378: Turning Competitors into Collaborators- with Erik Deckers

[00:00:00] Announcer: We've all heard it before. It's who you know. Welcome to Social Capital, a weekly podcast that dives into social relationships and why the investment you put into them is so important. Your host, Lori Highby, will connect with industry leading professionals and dive into their networking experiences and expert advice.

[00:00:18] Lori Highby: Hey everybody, Lori Highby here. Welcome to the Social Capital Podcast. Our show notes are found at socialcapitalpodcast. com. To you, the listener, I want you to know that I appreciate you and I'm thrilled to have you here for another episode. If there's ever anything that I can do to support you, please reach out.

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Social Capital podcast is sponsored by Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing [00:01:00] agency that believes in order to successfully market to your ideal customer, you have to first understand your customer. Learn more at KeystoneClick. com. The topic of relationships ties in very closely with marketing. That's why I'm bringing on marketing experts with a variety of backgrounds for you to learn and grow from. Today's guest is Erik Deckers. He is a professional writer and humorist from Central Florida. He's the co author of four books on social media marketing and has been a newspaper humor column column columnist, goodness gracious, since 1994. He has owned his own content marketing agency for 14 years and ghost writes books for business owners who want to leave a legacy for their families. Eric is the president of the Jack Kerouac Project in Orlando and is the lead organizer of One Million Cups Orlando, a networking group for entrepreneurs.

Erik, welcome to the show.

[00:01:53] Erik Deckers: Thank you. Glad to be here.

[00:01:54] Lori Highby: I'm excited to have you here as well. Lots of things to cover in that, in that [00:02:00] bio and that intro. My goodness. I'm curious on both of the the Jack Kerouac Project and the 1 Million Cups. You want to talk about that real quickly?

[00:02:09] Erik Deckers: Sure. So Jack Kerouac is the guy who sort of launched the Beat Generation back in 1957 when he published On the Road and you know, soon became well known for his poetry, his writing.

He was friends with people like Allen Ginsberg and, you know, they started that whole Beat Generation and the Beatniks. And so the Kerouac Project owns the house where he lived in Orlando from 1957 and 58. And it's now a year round writer's residency. We have writers from all over the world come in and we have different individuals who get to spend one quarter in the house, and I was the spring 2016 resident and soon became the president of the entire organization.

And then 1, 000, 000 Cups is a networking community and entrepreneurial [00:03:00] community where we have people show up; we hear from two entrepreneurs who tell us about their business and then we provide them feedback and ask questions to help them on their journey. And it's a good way for entrepreneurs to get to know each other, to become referral sources for one another and and eventually become those people who help us grow our business.

[00:03:21] Lori Highby: Oh, both of those sounds so fascinating. I'm really intrigued. And to learn more about both of them, but we're not here today to talk about those two items. I'll have to do my own research on that. We're going to talk about some, some marketing topics. So let's talk content marketing, content creation.

I mean, where do you think most people should spend their time and energy? Analytics, creation of content. Where do you think?

[00:03:45] Erik Deckers: I actually think that people should spend more time talking about and focusing on creation. One of the nice things about analytics is that we can do this with marketing now, where 30, 40 years ago we could not.

You didn't know [00:04:00] how many people drove past your billboard or how many people actually saw your commercial on TV or actually heard it on the radio. And if somebody came into your business, which commercial brought them in? Which time did they see it? We didn't know any of that. And now that we can, I think marketers have gone a little bit overboard and they want to measure everything.

They use analytics to drive their content creation, which I think is the backward way of doing it. You should, your content creation should be first. That should be your highest priority because your analytics should tell you how well it's doing, not tell you what you should write about. And the perfect example is I had a particular client that they made signs, but they also wrapped vehicles.

You know, so if you ever see those vehicles that look like driving billboards, that's what they do. Well, I wrote about one of their franchise owners who started doing boat wraps for professional [00:05:00] bass fishermen. And the analytics person thought that was crazy because according to her analytics, nobody had ever come to the website to look for boat wraps.

And I said, well, how many people have actually visited? And, you know, that's the term that they use. Well, none. Well, how many people know about it? Well, apparently none. So I wrote this article on boat wraps and why it was such a big deal. And the following month, it was the second most visited page on the blog behind the front page.

