Episode Description:
In this episode we have guest Eric Dickmann. Eric is host of “The Virtual CMO” Podcast and CEO of FiveEchelon Group and offers fractional / virtual CMO services to businesses small and large. We discuss many challenges businesses have when they don’t have strong leadership in the marketing wing. Many companies are priced out of having a CMO to lead marketing, but Eric provides CMO services to businesses of any size.
Having a Virtual CMO provides the opportunity to leverage the very best talent when needed in forming a marketing strategy, then bringing back the talent as needed to adjust the strategy as time goes on!
You can find Eric on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edickmann/
You can listen to his podcast “The Virtual CMO” here: https://fiveechelon.com/the-virtual-cmo-podcast/
Visit his Five Echelon Group here: https://fiveechelon.com
Action you can take right now:
- Take a look at your customer journey – what is the ‘friction’ level for checking out or becoming a customer? Compare what you currently offer to the Apple example on the website.
- Make ONE fix – Choose one thing to REDUCE the friction in your process. If you sell a product or service – see if you can add Apple Pay to your checkout process if you haven’t already. You could try adding an online scheduling system so prospects can schedule a time for a phone call or zoom meeting if you offer a service. I can’t list every possibility, but consider ONE way to make it easier.
- Maybe a Virtual CMO is right for you if you struggle to determine where the friction points occur. Get in touch with Eric and see if he can help you develop a game plan!
Episode After-Thoughts
If creating a customer experience, optimizing the customer journey, reducing friction points, optimizing your website and digital assets all sound overwhelming, it maybe time to bring on a professional to help. A fractional or virtual CMO service can help bring someone on board for a short-term or long-term vision. This person can act as a sounding board, a coach, or a strategic planner to help bring a vision and strategic plan together.
Episode 37 Transcript:
00:00:00 Justin Varuzzo
Do you need help creating those incredible customer relationships?
00:00:05 Justin Varuzzo
Maybe a virtual CMO is just the solution you’re looking for on today’s episode, I’m proud to have guest Eric Dickman from the Virtual CMO podcast and five Echelon Group, and he’ll discuss.
00:00:20 Justin Varuzzo
The importance of having a CMO in your organization that and more coming up on the marketing and service.com podcast.
00:00:29 Justin Varuzzo
Hey, Justin Varuzzo here from marketingandservice.com, the podcast designed to help you grow your business by creating incredible customer relationships. I’d love if you join me on my Facebook group.
00:00:49 Justin Varuzzo
Working in service.com, you can also check out the website marketingandservice.com and of course if you want to send me an email
00:01:00 Justin Varuzzo
I’d love to hear from you.
00:01:02 Justin Varuzzo
What kind of challenges are you having with your business?
00:01:05 Justin Varuzzo
What type of guests would you like to hear from?
00:01:07 Justin Varuzzo
Let me know and I will build out an episode just for you.
00:01:11 Justin Varuzzo
Today’s guest is Eric Dickman.
00:01:13 Justin Varuzzo
He’s the host of the Virtual CMO podcast.
00:01:16 Justin Varuzzo
He’s an executive leader with over 30 years of experience in marketing, product development and digital transformation.
00:01:22 Justin Varuzzo
He’s worked with large global companies and small startups, develop and execute marketing strategies.
00:01:28 Justin Varuzzo
And bring innovative products to market.
00:01:30 Justin Varuzzo
He’s also the founder of the five Echelon group and a fractional CMO to multiple businesses.
00:01:35 Justin Varuzzo
The five Echelon group provides strategic marketing consulting services for small and mid sized businesses.
00:01:41 Justin Varuzzo
Their goal is to help companies build a strong foundation.
00:01:44 Justin Varuzzo
Success by designing a marketing strategy that identifies target audiences. Develops messaging that clearly communicates a brand value proposition and optimizes online channels for increased lead generation and creates compelling content that highlights the company’s unique benefits and competitive differentiators. And without further ado.
00:02:04 Justin Varuzzo
I want to bring Eric on too.
00:02:06 Justin Varuzzo
The show Eric how you doing?
00:02:07 Eric Dickmann
I’m doing great thank you so much for having me on.
00:02:09 Eric Dickmann
The show today.
00:02:10 Justin Varuzzo
Yeah, absolutely.
00:02:11 Justin Varuzzo
Thanks for being here.
00:02:12 Justin Varuzzo
So you are a virtual CMO.
00:02:15 Justin Varuzzo
Is that right?
00:02:16 Justin Varuzzo
That’s exactly right.
00:02:17 Justin Varuzzo
Kind of a new term.
00:02:18 Eric Dickmann
You don’t hear.
00:02:18 Justin Varuzzo
It very often yeah, and what what does?
00:02:20 Eric Dickmann
That mean so a virtual CMO, fractional CMO, CMO.
00:02:24 Eric Dickmann
On demand.
00:02:24 Eric Dickmann
However, you want to phrase it is.
00:02:26 Eric Dickmann
Basically a part time marketing leader that comes into smaller organizations where they just don’t.
