Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Niche Marketing Is The Subject Of The Join Up Dots Podcast With Ken Tucker
To subscribe to the podcast, please use the links below:
Click Here to Subscribe via iTunes
Click Here to Subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes feed)
If you like the show, we would be so grateful if would consider leaving the show a review in iTunes as well as Stitcher Radio. A couple minutes of your time can help the show immensely! Thank YOU!
Introducing Niche Marketing Expert Ken Tucker
Niche marketing expert Ken Tucker is our guest today, on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots free podcast interview.
He is a man who is a master at taking a clients business and growing it beyond anything they could do on their own.
He is the founder of Changescape Web, which focuses on integrated small business marketing solutions in the St. Louis and St. Charles metro area.
This includes Online Marketing Solutions: WordPress Websites, HubSpot Internet Marketing Software, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing Management & Training, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Online Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing, Landing Page Creation, Social Media Contests and Promotions, Event Based Marketing, Local Search, Content Marketing.
Now what is interesting is how they do this of course, but also how they support the growth of both their clients and their own personal growth through several extremely strong values that they stick to.
How The Niche Marketing Dots Joined Up For Ken
As you will hear on the niche marketing based show, Ken has built his successful business from four simple mission statements
1) Helping our clients become wildly successful.
2) Building strong, lasting relationships with our clients.
3) Ongoing commitment to both professional and personal growth and development.
4) Supporting our communities and causes that we care about, both locally and globally.
and
5) Having fun!
As they say
It’s become something of a cliche to say that people should love what they do, but at Changescape, we really do! Every day presents new challenges and opportunities to meet them. It’s a lot of fun (and very rewarding) to discuss a problem one of our clients is facing, and then developing and implementing a campaign to solve it. Our passion for our work motivates us every day.
So what is it about the local community that inspires him greatly, instead of hitting every corner of the world like so many of the entrepreneurs that appear on Join Up Dots?
And where did he start first? Creating a blueprint from himself that worked, or learning it as he went by building the business as the testing ground for everything?
Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr Ken Tucker.
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such weighty topics with Ken Tucker such as:
Why becoming unemployable in your own business is more often than not the correct stance to take for huge success.
How most people do not niche down deep another in their business to truly understand what and who they are offering services too.
Connecting with you local Chamber of Commerce is a great place to start understanding how local business operate, and of course connect with the right kind of people that can help your business.
and lastly….
Ken shares how the big growth of his business have occurred when he has separated himself from it fully to breathe, think and review without disturbance.
How To Connect With Ken Tucker
Return To The Top Of Niche Marketing
If you enjoyed this episode with Ken Tucker, why not check out other inspirational chat with Hal Elrod, Derek Rydall Isabel Hundt and the amazing Steven Masley
You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy
Full Transcription Of Ken Tucker Interview
Intro [0:00]
When we’re young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here’s your host live from the back of his garden in the UK, David Ralph.
David Ralph [0:25]
Yes, hello, good morning, everybody. Good morning to all my listeners of Join Up Dots. Thank you so much for tuning in. And being with us once more. In today’s show, if I T one is what I love about Join Up Dots, every single conversation is totally different. If you listen to yesterday’s show, it was about brain surgeon and we were looking at about how brains can be powered by the right view and stuff. Today’s guest, he’s doing something totally different. And he is a man who is a master at taking a client’s business and growing it beyond anything they could do on their own. He’s the founder of change scape web, which focuses on integrated small business marketing solutions in the St. Louis and St. Charles metro area. Now, what this actually means is he works on online marketing solutions, WordPress, HubSpot, internet marketing, email marketing, you get all the stuff. He also helps you to create perfect landing pages online lead generation and all the kinds of things, I recommend bog people down at the beginning on creating a business. Now what is interesting is how they do this, of course, but also how they support the growth of both their clients and their own personal growth through several extremely strong values that they stick to, number one, helping our clients become wildly successful, building strong lasting relationships with our clients ongoing commitment to both professional and personal growth and development of their staff, supporting our communities and causes that we care about both locally and globally. And also having fun, brilliant stuff. As I say, it’s become something of a cliche to say that people should love what they do. But at chain scape, we really do we really do. Every day presents new challenges and opportunities to meet them. It’s a lot of fun and very rewarding to discuss a problem with one of our clients, and then develop and implement a campaign to solve it. Our passion for our work motivates us every day. So what is it about the local community that inspires him greatly, instead of hitting every corner of the world? Like so many of the entrepreneurs that appear on Join Up Dots seem to want to do and where did he start first creating a blueprint for himself at work or learning as he went by building the business as the testing ground for everything? Well, let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. Ken Tucker. Good morning, Mr. Tucker. How are you, sir?
Ken Tucker [2:38]
Good morning. I’m great. How are you?
David Ralph [2:39]
I do I sound great. Because I feel great. today. I feel all empowered and motivated and enthusiastic. And it can only because you’re here.
Ken Tucker [2:48]
Awesome. Yeah. Well, you’re, you’re definitely motivating, that’s for sure.
David Ralph [2:53]
Well, I’m gonna try to motivate you. Because that’s what we do. We motivate the guests to motivate the audience to go out and do things in a different way and create a path that is unique, authentic. And as you say, having fun. Now, when I saw your website, I loved the fact that it said having fun, because you don’t see that very often. But I think that’s such a big part is a big part of what I like to do every day. Is having fun? Should it be at number five? Or should we put that up to number one on your list?
