I Just Want It to Work!: A Guide to Understanding Digital Marketing and Social Media for Frustrated Business Owners, Managers, and Marketers

INTRODUCTION

SO, YOU’RE A LITTLE BIT FRUSTRATED …

Do your eyes glaze over when somebody mentions marketing or social media? Do you know it’s important for the success of your business, but you’d rather poke yourself in the eye with a stick than spend time and money messing around with that stuff? Are you a frustrated business owner, manager or marketer who’s a little lost in the digital web?

Perhaps you have dabbled in it a little, or at least made an attempt to get involved, but feel frustrated as your time, energy and money invested haven’t produced the results you’ve expected? Or perhaps you may be a little further ahead and have gone down the path of engaging a third party or employing an internal resource, and you feel self-conscious that you don’t know the right questions to ask, or how to hold them accountable for their actions?

Alternatively, you may be frustrated because you feel you’ve had a piecemeal approach to marketing, things seem somewhat disjointed, and you look to other brands, businesses and even your competitors with envy because they seem to have it together.

You may be confused by the myriad resources out there on the topic, or about where to start or knowing what may be best for you and your business. You may be overwhelmed with advice from friends, family, colleagues, the next-door neighbour or other business owners who each have particular ideas about how you should be marketing your business in the digital and social space.

GOOD THING YOU FOUND THIS BOOK …

If that sounds like you, congratulations – you’re in the right place! Solving these problems is what I live for.

In this book we’re going to look at the major facets of all things digital and social media, using a strategic marketing approach to understand the best way to attack this part of your business. The strategic marketing approach is what is key here. All too often I see businesses that jump straight to the tactics (we cover why this is dangerous) and they attempt to go direct to specialist or individual providers for the various components of their digital and social marketing, only to realise how unmanageable this approach is due to the difficulty of someone in the business trying to pull it all together and manage multiple vendors.

I am going to help you make sense of the different aspects, explain how they all relate, and pull those pieces of the digital and social puzzle together for you, while showing you how to ensure you not only set the right objectives but ensure they just work for you and your business.

I aim to cut out the bull. I want you to feel that you are sitting down with me, having a coffee (or a glass of wine) and I’m talking you through each component in a really simple, easy-to-understand and jargon-free way. I intend to ensure that you can avoid the many pieces of advice from well-meaning people who tell you that you need to implement [insert almost any tactic] in your business, and enable you to make your own choices for you and your unique business.

You will walk away from this book with absolute confidence and with enough knowledge to become dangerous, to ask the right questions, and hold either your internal team or a third-party agency accountable for their strategies and tactics.

I believe it’s your obligation as a business owner to understand all things marketing, digital and social. That doesn’t mean that you need to know the intricacies or even how to do it yourself, but you have an obligation to know enough to ensure you’re making the best decisions for your business. Just like finance, business owners and directors are responsible for the numbers and are liable for business performance – marketing, digital and social are no different.

I am genuinely excited by what I hope you are going to take from this book, even if it’s only a few key learnings that help govern your strategy moving forward, or perhaps a more holistic approach where you ensure whomever is responsible for this function within your business is accountable for what they are tasked with executing.

How to get the most out of this book

To get the most out of this book, read and re-read chapters. Skip ahead to the topics that interest you if you are trying to make some decisions, and use the notes pages in each chapter to write a few key points that are relevant to your business and how the chapter could help you.

SO, WHO AM I?

You’re reading my book, so it’s only fair I tell you a little bit about who I am and how I came to write I Just Want It To Work! Born in 1982, and growing up in a blue-collar family in various suburbs of Campbelltown, in Western Sydney, I never imagined I would become an entrepreneur or successful business owner. Heck, I didn’t even really know what an entrepreneur was, let alone dared to call myself one.

So how then did I become an experienced marketer? A successful business owner? An entrepreneur? An investor and owner of a number of start-ups? A mentor? An author?

Hard work

Well, I started young. I witnessed my father working incredibly hard every single day, six (and at times, seven) days a week (overtime was the holy grail). He was a craftsman. A shopfitter and joiner by trade, his skills were impeccable; what I saw him build, create, conceptualise and deliver taught me more than I realised at the time. Work ethic, creativity, taking pride in your work, problem solving and resilience were all valuable lessons that contributed to my journey.

