In our most recent issue of ‘Badass Marketing,’ we dived headfirst into marketing risk assessment. We unpacked the many strategies that can dampen the blow of potential risks. We discussed risk response strategies and examined the hazards of depending solely on one marketing platform. In addition, we pressed the importance of backup plans and the need to spread out contacts for diversification.
Untangling the Web of Risk in Business and Marketing
Our expert panel, Mike Doherty and Angela Dunz shed light on the significance of a well-thought-out risk strategy for social media platforms, encouraging the use of backup plans and diversification across platforms. In addition, they emphasized finding the platform that perfectly aligns with your business type and target audience and the potential of LinkedIn as a traffic magnet.
Furthermore, we delved into the importance of simplicity and clarity in marketing, the indispensability of an omnichannel approach, and the significance of risk assessment and the ever-reliable plan B. The conversation led us to explore the need to stay on the radar and the risks that AI poses. Please stay tuned for our next session, where we’ll learn about the overhyped promises in marketing and why they should be taken with a grain of salt.
Talking Points:
- Mastering Risk Assessment
- Balancing Risk Assessment & Risk Management
- Navigating Marketing Risks
- Risk Mitigation Strategies for Social Media
- Brand Visibility & Embracing the Omnichannel Approach
- Pinpointing the Right Social Media Platform for Your Audience
Action Points:
- Formulate a plan to cushion the effects of potential risks.
- Identify your Audience and Encourage Opt-In to Your Mailing List
- Draft a comprehensive risk management plan for your marketing and business operations.
Food for Thought:
- What tactics can be employed to lessen the impact of a risk?
- What’s the Next Move in Risk Reduction?
- What are the current pressing needs of clients?
Badass Marketing – Discussion of Marketing Topics. Trending, shifting, evolving topics and peripheral changes in the world of business and effect marketing. We will touch a little bit on sales. The focus will be Digital Marketing.
Read the Transcript
Untangling the Web of Risk in Business and Marketing
Fri. May 5, 2023
0:04 – Mike Doherty
Good morning and welcome to another edition of Badass Marketing. I am joined today by my fabulous ,” co host. Co host Sorry, Angela Dun Angel, how are you this morning?
0:14 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I’m good, I’m good. I’m really looking forward to the weekend.
0:18 – Mike Doherty
Why, what’s going on?
0:21 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I needed to play catchup in a mad fashion.
0:24 – Mike Doherty
Well, that sounds like fun. Yeah, so you gonna work,
0:28 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I’ll be happy when it’s done.
0:30 – Mike Doherty
okay? I believe at the end of our last episode we talked, about talking about risk assessment, so,
0:40 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes.
0:41 – Mike Doherty
and risk, so, what’s your understanding of risk?
0:47 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Anything that can really threaten the viability of your businesss is a risk. You know, these are really interesting times that we’re in right now, and even the whole banking situation is its a risk.
1:03 – Mike Doherty
I think about risk this way. This is the way that We’re project managers by nature, so when we consider risk for a project, what we’re looking at is is two factors, right? So impact and probability and those are what we use to understand and to address risk. So if something is and then we, what we do is, we typically will put things in four quadrants based on those. So high risk, high, high risk is um, high impact, high probability, versus low risk which is low impact, low probability.
1:44 – Mike Doherty
So you know. An earthquake, for instance, how would you quantify that? As in your risk assessment,
1:54 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
it could have high impact but low probability.
1:59 – Mike Doherty
you know? So we would put that, you know. In that quadrant, right? You know, So high impact, low, probability. And then what we do and once we’ve assessed this, we look at the potential risks that we’re facing and then what we do is we develop a response to risk, high impact but low probability. How much resources are you going to dedicate to that? And then and I’m gonna do this off the top of my head, which means I’m probably gonna forget something, but There are five responses to risk.
2:37 – Mike Doherty
Any thoughts?
2:40 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
panic, but there’s always prevention.
2:48 – Mike Doherty
Okay, and, but okay,
2:51 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
You know, addressing it head on.
2:54 – Mike Doherty
so there are five things that you can do with rest, right? You can avoid it. You can transfer it. You can mitigate it. Oh, my God, I know I would remember all five. Escalate, avoid, transfer, mitigate, and accept. So those are the five things. Then when faced with the risk that you can do, okay. So in the case of the earthquake, which one would do? You think you would use.
3:40 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I would try to avoid it if I had enough for warning.
3:47 – Mike Doherty
But you, you can, because there is a probab, there is a probab, a low probability but a high impact. So in that case, what we would look to do is, we would look to transfer the risk, right? And the way that we transfer the risk. Because we would buy insurance, so If in the event there is this earthquake and it destroys your home, you’ve transferred that risk to the insurance company. You paid them for that transfer of risk because they now assume the risk of you losing your home and then, you know, they do that through actuarials and all that kind of thing to assess that, but you pay them a Bk.