Ken Tucker [3:21]
Well, you know, the way I see it, well, some people may not really view it this way. When I solve a problem, I find that to be very, you know, very much fun. But we also, you know, we do joke a lot we we play ping pong, you know, a couple, a couple of minutes every afternoon just to just to relax to you know, the shake up things. Yeah, we recently moved into a tech startup community called the opio startups. And it’s in a fantastic facility. They do a lot of things that that really fit in well with our business where they, they’ll have a luncheon every week where they provide the food and they encourage all of the tenants to come in and network and you know, that a lot of times they’ll set up games, and we play and so you know, fun is fun is absolutely critical. And I think, you know, my wife’s a teacher. And you know, one of the things that unfortunately, I think happens as we get older is we get, you know, play kind of beaten out of us, because we have to shift focus and we have to be so serious all the time. I think that’s a I think that’s a mistake.
David Ralph [4:24]
I think it’s a mistake. And when I actually started Join Up Dots, I thought to myself, Well, I’m gonna be as authentically me as possible. So there’s not that much difference between the annoying me but tortures my kids on a daily basis and the annoying me that is on the podcast. And a lot of people at the beginning said, Oh, I don’t think it’s going to work, David and I just sort of ignored them and went with my commitment for just being me and having fun with my business because I couldn’t think of anything worse than leaving a corporate gig that was just boring to create an entrepreneurial job that was boring, but people do don’t know.
Ken Tucker [4:57]
They do they do for sure. And you know Oh, yeah, that you’re exactly right. I mean, you know, when I, when I started my company, it was I had all the freedom in the world, I still have all the freedom in the world. So, you know, that comes with, you know, some real upsides. And it comes with some real downsides as well. But, but you know, if you don’t love what you do, then you gotta go find something that you love to do. And you know, honestly, the things that inspire me the most are, whenever I get to hear somebody who genuinely just absolutely loves what they do, you can just hear it in the passion of their voice, you know, or see it on their faces when they’re talking about it. And that’s just priceless.
David Ralph [5:36]
Let’s jump on to something. But you said, that really intrigued me because I don’t hear many people say this, you’ve got all the time in the world, have you created a business? Which can grow without you? Are you able to step away from it? Are you there because you want to be but it doesn’t rely on you all the time?
Ken Tucker [5:56]
Well, that’s that’s the goal, obviously. You know, I mean, I’ve been fortunate to have a great team of people that work with me, and and, you know, I’ve had my business for 12 years. So it’s certainly taken me a little bit of time to get to the point where I am today. But yeah, I mean, you know, I’m in a fortunate position where, given what I do, I can, I can pick up and I can travel, and as long as I have access to the internet, I can do 90% of what I would need to do on a regular basis. Maybe even more than that, and, you know, from wherever I’m at, and knowing that if I have something that’s really critical or urgent, that I’ve got a team of people that can support me. So my goal is, you know, to try and make myself the least important aspect of my business,
David Ralph [6:41]
which is the key to everything, isn’t it? And that is the bit that I think people fall on. We’ve touched on a couple of key things here. One that companies and employees don’t think that they can have fun, but also the majority of people seem to think they’re integral to it. Now, I know that my voice is the key thing to Join Up Dots. That’s what it is. But away from the microphone, I don’t see any part of my business that has to have me part of it. I just don’t see, I could just step away from it. Totally. When did that come to you? When did that realise? realisation that you should actually make yourself unemployable?
Ken Tucker [7:20]
Well, you know, I think it comes and goes, honestly, you know, there’s being being a business owner, I guess, for myself is, you know, there’s quite a bit of insecurity about it, I take being, you know, an employer very seriously and keeping my staff gainfully employed. So, there are, you know, there are certainly moments where I do have a lot of anxiety about that, but, but the goal is, you know, and more and more just, I mean, putting systems in place, you know, we you mentioned in your intro, you know, that we put a lot of effort into investing in our own education. You know, and I’m a, I’m the kind of person I used to teach at a local community college, I love to mentor, I love to train people. And so, you know, that’s part of what’s fun, you know, working with my, with my, with my team, it’s what I love working with my clients, because some of my clients want to try and take on some things and be as self sufficient as possible. And and I believe that that’s a healthy thing that they can do, as long as it’s not distracting from something that’s really core, they don’t they, and only they can do. So, yeah, I mean, I guess, really, in the last four years or so is where I really started to realise that, you know, and a couple of times throughout it, you know, the name of my company has changed scape web. So I believe very much that, you know, this is a, this is a very dynamic environment, and I embrace change. I’m a philosophy, undergraduate degree. And I just see changes as fundamental in the world we live in today. And so you’ve got to be prepared to, to adapt and constantly change. And so there have been times where I’ve thought, gosh, do I just want to go do this alone? And, you know, and have a consulting business where it’s just me, do I want to build a team, you know, and so, really, over the last three and a half, four years, it’s really taken shape to where to the direction where we’re at now. So it’s certainly an evolution. And I think it always will be.
