In this insightful episode, Neal DiPentino, President of Titan Media Worx, shares how he excels in identifying untapped or underutilized resources within a company, emphasizing that all businesses possess the tools to thrive.
You will discover:
– How should business leaders should think differently about marketing
– Why you shouldn’t build a brand without driving for an ROI
– How to know if your marketing is working and when is it time to pull the plug (or stay the course)
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello Hello everyone. Welcome Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach and advisor. That is the one the only Neal DiPentino. Now he serves as the president of Titan Media Worx Inc and host the business breakthroughs podcast was just fantastic attitudes, check out a couple of episodes, and I highly recommend it. Now with over four decades of experience in high level sales and marketing across various channels. Neil has collaborated with multiple clients from small businesses all the way up to Fortune 500 companies and his expertise is helping businesses to optimize their marketing, and their advertising investments for maximum ROI. Now, he believes that many companies face challenges or setback simply because they fail to recognize that these tools, or they lack the knowledge to leverage readily available resources. And that’s what we’re going to talk about here today. Just a moment. But before that, I’d love to hear oh, first off, Neil, welcome to the show. I’d love to hear a little bit of what’s the story behind this. How did you get into becoming president of Titan media works and what ultimately led you to make that leap?
Neal DiPentino
Well, you know, thank you for personal for having me on your show. I appreciate it. Scott. I gotta tell you, it was kind of all by accident, I had no intention on being in this business whatsoever. I was in radio, that was kind of the career path that I wanted to take, I actually what happened was, I was looking at a job in Gallup, New Mexico, and I drove down there in a ripe in a snowstorm, to interview for the job, I didn’t even know I was coming, I said, I’d want this job badly. And I’m gonna go down, they’re gonna do whatever it can to get the job. And so that’s what I did. And so while I was there, they said, Look, we’d like to offer you the jobs doing the morning show with those. But in small market, radio, everybody does something else. I mean, we all have multiple jobs, you want to just do one thing. And sure, I’m glad to do anything else you want me to do? What do you want? They said sales do so I’m sure I could sell. I had never sold anything in my entire life. I had no idea. You know how to sell anything. I mean, but I figured you are good to be right. You know, and sometimes ignorance is bliss. And for me, it was eventually I became sales manager radio station, and transitioned out of radio for a long, long time and got into sales and had made a really great career in sales and marketing. Marketing has always been really a big part of what I’ve done. And because because I never felt like I was really a great salesperson. So I use my marketing skills, to be able to close sales and help people, you know, find solutions for what they for whatever they had their business and everything. And that’s kind of how the whole thing kind of got started. I have my own business called DPA media. We’ve been doing that, though marketing for clients for years and years and years. And then recently, I just I partnered with Cashdollar do on Titan digital era to see all to do podcasting. So we’re using podcasts and really is a lead generation tool or for that business. Eventually, we realized we had a great opportunity with podcasting to provide production services and booking and other services were other people who wanted to be in this space. So we eventually sold the marketing property. And now this is pretty much what we did. Well, that’s kind of the story district.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Fantastic Yeah. What I what I love about kind of your take, and what I’ve seen as I was researching for the episode is is that kind of sales first mentality for marketing. I think marketing for marketing sake, is, is a pet peeve of mine, it drives me bonkers, right? We had a lot of likes, did you sell something, but everyone liked it. So I want to kind of dive into that mentality, that mindset that you bring to marketing, particularly as a tool to drive sales and get that ROI. So first question that I have kind of out of the gate here is a How should business leaders think differently about marketing and advertising just out of the gate?
Neal DiPentino
Well, I think a lot of that depends on the type of business that we’re talking about it I deal with, you know, small business people, where everybody, people from the service industries, restaurant, food service, that type of thing. And, in my experience, you know, to a lot of people come at you say, Well, you know, you gotta build that brand, which is a true story, you do need to build a brand. But a lot of people try to build a brand without getting an ROI. Okay, and what I mean by that is, you know, they’ll, they’ll, they’ll choose advertising resources, like maybe I’m not knocking magazines, I worked at that industry as well. But magazines, you know, basically provide you in general with a great branding opportunity, but there’s no ROI attached, there’s no way to track that type of thing. So what I like to do is I like to look at advertising resources outside and inside the business that will actually bring an ROI while branding, you know, simultaneously so that’s kind of my approach in that. Yeah.