4:23 – Mike Doherty
So one of the options potentially is to transfer, and the way that we typically transfer risk is we buy insurance. You could accept it. You’re like, okay, I live in California, you know, earthquakes happen, but they very rarely happen and I do nothing, right, I just accept that and that’s sort of what accepting the risk would be. You could reject the risk. You could say, yeah, I don’t like the idea of earthquakes. And you sell your home and you move to New Jersey and you are faced with, I guess, hurricanes and, and New Jersey in general.
5:00 – Mike Doherty
Another thing would be to reject Like, you know, I don’t want to live in California because I’m concerned about, Earthquake. Another option would be to mitigate. So what do you think some of the mitigation strategies rebate?
5:15 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, to earthquake proof your home as much as you could.
5:19 – Mike Doherty
And then you might have an earthquake kit where you have, you know, water and food and stuff like that.
5:23 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Evacuation plan right.
5:25 – Mike Doherty
So that’s the mitigate. And then the last remaining piece is to escalate. So. You know, I’m not sure that I can think of an example of how we would escalate the earthquake risk, but for instance, if we had another risk where you’re working in an organization, you’re not the decision maker, you and you identify this risk, you might escalate it to somebody who has the power or the authority to make a plan. You know, When we look at risk, we typically look at two factors againt. And which are the impact and the probability?
6:06 – Mike Doherty
We then assess the assess them and based on that assessment we have five options which we just discussed. And then typically what we do is based on those five options. We develop a plan, right? So for the earthquake, we, the plan was and the mitigating strategy was to transfer that by buying insurance, And then typically in project management, what we would do is we would go through all the potential risks that we can identify and we create a list, and then once we have this list, we would do a risk assessment between impact and probability and then develop a strategy to do that.
6:55 – Mike Doherty
What happens when the earthquake comes? Is it a risk anymore?
6:59 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
It’s reality.
7:01 – Mike Doherty
It’s a reality. Okay, so we call that an event. So once if the risk actually materializes, it’s no longer a risk, it’s not an unknown’s, it’s an actuality, and we call that an event. And what’s really important about You know, looking at events is, unfortunately they’re the only time we get to test our risk strategy to see if we did a good job. It’s important that, you know. If an event, something happens that you know, the risk now becomes a reality or an event. You know, that will give you some insights as to whether or not your risk strategy was sufficient or you know, or what have you?
7:46 – Mike Doherty
So that’s kind of a broad overview of risk, but let’s go back to sort of the beginning where like, okay, why does this all, why does all this matter for businesses, why should we be considering risk in businesss and what should we do about it?
8:00 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Hello. Well, the goal for most businesses is to have a sustainable business and to have some sort of impact and you stay viable.
8:13 – Mike Doherty
They may be looking at a continuity plan, you know, if in the event something happens or exit strategy,
8:17 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
for an exit strategy.
8:20 – Mike Doherty
things like that, right? But you know, it’s, it’s good to sort of look at your business and you know, like, so what could happen, what could go wrong and based on that, you know, so. You know, I could lose my biggest client, okay, high impact, probably low probability, let’s, you know, assuming, right? So what would, you know, what would be my response to that?
8:48 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Make sure that that client is always happy.
8:51 – Mike Doherty
make sure that clients always happy.
8:51 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Talk to that client.
8:53 – Mike Doherty
Maybe another strategy would be to diversify my client percentages so that that one client is A large amount of my businesss, so that, you know, I, you know, it has a less, I can reduce the impact of losing that one client, right? So that’s what we’re typically doing in a risk analysis, is we’re looking at it and then we’re developing a plan, like we say, okay, based on what we see. What should we be doing? And sometimes we do nothing because it could be low impact, low probability. You know, the amount of money or effort that it takes to address that is more than the risk itself.
9:37 – Mike Doherty
So that’s the case where we might do nothing. I’m guessing you’ve been reading the news, and you’ve been following sort of the bank drama.
9:48 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes, for sure.
9:49 – Mike Doherty
You know, so I was at a median last week, I think it was last week, it was last week and you know, we were talking about like, what are you advising your clients as it relates? To banking, you know, and you know we’ve seen Silicon Valley Bank and now I guess it’s 1st Republic, you know, so you know, if you’re a financial consultant or if you’re an accountant, you know, they’re looking at like strategies and mitigation strategies to make sure that if in the event a bank fails, it doesn’t disrupt their businesses.
10:26 – Mike Doherty
And you know, some of the things that were being discussed is Make sure you have a 2nd bank. Make sure that any amounts above the Fdic insurance you know that you don’t have concentrations in one single bank. Make sure that maybe the 2nd bank has one. Cycle of payroll worth of cash in it so that, you know, you can get through the next payroll cycle, you know, because we don’t believe that you’re going to lose your money in these bank, you know, problems, but they could be potentially delayed.
10:58 – Mike Doherty
So rather than risk disrupting your businesss,
10:59 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes.
11:01 – Mike Doherty
we were looking at some of the the offsetting strategy. So we had many discussions about like, okay, there’s some banks that are looking a little dicey, what should our clients be doing and what should, you know, what should be some of these strategies? And again, You know, in this case it was about mitigating the impact of the event, that event should fail, right? Making sure that you don’t have concentrations in one bank, making sure you have a 2nd banking relationship so that if you need to move or need to do something quickly, making sure you have one payroll cycle worth of cash sitting in that 2nd location so that, you know, I mean, you know, of all things, you got to pay the people, right?