David Ralph [9:22]
I think you’re absolutely right. And I think change is the key thing, but it’s, it’s knowing yourself personally, isn’t it? That’s the key thing to businesses. And that’s what I’ve tried to get across to all my listeners, that you can create any business you want, but unless it actually fulfils you personally, all you’ve done is create a monster for yourself. It doesn’t matter how much money is coming in. And I always give the analogy of paying somebody 100 grand an hour to have a red hot poker shoved up their bottom. Now that might sound a brilliant salary, but after an hour, the money’s out the window is not it’s not a key thing to hoe. Was it ever not fun for you? Did you ever create That monster when you actually thought to yourself, why have I done this or were you fortunate that you created something that naturally fulfilled yourself?
Ken Tucker [10:09]
I’ve always loved what what I’ve started to do. But I did create a monster. Honestly, when I first started, when I started my, my company, I did a little bit out of hubris, I was fortunate in that the previous company that I had worked for, I had been able to build up a pretty substantial business unit, was doing IT consulting and doing it outsourced solutions. And, and as I got further along, in that, in that journey, I picked up the the marketing experience, and that really started to become my passion. But, you know, what I, what I came to realise is, I was running a business within a business, except I wasn’t responsible for the ultimate ultimately, for the financials, I was involved in almost every aspect of, you know, the business in terms of making the decisions and what benefits we needed to have for our employees. And you know, what labour rates and what solutions we could offer to our clients and all those kinds of things. But when I started my own company, you know, I guess I didn’t realise how hard and how scary and challenging it really was, when it was your own money that was that was on the line?
David Ralph [11:24]
If you don’t know what you don’t know, until you find out that you don’t know it, basically, it’s exactly right. My dad is he’s just turned 79. And he’s got a business is a brick and mortar business. And he often says to me, because my show now is very, very successful. And it’s taken, I would say, literally two years of messing around, but two years of really knowing what I was doing and focus. So it’s about it’s coming up to four year anniversary. And he says probably every three weeks, you didn’t expect it to be so hard to which I always respond, how could I know it was going to be hard, because I’d never done it before. You know, I just went into it with blind faith that it was going to work out. But what I did have, and I think it’s the key things to it. And I’d like to know your spin on this is first of all, I had blind faith. Secondly, I had a plan A and no Plan B I had to make it work. And the third thing, it kind of tapped into what I do naturally well, and it was those kinds of three elements that allowed me to push through those scary times. Do you think that’s key to all businesses? Those three things?
Ken Tucker [12:33]
Um, yeah, I think so. You know, I guess from my div, I had one other thing that was that was pretty valuable. And that was, while I, you know, once look, I’ll be honest with you, once you step away from, you know, working for somebody else, and you work for yourself, it’s really hard to ever think about going back. So, you know, so it’s kind of once you do that, if you do have to go back and work for somebody else, I think you’re going to be miserable. So from that perspective, I think it’s really important. But I also had, you know, my wife, fortunately, has, has a very good solid job and and benefits programme, which allowed me to take some risks that maybe not everybody has the opportunity to do. So, you know, having that groundwork, as well was was a really important thing.
David Ralph [13:26]
So right, let’s talk about your business as a whole, then, because what interests me is that you are an integrated small business marketing solution. And what interests me is that you focus in as much locally as globally, because I know that the rewards and the improvements can be seen so much quicker locally, by actually helping a local business to increase the footfall through the door, or get a marketing campaign. But in the world of entrepreneurship, everybody seems to look further and further afield, and not actually what’s there in front of them. What was it about Loki? Really, that appealed to you so much.
Ken Tucker [14:08]
Well, you know, what was interesting about my previous career was that I travelled a lot and I and it was all nationally focused, you know, we did a lot of work with the US and in some state and local governments across the country. But when I started my company, I really never knew what people did in a local economy. And honestly, that become they became a really fascinating thing for me. And, you know, joining a chamber of commerce and and going to some networking events, it’s like, really, people make a living doing this. I never, I never really stopped to think about it. And, you know, I came to realise, you know, we’re in the same boat. I mean, I’m a business owner, too. And, and, you know, I, I see a lot of people who have had bad experiences working with companies, you know, the do what we do. There’s, you know, there’s There’s a lot of people that make a lot of promises that honestly, they can’t, they can’t make a promise, they can work hard to make it happen, but they can’t promise that you’re gonna get paid one of you know, Google search results, for example. And I guess it’s that passion of working with local people that, that I know have put kind of the same risk and the same skin in the game that I have. And I want to see them succeed. And, you know, it’s, it’s a scary thing. But it’s also an incredibly rewarding thing to have a business. And there are a specific set of techniques that you can do from from a local business where honestly, you can out compete a large national chain if you you know, if you put your your focus into it.
David Ralph [15:45]
We have got a family business, as I was saying, my dad’s got his business and his automobile business car spares. And so about four years ago, I said to him that I will start looking at the marketing. And one of the things that I looked at really was that for the ultimo business, it was either major corporations or mechanics, who had no idea about anything, it was a quick win. And I didn’t have to do a lot to improve the profits massively, basically, on this very small shop, allowing it to compete with companies across the world. And I started having people come to me go, Well, how have you done this? You know, how do you do, and all I did was go niche, I went niche, a niche, a niche, and instead of focusing on a whole sort of area, I just went to a state or a county, as we have over here. And then I looked at winning bid towns within that state, that county. And once I’d managed to get a profile in those towns, there was a groundswell you couldn’t stop it. And it’s just changed the business exponentially. Is that how marketing should be done? Should people look at it at a granular level, more events? Sort of global?
