis, but you got to figure out who the influencers are in your industry and when I say
influencers you've got to figure out where your customers are hanging out, here your readers are
hanging out if they're not hanging out on your site. Because what you want to do is you want to share
those influencer's pieces of content with your audience so that those influencers see that, so at that the
end of the day when you need them to share your content, they'll start sharing yours because you've
built up that goodwill, you've given them what I call content gifts and you built up this great community
so that you can become part of that community and really be added to the industry rather than just try
to suck from the industry.
Travis: Right. So let's give them an example, what we're doing right now is a great example. I didn't
know you before this interview. A friend of mine recommended me to you or vice versa, they
recommend that I connected with you and we're together discussing our passions and supporting one
another, and from this becomes a relationship. And so this is a great example of how you can look at
working together with influencers to support one another. I've got gotten to know you in the 40 minutes
that we've done this interview on a level to where I like you enough to where I want to support you. And
so I've got 3 different Twitter followings, personal and professional and so we'll reach out and support
you through those things. And so, you feel like that's a clear illustration of helping someone first, an
influencer?

Joe: What your doing is, that's complete, that's a fantastic point and way to look at it and then just look
at it from a business or networking standpoint where you and I, we have our own networks, right? We
know what those networks, we've been growing those slowly, but we know what they are and we can
reach out to those networks whenever they want. What I would like is I'd like to reach your network and
what you'd like is to reach my network. So we'll do a little bit of cross-promotion here and help each
other out, so we can start to build our own audiences around what we're trying to be the leading expert
in the world at. And it's really a simple act to do and it's sort of back to human nature and how we're
built-in and kind of helping each other, but it works better than anything else around. So even if you--
you got a great podcast going, somebody might say, "I don't want to do a podcast, maybe I'm better at
doing guest blog post." Great! Do guest blog post, do guest interviews, do eBooks, do white papers.Do
the same type of thing that you're doing but start bringing in those influencers, those community experts
so that you can build out and reach your networks network and their network and I think that's where
the magic happens.
Travis: Right. So it all started through helping each other. I didn't contact you and say, "Hey, I've got a
great product that helps entrepreneurs. Would you consider mailing this to your list?" Right?
Joe: And that's suppose people do, you're right. I get 5, 6, 7 requests a day from somebody saying,
"Oh, we're in the content marketing industry Joe, and would you promote this out to your audience.” I'll
never...
Travis: Yeah, this would be great for your audience, right?
Joe: I know, I'd never even respond to those but if you came at it like you came to me and you say, "I'd
like to have you on my show and talk about familiar challenges, “there‟s not one person that would say
no to that. And then that's what, if you're a business owner, start asking those influencers in your
industry say, "Hey, I'd love to have you on my blog to talk about some of your problems, would you be
willing to share that and I'll give you a link back and promote some of your stuff?" Everyone's going to
say yes to that.
Travis: Right. So think of it from that perspective. Focus on giving rather than, I think people wasting
incredible amount of money and time on trying to think of clever ways to sell stuff. And I don't want to
partner with somebody if I don't have the level of trust and confidence with them, I don't want to partner
with them, I don't even want to partner with them if big money's in it, because my reputation and my
word is super important to me. I don't go on lying and cuss people out and do crazy things because this
is my brand, I care about people and I want to build value. And so I've got people that come at me with
crazy offers and they're doing crazy things. Like you talked about, do a little research on them. If you
did a research on me and I'm doing crazy things well you'd really have to think twice about being a part
of podcast, wouldn't you?