11:43 – Mike Doherty
You got to keep the businesss up and running and, you know, continuity.
11:47 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
And so basically reducing the impact, you know, there are times where you can’t,
11:50 – Mike Doherty
mitigate,
11:51 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
can’t reduce the probability,
11:51 – Mike Doherty
Yeah,
11:54 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
but you can reduce the impact.
11:57 – Mike Doherty
so there’s two things that we can address. We can either address the impact or the probability. In this case, we You can’t control the probability.
12:04 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Hey.
12:05 – Mike Doherty
So we would, we would focus on the impact and focus on ways to mitigate the impact. Sometimes we can reduce the, the impact or, or the probability, right? You know, if we’re in a high risk situation, we can do things to reduce the probability of something happening, like fixing your home for, you know, retrofitting and, you know, so that your home is earthquake proof, so that would be a way of reducing the impact and things like that. You could move your home, but you know then that, you know, part of this also is you have to look at the, the costs of the plan as it relates to the risk, right?
12:43 – Mike Doherty
Because we don’t need to spend more money than we potentially are going to lose, right?
12:48 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
And in the banking situation,
12:48 – Mike Doherty
You.
12:50 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
it doesn’t cost you money to move things around and take care of those kinds of financial things. It takes time, but it cost you.
12:58 – Mike Doherty
Takes time and effort and you you know, that’s a 2nd group of It’s 2nd banking relationship. It’s a 2nd account reconciliation. You would have to set up all the payroll to be able to run and you you know, if you’re using the payroll service, you’d have to advise them and you know, so you know, there’s a minimum amount of costs, but there’s also, probably a lot of, you know, work to make sure that’s all in place and make sure that it’s running, you know, a lot of You know, if you’re, you know, really serious about this, you know, then you would test it, right, you know, like how, you know, could we flip payroll quickly, you know, so you want, you know, if you have that luxury, you would also want to test these systems to ensure they do what they’re supposed to do.
13:46 – Mike Doherty
We generally don’t want to wait to an event to find out whether or not our strategy was any good.
13:51 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
It’s a little dicey,
13:51 – Mike Doherty
Sometimes that’s the only time we know, but you know, but ideally if we can test this in advance, that would be, you know, that would be better than that.
14:01 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
yeah, ideal.
14:05 – Mike Doherty
We’re in marketing, so we generally let the finance folks and some other folks deal with these types of risks, but what kind of risks are we seeing in marketing?
14:14 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, you know, the pandemic was a fantastic example, you know, needs changed very quickly and what was possible changed very quickly and there were a lot of businesses that shifted in their marketing very quickly, you know, they responded to the change and you know, if you’re a restaurant and you can’t have people dining indoors, there was a lot of adaptation to pickup and delivery,
14:45 – Mike Doherty
They had to change their messaging and things like that.
14:47 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
yes.
14:49 – Mike Doherty
Excuse me, what do you see as some of the other potential risks faced by companies with regard to marketing?
14:58 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, there’s always the factor of disruption. That’s possible,
15:01 – Mike Doherty
Okay?
15:02 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
you know, there’s tech. And all sorts of that can happen that give somebody who adopts it quickly a competitive advantage and it leaves other people behind.
15:14 – Mike Doherty
Yeah, I mean the thing that sort of jumps out at me and we’ve had this discussion before is, you know, relying on social media as your marketing platform, right? So the risk there is for a variety of reasons you could get bounced off of your, you know, favorite social media platform. So what do you think the impact of that would be?
15:38 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, it depends on how much you have invested in that specific platform. But I, I know people who.
15:43 – Mike Doherty
But if you’re primarily focused one platform is driving on a businesss, that’s high impact, right?
15:49 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
It’s very high impact.
15:52 – Mike Doherty
The probability is low, but not, not, not none, right? What are some of the, and you know, what are some of the offsetting, That is, with that, do you think?
16:05 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, one of the ones that I preach is, you know, there’s a lot of people that have a newsletter on Linkedin or all of their contents or all of their contacts are on Linkedin. And I really stress the importance of having your own email list, you know, if Linkedin, Linkedin hass a global shutdown for a couple of hours, like they have several times. And you don’t have accesss to your contacts. Have them in a Cr M and always be able to get a hold of them via email or text or telephone, you know, rather than relying on all of that sitting inside of In or Facebook or Instagram, you know.
16:45 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
We’ve talked before about Clubhouse. Clubhouse was the hottest thing in the neighborhood.
16:49 – Mike Doherty
I remember
16:51 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
for quite a while and then it, it just fell out of favor.
16:55 – Mike Doherty
Then it wasn’t, yeah.
16:57 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
You know, tick tock is a huge risk right now because what if it gets banned in the United States?