00:02:32 Eric Dickmann
Have the funding or the desire to bring on a senior level manager to run a full time marketing department and so we sort of we help these businesses really develop a marketing strategy and then get it executed on a part time basis.
00:02:46 Justin Varuzzo
OK fantastic yeah, because I don’t know if people know but you you’re you have CMO’s with average salaries between anywhere from you know 100 to 300.
00:02:53 Justin Varuzzo
$1000 a year in corporations. And obviously that’s not something that most small businesses can even afford to do, but it sounds like what you’re offering.
00:03:01 Justin Varuzzo
It lets them get their foot in the door to have that experience of a professional market or really guide them in a campaign or.
00:03:09 Justin Varuzzo
Well, you tell me what are?
00:03:10 Justin Varuzzo
What are some of the different ways that you would normally engage with clients and helping them with their marketing challenges?
00:03:16 Eric Dickmann
Yeah, that’s a good point. Right off the top of CMO. Generally as a title reserved for Fortune 500 companies. Small businesses generally have a marketing manager or VP of marketing something like that, so it’s more of a moniker than us.
00:03:28 Eric Dickmann
Specific title that a small business was used, but really what we do is we come in we help them develop a strategy.
00:03:34 Eric Dickmann
Maybe that strategy involves.
00:03:36 Eric Dickmann
Rebuilding a website coming up with some advertising campaigns for their product, really helping them identify their marketing niche.
00:03:44 Eric Dickmann
The types of target customers that they want to go after.
00:03:46 Eric Dickmann
Many times businesses have never gone through a formal marketing strategy process.
00:03:51 Eric Dickmann
They’ve just done some random things or nothing at all, and so we really try to.
00:03:56 Eric Dickmann
Come up with a more comprehensive strategy to really say what can we do to help this business grow.
00:04:00 Justin Varuzzo
Wow, and do you?
00:04:01 Justin Varuzzo
Do you ever find that there’s some pushback when you when you suggest you propose?
00:04:06 Justin Varuzzo
Certain certain techniques and strategies, and I only ask this because I realized that a lot of times with a small business owner they’ve tried something like, let’s say Facebook ads on their own.
00:04:15 Justin Varuzzo
They ran an ad for, you know, they well. Let’s say they’re not. They hit the boost button, right? Paid their $100 and said, well, that was ineffective. It didn’t do anything. Facebook advertising doesn’t work. That’s something I hear.
00:04:26 Justin Varuzzo
All the time.
00:04:27 Justin Varuzzo
Do you tend to get pushback from people and say, listen, let me try this?
00:04:31 Justin Varuzzo
Or let’s work this in a way that’s part of a, you know, a strategy that’s a larger campaign that focuses on, you know, maybe social email, maybe even some print advertising.
00:04:41 Justin Varuzzo
Do you get hesitance there?
00:04:43 Eric Dickmann
That for many small and mid sized businesses they have gone through a process where they’ve done some marketing on their own and that marketing on their own has like you said, it’s had some bad outcomes and so they feel burned by marketing.
00:04:57 Eric Dickmann
They feel like the marketing really wasn’t worth the investment, but they know that they need to do something to help.
00:05:03 Eric Dickmann
Their business grow and so when somebody like myself, comes in and says OK, first we’ve got to develop a strategy.
00:05:09 Eric Dickmann
We need to figure out what needs to be done, and then once we figure out that strategy, here are the specific tactics that we need to do to get that strategy implemented.
00:05:18 Eric Dickmann
There’s two expenses there, right?
00:05:20 Eric Dickmann
There’s the expense of developing the strategy.
00:05:22 Eric Dickmann
And then there’s the specific execution expenses, right?
00:05:25 Eric Dickmann
Sometimes that can be a lot for a smaller business to swallow when they haven’t really spent that much money on marketing in the past, or they feel burned because they did spend it and it didn’t achieve the outcomes that.
00:05:35 Eric Dickmann
They wanted, yeah.
00:05:36 Justin Varuzzo
And one of the things I’ve discussed if you.
00:05:38 Justin Varuzzo
In previous episodes of this podcast is how there’s a.
00:05:43 Justin Varuzzo
Is that disconnect between the marketing aspect of what’s happening and then the entire sales and service process that comes through that customer journey with customer journey in mind when you look at a buyer and you think about their journey through that lens of that particular small business.
00:06:03 Justin Varuzzo
You’re working.
00:06:04 Justin Varuzzo
With we know there’s always points of friction in that process, so maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you help reduce that friction to make it easier for customers to give money and business to a small business.
00:06:19 Eric Dickmann
This is one of my favorite topics to talk about because there are so many things that businesses.
00:06:25 Eric Dickmann
Can do to just make it easier for customers to do business with them?
00:06:29 Eric Dickmann
And I think one of the problems that I see with many small businesses.
00:06:32 Eric Dickmann
Is is that they simply don’t sit in the chair that their customer is sitting in to really understand what the experience is of dealing with that business.