And if we had listened to her first and said, well, nobody's ever visited for boat wraps, so we're not going to write about it, then we would have missed out on a huge audience. So then I ended up doing a second article about boat wraps just to kind of, you know, irritate her a little bit. And that was also a well read article.

It was second or third the following month. But that's because we took a chance on new content. We let new ideas shine through and we focused on that [00:06:00] and the analytics told us how we did. Okay, so that's where I that's where I think a lot of marketers make a mistake is they they drive everything through analytics, not vice versa.

[00:06:12] Lori Highby: I'm going to challenge you a little bit, but I appreciate the let's let's step outside of the box a little bit and do create some content that's maybe not necessarily what the data is telling us to write about. But we're big fans doing research first to give us some direction and insights on what to create content on.

So we'll, we'll lean into data to say not our own data, but the greater World Wide Web's data, like, oh, a lot of people are writing about or are interested or typing and searching around this topic. Therefore, we should write about this topic. I mean, sure, tackle that perspective.

[00:06:55] Erik Deckers: Well, and I don't want to give the idea that you should ignore the analytics.

Okay. I mean, if you if you [00:07:00] make signs you don't want to start talking about car engines. Right? You make signs, you know, people come to you for your sign making content and so you have to follow that. You have to look at your analytics. See what can we do more of? What should we just drop entirely?

What's not getting any traffic and what is getting the most traffic? And so then your analytics guide your strategy. It serves as the guardrails to keep you on the road. And you don't know what you should be doing more of or less of if you don't have those analysts. So, but you're right. It, it should also give you an idea of the things you should be writing about. But at the same time, some of this can come through just, just intuition, you know, I've talked to several customers and they're all asking about this, or, or I see, you know, this is popular in the news, or I think this could become a big thing.

You know, this is how you predict the trends as you, you look and see what is [00:08:00] coming and maybe nobody's writing about it, but you get to be the first. And so, you know, and then you get to own that market. And. Sometimes you miss, sometimes your ideas of what you're going to be first on never take off. And then other times, you just happen to get lucky, and jump on the trend that happens to get things started.

I mean, you know, go back to Jack Kerouac. Nobody knew that Beat poetry was going to be a thing. That, you know, this coffee shop poetry reading was ever going to take off. Or that this stream of consciousness writing was ever going to be necessary. But, you know, he wrote this book and people loved it.

And, and it launched this whole new way of thinking. But if, if we had analytics back then, and somebody had said, Look, nobody's reading these kinds of books because we've never sold any. We, you know, what would the world look like if we hadn't had that period in history to create you know, bebop, jazz, [00:09:00] and American haiku, and stream of consciousness On the Road type literature?

[00:09:05] Lori Highby: Yeah yeah, I, I mean, I agree with you. I think there's a, there's a balance. But but you, you made an important point of like listening to the audience, right? And really hearing what people are saying because the data may not be current with what's happening. And I mean, the language we use and how we talk about the pains we have is constantly changing. So yeah, that's it. Okay. Good conversation.

[00:09:31] Erik Deckers: Yeah, this is why we talk.

[00:09:32] Lori Highby: Exactly. How can informational interviews help anyone find new clients?

[00:09:39] Erik Deckers: And normally when I talk to people about informational interviews, I tell them this as a job seeking strategy, but I think it can also be used as a client seeking strategy.

You know, for example, I'm starting to do more informational interviews in the renewable energy arena, because that's something I want to learn more about. You know, [00:10:00] is this something I want to get involved in? Is this something that I want to write about for clients? And so the best way to do it is to just find one person in that field and contact them and say, Hey, can we meet for coffee or can we meet for a zoom call and you know, we'll talk and I'll ask them questions. I'll answer the questions. This is their chance to talk for an hour about themselves. And you know, why is this important? What made you get into it?

And how, you know, how did your career take you in this trajectory? And so, like I said, this is also good for job hunting and you do this kind of thing. And then at the end, whether you're job seeking or whether you're looking for clients, you ask them two very important questions. Number one is, do you know anybody else I should talk to? And if you've been such a good listener and you've asked good questions, then yeah, they want to help you out And so they will think of somebody that you should talk to: a colleague a competitor a former co worker. And so, you know, they say yeah, you should talk to my friend [00:11:00] David and you say great. And the second question is, can you connect me to them?