17:05 – Mike Doherty
You know, it’s, you know, the risk strategy is to, you know, have a plan B. You know, we talked this, you know, about building the email list, having a direct contact to your customers or your marketing. And we’re not saying we leave those social media platforms, they’re valuable, you know, if you’re successfully, you know, reaching people via Linkedin, that’s great, you know, because it is a great platform for reaching businesses. However, you know. The old adages don’t put your eggs in one basket, you know, make sure that you have an alternative means to reach these people should the event that they go down.
17:43 – Mike Doherty
Linkedin decides it doesn’t love you anymore. Linkedin falls out of favor and it becomes the clubhouse of, you know, the next clubhouse.
17:52 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
If there is a technology disruption and there is a new kid on the block.
17:52 – Mike Doherty
That means. One of the risk strategies for dealing with social media is making you I have a backup and the one that you know, we all stress is that, you know, you should have a newsletter, you should have, you know, be collecting people’s email so that you can reach them directly. By the time this errors or by the time you watch this in the future, that may be Sm text instead of emails and whatever platform, but the ability to touch your audience directly, right? Because we get very comfortable and we get very lackadaisical.
18:31 – Mike Doherty
You know, we have a client that does really well on Google until it didn’t and then all, you know, for whatever reason, Google, you know, either changed an algorithm and, you know, so we were getting You know, north of 80 percentage of the traffic via Google. And then the algorithm changed and now we’re not. So you know, we have to make sure that we have a Plan B for when that happens so that we have other ways to market to this target audience. Other platforms, do we look at Bing, do we look at Linkedin, you know?
19:03 – Mike Doherty
What is the alternative? And again, what we don’t want to do is try to come up with this after, you know. Our primary source has dried up, right? We should be thinking about this in advance as marketers like, okay, this is great, this is working, but it may not work forever. And therefore, what else should we be doing or what other alternatives are available to us?
19:27 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, and I just had a great example with one of my six month clients, from Linkedin. They decided during that time that they weren’t going to network in person anymore. And the strategy that I had been working for. Working for them with on Linkedin sort of bottomed out without that, you know, meeting new people, networking on a a regular basis. Their outreach strategy on Linkedin did not work as well without that face to face.
19:56 – Mike Doherty
Yes.
19:58 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
So the whole omnichannel idea, you know, if you, you speaking One of your marketing strategies.
20:07 – Mike Doherty
Excuse me.
20:08 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Networking as one of your strategies, whether it’s online or in person, you know, there’s lots of different ways for you to keep that whole omnichannel system going so that if one piece falls out of it, you’ve got some backup.
20:25 – Mike Doherty
You know, and, and the challenge is for many of us as small businesses, you know, it’s hard enough keeping up with the platform that’s working today. And now you’re telling me that’s not enough, I have to have a Plan B in my pocket, you know. How do we, how do we balance this, how do we, how do we know, you know, we only have so many hours in the day, what do we do?
20:50 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes, well, you know, I, you know how much I believe in email. Marketing is one of the best platforms that we have, you know, so if you are unable to network If you are unable to use Instagram or Google or Linkedin, you know you still have your email channel to stay in touch and stay top of mind with people. Now if something happens to email, what are you gonna do?
21:20 – Mike Doherty
You know, but that’s a question of, you know. Figuring out what the next step is, right? Because our, the, the trick here is can we stay one step ahead of whatever the next problem is, right, you know. So Presently what we’re suggesting is, you know, keep doing your social media, especially if it’s working, don’t mess with that, but in the meantime, you know, figure out how to grow your email list, that you have that as a backup before you need it. Potentially emails may go away, you know, we’ve, you know, I used to get phone calls, apparently now I only get phone calls when it’s spam, people trying to, you know, sell me something,
21:58 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes.
21:58 – Mike Doherty
but when my phone rings like it’s, it’s never a human at the other end, you know, that I actually want to you know, so email may move to text. So like, you know, a lot of our interactions with our clients is text based, right? So you know again. Whether it be text, whether it be email, of course, we’re always advocating for permission based marketing, making sure that, you know, while you’re building this list, it’s not a question of just adding names and emails to this list for the sake of adding names.
22:30 – Mike Doherty
It’s about getting people to opt in, getting people to join your list, not be added. We are very much against buying lists and just randomly adding,
22:43 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
No, there’s no relationship there.
22:45 – Mike Doherty
you know, so if you’re still buying lists. We’re asking why, But you know, don’t buy list, don’t do that, you know, develop your audience, curate your audience and get them to join, to voluntarily opt in, right? So that we’re in compliance and all that kind of thing. And then you start to think about what the next thing is, right for the client that we’ve been. That has shifted on Google for us. Fortunately, we also were having a relatively fair amount of success on Instagram. So we’ve sort of doubled down on the Instagram for now while we try to refigure whatever is going on with Google or figure out if we needed to go find another channel.
23:30 – Mike Doherty
But we had that Instagram channel sort of going We’ve accelerated our efforts on it a little bit as a result of the downturn in the Google response, but we had that sort of Plan B in place. We were just sort of bouncing along on Instagram. And now, now we take it really seriously because it’s now our primary chat, you know, and, and now we’re looking for that, you know, do we figure out Google? Is it a question of just, you know, some tweaks to make sure that the algorithms happy? Or do we just look for another platform, you know, they’re other alternatives.
