Digital Marketing, the Doctor of Digital, but why am I taking this approach to getting you more business? Why am I unique in what I do? After all, the outcome should be the same whoever works with you/ But why me? Here is my why!!!!
Obviously the pic of me and Ian Epstein on Dublin South 93.9 FM‘s Sunshine Factory didn’t come back from the chemist AND I have not listened back to the show!
Of course I talk about Digital marketing and how you can do more for yourself, but also about me, how I got into what I do and why, personal stuff too and a bit about music and radio.
10-15 Questions for the Sunshine Factory!
Ultimately, I want to get across what’s in it for you. You can do what I do, you can help yourself by letting me help you. What do you, the listener what out of this? Because it is in here somewhere?
Where are you trying to get to?
WHY?
Where are you now?
Why do you think that is?
What are the obstacles in your way?
Why do you think it is that way?
But here it is for posterity https://www.mixcloud.com/dsfm939/the-sunshine-factory-190220/
Here are my notes, the planning I did for the show, then just winged it!!! Especially when I accidentally swiped the iPad screen and lost it all!
Intro
Robert Moloney, working as “Selling Solutions” for 17 years, an engineer by training and “accidental” salesman for 30 years earning him the title of “Old Man of Marketing” yet in recent times becoming more the Doctor of Digital.
Born, bred and living within a mile of the DSFM studio, he knows a bit about a lot of things, a “Deep generalist”, I think they call it. You have been prominent in local GAA club Kilmacud Crokes as player, coach, match commentator and accredited with helping to relaunch the All Ireland Football 7s there a few years back and continuing to work with sponsors. Your social media shows you are always out about socially, networking or working on events as diverse as operas and funerals!
1. Question: Gabby Mallon, CEO of the Dun Laoire County Chamber said you would be an interesting guest! Why do you think that was?
Worrying isn’t it, like when the weather forecaster says interesting. It is all about selling. You can do what I do, you can help yourself by letting me help you. What do you, the listener want out of this? Because it is in there somewhere.
- Where are you trying to get to?
- WHY?
- Where are you now?
- Why do you think that is?
- What are the obstacles in your way?
- Why do you think it is that way?
- What I do
2. What does being in business mean to you?
Business is all about getting more and keeping business, getting sales. No matter what your business is, you have to get sales, someone has to give you money for what you do! And I Fix that. I remove the fear of the internet and each you how to dominate it and benefit from it, unveiling the secrets of the digital marketing agency, the secrets of the sales eagle performers!
3. What role does the Internet play then?
The internet is just another route to customers. Digital Marketing is just taking your marketing to a different place.
Who is your customer, where do they hang out, where do they get information, how do they learn, how do they make decisions, who influences their decisions, what language do they use, what is important to them, why do they buy, when do they buy how do they buy? How do you sell, how do you like to get your message across? How do you develop “Know like and Trust “ in the people who eventually buy from you? Where do you meet the people? How do you introduce yourself, how do you build rapport, how do you engage, how do you close a sale?
4. So what do you do Robert?
Helping the Irish Owner Manager overcome their fear of the internet. My role today is effectively the “Digital Doctor”. I sit the Client side of the table. I diagnose. Where are they now, where are they trying to get to, what are the obstacles. Then I prescribe the solution, the people, process and technology that cures them.
Just like a Doctor, well, the Consultant really, I have to understand the environment you are in, who you are, your value system, what is important to you, because the difference is you. The difference between you and the competition is not what you sell, not great customer service, not the products, not the branding, not the office, not how great you are, ultimately what makes your business unique is you and the culture you develop.
5. From what I have seen you always ask “What’s in it for me?”, but that’s you being the prospective client, yeah?
Or as a friend of mine says “It’s not all about me, it is MOSTLY ALL about me!”
I edited the copy on a website on Friday and it was dull and boring: We are, I am, we do, we are great, you should know how great we are…. Only by inference: the problems you are experiencing can be solved . Have you noticed this? Do you experience that? JUST SUPPOSE you could…… How would that make you feel? What would that do for your life? THAT’S WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU!
Do you know that only 3% of people online are actually buying. So all those BUY NOW, we are the cheapest, we are the nastiest, we are, we have limited offer, price goes up, sale, they are all after the 3% of people who are actually buying NOW, tonight. So you are only ever shouting “like me, I do that, I am cheaper”. What are the other 97% up to? A huge amount don’t even realise they have something wrong that you could fix and make their lives so much better, in truth, they don’t want to know, but 60% know they have a pain, it is latent pain, they know a symptom, they are not even sure it is a problem, but of you were to give them something to help them qualify their situation, educate them, give them some freebies, some tools, do you think they may come to the realisation, that you could give them something? Something to make their quality of life much better.
Peter turley, the 7 deadly sins guy, stood at a seminar in the RDS and asked three people what they did…. I sell…. I am the MD of…. I provide a service….. and he basically told them, NO you don’t…. “You bring the gift of free time!”. They were selling the features, some may even have told about the benefit, but none were saying, what this actually means to you is that you get to spend more time counting your money and playing golf!