My mother on the other hand was an academic, who valued education, yet chose to be a wonderful stay at home mother who would ensure she was there for us every single day, yet this made for a very modest upbringing.

We didn’t really know what this meant until we were older. When I was around eight years old it started to become evident. We didn’t have the latest toys or brand-name clothes, we didn’t go on holidays, nor did we go to the Sydney Royal Easter Show. I recall watching my mother on Friday nights, taking my dad’s small yellow envelope which had his pay in it, and dividing it up into the usual groups: food, utilities, school, clothes, and so on. Needless to say there wasn’t much left at the end of each week. Don’t get me wrong; we always had a roof over our head, food on the table, clothes on our back and an education, but we didn’t have much more than the necessities of life.

I quickly realised two things. The first was that if I wanted holidays, brand-name clothes and the latest gadgets I was going to have to work for them; and secondly, I realised that I did want to have nice things, because to me they were representative of hard work.

I was hungry for success.

My first job and my first business

Just shy of 14 years old, I got my first job working at a supermarket – from the cash register to trolley boy, I did it all. I learned valuable lessons about customer service, how to relate to people and help people, working in teams, and the value of working for my money, so much so that I went out and got a second job.

While earning $5 an hour seemed okay, I wanted more. This is when I started my first business: car stereo installations.

I had a thing for electronics, having played with electronic kits that were purchased secondhand from the markets. I figured out circuitry and had a fair idea how it all worked. Using my older sister’s car as a guinea pig, I managed to figure out how to install a head-unit and a set of speakers. Thankfully it worked just fine, so I started telling people I knew that I could install car stereos. Word got around, and from my parents’ garage and front driveway my first business began (much to the annoyance of my neighbours when the doof, doof started – sorry Mr Wilson).

It quickly reached the point where people started asking for quotes. I told them to get a quote from a well-known professional car stereo retail chain (which is no longer around), and promised them that I would beat the installation quote by 50%! (The joy of no overheads.) Soon I was being asked if I could select and purchase the gear on behalf of my customers, and after developing a relationship with another car stereo retail chain, I was able to buy the equipment for them at a discounted rate. Before long, the installations became more complex, and people started asking for customised work, so I then started sub-contracting my dad to make the sub-woofer boxes for my customers.

I didn’t know it at the time but I was learning valuable marketing lessons: the power of word of mouth, the importance of being competitive, the importance of partnerships and collaboration, the importance of engaging the appropriate skills, and finding people with complementary products, skills or services.

By the age of 20 I stopped installing car stereos. I had successfully funded everything in my life from the age of 14: my car, my toys, a dirt bike, brand-name clothes, going out money, awesome Christmas presents for my siblings (you’re welcome) … well, you get the picture.

What’s a Toolmaker?

But, this is not even where my career began. In fact, I’m a Toolmaker by trade. A Toolmaker you ask!? Many of you reading this book may not even know what one is.

When I used to tell people I was a Toolmaker, they thought I made hammers and screwdrivers. I won’t go into too much detail, suffice to say it’s effectively a mechanical engineering trade, where you manufacture tools that create things; for example, moulds that manufacture plastic components, or press tools that stamp metal to form it into shapes. It is a trade of perfection, working to the finest of tolerances, the ultimate in precision.

This is where my marketing career actually began.

Having barely worked for long on the factory floor, the Director of the company I worked for at the time must have seen something in me (or perhaps he just thought I was a terrible Toolmaker!), and he asked if I would be interested in encouraging other young people who were at school to become a Toolmaker/Engineer too by exhibiting at a career expo. Sure enough, I put together a display, gathered some brochures and some cool samples of things we made, and off I went to the exhibit.

There my love of marketing began, as did my career shift, and my education. And for the next 14 years I went on to study and receive a multitude of undergrad and post grad qualifications in business, marketing and finally an MBA (Master of Business Administration). When I reflect on why this led to a career change, I think it became evident to me really early on that my mind, my personality, and my interests resonated with the marketing field. I have always been a mix of creative and strategic, with an artistic flair, but with an analytical mind (over-analytical at times). What’s more, I loved every minute of it. The challenges, the strategies, the diversity in day-to-day operations all appealed to me. I loved knowing that I was at the forefront of things, usually before anyone else even knew about