24:05 – Mike Doherty
So those are the types of discussions that we’re having with the client to figure out like, okay, you know, Where do we go from here? You know what I mean, What is this? Str The next strategy to reduce the risk because we still needed to get traffic through the site means, you know, because we want them to buy product.
24:26 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, and Twitter, Twitter just changed dramatically in the last year, so if people were using that as their primary.
24:33 – Mike Doherty
Why is that? Don’t understand what Something must have changed Twitter.
24:40 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Oh, maybe to just to Tad,
24:40 – Mike Doherty
Elon.
24:47 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I mean things can happen, things can turn on a dime. You know, you wake up the next morning and you look at Google and there’s nothing happening,
24:58 – Mike Doherty
So me answer a question because this is,
24:58 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
know, you.
25:00 – Mike Doherty
you know, like we use Twitter, but like, like I think. Twitter for us, like we get a minimum amount of visibility, right? I’m hard pressed to think of any ex like just in the nature of the businesses that we work with, then they tend to be B to B. You know, while we do have a presence there and I guess that adds to the overall brand awareness and you know, Ucs in multiple places, but I and I don’t do Twitter advertising, so this may be completely different. And I’m sure there’s folks, say Twitter who would argue otherwise.
25:36 – Mike Doherty
But you know, I personally and our clients have never seen, like I’m hard pressed to come up with a we got businesss from Twitter type of response.
25:48 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
No, I used to be very active on Twitter and what I realized was that it was mostly a lot of marketers preaching to each other. That’s, that’s not ex,
25:58 – Mike Doherty
and conspiracy theorists who are,
25:59 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
because those,
26:00 – Mike Doherty
you know,
26:01 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
yes, but it, it tended to be the people that followed. With me and the people that I followed were all marketers. And you know, that’s great. You might learn some new tips and tricks about marketing, but that’s not how you’re going to get businesss unless you’re looking for some sort of collaboration. And I just don’t think Twitter is the right.
26:17 – Mike Doherty
It was an echo chamber, right? Because you’re just, you know, people talking about the same thing.
26:20 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
It is, it is not The kind of platform that really is conducive to collaboration, it’s really just sound bites that you’re putting out there. And so I, I’ve become much less active on Twitter.
26:36 – Mike Doherty
And I mean, and we’re, you know, like I said, what we’re saying is it’s not relevant for our audience. We’re not saying it’s a bad But we are questioning, you know, its current leadership. But we’re not saying it’s a bad platform, we’re just saying it’s probably not the best platform for the audience that we target and that. And I think that’s really the risk factors high.
26:54 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
risk factor is high, you can’t do anything to mitigate that. Where you can diversify platforms.
27:05 – Mike Doherty
You, can you go to other, you make sure you’re on other platforms. Absolutely.
27:09 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
You know, no one for sure has control.
27:10 – Mike Doherty
I think it also speaks to the fact that certain platforms are better suited for certain audiences, right?
27:16 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes.
27:17 – Mike Doherty
I could say the same thing about Facebook. However, when we’re marketing a consumer product, we go to Facebook. When we’re marketing a businesss product, we go to Linkedin. And we just show up on Twitter for the sake of showing up, know if it’s a consumer product that is attractive. We use Instagram because we’re a visual.
27:38 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
the visual aspects. Right.
27:39 – Mike Doherty
aspect of it, you know, whether it be a restaurant, whether it be, you know, something along those lines. But you know, it’s really about finding the right social media platform that is appropriate for the type of business and your audience, you know, and that often, you know, Clubhouse was great for, you know, I think six months, you know, maybe a little bit longer,
28:01 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Maybe a year.
28:01 – Mike Doherty
but I mean maybe a year But you know, like lots of folks did really well in a relatively short period. And if they had a risk strategy, they had the next platform queued up so that, you know, when clubhouse fell out of favor, it, you know, there was somewhere else to go to.
28:23 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I had a lot of fun on Clubhouse for a while. It was great for market research.
28:29 – Mike Doherty
We, you know, we were seeing a tremendous, you know, the audience was great because the a, you know, we had a weekly show and, and the audience would come back like the same people would come back. We didn’t get a lot of new people, but we had a consistent audience from the folks that liked what we were talking about and like what, you know what I mean? So. We had a consistent audience. It just, it didn’t grow after a certain period of time. Part of that was as we didn’t do a lot to that. But you know, always looking at maybe what’s the next platform, should you be on tick tock, should you not?
29:02 – Mike Doherty
And that’s really where the risk comes in, like, okay, so So what’s the impact? You know, I can go in clubhouse, it’s hot, I’ll get lots of visibility. The probability is it probably won’t be there in six months. You know, so what does that mean and how do you address that from a businesss continuity standpoint? So that if an event that happens, we’re not saying it’s going to happen, but they probably will, that probably has a high probability and therefore you know, what is your risk strategy or risk response to that?