6. I said in the intro that you did engineering and became the accidental salesman, how did that all come about?
In the words of the disgraced comedian…..It started when I was a child
I was probably heading the route of music, radio, like my brothers, I loved it, I still love it and we are always out at gigs and a radio in every room. But the week of my 14th birthday, the height of punk rock, Dad died. He had been an engineer with Aer Lingus, St Benildus school were telling me to become an engineer, so I did. A massive struggle, painful, unnatural. I had to sell myself into the degree part, I should have known. I had always worked with my mother in a lighting showrooms, selling, learning form an entrepreneur. My best mate and I made t shirts for bands and the like in 1982/83, but it would be 20 years of education and the corporate world before I broke free from high earning and the day job to have my own business.
7. Were you released form the corporate world or did you escape?
Well, as they forced me out they didn’t realise they were a part of my plan, so everyone was happy and I still regard the management from then as friends.
8. In the words of the Junior cert, contrast and compare the two, corporate and self employment.
What I realised the first afternoon, is that I had been selling service contracts, sell them once and they paid for the following three, five, ten years! Damn, I had only been paid once. But I now had freedom. Freedom to exchange my hours for money, as many as I could work, or give away for nothing! I did sales, I had a recruitment business, I was proud of that. Hmmm. Then I let ego get the better of me and I bought an IT company off a local guy. The plan was to convert the customers to contracts and sell them n. Liquidation 11 years ago and a mortgage resulted. Another day we could discuss MABS, citizen’s advice and the Social! Good and bad!
9. Then what?
So back on my own. I got the protection of MABS and the dole office. As Jim Breen of the Cycle against Suicide says, “it is ok not to feel of and it is absolutely ok to ask for help!”.
I realised I was a freelancer, not a business owner!
All my life, I had worked for and with Owner Managers in Ireland and abroad. I hated corporate world and the politics, but I get it and I know how to work in that environment, but Owner Managers, I really get them, I know what is happening at home, I know what drives them, I know what mental illness affects them, I get it and some of them even get me! And they are the people I work with: Owner Managers, €2 million plus companies. At least 10-15 staff, probably working out of Ireland. But nowadays, I am honest, here I am, do you get me, do you get my value system? Do I get yours? Is there mutual respect?
10. You keep saying Accidental Salesman, what is all that about?
I got a job after college while training with Dundrum Athletic Soccer club, with my school te Paul Nolan, but in the pre internet days without anyone to train me in the practicalities, I was crap, but learnt painful lessons. I turned down a modelling career and my cousin got e a sales job with Bryan S Ryan, what a place, brilliant. I lasted 11 months, the second longest serving salesman in the fax department. The one who was there longer than me recently retired as MD!!! I found my place when I joined Matrix maintenance, part of BA systems. Peter Comerford was the Group’s sales director and came up with the sales strategy that I have quoted ever since:
- Meet the people
- Meet the people and when you have done that?
- Meet the people.
They were a sinking ship in changing times and despite working with amazing people I stepped into CARA the Computer people and stayed there 11 years, maintenance sales, sales manager and creating Ireland’s first SME Managed Services with Ron Maher who is still blazing a trail. We created something amazing with People, Process and Technology, made a load of money and then I suppose, greed blew it for all of us. And off I went on my merry way.
11. Do you think other Owner Managers feel the same way?
I am not a salesman, I used to say that a lot, I hear it a lot, but the fact is the passionate business owner will convert 80% of the opportunities with the right people, if they get in front of them.
So how do you get in front of them? 100% of my business in recent years has been by referral, so it is simply about “Meet the People” and then have the detail of what you want online so that what you say in person and what the referrer has said can be validated online somewhere.
- It is all about the story
- Facts tell, stories sell
- What is your story? How do you tell it?
- What is a close?
- What is online selling then?
Same as everything else, taking advantage of the 3% who are buying NOW, identifying those with latent pain, educating them, giving them something of value for nothing and bringing them on a journey, educating them so that when they become one of the 3%, they buy from you!
12. Websites, Digital Marketing, Selling, how does it all come together?
- “But I spent a fortune on my website, it does nothing for me.” As Lisa Cunningham, serial entrepreneur and LEO coach says “…. Then you need IT to do something (for you)!”
- Do you have painting on your walls? Books on book shelves? Do you ever do anything with them, do you ever take a book down and write a review of it, so people would want tome and borrow it or discuss it with you? Well that is what you did with a website, if it was every finished! You built it but they didn’t come! According to the iedr, the lot who register and regulate all the dot ie domain names,
- “Most Irish SMEs, are unwittingly making their websites hard to find. Unless a customer is searching for a specific business in a specific area, an SME is unlikely to be found.” – iedr. Digital Health Report 2019
- “Even small local businesses can see outsized benefits with sufficient
- attention to their presence in search results.”
- MOZ The State of Local SEO | Industry Report 2019
- “Clients care most about conversion and revenue, than rankings or traffic!”
- MOZ The State of Local SEO | Industry Report 2019
- Search engines are the bazaars users navigate when they’re looking for a specific product or service, while digital marketing agencies are the vendors vying for the users’ attention.