Scott Ritzheimer
Now you mentioned outside and inside. So what are some Some of the what are some of the top opportunities that usually see as advertising inside of a business?
Neal DiPentino
Well, I think a lot of it has to do with personnel. I mean, what do they, you know, the best customers repeat customer service sales one on one, right? And, and so what are the things that we’re doing to keep those people coming back? Now I can spend, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars on advertising to draw those draw people in from the outside, you know, to fill that pipeline, if you will. But then what kind of tactics am I doing to make sure that once those people are in and I get them back again, and again, and again, and again, we want, we’re not looking at just that one time customer, we’re looking at the lifetime of a customer comes back, it becomes a well, customer who not only, you know, comes back, themself, we’re in st look at a restaurant each there several times a week, several times a month, we want to reach them as much as we possibly can. So with me that one time a month, we want to recover twice a month, every other week, or we want to become every week that that things, but also we want them to become brand advocates world. So we want them to going out sharing their experiences with others. Because that’s what word of mouth kind of comes in, in the play. We want them to go out and we want to promote our business on social, we want them to talk about their business, our business, friends, that type of thing. So we need to do everything we possibly can internally, with our employees with whatever resources are available to us to make sure that that happens.
Scott Ritzheimer
I once had an opportunity to hear Dan Cathy, from Chick fil A talk about some of their marketing strategy. And he said, you know, the cows have won award after award after award in the marketing space. But they pale in comparison to the moms who are posting on Instagram. And just that that raw ability to make, like you mentioned brand advocates that are out there doing the work for you is such a powerful, powerful tool. And again, leading off with that I love that idea of looking at advertising not as just how you attract new customers, but how you keep the customers that you have, and continue to work with and sell into that space. One of the questions that I bumped into with clients of mine is they’re kind of looking at, they’ve got a challenge, they’re facing a problem and, and marketing is one of the solution potential solutions, right? Well, maybe we just need to go out, we’re not growing as fast as we want, maybe we need to spend some money on marketing. You even mentioned it in some of your stuff on the bio, what are some of the the challenges that businesses face, especially in that kind of small to medium size range, that are actually rooted in their issues with their marketing or advertising.
Neal DiPentino
Um, first of all, I think, you know, money, obviously, I mean, it’s expensive to advertise, externally, you know, and then the just basic understanding of how to do it and what works, what doesn’t, I think that it’s really easy for a business owner to get, you know, kind of, on, get when we’re salesperson comes in with their pitch, or basically, that’s they’re talking about their product being the best product on the planet. I mean, that’s your job isn’t supposed to do a marathon, they’re not coming in as an advisor, we’re coming in and sell their product and everything. So it’s hard for a business owner who has limited amount of time with a more limited amount of resources to start with, to kind of, you know, filter out the BS, if you will, and make that kind of decision. And it’s not even just, you know, making a bad buying decision, sometimes maybe the decision that is being put in front of us a great decision, but you blow it off, because you’ve heard so many people, so so much stuff coming your way. So I think that’s probably one of the biggest challenges. And then the other part of it. So we mentioned trying to figure out ways to get that customer to come back in through loyalty programs through I mean, just employee interaction, I put together a study for one of my clients where I proved to them that we can increase their business internally, without spending a single dime, by just the way that that employee communicated with the customer when they walked in the door. And I mean, it was like And once they established this, this pattern of, of this type of communication between the customer and the person at the counter, they saw their business climb through the roof, anything possible central bankers that were already paying these people to do it, all I had to do is teach them how to actually communicate and how to get those people back in and how to kind of steer them into a direction that makes sense for not only Oh smart give them something that that you know, they really wanted but also something that was profitable for them.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so powerful. So you’re right. I think one of the big challenges that I see folks face is that that they’re out there, they know that they’re not a marketer, they don’t know like, they can spell Instagram, you know, but not LinkedIn. Yeah. Is there a space is there no, I’m just I’m joking, but they they don’t know. And so a lot of times that leaves them feeling ill equipped to even find the right provider. And many times, you know, we we can mistakenly equate someone’s savviness in their pitch to us as their ability to create a savvy pitch with and for us. So how do you go about finding the right provider and not falling prey to the Bs are not filtering things out when they actually aren’t BS?