29:32 – Mike Doherty
To make sure that if in the event that happens you have another place to go.
29:39 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yeah, I have several different backup strategies for my businesss. If anything happens to Linkedin, God forbid.
29:46 – Mike Doherty
God forbid.
29:48 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yeah, I keep a fairly consistent on Instagram. It’s sort of low profile, but if I needed to amp that up, it would be super easy for me to do that. And I used to use Facebook a lot when I was teaching group classes and it was a very active platform. I don’t think it would be terribly difficult to resurrect that should I needed to do that in the future.
30:12 – Mike Doherty
So what do you think of Linkedin these days? I mean, you’re the Linkedin data, so I’m assuming you like it, but like, you know, tell me going in Linkedin these days.
30:18 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, a hate relationship. It is definitely a love hate relationship, you know, and people have noticed that since, like February, organic reach has dropped by a factor of about five. It’s, it’s a serious drop in organic reach. Now that’s not everybody, but if it’s really mediocre or not very interesting content. It’s fallen off pretty seriously now. I don’t post for the algorithms on a good day, you know, I post for the human beings. So for me it’s much more of a quality versus quantity, You know, if I only get a hundred views for something and I get an initial consultation patient or a phone call or an email message or an inquiry of some kind, or somebody clicks on a landing page, then that’s successful to me.
31:15 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I don’t need a thousand people to see that and nothing happens.
31:20 – Mike Doherty
Yeah, I mean our, you know, our experience with Linkedin, it’s been mixed, you know, the one thing that I can say. The downside, I would say, is, it seems to have gotten tremendously more spammy. You know where people are connecting in the 1st messages Hey, buy my product or Hey, follow my page. And it’s like I’ve not, I don’t know you, I’ve never met you and you know, your 1st request is for, you know me to do something for you and I’m like, I don’t know, that’s the relation, but Where we have a tremendous amount of success is when we have a very focused niche and you know, where, you know, for instance, we do digital health by being and focused on that one area very specifically.
32:03 – Mike Doherty
We have, you know, a great Fol. You know, we’re not trying to be all things to all people, we’re trying to be something very specific for a certain target audience. And that is one of the things that we’ve found Linkedin’s great for. We, you know, we just people, you know, react and respond to that.
32:23 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, and another thing that I think Linkedin is really great for is driving traffic. You know, I have a clickable link on the top of my profile and I let people know about that all the time, and I get two to three appointments every single week from that clickable link on Linkedin. Now, sometimes it’s just a convenience thing. My clients know that that link is there, and if they need to get a hold of me, it’s the easiest place to find.
32:46 – Mike Doherty
Yeah, I don’t have to go look somewhere else, right? Yeah.
32:48 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
it’s right at the top of my profile which is great but it’s really wonderful for driving traffic you know and whether you’re trying to send somebody to your website or a landing page you know fifty two percent of all social traffic that goes to Calendar links and websites comes from Linkedin.
32:49 – Mike Doherty
a With that, right?
33:10 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
That’s an excellent use of Linkedin, You know. There are other things. If you’re trying to establish yourself as a thought leader, you know, there are a lot of people that would say, if you’re not on Linkedin, you can’t really call yourself a thought leader right now. If you’re a thought leader and read it,
33:27 – Mike Doherty
people, they should say that right.
33:27 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
great. Yes, but the influencers, the big, big influencers, you know, people that get Contracts with Forbes to write articles and things like that. Most of that comes from Linkedin.
33:44 – Mike Doherty
I, I would also argue that they supplement like these are the same people that are doing the conference circuit circuit, so they’re doing speaking engagements. It is this Omni channel, right? Because I would agree it’s important to be on Linkedin, but I don’t think these people are a resting on Linkedin solely, right? You know, Linkedin is in their portfolio of strategies to create brand awareness,
34:04 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Certainly not.
34:10 – Mike Doherty
but These influences are also going to conferences, they’re also speaking engagements, they are writing for well known publications. That might be a chicken and an egg, you know, you have to have the visibility to get the job, but but you know, that sort of, if you write something in Forbes, you know that the next day they’re posting it on their account. So that sort of, you know, helps their Linkedin profile because, you know, so it’s, you know, but I would argue that those people that Linkedin is a tool for them.
34:40 – Mike Doherty
In an omnichannel approach,
34:43 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
including in person, being on stages.
34:46 – Mike Doherty
all right, networking, going to events, you know, chatting with people, that type of thing. What do you think if you’re looking at marketing these days, what do you think is the biggest risks people are facing in the next couple of months?
35:06 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, I think one of the biggest risks right now, and I’m seeing it with some of my clients, is that they haven’t fully adapted to what the market is right now. You know, they’re kind of doing same old, same old, almost pre pandemic and people’s needs have changed and the problem that they’re actually solving for their clients has shifted a bit or completely changed. And so I really think doing some sort of a risk assessment right now and making sure that you’re absolutely current and you’re serving the most important needs of your clients right now and if you need to shift a little bit, if you need to find a new, if you need to create a new solution, offer or shift an old offering or accelerate something that’s in your development pipeline because it does meet a need right now.