00:06:41 Eric Dickmann
Let me just give you an example which I think people can relate to, so we’re just coming through the COVID-19 pandemic.
00:06:47 Eric Dickmann
We’ve all sort of had to make adjustments for that started going out to eat again.
00:06:51 Eric Dickmann
How many times have you gone to a restaurant?
00:06:54 Eric Dickmann
For now, instead of giving you a physical menu, they want you to scan a QR code at the table.
00:06:59 Eric Dickmann
Pull this menu up at the on your phone, and then order off that.
00:07:02 Eric Dickmann
Menu I would say that maybe one in 10 restaurants has actually created a phone optimized menu for you to look at.
00:07:12 Justin Varuzzo
Oh yeah.
00:07:13 Eric Dickmann
Most of the time it’s simply an image of their existing paper menu.
00:07:17 Eric Dickmann
You something that they took a picture of it.
00:07:19 Eric Dickmann
Then they just slap that on a website.
00:07:21 Speaker 2
Right?
00:07:21 Eric Dickmann
So what you’ve got is everybody.
00:07:22 Eric Dickmann
At the table, scrolling back and forth trying to read the menu, figure out what they want.
00:07:26 Eric Dickmann
The order, the amount of time and effort that it would take to make a mobile optimized menu is almost insignificant.
00:07:33 Eric Dickmann
It’s it’s.
00:07:33 Eric Dickmann
It’s hardly worth mentioning, yeah, but so few businesses have done it.
00:07:37 Eric Dickmann
They’ve gone through the exercise of doing what they needed to do to support the circumstances, but they never really sat in their customers shoes to figure out.
00:07:46 Eric Dickmann
How was the experience?
00:07:48 Eric Dickmann
What was that like and all that friction that they’ve put in?
00:07:51 Eric Dickmann
The way you think about buying something online, and how often a business will make you first set up an account.
00:08:00 Eric Dickmann
Enter all your name and address information.
00:08:03 Eric Dickmann
Pick a user ID.
00:08:04 Eric Dickmann
Pick a password.
00:08:05 Eric Dickmann
Oh, by the way, you have to pick a password that matches what they want you to have as a password, not necessarily what your browser recommends.
00:08:12 Eric Dickmann
And then you have to put in your payment information.
00:08:14 Eric Dickmann
You know it’s a lot and then you think about the example of something like an Apple Pay where you simply say bye now.
00:08:23 Eric Dickmann
Purchase all of that information goes along with the transaction.
00:08:27 Eric Dickmann
It’s literally one button, and all of those things that were forced upon you for.
00:08:32 Eric Dickmann
Entry by the business beforehand.
00:08:34 Eric Dickmann
Now come with simply a button.
00:08:36 Eric Dickmann
Rush, that’s what I mean about reducing friction sitting in the seat of your customer and understanding exactly what that buying experience is all.
00:08:45 Justin Varuzzo
About yeah, I I love that you brought up that Apple example because I I can tell you this this little phone.
00:08:49 Justin Varuzzo
In my hand here.
00:08:50 Justin Varuzzo
This is the easiest $1500 I’ve ever spent in my life. Like you said it, it? I mean it literally.
00:08:57 Justin Varuzzo
Was about 10 seconds to spend $1500. Yeah, I think to myself some of the stuff that you have to go through to, you know, buy something for $20.
00:09:05 Justin Varuzzo
Like you said, filling out long forms and credit card information.
00:09:08 Justin Varuzzo
Obviously tech companies have done a respectable job trying to make those processes easier and easier for the end user.
00:09:16 Justin Varuzzo
But you’re right, there’s still very cumbersome processes in a lot of small businesses, customer journey and I’m glad that you brought up that.
00:09:24 Justin Varuzzo
It’s they’re, they’re not.
00:09:25 Justin Varuzzo
Complicated things to fix I I think in some instances a business owner looks at their process if they look at their process and really put themselves in their customer shoes and says Oh well.
00:09:34 Justin Varuzzo
You know I I can’t build out a whole website or afford a whole website for a menu system.
00:09:39 Justin Varuzzo
And like you said, if you’ve got an expert like you on their side and you’re providing that service, it’s not a big deal to make things better and make that process easier.
00:09:50 Eric Dickmann
I think that’s exactly right, and I.
00:09:52 Eric Dickmann
Think some businesses.
00:09:54 Eric Dickmann
We’re almost afraid in some ways to have the kind of interactions that make the buying experience better.
00:10:00 Eric Dickmann
You know, we’re in an economy right now where a lot of us have moved away from buying things to subscribing to things, and I don’t know about you, but it’s getting near the end of the year.
00:10:09 Eric Dickmann
This is when I purchased a lot of software products for my own business.
00:10:13 Eric Dickmann
And so a lot of these are coming up for renewal.
00:10:15 Eric Dickmann
I would say it’s probably less than half of them notify me that the renewal is coming up most of the time.
00:10:22 Eric Dickmann
What I get is an email that says your credit card has been charged for the renewal, rather than saying in 10 days your subscription is going to renew, and to me that’s a huge missed opportunity.