Joe: Absolutely. It's funny, I just thought of this but I think it's so critical. I had the pleasure of watching
Guy Kawasaki speak the other the day and if you haven't seen him speak, he's fantastic. He's got his
new book out about publishing and I need to check that out, but what he said...
Travis: But he's about to be on the show.
Joe: Oh, fantastic. So what Guy said, he said this is in front everybody, he said, "Look, I tried to offer
so much value to my audience all the time that when I have something to promote like my new book,”
he says, “I'd ram it down their throats but you know what, they don't mind because 99.9% of the time
I'm giving them value. But when I have something to sell, I let them know that it's relevant, and I'm
going to sell that, and it works, but all the other time I'm trying to help them."
Travis: I love it. And the interesting thing is that's just the model of being a good citizen isn't it?
Joe: What we're talking about is just human nature, it's being human and what's happened in mass
media culture that we're sort of trying to get away from a little bit. We were almost taught with, "Oh, let's
get our message down, let's really get this advertisement humming and then we could draw people to
that and that'll work,” and that doesn't work well anymore because our audiences are all over the place
today. So in order for them to find us and they will find us, we really have to focus on what's keeping
them up at night.
Travis: And just be really authentic in the process, just be yourself.
Joe: And what's great about it is that, for me, everybody's got their corny side and human side, like for
example I wore orange everywhere. I'm like; I have a passion about orange that it's insane, it's over the
edge. And I think that those things are embraced online, you don't want to be just like everyone else
online, you want to be a little bit different. So those types of things you can embrace and I think that's
part of being authentic.
Travis: Cool, I agree. Hey Joe, is social media a waste of time?
Joe: Well, I think first off, social media is just media today.
Travis: Just a loaded question.
Joe: First of all, social media's been around for a long, long time. We think of social media as the
toolset, Facebook, Twitter and what not. Social media is just the way we communicate today. If you
look at even the email, when you share an email with other people about things that you like, that's
social media. I don't think it'll be called social media in the next 5 years, I think it'll just be part of what
we do and it's a reality that I think if you have to embrace because if you don't, I don't know how you're
going to build an online marketing presence. I think the other thing to realize is every business we talk

to, they're like, "Oh, search is important, got to be found in search.”Well if you've been paying attention
to what Google's been doing lately, with their Panda and Penguin updates for their algorithm updates,
what you're realizing is that, people that are getting found in search, those post and those pieces of
information are being shared socially more. So basically what that means is that Google's looking at
social sharing as a major part of how they rank for search engine key words. So if you want to be found
today folks, you really want to figure out how you can get people to share your helpful content with as
many credible sources as possible.
Travis: Right. Does social media you think build a platform or support it?
Joe: I think it supports it, I think what builds a platform is your helpful content.
Travis: I agree with you.
Joe: Instead of focusing on who your customer is and that helpful content, and the social media can
expand that to the next level.
Travis: And that's another thing that a lot of people have in reverse that I see. I go to a lot of events
and some of them I'm just fly on the wall, I like to watch what's going on. I'm interested in seeing tipping
points, what makes a whole crowd stand up, and all these other things. And so, I see people believe
that a book is going to create a platform and I see people believe that social media is going to create a
platform and I think it's a reverse, I think you build your platform and then support it through social
media. And also, you can offer your book to your platform once you've built it but I think it's very hard to
do the reverse.
Joe: It's a great point and I love the conversation because if you think about it this way--and you're
right, most businesses will say, "Oh, I got to Facebook, I got to be on Twitter." First of all, no you don't,
you don't have to be, but I want to know why you're using those channels and that why is all about your
story. So if you think about it like you're a media company, let's say that you're a media company or a
magazine publisher, you don't just say, "I'm going to go out and start a magazine," you start at with
what the story is first, you start at with what's called an editorial mission or an editorial vision, and if
you're a brand, it's a content marketing mission statement, it's that why it's where that story starts. And
then you say what are the channels that‟s going to help me tell that story to my target user. And what
are those channels? Is that slide chairs, is that Facebook, is it a book, is it an in-person event, is it a
white papers and the eBook? So I would just tell everyone. Take a step back. Don‟t focus so much on
channels. Focus on what that story is first and figure out what that message is, and then you can take it
to the channel level.
Travis: Is your objective in with your publishing model are you wanting to build something like Agora
publishing?