35:58 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
But I think staying current and on top of what the real needs of your clients is, is the biggest risk that is right now.
36:08 – Mike Doherty
Do you think our clients know what their needs are in this shifting environment?
36:13 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
they probably don’t. I think that’s why entrepreneurs have to stay a half a step ahead. You know, we need to be in constant conversation with our best clients to find out what it is that is challenging them right now, and we kind of have to read between the lines and provide something that’s going to fit into that space. Our clients don’t always know and that’s where they come to us as experts. Marketing is not everybody’s primary language, you know. They depend on us to be able to find where is the market going, where is online.
36:53 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
And digital marketing going what are the trends you know for example I read an article that talked about logos and if a logo is more than two colors if it’s really complex and I have to think about how it relates to your businesss. I’m just really done, I’m over it. Things need to be simple.
37:14 – Mike Doherty
Yeah, I mean, I would argue that’s, you know, like anything on the business card if you have to explain it, whether it be the name of your business, because there’s so many businesses where, you know, they come to us and they’re like, they have a name like, you know. You know J. R. Services. And I’m like, okay, you, you know, I have no idea what Jr. B does for it, you know what I mean? So the fact that you would have to explainin to me, you know, whereas if you have a really clear tagline or really clear business name that people like, you know, understand any commerce that’s ours, right?
37:52 – Mike Doherty
Where about e commerce, it’s sort of put right out there in the company name and that kind of stuff. So again, if you have to explain the logo, if you have to explain the name of the business or you have to explain the tag line, your marketing person has done you a service It’s clearly like what, you know, like and people, you know, they come to all the time where like they name the business after their family or themselves or what have you, which is nice, but it has no brand recognition, you know what I mean?
38:21 – Mike Doherty
And then, you know, and then when I mention that because, you know, I’m the one to sort of tell them these types of things, you know, then they point out examples like Google and stuff, and then I remind them they don’t actually have the budget that Google had to create that brand awareness, you know what I mean? So, you know,
38:38 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Simplicity and clarity are absolutely everything right now. Don’t make me so hard.
38:43 – Mike Doherty
I should be to look at. I just looked down on my desk. I swear to God this was not planned. Okay, so This is a business card. A tree service, Okay, it’s called The Perfect Tree. The tagline is Professional Tree Service and it has a tree on it, right? I mean, like I don’t know who these people are, they just because they dropped it on my mailbox. I don’t actually use tree service today, but it just landed it. But I mean, like that’s, that’s primo, right? Like I know what they do.
39:13 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Dee.
39:15 – Mike Doherty
I know exactly what they do. I, you know, it’s very clear, I don’t have to guess, you know, versus, you know, that same company could have been, you know. You know, Jr. B services and, and we would be guessing as to what that meant. But like this company, Perfect Tree, picture of a tree and you know,
39:34 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
That is such a great example.
39:34 – Mike Doherty
professional tree service, it doesn’t get any easier than that. Like, so you know, Perfect Tree, you got your plug, I don’t know who you are, you landed on it, You’re in my neighborhood. That’s cool, But you know, it’s just a great example of, like, you know,
39:47 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes.
39:48 – Mike Doherty
it’s clear, it’s, it’s right, you know, I don’t have to think about it because you know, you know, we see these, like you said, these really obscure logos or these really, you know, obscure names and like, you know, which is fine for the Googles of the world who have a marketing budget and have venture capital buying them. Most of us don’t. So make it. O Please don’t make me work to figure out what you do. That’s why I love the name Linkedin bad. It’s very clear, it’s very obvious, right?
40:15 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
It has well for me it’s it’s really kind of a surprise you know for example I was in a speed networking event two weeks ago and you get thrown into this breakout session with three people you’ve never met before in your life and this attorney looks at me he says I don’t care about the rest of you guys I want to hear about the linkedin badass immediate recognition of
40:15 – Mike Doherty
That works everybody. If you have the right name and I know someone encouraged you to pursue that name, so yes,
40:46 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
And thank you, I went screaming all the way.
40:51 – Mike Doherty
I know you were a little resistant, right?
40:54 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
little, is it? That’s a gross understatement.
40:58 – Mike Doherty
But you but you understand like the of having the right name right.
41:00 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
do. I it is working so well for me. So I’m Pretty grateful, Mike.
41:08 – Mike Doherty
Exactly. But that’s the point, right? Is that,
41:11 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes,
41:11 – Mike Doherty
you know.
41:12 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
it’s simplicity.
41:13 – Mike Doherty
We don’t have to guess what you do. It’s pretty obvious it’s there, it’s in front of us, right, and stuff. So and then we’ve incorporated badass marketing into this, so that is an extension of the brand and hopefully additional brand awareness.
41:23 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes. Keeps that simplicity and clarity going.
41:33 – Mike Doherty
Well, I mean, you know, brand awareness, unfortunately, you know, we have to remind people that were out there in the world. You know, you can’t just it’s not a set it and forget it,
41:42 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes.