And you want them to make an email introduction between you and the other person. You don't want them to get away with saying, Sure, just tell David I told you to call. Because David might not trust you. You might, you know, here's a stranger who said, Well, Lori told me I should call you. Did she really? I don't know.

And I know somebody who actually tried that. You know, a friend mentioned the person's name. And so this guy called or, you know, emailed him and said, Hey, you know, David told me I should call you and David did not. And so, you know, the friend called David and said, Did you tell this guy to call me? Well, no, I didn't.

And so, you know, now everybody just looks bad, but especially the guy who said that. So you want to avoid that possibility. And make sure that they can do an [00:12:00] email introduction between you and that other person that sets up a warm lead, they are more receptive to your call. And once that email gets made, then you'll be the first to follow up and say you know, Hey, David Lori said I should talk to you and I'm pleased to meet you. Are you free for coffee or zoom call? And then you do it all over again. Ask the same questions, take all the same notes, and then ask those two questions at the end for more people. And eventually you will find the people who are, you know, looking to hire somebody who does what you do, or they're looking for somebody who needs your service, but rather than cold calling all of these people and hoping to stumble on that one person, you get to make some important contacts, you grow your network. And eventually that will all come back and pay off for you with new clients.

[00:12:50] Lori Highby: Yeah, I, I'm 100 percent on board with everything that you said I've got a, a, a younger gentleman on my team who's I'll say greener and kind of fresh out [00:13:00] of college learning the, the sales ropes. And this is the exact same strategy that I recommended to him, instead of trying to call people the old school way, cold calling boots on the ground.

Why don't you we, we identified what is audiences that he wants to pursue. I'm like, why don't you just go do and, and do some informational interviews with this audience. And the exact same thing that you talked about and better understand what their pains are and just collect data. Say you're doing some research and we'll compile the information and we'll present the findings and, and share it with them.

But it is a way less threatening approach and I'd say the majority of good human beings out there will be willing to help you gather some of this information and, and help connect you with others. As long as you're doing it in a caring, you know, passionate, authentic way.

[00:13:52] Erik Deckers: Exactly. And that's the, that's the trick is that it's not a trick.

You mean to do it. You, [00:14:00] you are looking to build relationships, not find clients. You're not just there to find clients. You're not just there to find a job. You're trying to build relationships because these are the people who you want to be able to go back to in a year with, you know, with more questions.

But these are also the people that when you hear of opportunities that would suit them, you make those connections.

[00:14:24] Lori Highby: Totally love that. Wow. So many fun things we're talking about right now. This one is probably one of. Another one that I feel like you and I are going to be very similar pages on, but how can one turn their competitors into collaborators and referral sources?

[00:14:44] Erik Deckers: Okay. I, I talk about this sometimes. I talk about the importance of, of having your network of people who are out giving you leads. They're, they're making connections for you. And the best way that you can turn your [00:15:00] competitors into your sales force is if you each were to specialize. And so one example I use is if, you know, let's say you're a bookkeeper, you might be a bookkeeper and you charge 50 bucks an hour to just do bookkeeping for anybody who calls you up.

But that means that every other bookkeeper in town is your competitor. But what if you were to specialize and you're only going to do bookkeeping for restaurants? Well, if you specialize, you can charge more because if you specialize, you know more, and that means it's worth more. And so you can charge maybe 75 or a hundred dollars an hour. And your competitor decides they're going to specialize and only work on professional services: doctors, lawyers, chiropractors.

So whenever they get a call from a doctor. Who says you know, Hey, I need a bookkeeper, then they're the one to answer that call. But let's say you get a call from an attorney and says, I need a bookkeeper. And you can say, I don't do [00:16:00] that. But, but my friend, Susan does, Susan is a, is a professional services bookkeeper and she can absolutely handle what you do.