00:10:26 Speaker 2
Right?
00:10:33 Eric Dickmann
For companies, because number one.
00:10:34 Eric Dickmann
If you really believe in your product you should be screaming from the rooftops.
00:10:38 Eric Dickmann
How excited you are that somebody is a customer and sharing with them the neat features of the.
00:10:43 Eric Dickmann
Product and maybe using this as an opportunity to upsell or cross sell into.
00:10:48 Eric Dickmann
You know, maybe a different tier approach tier of the product and add on whatever it may be.
00:10:53 Eric Dickmann
It’s a tremendous opportunity to sell, but I think a lot of businesses are worried that people are going to cancel and that, to me, tells me that they really don’t believe in their product that it’s unnecessary.
00:11:03 Eric Dickmann
Product and so they try to sneak those renewals in there and that just leaves a bad taste in the customer’s mouth.
00:11:09 Justin Varuzzo
Yeah, and I I love that you brought that up too because I I want to transition to something else and and that’s when small businesses, whenever well, any business really when they do.
00:11:18 Justin Varuzzo
Marketing you’ve always got the pool of people whose goal is to make more money, and I’ve talked a lot in this show that in a lot of instances that’s a really poor marketing goal because as a marketer, and especially as a virtual CMO, you’re not able to control every single step of the process.
00:11:38 Justin Varuzzo
In that buyer’s journey, right? So for example, I I mentioned I often mention there’s, you know, a couple of big companies.
00:11:46 Justin Varuzzo
I won’t mention their name, but they they charge an exorbitant amount of money for digital marketing consulting, and they have tons of clients who all feel ripped off.
00:11:55 Justin Varuzzo
And at the end of the day, they’re never, ever even going to ask.
00:11:59 Justin Varuzzo
Let’s take a look at your customers journey.
00:12:01 Justin Varuzzo
They’ll promise, yeah, we’ll send a million people to your website and only ever even look at your website to see if it’s functional, or to see if there’s something that’s wrong.
00:12:08 Justin Varuzzo
So in terms of measuring the ROI in marketing, what are some things that you would normally suggest business owners?
00:12:15 Eric Dickmann
Look for, well, you’re absolutely right.
00:12:17 Eric Dickmann
This can be a challenging conversation with many businesses because it’s not just.
00:12:22 Eric Dickmann
Here’s marketing.
00:12:23 Eric Dickmann
You sprinkle this magic Pixie dust on it and you will have a certain result at the.
00:12:28 Eric Dickmann
And there is a marketing process.
00:12:30 Eric Dickmann
There’s a sales process.
00:12:31 Eric Dickmann
There’s the service process that are all joined together.
00:12:34 Eric Dickmann
All of them need to be working In Sync.
00:12:36 Eric Dickmann
Otherwise, you’re not going to see the results of any one of them, and I think one of the challenges that many business leaders have when they look at marketing is they, say, well, you’re going to do this.
00:12:46 Eric Dickmann
So tell me exactly when I’m going.
00:12:48 Eric Dickmann
To get a specific ROI.
00:12:50 Eric Dickmann
For the work that you’re doing, and I look at that and I say.
00:12:54 Eric Dickmann
That’s awfully challenging, because all of these things need to be In Sync before anybody can have any assurances that these things are going to.
00:13:03 Eric Dickmann
Work right and they will be very quick to hire somebody you know.
00:13:07 Eric Dickmann
Maybe they’ll hire A new sales person, or they’ll bring a junior level person on staff and say, well, we need some marketing support so we’ll have hire.
00:13:13 Eric Dickmann
Somebody right out of school.
00:13:14 Eric Dickmann
We need to increase sales, so we’ll hire another salesperson.
00:13:18 Eric Dickmann
What exactly is the expectation of that person three months out?
00:13:21 Eric Dickmann
Six months out, nine months out.
00:13:23 Eric Dickmann
It’s very variable, right?
00:13:24 Eric Dickmann
There’s a lot of things that need to happen in a certain way for.
00:13:28 Eric Dickmann
For a full time employee to be valued in such a way that they get the return on that investment as well, I think it’s a challenging discussion to have.
00:13:36 Eric Dickmann
It’s a worthwhile discussion to have, but again, that’s where strategy comes in.
00:13:40 Eric Dickmann
You have to look and say what are we trying to accomplish?
00:13:42 Eric Dickmann
What are the things that need to be in place and then let’s get those things in place so we can start to see the value of these.
00:13:49 Justin Varuzzo
Yeah, and you know my my goal with this podcast is always to help.
00:13:52 Justin Varuzzo
Try to create and improve that alignment between sales and marketing and service.
00:13:58 Justin Varuzzo
I often will lump marketing and sales together in one thing, but we know that they’re normally at odds and anyone who’s ever bought anything knows that the ad.
00:14:07 Justin Varuzzo
The sales pitch and the service after the fact are never in alignment with one another at just about any company, and one of the other things you say you hear a lot is, while Apple has really slick marketing and they make billions of dollars and it’s easy for someone who really doesn’t put that whole journey together to just think oh all I need is, is this slick ad?