Ken Tucker [16:53]
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what you know, one of our core services is search engine optimization. And you can’t, you can’t successfully do search engine optimization unless you start to get very specific. You know, it may be kind of counterintuitive for a lot of people where they think I want as much website traffic as I can possibly get, because that’s got to be the best thing for my business, the more people who are hitting my website, that’s just going to generate more and more business. And that really isn’t the case at all, in what you want to do is, you know, what good is 100,000 visitors to your website, you know, over the course of the year, if you get one customer from that, versus if you get 10 visits a day, or you know, or or, you know, 3000 a year, but you get 25 or 30 customers, because they’re the right customers, they’re looking, you know, they’re what they’re typing into the search engine is a, you know, much more relevant to the type of business that you do, it’s just so fundamentally important. And I think a lot of people, they have a fear that they want to try to say that they do everything. And so as a result, they they basically, are clear on nothing. And so clarity of message is really key. And and I think when you talk about serving a particular geographic area specific services you offer, and here’s the real big difference maker, in my opinion, is when you start to talk about the problems that you can solve for your customers. That’s where that’s where you start to see a lot of a lot of success. And honestly, you can, you know, whether it’s paying to drive traffic to your website, or doing organic search engine optimization, or a combination of both, you still have to approach it in that same way.
David Ralph [18:36]
So what we’re saying you’ve got to be absolutely clear about what you’re offering, you need to be solving a problem. But you need to make all your marketing, basically understandable within three seconds or less. So somebody comes across on it, and boom, they know that you are where they should be ending.
Ken Tucker [18:55]
The absolutely right, I just, I just became a storebrand certified guide. And I don’t know if if you’ve come across storebrand or not, it’s a fantastic read, one of the best business books of I think of the last several years. And you know, he talks about clarity of message Don Donald Miller as the author. And what he talks about with your website is it’s got to pass the grunt test, somebody’s got to be able to look at that website. And you know, within three to five seconds, they’ve got to they’ve got to be able to run out exactly what it is that you do. And if they can’t do that, there’s so much other competition out there online. That there and attention spans when people look at websites are you know, I mean, we’re distracted where you know, we got so many other search results, we can go check out that it’s really important that people know exactly what it is that you do as soon as they land on your website.
David Ralph [19:48]
Well, let’s play some words now. And then I’m going to delve back into this but I think missing important words to hear because it’s how we build a business. Here’s Oprah the
Oprah Winfrey [19:56]
way through the challenge is to get started. Though and ask yourself, what is the next right move? not think about, oh, I got all of this stuff, what is the next right move? And then from that space, make the next right move, and the next right move, and not to be overwhelmed by it. Because you know, your life is bigger than that one moment, you know, you’re not defined by what somebody says, is a failure for you, because failure is just there to point you in a different direction.
David Ralph [20:27]
Now, we already said, Ken, in the conversation, you don’t know what you don’t know. And to find out, you don’t know it. But she says, bear that you just do the next right thing? How have you brought that into your own business? How did you know? The next right thing?
Ken Tucker [20:43]
Well, part of it is failing, you know, and realising I mean, so many people have a negative connotation of failing, and yeah, look, there are catastrophic types of failures that, you know, that can, you know, be game changers and destroy your business. No doubt about it. But honestly, part of marketing and being successful is doing a lot of small little experiments, and, and finding out what works and what fails and constantly adapting and changing. And I think, you know, that that’s a critical component. People need to realise that. Now, obviously, you’ve got to, you’ve got to think through, you know, things through, you’ve got to factor in all kinds of risks, as you’re making some of these decisions. But failing is a part of running a business, and but most importantly, is what do you learn from that failure? And how do you incorporate it and move on, and make a better decision as you move forward? And I, especially in the world of online marketing, you know, where we’re never going to get things 100%, right. You know, when we create a Facebook ad, or a Google Adword campaign, or even a webpage, you know, we don’t know that it’s going to work exactly the way that we envision it. But if we pay attention to the, you know, the information that we can collect, you know, through through the benefit of doing you know, these things online, you can make adjustments and adapt to where you’re continually optimising and improving the performance of an ad campaign, or a conversion rate of of a web, a particular web page or a website,
David Ralph [22:19]
I find that fascinating is marketing. Actually, at the moment, I’ve got a product which we, I’m working with a guy, a marketing expert. And as we were doing the actual ads and getting the Facebook ad set up, he said, you know, what is your target? What’s your target from the first run of this. And I said, what basically my target is just, you know, if I can cover my costs been brilliant, because all I’m interested in is the data. I’m interested in which markets are getting more response than the others. And he went tiny, tiny, tiny little, as I say, adverts where I might have gone 18 to 65 year olds and males, females, he went 35, to 39, and 39 to 43, tiny, tiny little ones, but the data is amazing. And you can quickly see the ones that are doing quite well. So you can close down the ones that aren’t and then put more money into the ones that are and it seems in many ways, absolute common sense, because you’re not blasting it big, you’re going smaller and smaller. And this is, I suppose what we’re talking about Kenny, and everything is about niche marketing. That’s where success is for the new entrepreneurs, isn’t it?