And so when Susan gets a call from the local Arby's franchise and she says, well, I don't do that, but Lori does. You know, then now you're passing business back and forth to each other. Now you have doubled your sales force. And so then you find somebody else who specializes only in construction and HVAC, and you find a fourth person who specializes only in manufacturers, all bookkeepers, but you're all out there looking and prospecting for each other.

You're all able to charge more. Which means you can either make more money with the same number of clients or you make the same amount of money with fewer clients and you don't have to work so hard, but you've got four people out selling on your behalf. And if you could each just deliver one sales lead per per month for each other, this is [00:17:00] three more leads that you never planned on getting now coming into you. So finding those competitors and convincing them to specialize and, and you all work together can pay off greatly.

[00:17:15] Lori Highby: Yeah. I like to call it co op petition, basically. So it is, it's your, your competition, but you're, you're cooperating together and you're collaborating. And you know, everyone has their, their zone of genius, their area of expertise. And you know, the, the bookkeeper's accountant, you know, analogy is great because yeah, I think the more that you understand a specific industry and that, that crosses a lot of professional services, you know, marketing, you know, there's lots of different ways to tackle marketing B2B versus B2C and it all in its own self are two different, you know, tactics and strategies that are implemented. But having those collaborative, competitive partners to be referral mutual referral [00:18:00] sources to can be extremely beneficial for everyone involved.

[00:18:03] Erik Deckers: Yep. I when I lived in Indianapolis, I had two women who were friends of mine were also, they were very, very good friends. And they called each other frenemies because they both had a marketing and PR company, but they had their own specialties.

And so they were swapping business back and forth with each other. Sometimes bringing each other in to collaborate on a project. But a lot of times it was just, I don't wanna handle this. I'm gonna give it to to Hazel, or I'm gonna give this to Lorraine. And, and they would, I mean, how they'd hang out together. They'd go to plays together or they had a, a little walking club that met every Saturday and they'd go walk on the Monan trail for a couple hours. So they were good friends, even though they competed with each other. So they referred to each other as their frenemy.

[00:18:49] Lori Highby: That's great. I love that. How about some fun questions?

Now, if you could go back to your 20 year old self, what would you tell yourself to do more of, less of or differently with regards to your [00:19:00] professional career?

[00:19:01] Erik Deckers: Oh, Oh, that's a good question. I would definitely tell them to write more. I didn't start focusing on being a good writer until I was in my thirties.

I, I realized it was a writer about the time I was 30 years old. But I sometimes lament the time that I missed when I was just farting around. Didn't even think I was writing. I was just, I was putting words on pages, but I never thought I was a writer. And I, I started writing for my school newspaper when I was 20 and I wish I could have gone back and told 20 year me pay attention to what you're doing and focus on getting better and read these books to make sure you're getting better.

You know, it also makes me wonder that 10 years that I farted around, how much better would I be now if I had started 10 years earlier? So, so that's the one thing I would tell them. I would also tell them don't drink so much soda.

[00:19:59] Lori Highby: Yeah, when [00:20:00] I taught at the university here for a couple years, that was one of the things that I really tried to kind of embed in the heads of the young eager students who I'm sure were sick of writing.

And I just really said, you know, as much as you hate writing right now, I mean, that is a critical communication skill that you're going to need regardless of what path of business you pursue. So keep writing. The more you do it, the better you're going to get at it and the easier it is going to be for you to do.

[00:20:31] Erik Deckers: Exactly.

[00:20:33] Lori Highby: All right, Eric. I'm going to give you the opportunity to interview me. What is something that you'd like to ask me?

[00:20:40] Erik Deckers: What would you be doing if you weren't doing this?

[00:20:43] Lori Highby: Oh, so many things. I I'm the type of person who doesn't have the word boredom in their vocabulary because I always, I always have too many different things on my plate that I, I constantly want to be doing.

I mean, I run Keystone Click, my [00:21:00] agency. That's, that's my baby for sure. But if I wasn't doing that either I'd probably be trying a new recipe out, traveling somewhere, playing hockey, riding my bike, golfing. I think today would be a good golfing day, actually, if it was right in this very moment.

[00:21:16] Erik Deckers: Yeah, well ice hockey?

[00:21:17] Lori Highby: Yep.

[00:21:19] Erik Deckers: What was your position?