00:14:28 Justin Varuzzo
And I will sell gazillions of dollars worth of stuff, and they they don’t really look at the nuances of how the build quality.
00:14:35 Justin Varuzzo
Is the software quality the service quality, the support quality, and all those things coming together to really create an incredible customer experience?
00:14:46 Eric Dickmann
That’s exactly right.
00:14:47 Eric Dickmann
You know you just held up your phone before and what an important that device has become for all of us.
00:14:52 Eric Dickmann
But I think about it.
00:14:53 Eric Dickmann
I just upgraded to the new iPhone.
00:14:54 Eric Dickmann
I got a message.
00:14:55 Eric Dickmann
From Apple, letting me know that it was available for pre order they said get this done you know a couple days ahead of time when it becomes available so that the day it’s available.
00:15:04 Eric Dickmann
You know your order goes through.
00:15:06 Eric Dickmann
So you know they sent me information as it was shipped, so I knew exactly when it was arriving.
00:15:11 Eric Dickmann
When it got there.
00:15:12 Eric Dickmann
The process of switching my data from one phone to another another was seamless and you know the effort that they put into that to make sure that that was a seamless process.
00:15:16 Justin Varuzzo
Yeah, huge improvement.
00:15:22 Eric Dickmann
I mean, think about all the information that we have on our phones with the apps and the contacts.
00:15:26 Eric Dickmann
And the pictures and whatnot.
00:15:28 Eric Dickmann
And then, if I had any problems, there are multiple ways to get in touch with them, including going into a retail store, genius bar, chat, whatever.
00:15:35 Eric Dickmann
So you’re exactly right.
00:15:36 Eric Dickmann
It was the marketing that got me interested in the phone.
00:15:39 Eric Dickmann
It was the whole buying process that made that.
00:15:41 Eric Dickmann
Easy and then it was the after sale sort of letting me upgrade my phone and then the support if needed.
00:15:47 Eric Dickmann
That was all a very seamless process, but that.
00:15:50 Eric Dickmann
Was not easy to.
00:15:51 Justin Varuzzo
Do yeah, definitely, definitely not.
00:15:53 Justin Varuzzo
And and Speaking of not easy to do, one thing that I know is very common and it it’s not actually I.
00:16:00 Justin Varuzzo
It’s easy for me to say it’s.
00:16:02 Justin Varuzzo
Common with small businesses, but I think it’s common in businesses of all sizes.
00:16:05 Justin Varuzzo
Is a fragmentation of software and IT infrastructure and you don’t normally think about that in the scheme of marketing, but in today’s world, so many marketing routines that are successful are developed by professional like yourself over a long period of time with automation in in mind.
00:16:24 Justin Varuzzo
A great example.
00:16:25 Justin Varuzzo
Is a simple targeted email automation.
00:16:28 Justin Varuzzo
But your email provider is going to need to know the last thing or the previous things that customer purchased to actually be able to send a super targeted relevant email on the product.
00:16:41 Justin Varuzzo
And I’ve I’ve seen I had paid attention to a lot of companies and how they’ve been doing this, and one that always comes to mind.
00:16:48 Justin Varuzzo
I don’t know if you.
00:16:48 Justin Varuzzo
Familiar with Mac Weldon, they make like men’s underwear and so and they do a really good job. They don’t send a lot of email.
00:16:55 Justin Varuzzo
But the ones I get are super relevant based on things I bought before.
00:16:59 Justin Varuzzo
Like hey you bought this check out this new color you’re going to love it.
00:17:02 Justin Varuzzo
And if you buy, it will give you 10% and I always click on it and I usually always end up buying it.
00:17:07 Justin Varuzzo
And that’s like an example of great automation.
00:17:10 Justin Varuzzo
So how do you approach in a small business environment, or even a large business?
00:17:15 Justin Varuzzo
When you do have these fragmentations, how do you approach that challenge of connecting the fragmented systems together in a way that can become a very powerful marketing tool?
00:17:27 Eric Dickmann
Yeah look technology is tough.
00:17:28 Eric Dickmann
It changes rapidly and this is a problem for small businesses and enterprises.
00:17:33 Eric Dickmann
I mean, I’ve spent a lot of my career in financial services and you know, a lot of the systems that are running our checking accounts and savings accounts are written in COBOL.
00:17:42 Eric Dickmann
You know they’re they’re that old, you know that it’s only Gray haired people who can work on them.
00:17:47 Eric Dickmann
Is it is a challenge?
00:17:48 Eric Dickmann
But my recommendation to, uh, a small business, especially is first what you want to have as a hub.
00:17:54 Eric Dickmann
You want to have a centralized product.
00:17:57 Eric Dickmann
A CRM that everything can connect to so that your data is shared.
00:18:02 Eric Dickmann
You don’t want a bunch of independent siloed systems that aren’t sharing data, whether that’s something.
00:18:07 Eric Dickmann
Like a HubSpot or a Salesforce, it doesn’t really matter, but what you really want to do is have a centralized repository for.