Ken Tucker [23:27]
Yeah, absolutely. And as a matter of fact, the example that you that, you know, that you’re talking about where you, you kill off the lower performing ads, and you reinvest and ads that perform at a higher rate, or continue to experiment and add some new ads. When you do that, you know, the advertiser is going to reward you because they see that you’re paying attention. And you’re you’re, you’re working hard to try and make the user experience the best possible. Ultimately, advertisers are not going to make money if they’re delivering ad content that, you know, people find to be highly dissatisfactory. And, and you know, they’re gonna go look for another solution, or they’re going to use another platform. So, yeah, it’s really critical. And I think it is, you know, especially when we get into engine optimization, or I talk to a lot of small businesses, it’s like, well, what makes you different? And they say, well, it’s our customer service. And it’s like, well, that’s not really that much of a differentiator. I mean, everybody’s gonna make that claim. How do you back it up? How do you prove it? You know, and so I think it’s really important to, to dig in. And, you know, you’ve got to, you’ve got to, you’ve got to realise that you’ve you’re alienating some opportunity when you niche, but if you know what niche areas you want to go into, that’s the best possible business anyway. And not all, you know, not all pieces of business are equally good for your business. And so, if you’re just willing to take any business that’s thrown into your, into your lab, so to speak, you know, some of that might actually wind up being very detrimental to your business and keeping you from doing the things that you really want to be focusing on. And and I guess that was a hard lesson that I learned as well, you know, I mean, and part of it is, look, when you’re first starting, I mean, you got to keep the lights on, you got to pay the bills. So there’s, there’s a certain amount of that, that you might have to endure, depending on, you know, how you how thorough you were when you first thought about starting up your business. But it’s really important for a business to get to the point as quickly as they can to realise, what is the ideal customer for them? What is the ideal type of, you know, solution that they’re providing for their customers, that that’s right for their customers, but it’s also got to be right for the business.
David Ralph [25:49]
And as you were talking, I was pondering because all the listeners out there, there, the majority of them are at that stage where they’re listening to the show thinking, I’d like to do this, I’m not really happy in my job, I don’t like my boss, and, you know, I just want to do something that’s, that’s me and authentically me and stuff. And a lot of people get bogged down with creating the logo and the website, would it be a better way to actually run some ads based on a simple concept, but they’ve got to see how much response they’ve got, then build their website and their portfolio around it, is it better to go for the data first, and then work backwards?
Ken Tucker [26:26]
Well, that’s, that’s an interesting point, I guess I would have to think a little bit about that, in regard to the nature of the business. You know, it also depends on how quickly somebody is getting started, if you had the luxury of, you know, kind of transitioning into this over a period of time, I think what you’re talking about doing makes, makes a tremendous amount of sense. I think a lot of people, when they become an entrepreneur, they they do it, and there’s some gun, so gung ho about it, that they quickly find themselves already kind of in business. And so, I definitely, I’m a fan of experimentation and trying to improve things. But the other thing too, is, I think it’s really important, because we’re not going to know the right answers, you need to be prepared to just go out there and start doing something. Yeah. And, you know, your, your, what you what it is that you want to do, and the types of customers that you might want to start working with, is is going to change, you know, from my experience with my business, you know, we’re, our niche has always been working with local businesses to help them, you know, be found online, and, and to drive business, but you know, through that, through that online presence, you know, if you’re, if you’re a business, that doesn’t really know what you want to do that that can be very difficult to do.
David Ralph [27:58]
When did you now your, your branding, the understanding of what you were bringing to the table?
Ken Tucker [28:07]
Um, you know, I guess in my mind, I was I was thinking about my past experiences, and and what I liked, you know, in terms of service and support, and, you know, the way that people have had sold to me in the past, the feedback that I’ve gotten from, from some of my other customers, maybe the flexibility of, you know, being being able to make decisions differently from from my past business experiences. And I took all of that, you know, and I took, I took a good month or two off, just doing a little bit of soul searching, when I left my corporate life before I really started to get my business going and really think about it. You know, and sometimes part of that thinking about the business was not thinking at all about the business and just thinking about myself, and just jumping
David Ralph [29:06]
Ken So you, you hadn’t decided what the business was before you left your corporate gig. It wasn’t something that you planned,
Ken Tucker [29:14]
not not 100% I knew that I wanted to start a consulting business. I knew that I wanted to go out on my own. And I had some areas of expertise that I felt, you know, there were certainly opportunities around that. It turns out that what I originally started my business to do, we It has nothing to do with the business that I do today. When I started my my business 12 years ago, it was really around the idea of being an IT consultant that helped businesses figure out the best ways to invest in information technology to align with their business goals and objectives and not let too many times I was you know, The big idea that I had at that time was I saw too many times the Information Technology dictated terms to the business instead of the other way around. And I think it’s important that, you know, the, the business has to have a set of goals and objectives that are supported by the information technology investments that are made. And so that was kind of the big shift that I wanted to focus on. But as I, as I went through, and part of it was, you know, the economy helped him make a decision for me as well, in 2008, when the economy took a downturn, you know, I mean, the information technology world was decimated by that, you know, they had gotten pretty fat and happy, because of y2k. And because of the, you know, the E commerce and online boom, you know, that a lot of corporations felt like they’ve got kind of lopsided, and, you know, they’re for Information Technology spin. And so they really scaled that back, that had a very strong impact on the direction that I was taking my business at the time. And, you know, when that happened, I asked my team, what do you guys like to do? And we all unanimously said, you know, we love building websites, we love working in this exploding world of online marketing, you know, where social media was just starting to happen, and, you know, web 2.0, and all this stuff, where you made a shift from a static web page to where web, you know, web pages and web content started to become much more interactive and conversational. And the idea of engagement was born through the web. And that’s, that’s what really got us excited about that.