41:44 – Mike Doherty
like name it, put out a website and leave it alone and hope for the best. You know, we’re out here, we’re like constantly, hey, we’re still, we’re still out here, which is, you know, impressive unto itself, but, you know, but that part of brand awareness is constantly showing up, trying to remain top of mind. And we do that through, like you said, an omnichannel approach, we do. Podcast, we do speak engagements, we do networking, we do blogs, and we’re on Linkedin, and we’ve left Clubhouse, sorry, Clubhouse, and we’re on the fence when it comes to Twitter apparently.
42:21 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes, but backup plans are always Instagram and Facebook and,
42:26 – Mike Doherty
And we both we can assure you we both have newsletters, right?
42:30 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I might dabble in tick tock, too.
42:33 – Mike Doherty
Okay for now. Yeah,
42:37 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I,
42:37 – Mike Doherty
you know.
42:37 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I don’t think the ban is actually gonna happen. I mean, there’s lots of restrictions already, but we’ll see,
42:43 – Mike Doherty
risk assessment is that the probability is low.
42:48 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I would say it’s probably closer to medium, but on the low side.
42:51 – Mike Doherty
Okay, and you’re willing to, I mean part of this is, you know, part of the five responses is to accept that. So like, you know, I think it is what it is, but I’m okay with that, I can deal with that or I’m willing to deal with, accept that risk.
43:06 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes.
43:06 – Mike Doherty
and deal with.
43:07 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
That is a big piece of it, You know, if I were to put a whole bunch of time into doing tick tock videos, but I accept the fact that it could disappear tomorrow. That’s totally fine.
43:19 – Mike Doherty
That’s a decision, I mean, that’s a business decision. It’s one of the options is to accept the risk, like, you know what, I know that I’m aware of that, but it’s okay for me, I, I accept that risk.
43:30 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I also have the option of repurposing.
43:34 – Mike Doherty
I mean, so yeah, I mean, and you’re mitigating, right? So you’ve obviously, you know. Shown up. You’re on other channels, so it’s not your soul, you know, it’s not at all or nothing to play.
43:44 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Not at all. I mean even the fact that I have an incognito presence on several different platforms, it means that I understand that well,
43:53 – Mike Doherty
I’m not sure what that means. So you’re just lurking in the background,
43:56 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I Kind of, I’m a little voyeurism.
44:00 – Mike Doherty
okay?
44:01 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I have a couple different accounts on both Instagram and Facebook, but it means I’m keeping my finger on the Pm. Should I need to use them at some point in time? I’m not ignoring them completely.
44:14 – Mike Doherty
Okay. So if there’s someone in your room you don’, know, it’s probably Angela Urk, she’s doing market research damage.
44:27 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Well, and if everybody wants to know, Outdoor Angel is my handle on both.
44:33 – Mike Doherty
Okay, so if Outdoor Angel is out there, you’ll know who it is. Any other thoughts about risk and, and risk management and risk strategies?
44:44 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I don’t think there’s ever been a time when the risk was a higher factor, you know, anything could happen. This is a really disruptive time right now. So having a risk management plan for your marketing, for your business in general, being able to make quick pivots, having a plan B, Dd, however many plans you need to have, I Think this is something that you should have in the back of your mind and maybe on a napkin someplace. Should you need to pull it out and enact another plan?
45:18 – Mike Doherty
We hope you take it a little further than the napkin in your head,
45:21 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I’m being sarcastic.
45:22 – Mike Doherty
because let’s hope, because you know we don’t. We wouldn’t want to rely on that napkin right now, so. Because we do see a lott of things emerging, right? AI is obviously a hot topic, you know, especially in marketing,
45:35 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
and it’s.
45:36 – Mike Doherty
what is it going to do? So how do you respond to this, you know, what do you think the risk is? The likelihood is, whatever it is, the probability is high. So you need to generate a response to AI, especially if your competitors are using AI,
45:51 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes.
45:52 – Mike Doherty
you know, So So what are we talking about next week?
45:57 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Oh, good question. Wow,
46:03 – Mike Doherty
I go. I go.
46:05 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
you got that?
46:06 – Mike Doherty
I have no idea. Next week let’s talk about all the things that people promise you in marketing and why you shouldn’t fall for them.
46:08 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Excellent.
46:18 – Mike Doherty
all right. Why, you know, if they’re telling you this, you should run as fast as you.
46:23 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
I’ve had this conversation three times this week, Mike. This will be a juicy discussion.
46:30 – Mike Doherty
All right. Well, we’re let you leave that one then, so that one is yours. So you know, if they’re promising you the moon, it’s you go need to go in the other direction,
46:38 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
and the stars.
46:40 – Mike Doherty
right? Moon and stars go in the other direction.
46:43 – Angela Dunz ~ LinkedInBadass.com
Yes, it’s all about data and proven results.
46:47 – Mike Doherty
Absolutely, Angela, as always, a pleasure. It’s it’s wonderful to see you, and we look forward to chatting next week about all the things that you should run from when it comes to marketing sales.
Untangling the Web of Risk in Business and Marketing