00:18:15 Eric Dickmann
Your data, that way, these are products that are going to have some staying power.
00:18:19 Eric Dickmann
They’re going to be around for a while, and that way you know that the other products that you’re buying can connect to and share information back and forth.
00:18:27 Eric Dickmann
I think the biggest problem that I see with businesses is they invest in a particular technology product and it’s siloed it’s completely independent and so therefore you’re not.
00:18:36 Eric Dickmann
Getting the benefit of any information that’s stored in that system into another system, you don’t want to have a sales system that’s completely separate from your marketing system, because then it’s very hard to track how your leads are flowing from marketing into sales and which ones are working and which.
00:18:51 Eric Dickmann
Ones aren’t, so I that’s my recommendation always to businesses.
00:18:55 Eric Dickmann
Is figure out what that hub platform is going to be and then find complementary products that connect to it that you can.
00:19:01 Eric Dickmann
Build off of.
00:19:02 Justin Varuzzo
Yeah, and I was just going to say it’s worth.
00:19:04 Justin Varuzzo
If you’re thinking about an online store and you haven’t taken that approach yet, definitely take some time and look at the.
00:19:11 Justin Varuzzo
Integrations that are available.
00:19:14 Justin Varuzzo
For whatever software you choose because most newer things is, you know, do have great integration tools.
00:19:20 Justin Varuzzo
I know I’m I’ve, I’ve done a lot with big commerce.
00:19:22 Justin Varuzzo
I’ve done a little bit with Magento.
00:19:24 Justin Varuzzo
I’ve done some stuff with Shopify and I’ve used MailChimp.
00:19:28 Justin Varuzzo
I used to keep an Infusionsoft back in the day.
00:19:30 Justin Varuzzo
You know, I know those integrations have gotten so much better over the years.
00:19:34 Justin Varuzzo
Where you can share that data easily even if you do have one or two legacy systems, usually in those capacities you can really connect any of those modern tools together with one another.
00:19:44 Justin Varuzzo
And usually it’s just with a few clicks.
00:19:46 Justin Varuzzo
It’s pretty cool.
00:19:47 Justin Varuzzo
How how great that’s gotten over the years.
00:19:50 Eric Dickmann
Yeah, and there’s tools like Zapier, Zapier, that offer a bunch of integration technologies for those companies that don’t have native integrations.
00:19:58 Eric Dickmann
So there are definitely ways to integrate even if there’s not sort of an out of the box integration.
00:20:03 Justin Varuzzo
Yeah, that that is great.
00:20:04 Justin Varuzzo
I’m going to jump as just says, we’re getting a little short on time here.
00:20:07 Justin Varuzzo
You have a awesome podcast can you?
00:20:10 Justin Varuzzo
Can you tell the audience a little bit about?
00:20:11 Eric Dickmann
Your podcast yeah, so I started a a podcast a little over a year ago.
00:20:15 Eric Dickmann
It’s called the virtual CMO and we try to bring on guests that are really focused mostly on B2B, but in the small and mid sized business space.
00:20:23 Eric Dickmann
We try to bring on experts in this space to really help business.
00:20:27 Eric Dickmann
Is, you know, get some new ideas about how they could up level their marketing, what things that they could do to really get the growth that they’re looking for in their business?
00:20:35 Eric Dickmann
So we cover very similar topics to what you cover on this show, and it’s been a great experience.
00:20:39 Eric Dickmann
I really have enjoyed it.
00:20:40 Justin Varuzzo
That’s really great.
00:20:41 Justin Varuzzo
That’s really cool and I I congratulate you for your success in that podcast.
00:20:45 Justin Varuzzo
I I know it’s not.
00:20:46 Eric Dickmann
Thank you.
00:20:46 Justin Varuzzo
It’s not an easy undertaking though, so let me ask you what’s the biggest mistake?
00:20:52 Justin Varuzzo
You’ve ever made.
00:20:54 Eric Dickmann
So I think the biggest mistake that I’ve ever made was really getting a little bit of ahead of myself in my career.
00:21:00 Eric Dickmann
I think sometimes.
00:21:01 Eric Dickmann
It’s very tempting to think that you know a lot more than you do, and I think when I think about some of the conversations that I had with bosses over time, I just sort of shake my head and say, you know, you are really out ahead of your skis on some of that stuff.
00:21:17 Eric Dickmann
You’d need it to sort of sit back, learn as you were going, because there’s so much great.
00:21:21 Eric Dickmann
Information that you can learn, and I think one of the things I worked for, a large enterprise company for many years and I think one of the challenges when you’re in that kind of an environment, is that the systems that you’re working with they tend to be the same and so year after year goes by and you’re working with the same tools and we all know that technology changes so.
00:21:40 Eric Dickmann
Quickly, and I think whatever you do, whatever business you’re in, make sure you’re staying in touch with what’s going on, sort of outside the tools and things that your own business uses, because you want that exposure.
00:21:51 Eric Dickmann
You want that experience so that you’re not getting out ahead of your skis.