David Ralph [31:41]
And do you still have the same excitement now? Or are you as jaded as many people out there?
Ken Tucker [31:47]
No, I’m incredibly excited, because I still think, you know, I make, I can’t tell you how many changes and tweaks to my business as I go along. And honestly, that’s, that’s one of the most exciting things because, you know, there are new technologies that are out there, you know, major platforms change the way that you can use them. So for example, Facebook, really has evolved to the point for from a business perspective to where unless you’re a very highly lifestyle oriented business, where you’ve already got a natural clientele, you know, base of people who are very likely to share their experiences. You know, for most businesses, Facebook is really a pay to play environment anymore, in my opinion, and you need to be prepared to, you know, to kind of boost and nudge and maybe even just outright advertise some of the things that you do on Facebook. And that’s been an evolution. That’s, you know, that’s happened over the last couple of years, that, you know, that those changes and those tweaks, those excite me, you know, I mean, I love learning. That’s why my undergraduate degree was in philosophy, I decided I was gonna go to college to learn not not to go prepare for a job I wanted, I knew that if I learned how to learn, that, I could figure things out moving forward. And you know, getting a job was the least of my worries.
David Ralph [33:19]
I’m fascinated when anybody mentions the word philosophy, because I studied philosophy as well. And I can see fundamentally, it’s my, it brings together my interest in people. And my interest in people brings about my interest in how systems work. And it all comes down to that. Can you see that philosophy, although it might not have been something that you would have said was a cornerstone to your business has actually allowed it to flourish? Because of that understanding of what makes people tick?
Ken Tucker [33:49]
Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, in my opinion, it all starts with yourself. I mean, you’ve got to, you’ve got to challenge yourself, you’ve got to, you know, you’ve got to really think things through you’ve got to identify your strengths, your weaknesses, what your passions are, what you love to do what you hate to do. And if you’re an entrepreneur, I think you have the, the, you know, the fortunate, fortunate situation to really kind of carve out, you know, the job, the career that you want, that can align with all of that, but only if you do that self reflection. But then honestly, you know, the other thing is, you know, I think it’s important. For me, I think empathy is really critical because I want to be able to engage with people in a way that I think is important and fulfilling for them as well. That’s just part of what gets me excited is when I feel like I have that connection with somebody and they know that I’m genuinely genuinely trying to help them and not just selling them the next widget. I I don’t want to be a salesperson that just, you know, fulfils? You know, quotas of sales. I’ve got to be able to know that I’m selling Having a problem for a customer and and the only way you can do that is to connect with them and empathise with them and understand where they’re coming from, and what’s important to them. And sometimes, maybe it’s nudging, nudging them in a different direction, or maybe, sometimes it’s, it’s helping them to realise that some of the things that they’re asking for may not be realistically, achievable. But, you know, it’s fundamental, I don’t know how I could run a business without without that philosophical framework.
David Ralph [35:30]
But you must have gone through a phase Ken, like we all did, by buying my product, buy my product at the beginning, when it’s scary, and you feel like you’re investing into your business too much, because now, I literally don’t sell it. So it just naturally occurs, where at the beginning, I was, I was screaming out, bye, bye, bye. And funnily enough, nobody did because of that.
Ken Tucker [35:50]
You know, I, I’m not, maybe I’m being naive here. But I don’t really think that I did do a lot of that. Because I, you know, when I, when I first started my business, I mean, I got pretty quickly, you know, into the whole, you know, I was self financing, I didn’t pay myself for years. And, and it was because I didn’t want to pressure somebody into making a decision, just a, just a bi, I wanted to, I wanted to make sure that I was connecting with people and giving them something that I that I felt I could believe in. So I’m not trying to make myself out, like, you know, some really noble champion, it’s just the way I am. It just kind of fundamental to me, and, and if I can’t figure that out, you know, then I’ve got to go figure out something else to do for, you know, for a living. Fortunately, I think I’ve been able to get to the point now where, you know, we, you know, we’ve got a nice sustainable business that, that we’re really excited about. And I think it’s it, you know, it’s satisfying, my personal objectives, but it’s also as equally as important, it’s it, you know, it’s it’s satisfying, you know, my customers, desires to grow and transform their businesses.
David Ralph [37:08]
Well, as Zig Ziglar said, if you get, I don’t know, 15 million people to achieve their dreams, you will have achieved your own or something along those lines, but it’s true. It’s all outgoing, outgoing, outgoing. Now, here’s a guy, I’m gonna play the words. Now he is Steve Jobs. And he created a whole format of Join Up Dots. But he, he said once, but you don’t give customers what they want, because they don’t know what they want. But let’s listen to these words. Of
Unknown Speaker [37:33]
course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards, 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.