Joe: I think that if we focus on solving our customer‟s problems everything else will work out itself.
Don't get me wrong, we have a platform, and our online platform is contentmarketinginstitute.com but
we also have books that are partial platform or eBooks are partial platform, the event is a platform, but
they're all built off of, are we solving our customers problems and how are we doing that? I don't have
to figure out, “Are we going to be a book publisher, are we going to be a media company?”None of that
really matters, what really matters is are we growing our subscriber base to a point that we are really
offering true value and if our products and services align with that value then it's all going to work out.
Travis: Right. So talking about growing that platform, do you mostly use organic and earned media
type things or are you bringing very many paid elements into growing that platform also?
Joe: So I'll tell you a little secret that we've been able to accomplish, and actually my next book is
called Epic Content Marketing. I'm working out it now. And the introduction and I‟ve started the
introduction with the book and it starts with the number 39, 400. And 39,400 is the total amount of paid
media that we've spent money on over the last 6 years per content marketing institute. And then I said
over that time we're the 9th fastest growing private media company in North America. We fit 2 behind
Facebook, mind you, we finished I think 500, number 365, and we finishes the fastest growing start-up
in Northern Ohio, and we've done that through less than $50,000 total in paid media.
Travis: That's impressive.
Joe: The answer is we've gone over the other edge on the original content and earn media and haven‟t
focused on paid at all. Not that there's anything wrong with paid Travis, there's definitely a place for
paid in advertising. We offer advertising products but where I think the rubber meets the road is, boy
can you create your own owned media channels and that makes everything else work for the business,
specially small business.
Travis: Yeah, and creating valuable content boy it sure is, it's such a valuable way to build your
business for so many reasons, we could go so many different directions with that. Something that I look
at when I go in and assess businesses is. How many different sources of…, how many channels are
they using, maybe that's a better way of saying it? And a lot of businesses are stuck in the mud with 2
or 3 channels when they could be using 40 channels. And it's a mixture of organic, earned and paid,
and it really just blows my mind and so I'm constantly reminded that the 4 levels of competence. The
first one is unconsciously incompetent; you don't know what you don't know. The second is consciously
incompetent; you now know what it is you don't know, and a lot people just didn't know that there were
more ways to bring valuable prospects into their channel, or into their business.
Joe: I think you're correct and I think where we see the problems of the average company, the average
small business uses about 9 different channels, that's on average. Where I see the problem is they

focus on going to those channels first without having something substantive to say working in those.
And the other thing is this is the general rule, if somebody might give us--a small business has a blog
which you generally see. Create a blog post and they'll say, "Oh, we'll put that blog on Facebook, we'll
put it on Twitter, we'll put it on do whatever, LinkedIn, those types of things, send it on email. What I
want to see small businesses do is say, “Here‟s my story idea, here's the pain point we're trying to
solve, here's our called action, here's what we really want to have happened as a business. Now how
do we make that story work on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on SlideShare, on Pinterest, whatever channels
that you‟re focusing on, for eBooks. If you think about that ahead of time instead of after the fact like
most companies do you will have a huge advantage. It's just hard to do because of the publishing
model and we're just not used to the publishing skill set, we will be, I mean we're all going in that
direction but most of us just don't it yet.
Travis: Right. So say you had to start over today, how would you do things differently?
Joe: Wow, it's hard to say Travis because I feel really good about where we're at right now.
Travis: That's a good thing.
Joe: No, I do. I like, the mistakes that we--I'll probably say, "Oh, I wish I didn't make the early mistake
about targeting the wrong audience.”But I don't know. If I'd learned those things that's gotten us to this
point right now, if I'm starting fresh, I'd probably say really focus on getting that WordPress blog up and
running, that happened to become kind of a magnet for drawing people in, get as really as focused as
possible, I'll give you an example.
So content must in 2007, the focus for the business was content marketing that was the niche that we
were going to be the leading experts in the world at. If I started today in 2013, I could not use content
marketing because it's too broad. So I would say, "Oh, I have to go financial content marketing, or I
have to do content marketing in health care industries,” or whatever the case is. Content marketing
specifically is for marketing agencies. Whatever the case is you have to figure out what that niche is, so
I would really look long and hard to make sure that I can be that leading expert in whatever that niche
is. And I really think most businesses go too broad, they don't go niche enough.
Travis: Right. It's kind of like an airplane. It's easier to take a little bitty airplane and get it to flight, you
know. Takes less effort, less velocity, less everything to get it to take flight and that's what you're
illustrating by niche-fying what you‟re going after rather than trying to be everything to everyone within
your industry.
Joe: We still think in the 3 network television mindset where we want to reach as many people as
possible but what we're living is that whatever, back to 30 years ago that most popular show with the
30+ market share was „Happy Days.‟ Nobody gets 30+ market share anymore. You know what you're