- Research by imFORZA reveals that 70% of search engine visitors ignore ads when browsing through search results. Ad blocker usage has risen by 30%, with millions and millions of desktop and mobile devices worldwide routinely blocking ads.
- The higher your rank, the more leads you get. In fact, 75% of leads never scroll past the first page of search engine results. These leads, if successfully retained, are what turn into paying customers.
- WHEN YOUR BUSINESS APPEARS IN THE TOP POSITIONS OF SEARCH RESULTS, YOUR CUSTOMERS CAN EASILY FIND YOU. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? THAT’S THE MAGIC OF DIGITAL MARKETING.
- if you value your users, you would have invested the time to create great content for them to experience inside the website in order to engage them.
- In order for you to achieve first-page rankings, you have to be better than the guys on the first page. And that’s all of these; you have to index better, your content has to be better, your technical superiority has to be better, but more than that, your digital footprint has to be better, and these are what your backlinks are.
13. What can people do for themselves, how doe they bring it all together?
I’m glad you asked! The Digital Profit Blueprint! 12 step plan.
- Explore “WHY” you bother, what is the vision, the Goal, why do you get up in the morning? Business review, planning, digital strategy, building a team and business automation.
- Your digital footprint, what online says about you: Website re/design concept (Graphic Design), SEO, Website Development & implementation.
- This is the stuff no one tells you and it is how the big boys do it: Developing Sales Funnels, High Value Content Offers, Upselling, sales ladder.
- Don’t forget Email, it works: Series development for new & existing customers and monthly newsletters
- PPC Advertising- Launch using Google, Facebook, LinkedIn.
- Instagram & remarketing that’s why websites get you to agree to cookies and the terms! So they can follow you around and send you ads in your Instagram, facebook, linkedIn, youtube feeds.
- Cold emailing automation design, structure & launch.
- Cold Emailing Review, refining emails based on the data.
- Data review of all PPC campaigns, Sales Funnels, HVCO’, Sales ladder & Email Series. Lead Nurturing.
- Social Media Workshop – Positioning, post scheduling, lead generation & engagement.
- Data review of all PPC campaigns, Sales Funnels, HVCO’, Sales ladder & Email Series.
- Double everything! Double all of your marketing budgets.
- Time to tell your story and get you guest posting, onto podcasts, maybe even a book!
14. You mentioned you wold have gone to a life of Music or Radio if live had not intervened, if you were choosing your desert island disks, what would they be?:
I love community and local radio, commercial radio has become formulaic, but the community is full of character, people likely to say anything, people asking the questions important to them. Advertisers and sponsors are getting directly into the communities where they operate. I was brought to Pirate radio, national radio, commercial radio by me big brudder Mike, since the 70s. My dad gave me my first transistor radio when I was probably 8 or 9. Radio Luxembourg, Radio Washington, Philip Greene doing soccer commentaries….. heaven
Well, IF I was stranded (which is the name of Australian Punk band the saints debut album, I would obviously have to have that!).
- I would have Bill Withers, Lovely Day, because it is the sunshine factory after all and it is the best song ever!
- Hazel O’Connor, Will You, the best sax solo of all time and the only performer to have me star struck when I was washing dishes or a glass in my brother’s kitchen and she was sitting on the grass in the sunshine.
- On a darker note, the songs that most represent my views on life the universe and everything, would be from my formative years, being a teenager of Punk: The Boomtown Rats (did you know my brother Dave drummed with them for 6 weeks?): Rat Trap, Looking after number One!
- Eddie and the Hot Rods, Do anything you wanna do.
- Thin Lizzy and the song of the same title, Do Anything you want to do.
- Said drumming brother supported them on tour in the UK in 1978.
- Same brother drummed with leading Irish punk band the Vipers, I’ve Got you and
- On the Rocky deValera and the Rhythm Kings Album: Although if you go to youtube, the song that sums it up and I did a video for it to commemorate the death of guitarist Richie “Milkboy” Taylor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bf7Oy2vUrQ Drinking to Forget:
- Oh and Ska, mixed with Punk: The Selecter: Too much Pressure or On My Dadio or the classic 3 minute hero, but they are not just a legacy band, some great recent albums. The single Walk the Walk speaks to all of us consulting and then the shame we should feel that was reflected in the recent election: “Paved with Cold”.
- Then there was The Beat, ranking Roger now sadly departed, produced amazing songs and albums in recent years, just listen to Heavan hiding under your kiss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AMwyXUmtnI
- But the song the released back in the 80s would be most known, what we all suffer from “Tears of a Clown”
- The one that reminds me of my Mother “Can’t get used to losing you”.
- Mind you, at her best friend’s funeral, we pulled away from the Hill of Tara and turned on the radio to hear Jerry Fish “True Friends”, although we probably all want to leave the funeral rocking with his anthem “Celebrate”!
In the words of the late departed anti smoking campaigner, Gerry Collins, “well, enough about me, what do YOU think about me?”
Gerry Collins
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