David Ralph [38:08]
Now he was an interesting guy. And I’ve watched quite a bit of him recently, I’ve been going through the Steve Jobs films. And one of the things that is very different with him, and most people was the fact that he knew that the product was the key to everything. It wasn’t about giving the clients and the customers what they wanted, it was about creating a product, which basically fulfilled all their needs. And those ones that they didn’t even know they had. When you listen to those words, can you connect with your life in a way that you built your own business?
Ken Tucker [38:39]
Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, I think when we don’t know, the future, we don’t know what’s what’s going to be possible. I don’t know, you know, the next major shift in technology that’s going to just rock the world of, you know, local online marketing, what, you know, we can start to make some best educated guesses. Yeah, and I think information is, is is key there. And part of that is reflecting on how you got there, and and looking to see the patterns that had that did emerge, you know, and using those things as a framework, to to, you know, to kind of be able to go out there and understand what is going to be possible. One of the things honestly, that I absolutely love what I do. It’s the thing that I think gets me the most excited is being able to look at a big picture situation, and trying to figure out how I can at that particular time, really connect the dots to create a strategy and to build the right set of things that that I think somebody needs. And you know, you I think you can only do that if you have an awareness of a lot of different things that are going on looking at, you know, how things have happened in the past. And, and also, ultimately, it is a leap of faith. I mean, when you’re when you’re putting together a solution for somebody you’re doing it with, with the best knowledge, excuse me with the best knowledge and experience that you have. But you really only know how that all works and how it all came together, you know, when you look at it in retrospect,
David Ralph [40:27]
what you do, but you kind of also, I think, during the process, you kind of know, deep down, we might be screaming, we might be shouting, we might be rolling around going, you know, our why is it happened to me, but I think our core when things were a bit crappy, we actually know why they’re a bit crappy. I certainly do. I know that I haven’t quite put the right effort in or haven’t quite drilled down enough. There’s always something and it always comes back to me.
Ken Tucker [40:55]
What Yeah, I absolutely. I mean, I think I think that’s where the self reflection comes in, and where you really have to challenge yourself and be honest with yourself. You know, sometimes it’s, you know, it’s the way that you talk about some things, you know, or it could be that you didn’t put the pieces together properly, or you didn’t, you didn’t really commit to doing something. But yeah, I agree, I think, I think a lot of people they know, in their gut, somehow, some way that you know, whether things are going to come together or not.
David Ralph [41:30]
And with your own life fame, when you look back, I generally ask every single person who appears on Join Up Dots this question, but do you have a big.do? You have a moment in your life when you think yeah, that’s, that was really, that’s when it started to come together. That was when the direction became clear to me.
Ken Tucker [41:50]
You know, I guess for me, what happened is, I had had my business for years. And, and, you know, I, I struggled, getting started, transformed, my business got to the point where we, we were, at least, were really happy doing what we were doing, not making a tremendous amount of money. You know, we were, we were proud of the work that we did for our clients. But it was also, you know, in my mind, ultimately, I knew that it was not going to deliver the results that that they wanted, because it wasn’t a comprehensive enough solution. I mean, it was to individual component based kinds of things. But you know, part of it was, I had a team of people, I felt an obligation to, you know, to keep the lights on. And so we were doing largely project based work instead of, you know, some ongoing services, which I think is really a critical shift that people need to be prepared to make when they think about marketing is it’s not a one and done kind of thing. I mean, it’s an integrated, ongoing, evolutionary kind of thing that you need to continually be investing in. Some of these things are foundational, that, you know, it just needs to be an ongoing investment. Other things are things that you can add and change and tweak to build campaigns to drive certain results. But what happened is, I decided to run for office, and, you know, just some life circumstances happen where, you know, my dad was a, he was a union guy. And in, in the state I live in, there were some directions to try and, you know, kind of destroy labour unions in and on my birthday, or I’m sorry, on my dad’s birthday, I heard his story on, you know, a public radio station on the radio that talked about the importance of, you know, or what was happening with what’s what’s called right to work. And I just, and like, two days before that, I found out that, you know, one of my best friends from high school had passed away, very unexpectedly, somebody I hadn’t seen in a few years, but I had been pretty close with most of my life. And I guess those two things, it’s like, you know, I want to do something different. And I felt it was important to do that. And honestly, it was the best thing I could have done for my business was to step out of my business for most of the year. It was, you know, I at the time, I had a couple of people on my team that basically could take and run with most of the day to day activities. So that was good. But what it did for me is it freed me up from all of my preconceptions and and misconceptions about my business and how I put it together and what was important and what I love to do, and it gave me just a fresh set of eyes. I obviously didn’t win the election, but it opened my eyes up to looking at the world of marketing in a completely different way. You know, it wasn’t a very online based campaign. It was very much, you know, you know, foot to the pavement, knocking on doors talking to as many people as I could, you know, using direct mail, which is something I’d never really had experience with as a marketer. And, and, you know, just doing all of those things and doing it differently and getting out of the day to day, every day kind of things that I done, that allowed me to come back and have just a really kind of a transformational vision of my business and where I wanted to take it and, and how I needed to approach it.
David Ralph [45:32]
And going forward, just before we push you on to the Sermon on the mic, and send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. But going forward, where’s the next, you know, the big dot leading to you? Have you got it in your head? Are you just seeing how the movements of life take you towards something?