00:21:55 Eric Dickmann
If you will, thinking that you know everything and realize there’s a whole world.
00:21:58 Eric Dickmann
That you don’t even recognize.
00:21:59 Eric Dickmann
I just did a, uh.
00:22:00 Justin Varuzzo
Recording for a podcast episode that focused on Walmart and some of their legacy systems and the challenges they had and and the interesting thing with Walmart.
00:22:10 Justin Varuzzo
Is they had invested so much time and money in the 70s and 80s to develop these incredible technological logistical tools for inventory management?
00:22:21 Justin Varuzzo
You know distribution of product and I mean it was state of the art beyond what any company had at the time.
00:22:28 Justin Varuzzo
And one of the challenges.
00:22:29 Justin Varuzzo
I bring this up.
00:22:30 Justin Varuzzo
Now I’ll get to a point here.
00:22:31 Justin Varuzzo
There is a point, but one of the challenges is that you know Amazon comes along and suddenly they dethrone.
00:22:37 Justin Varuzzo
Walmart as the Super Store and they’re selling stuff online and Walmart is still not been able to get a handle on this, mainly because they have all these old legacy systems.
00:22:47 Justin Varuzzo
And when Amazon was created, it was created in the New World.
00:22:51 Justin Varuzzo
They spent tons of money and resources to develop incredible web infrastructure right to keep keep the website.
00:22:57 Justin Varuzzo
And keep the people happy and make sure the packages get to the door and it’s even for a company like Walmart, one of the richest companies in the world.
00:23:04 Justin Varuzzo
It’s really hard to just say, alright, let’s ditch all those systems we made in the 80s and we’ll just start from scratch because you have an ongoing literally 24/7 business with stores open 24/7 trucks, you know, have many thousands of trucks on the road at any given time.
00:23:18 Justin Varuzzo
So it’s really hard to make that switch, and my point is, if you again are looking at platforms and you’re looking at.
00:23:25 Justin Varuzzo
Whether you decide on HubSpot or Salesforce or whether you decide on Bigcommerce or Shopify when you make these decisions as a small business.
00:23:34 Justin Varuzzo
Owner chances are if you have success, you will end up sticking with those platforms forever, mainly because it becomes just really, really difficult to retool and navigate to something else after the fact.
00:23:48 Eric Dickmann
You’re you’re exactly right.
00:23:50 Eric Dickmann
It becomes very complicated, especially once you get those integrations done.
00:23:53 Justin Varuzzo
Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:54 Justin Varuzzo
So let me ask you what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
00:23:58 Eric Dickmann
Build your network and build it early.
00:24:00 Eric Dickmann
I think you know.
00:24:02 Eric Dickmann
We live in this era of social media right now where we’ve got likes and followers and all of this on various social media platforms, but that’s not really an engaged network.
00:24:11 Eric Dickmann
Those are people that are sort of on the sidelines viewing you from a distance.
00:24:16 Eric Dickmann
I think it’s really important to build a strong network of people that you know and trust, especially in marketing.
00:24:21 Eric Dickmann
We’ve moved to a freelance.
00:24:23 Eric Dickmann
Economy where there are a lot of solopreneurs out there who are providing, you know, really excellent.
00:24:28 Eric Dickmann
Services there are companies that are here one day and gone the next, so I think it’s very important to build a network of people that you trust so that when you need their services you need somebody to write some content for you.
00:24:40 Eric Dickmann
You need help with your website.
00:24:41 Eric Dickmann
You need some graphics done that you’ve got that available to you and you’ve got several choices.
00:24:48 Eric Dickmann
So based on people.
00:24:49 Eric Dickmann
Availability you’ve got those.
00:24:51 Eric Dickmann
Go to people in there and I.
00:24:52 Eric Dickmann
Think you know?
00:24:53 Eric Dickmann
I wish I would have built a stronger network earlier in my career, but it’s one of the best pieces of advice that I’ve gotten and.
00:24:59 Eric Dickmann
Certainly pass along to others.
00:25:00 Justin Varuzzo
Yeah I I couldn’t agree with you more I I know so many people who have resorted to fiber or.
00:25:04 Justin Varuzzo
Up work and like I I’m in the music industry and in the music world today there has never been a better time to be a young aspiring musician and be able to get your music out into the world.
00:25:18 Justin Varuzzo
You don’t have the paywall of radio anymore, you can just put your song on YouTube and people can see it.
00:25:24 Justin Varuzzo
The flip side of that is anybody can just throw their song on YouTube and people will see it.
00:25:30 Justin Varuzzo
And I I feel like we’re kind of talking about the same thing almost when we when we talk about that right, there’s those two sides of the coin.
00:25:37 Justin Varuzzo
So when you have that solid.
00:25:39 Justin Varuzzo
Network of professionals.
00:25:40 Justin Varuzzo
There are people you can trust and I think you said that trust and rely on for consistent work every time you go to upward.
00:25:46 Justin Varuzzo
Sure, you can get a ton of people, but chances are most of them are going to be the kid who wants to be a musician who really shouldn’t be a musician.