getting, you‟re getting whatever, 10 for Sunday Night Football or whatever the case is. It's very, very
nichefied all over the place but we can reach those audiences by, you got your Doug Dynasties, you
got your Storage Wars, you got all these small shows that are doing really, really well focusing on a
niche audience, we've got to think from that standpoint and not reaching everybody.
Travis: Good illustration there, great point. Yeah, Doug Dynasty, either you're into that or not, you're
not, right? It's clear who this is for.
Joe: Oh right away, absolutely, and I think if we think more like that and think more like, "Oh, I'm going
to set-up a pilot for this group of people,” and that's how I'm going to test it out. That's how we get big
companies to get in to content marketing. We're not going to transform their marketing organization
overnight, it's too hard, they're too slow to move. But we want to do a pilot, we want to do a little beta
test, and if you start really small, then you can get some steam just like a boulder rolling down hill
catches that speed but you got to start somewhere.
Travis: Yeah, great point. Listen, we're nearing our time here. Let's move to the lightning round for the
3 questions that I sent you and that I'm going to surprise you with one fourth.
Joe: Alright. Hit me with it, I'm ready.
Travis: One surprise question after that. What book or program made an impact on you related to
business that you'd recommend and why?
Joe: So many of them but I would probably say, and this is probably a favorite of many of your guest,
it's Permission Marketing by Seth Godin. And the important part about that is it started to think about
the importance of the subscriber. I believe that small businesses need to put such a value on the opt-in
subscriber in creating that own channel. And I don't care if there's 2 or 200, or now we're up to 40,000
for content marketing institute. You can get to that level but figure out how you can get permission to
market to your customers, and I just love that book and even though it's way over 10 years old now.
Travis: Yeah, like 11.
Joe: I think just a great Bible for any small business to refer to.
Travis: Yeah. And still relevant.
Joe: Absolutely, it comes back to everything that we're doing today. Are you creating helpful content
that you get permission from customers to talk to them on an ongoing basis.
Travis: What is one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you recently discovered if any,
that you would recommend to other business owners and why?

Joe: I'm going to turn it on a little bit Travis because this is so important, I'd say WordPress. And it's not
a new thing, we moved to WordPress a couple of years ago. WordPress is a content management
system. Most of the websites in the world are built on WordPress but we moved on--any small business
in my opinion can run a WordPress site, it's more than just their blog, it's their entire web presence. We
just discovered the platform called the Genesis platform, and it's basically a structure for how
WordPress is fed to kind of a back plumbing of WordPress so if you like to get that into the weeds of it--
love Genesis, it's taken our search and social to the next level, it's fantastic, and if you're a small
businesses looking at how can you, what is your online presence, I would first look at WordPress and
then second, that template could be in what's called Genesis platform, and just type in WordPress
Genesis and it'll all come up. And I don't want to have any affiliation with that model but it is fantastic
and it's working for us.
Travis: And is that for a specific type of business, the Genesis thing?
Joe: No, it's basically a template, it's somewhere where your web developer can get in kind of display,
you can talk to search engines in certain way, you can easily publish content on an ongoing basis. I feel
that if you are pleased, if you're a small business and you're looking at technology like ASP.net, or even
Drupal or Joomla which I think is too complicated for WordPress which is an open source content
management system. If you're over $50 million business, then you might need something else, but if
you're less than $50 million business, I don't care what business you‟re in, WordPress will work for you.
Travis: Yeah, okay, great. What famous quote would best summarize your belief or attitude in
business?
Joe: This is a--so I got this on the back of a sugar packet at my father's restaurant when I was 5 years
old and I've kept it with me forever. And it's basically, “If you've tried something and failed, you are
vastly better off than if you had tried nothing and succeeded.” And I've kept that with me forever, it's
always the first quote on my mind and I always think about what am I doing today less than what am I
thinking of and everybody's got a great idea, everybody had my idea, everybody has your idea, but it's
the ones that actually execute and that's what makes all the difference. So I love that quote and I keep
with me at all times.
Travis: Brilliant, I'm blown away that you had the perspective even at that age to understand the gravity
of that statement. You know at times, I'm recording 3 shows today and at times I'm thinking I want to
push back, I want to say, "What am I doing? I've got so many things I need to take care of but it's just
the taking action and constantly honing your skills.” It's exhilarating isn't it?
Joe: Boy, you just have to go through--I see so many small business owners and I know a lot of people
that are in real jobs right now, that have great ideas but they're looking for the right time and the right