Ken Tucker [45:51]
Well, I guess right now, the biggest thing that I’m excited about is the world of marketing automation, I just think that there are some really amazing things that are available out there. And it’s, you know, for a small business, it’s still early enough to where I think you can make some absolutely transformational investments in in in the way your business operates. By putting together you know, sales funnels and building in marketing automation, you know, to continue to enrich and engage the customer experience. And while a lot of people might think, you know, marketing automation might sound kind of cold and antiseptic. You know, there are definitely ways if you do it right, and you design these campaigns in the correct way, it’s actually a much more desirable experience for a lot of potential customers, to where you can nurture them along to the point where they do become a customer. Or if you, you know, if you’re taking advantage of existing customers, maybe maybe there’s some other thing that you can help them, you know, some of the problems that you can solve for them that they don’t even really realise your business is capable of today. And I think that’s, you know, that’s the thing that I’m really, really excited about. And that’s, that’s really the direction that I think 2018 is going to be for us is, you know, really looking at. How do we, you know, how do we grow businesses through marketing, automation, and building really effective and scalable sales funnels online?
David Ralph [47:31]
Now? Well, I hope the excitement lasts forever. Because certainly, when you can get a job that isn’t a job because it’s playful, it’s fun, and the excitement just grows while you’re doing it. You really have made yourself unemployable, as you said, Well, these are the words, well, these aren’t the words, these are your words, because this is the part of the show that we called a sermon on the mic, when we’re going to send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if you could go back in time and speak to the young Ken, what age would you choose? And what advice would you give? Well, we’re gonna find out because I’m gonna play the theme. And when it fades, you’re up. This is a sermon on the mic.
Unknown Speaker [48:16]
With the best bit of the show, remain on the mic. Okay,
Ken Tucker [48:31]
so I guess what I would do is I would go back about 13 or 14 years, right before I decided to start my company, and I would talk to myself, you know, and I would basically, one, I would prepare more for making the transition and not be as reactive as I was, I I think it’s important to maybe plan it out a little bit more effectively. I think it’s also important to realise that, you know, no matter how successful you may have been in a previous life, that that that may not translate into the new venture. I think I was a little too arrogant in when I when I started my business, and I don’t think I started it for the right reasons. And so I think what I would tell myself is, you know, plan better, make sure you have the right systems in place. You know, really give it some thought really define what it is that you want to do in a more effective way. And, you know, I still love the fact that I did it. I still am really excited about you know, the decisions that I’ve that I’ve made, but I think I could have saved myself a lot of heartache and a lot of frustration and concern over, you know, the, you know, the first five or six years of my business, if I would have thought about it a little bit differently. The challenge is really thinking about, I guess how you how you would want to, to move forward. I guess the biggest thing that I would tell myself is, you know, be glad that you had the courage to do it. Learn from your mistakes, be prepared to learn from your mistakes, know that you’re going to fail more than you’re going to be successful in getting started, it’s going to take some time to kind of zero in and develop the right rhythm that works for you. As long as you have, you know, the full capacity to make the decisions, to do what you want to do, and to follow your passions and your dreams. Be prepared to do that, but also realise that you’ve got to, it’s going to be a lot of hard work, it’s going to be some sleepless sleepless nights, I thought I was going to be able to flip a switch and just be wildly successful, and build a business that I, you know, had envisioned, conceptually, in my mind for the last, or, you know, the previous two or three years before I decided to make the leap to start my own business.
David Ralph [51:22]
Great advice. And I hope that little cane pays attention to that. So Ken, what’s the number one best way that our audience who’ve been listening today can connect with you, sir?
Ken Tucker [51:32]
Well, our website is www dot change scape web.com. And you can find us on social media with the handle change scape. So facebook.com forward slash change gate, or our Twitter Instagram is at change game.
David Ralph [51:49]
Oh, I thought you’re gonna say more than that I was so engrossed in the list you were giving us? Well, let me just finish by saying thank you so much for spending time with us today, joining up those dots. And please come back again, when you have more dots to join up. Because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our paths is the best way to build our futures. Mr. Ken Tucker, thank you so much.
Ken Tucker [52:08]
Thank you very much. I really enjoyed it.
David Ralph [52:12]
Mr. Ken Tucker. So there was a lot of information there. You look at your business, and you go niche, and then you build a marketing around a small poll, get your data and then see what’s working and what’s not, and then grow bigger. Now Marketing doesn’t have to be something that’s scary. It doesn’t have to be something that’s frightening ly expensive, especially with the ability now that we have on Facebook, to connect in a very granular way. As I was saying, you can test test test some of my most profitable products I’ve sold, I’ve basically done on like $3 a Day Marketing, and then over a period of time turned off the ones that weren’t operating, and then increase the ones that were to $5 a day $10 That day, and I’ve done very well on it. So you can really do very well. Don’t be scared but make sure that your message is congruent with what you’re offering. Until next time, thank you so much for listening to Join Up Dots. I will be here as always waiting for you. See ya. Bye bye.
Intro [53:13]
David doesn’t want you to become a faded version of the brilliant self you or wants to become. So he’s put together an amazing guide for you called the eight pieces of advice that every successful entrepreneur practices, including the two that changed his life. Head over to join up dots.com to download this amazing guide for free and we’ll see you tomorrow on Join Up Dots.