00:25:55 Eric Dickmann
That’s right, build that network.
00:25:57 Eric Dickmann
Put it someplace where you can recall who they are and the work that they’ve done for you, and that way you’ve got them sort of on speed dial.
00:26:05 Eric Dickmann
Whenever you need that.
00:26:05 Justin Varuzzo
Absolutely, so I’m going to ask you one more question I I usually don’t ask, but the rumor going around the Internet is that you are a bourbon aficionados.
00:26:15 Eric Dickmann
True, that is true I I love bourbon, probably had too much of it during COVID, but I I do love bourbon.
00:26:22 Eric Dickmann
You know there are a lot of wine enthusiasts out there and I love wine as well, but there are so many wines they’re so hard to keep track of.
00:26:30 Eric Dickmann
There are a lot of bourbons out there, but there are many, many fewer bourbons than wines, and so it’s a.
00:26:35 Eric Dickmann
Pleasure for me to try different ones.
00:26:37 Eric Dickmann
See what I like.
00:26:38 Eric Dickmann
Problem is I like too.
00:26:39 Eric Dickmann
Many of them yeah, and what is your favorite bourbon?
00:26:42 Eric Dickmann
Well, it it really depends on on what you’re asking it that my go to bourbon is just a simple, uh, wild Turkey one.
00:26:48 Eric Dickmann
01 That’s my sort of daily bourbon, Yep, but I love very smoky bourbon, double oaked bourbons. Yeah, and I love some whiskies as well. There’s some great whiskies from the West. There’s a, uh, there’s oh.
00:27:01 Eric Dickmann
It’s uh Stranahan’s, which is one that I just recently bought which I I love, which is out from Colorado. I believe. Yeah, just so many good ones out there.
00:27:09 Justin Varuzzo
Great, I yeah.
00:27:10 Justin Varuzzo
I’m a Scotch guy myself so I I enjoy.
00:27:12 Justin Varuzzo
I enjoyed the tastings as well.
00:27:16 Justin Varuzzo
So how can people get in touch with if they want to get you hired?
00:27:19 Justin Varuzzo
They want to get you on board.
00:27:20 Justin Varuzzo
If they want you to just take a look at what they’ve got going on and see how you can help them.
00:27:25 Justin Varuzzo
What is the best way for them to get in touch with you?
00:27:28 Eric Dickmann
Thanks Jason, I appreciate that. So the easiest way is just to pop over to my website. Whichis5echelon.com spelled out five east.
00:27:37 Eric Dickmann
Hln.com
00:27:39 Eric Dickmann
Com and I’m available on LinkedIn.
00:27:42 Eric Dickmann
Eric Dickman Dickman is my abbreviation on LinkedIn.
00:27:46 Eric Dickmann
Those are the easiest places to find me and the podcast again was the virtual CMO.
00:27:50 Justin Varuzzo
Great and I will put links to all of those in the show notes at marketingandservice.com Eric. Thank you so much for joining me today.
00:27:59 Justin Varuzzo
I really appreciate it.
00:28:00 Justin Varuzzo
I think we had a great conversation and I always loved talking about marketing, especially with people as talented as you.
00:28:06 Justin Varuzzo
So thank you so much for the time and I look forward to following along and listening to your podcast.
00:28:12 Eric Dickmann
Thanks Justin, I really enjoyed the chat.
00:28:15 Justin Varuzzo
Wow, Eric gives us a lot to think about when hiring a virtual CMO, whether it’s a virtual CMO, a fractional CMO, I think the bottom line here is that you have the opportunity to bring in a marketing professional who can really help pave the way for your customer journey.
00:28:35 Justin Varuzzo
They can help pave the way to creating incredible customer experience.
00:28:39 Justin Varuzzo
They can really help pave the way to software selection and ensuring that the appropriate marketing tools are used and compatible with one another.
00:28:48 Justin Varuzzo
There’s so much value that a CMO can bring to your organization, but as I said at the outset of this podcast, kmos are expensive with those salaries.
00:28:59 Justin Varuzzo
Averaging well into the six figures, it’s out of reach for most businesses, which is why it’s so great that you have a resource like Eric that you can bring in as needed to help achieve your business goals.
00:29:13 Justin Varuzzo
Thanks so much for listening today.
00:29:14 Justin Varuzzo
I really appreciate it if you enjoy this podcast, please take a moment and leave it a five star review.
00:29:20 Justin Varuzzo
It means so much to me. Make sure to like and subscribe and hop over to the marketing and service.com website where we have episode show notes and we have a little more additional detail about each episode and if you’re enjoying the content.
00:29:33 Justin Varuzzo
Share it with a friend.
00:29:34 Justin Varuzzo
Let someone else know.
00:29:35 Justin Varuzzo
Let him in on the secret.
00:29:36 Justin Varuzzo
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00:29:39 Justin Varuzzo
Share it away.
00:29:40 Justin Varuzzo
Listen thanks again for being here today and I will catch you on the next one.