circumstances and I'm going to tell you, and you know this because you're an entrepreneur to. There's
never a right time and there's never a right circumstance. We started the business, my kids were 2 and
4, we had no real income, we were saving up trying to get this thing done. It's probably the worst
recession time in 2007, it was horrible time to start and we got to 2008, got even worse. So there is no
right time but what's great about the environment we live in today is that the doers are what see all of
the accolades, and I think you got to focus on that. Just do and you'll learn from that, makes those
mistakes and keep moving forward.
Travis: Yeah, and that can't be understated. I think at times, and we were talking about this before we
got going is right brainers a lot of times were bold and will push buttons that we're not supposed to
push and will do things we're not supposed to do, and when you survive those things normally good
things come from it if you get on the right path. And at times I have fear and I just want to sit down,
things are moving too fast, and I'm bold, and so I'm thinking, wow, how tough is it for people that are
not as bold as I am if I'm having these fears at times, right? I just want to point out that having fear,
having anxiety, that's normal, that's part of it. And so just don't let that get in your way. What Joe's
saying is take action, and I agree, it's the key to success.
So let me hit you with--were you going to say something Joe?
Joe: Just said, “Amen!” brother, you can't say that enough, absolutely.
Travis: Okay, I'm going to hit you with a surprise here. What do you dream of, what's your dream, what
do you fantasize of, what's your dream?
Joe: To be honest? I'm living the dream right now, I really feel good about, I was in 2000 to 2007, I was
working for a great company but I always felt like I was travelling on their dime and I was building
something that really wasn't my passion. I couldn't be at my kid's events because if I had to go out of
town, I had to go out of town. I see my friends that they have trouble getting days off and they have
trouble finding time for their kids because they have their work and their jobs or whatever. I love--we
can make the decision completely, I could spend time doing whatever I need to do, I get up excited
figuring out what project am I going to work on today, I love the flexibility of it, I love the fact that I took
my kids to school this morning, so I'm living it and I just want to see this thing continue to grow. But
there's nothing that I would say, boy, I wish I could do this because I'm doing it. I'm feeling good. I love
it.
Travis: Alright. I dig that answer, man, congratulations. How do people connect with you?
Joe: I am a, so contentmarketinginstitute.com is the business site, contentmarketingworld.com is the
events site. We actually have a small business conference coming up in September for supply relevant
for some of the people listening. And then on it, the JoePulizzi.com is all of my speaking and my books

and stuff like that but I'm very accessible on @juntajoe at Twitter and if anybody ever has any
questions I try to be as open as possible to get to him and I love to be contacted.
Travis: Excellent. I'll put all of those links up there so that everybody can go to you directly. Can you
hangout a minute, I have a couple of things that I want to share with my friends here, can you hangout
a couple more minutes?
Joe: Sure.
End of Interview
Travis: Okay great. So listen, I want to remind you about the show notes, we're going to put everything
down here in the bottom section of Joe's episode in that way you can connect with even the books and
the quotes and all those other great things and so, I want to remind you to go to DIYOB.com, which is
basically short for Diamonds in Your Own Backyard.com, so it's DIYOB.com, enter your name and
email and we'll send you the 2013 Business Owner's Guide, “From Frustration to $70 million.”It's a
candid behind the scenes look at what you need to know to grow your business to incredible levels of
success. No matter where you're at in your business right now and it really doesn't even matter size
you want to grow your business too. What I'll tell you in the guide are critical elements to your success
that no one‟s talking about because it's not in their best interest financially which really drives me crazy.
So it's really essential information you need to know about growing your business. Also when you opt-
in, you'll become a member of the Authentic Entrepreneur Nation which is a network of people, tools,
and resources that you can trust to grow your business. We've been talking about this for a while and
it's actually taken longer than I planned, but as soon as we have that up, you'll have access to that as
well. This is basically our private rolodex that we use of people that we know I can trust.
In the next episode, I'm going to connect you with Corbett Barr. Corbett is the founder of Think Traffic
and Expert Enough. Corbett helps people build cool stuff online that grows their business. So as always
you don't want to miss that next episode.
Today I want to close the show with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt, and the quote reads, "With self-
discipline, most anything is possible."
This is Travis Lane Jenkins signing off for now, to your success, may you inspire those around you to
go after their dreams too. Talk to you in the next episode. Take care.

How We Can Help You
We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called
gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That‟s exactly
why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at
a fraction of its normal cost.
Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive
deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever!
We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats within your business.
This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons
are.
As the 'Business Owner' it‟s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you‟re in the
middle of a daily management.
And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial.
This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn‟t matter if you are a one-man army, or
an army of 150, the problem is still the same.
Travis Lane Jenkins
Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist
Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show
“Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"

The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 037 Joe Pulizzi

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

En vedette

En vedette (20)

The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 037 Joe Pulizzi