[00:21:20] Lori Highby: I still play. Depends on the league I'm in. Last night I was skating and playing left wing.

[00:21:26] Erik Deckers: Okay. I know very little about hockey, but I, I always find it fascinating. Have you watched Letterkenny yet? And Shoresy?

[00:21:34] Lori Highby: I like Shoresy better than Letterkenny. Letterkenny, it just, it moves so fast. It's so hard for me to keep up with everything that's happening. The dialogue and, and you know, my brain is just fried at the end of the day. So if I'm going to watch some TV, it needs to be something that doesn't make me have to think and process what's happening.

[00:21:52] Erik Deckers: Yep. I, yeah. I started reading hockey books because of Shoresy and the one guy from Newfoundland. Terry, [00:22:00] what's his name?

[00:22:01] Lori Highby: No, I'm not going to know that one.

[00:22:03] Erik Deckers: Gosh, he's he's Ted Hitchcock on, on Shoresy. Anyway, he was a professional hockey player. He wrote a book about his time coming up through the minors and his, like half a season in the show.

So, anyway, he's a decent writer.

[00:22:19] Lori Highby: Well, that's I'm gonna have to look that up. That seems like a really cool... What's the name of the book.

[00:22:25] Erik Deckers: Oh, gosh, I have to look it up. It's like my life in hockey or something.

[00:22:29] Lori Highby: Ah, I need to find this. Okay. Yeah, I'll figure that out. I'll figure it out. Because I think that's a fantastic gift for my husband, who is also a hockey player and big hockey fan.

Terry Ryan. Got it. Yeah, I'll look. That's awesome. Thank you so much for that.

[00:22:46] Erik Deckers: Tales of a First-Round Nothing is his book.

[00:22:50] Lori Highby: Oh, love it. Okay. Yeah, I'm definitely gonna, that sounds great. All right, so let's redirect to you again. Any final words of wisdom that you [00:23:00] wanna leave with our listeners?

[00:23:02] Erik Deckers: Whatever you're going to do, I think networking is going to be the most important part of it. Your job, regardless of what it is, is not just to do that job, but it is to meet other people and to help them accomplish their goals. And that should be your whole reason for networking is, is find people, connect them to the ones who can help them, and help them make their lives better.

And if you can do that... Whether you call it blessings, or karma, or cool points, or whatever. If you can do this for more and more people, that will come back to you as well. People will remember you, and they don't... They don't owe you anything. They're not going to pay you back. But, you know, the thing that you do for somebody might come back to you through three other people.

You know, I help you, and you help a person, and that person helps another person, and that other person has something for me. That's how it works out. So, [00:24:00] you know, if I do something for you, Lori, you don't owe me a favor. I'm not going to keep track of that. But rather just you spread it and pay it forward. And I eventually will see benefits out of that. So that should be everybody's goal for networking.

[00:24:14] Lori Highby: I love that. And I'm definitely a big believer in the pay it forward mentality as well. That's, that's fantastic. Erik, if anyone was interested in getting in contact with you, what's the best way that they can reach you?

[00:24:25] Erik Deckers: Well, you can find me on my website Erik Deckers. That's E R I K D E C K E R S, erikdeckers. com. My work site is problogservice. com. I'm edeckers on Twitter. I'm not calling it the other name. Yeah. Erik Deckers on Instagram and on TikTok. And on TikTok I have started giving writing advice and just little writing videos.

[00:24:50] Lori Highby: Ooh, that's exciting. All right. We will include all that information in our show notes. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show today.

[00:24:58] Erik Deckers: Sure. Thank you. I had a great time. [00:25:00]

[00:25:00] Lori Highby: Oh, me too. All right. This wraps up our episode of Social Capital. Huge. Thank you to Erik for taking the time to connect with us.

If you have a burning marketing or relationship question, reach out. I'd love to answer it on the show. As mentioned before, let's connect on LinkedIn. I'm looking forward to hearing from you shortly, and I hope you enjoyed today's show. Now go out there and get noticed.

[00:25:20] Announcer: It's all for this episode of the Social Capital podcast, visit social capital podcast. com for show notes, more episodes, and to see who will be on the show next. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next episode.