Neal DiPentino
You know, it’s really hard, I think, is it, it really depends on again, on the business, what your position is within the business. I mean, if you’re a small business, and you’re doing, you know, a million dollars or under, and you have a limited staff, and you’re, you’re, you’re doing it all on your own. I mean, it’s really, really difficult. So, in my opinion, in my situation, that’s where I come in where I’ve been, people have hired me to actually be that person who vets me, the APU comes up with ideas and knowledge comes up, executes. ideas evolve, everybody has an idea, right. But you’ve got to have something that’s really executable, in order for it to really pan out. So I always recommend that you can take a look at the people who you’re working with locally, who are available to you locally, I mean, your work with your chamber of commerce, there’s a lot of different things that you can do to, you know, to to find the right resources for your business, in terms of advertising, and marketing. And beware of those people who make these grandiose claims that they’re going to make you rich in 15 minutes, while you’re taking a shower, it’s not going to ever happen. There is no such thing for most of us. We’re all at work week, you know, so it does take some time to pick you up, and you really need to study the market and understand, you know, what’s gonna work for you?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. On that note, how do you know if your marketing is working? Right? Especially someone who’s maybe new to this space? They’ve picked up provider, they’re paying money? When should you start seeing results? And how should you measure that?
Neal DiPentino
I think it really depends on what you’re doing. I mean, consistency is super important. And it’s really hard to say, Okay, we’re gonna run this advertisement, I’m gonna do it, run an ad, you know, maybe in local radio, we’re gonna write a bad, maybe an a coupon magazine and everything, and we’re going to run it for a month, and then see what happens. And we’ll decide what we’re gonna do it again, I think you have to actually give it a little bit of time and effort, a few months, at the minimum, you know, that consistency over time, you’ll start seeing, you know, more return from that investment, I think you have to set the bar where you need the bar to be. So I generally like to have a two to three times return on investment, when I’m, when I’m buying advertising from my clients, that’s pretty high bar to hit. But it all kind of depends on what we’re offering to. So we have to take, there’s just so many different things, there’s not just one thing that really, you know, will help you to determine whether or not it’s working for you. But I think at the end of the day, it’s it’s what kind of revenue is coming in. Um, you know, maybe the other goal is you want higher revenue, which everybody should take a look at that maybe you want more seats in budgets, if you have a restaurant, well, people walking through the door, more transactions, higher registering. And so you really have to understand before you actually go out and do any kind of advertising or marketing what your goal is.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, it’s fantastic. And, you know, podcasts have in particular, because I know you spent a lot of time in space here. A lot of folks don’t necessarily think of podcasts as, like you mentioned earlier lead generation tools. So how should folks that are thinking about starting a podcast, should they? And if so, why should they start it? What should they do to make that a success?
Neal DiPentino
I think I and I truly believe this, I think podcasting authors, one of the best lead generation opportunities that’s out there right now, part of the reason why do you have people who do write blogs when people don’t read it, or when none of us read, we want to be told things. So plus, what it does is it makes up connection on what we’re doing right now. You can see me I can see you, you know, we have a little conversation before a little conversation after. You know, people think that, you know, a lot of people think that you know, do a podcast, a podcast is really to try to get watch people to, you know, listen, so you want hundreds of 1000s you want 10s of 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of listeners to come in and listen to your podcasts. And that’s how it’s gonna be effective for you. But it’s not when you have a podcast, especially when you carve a niche in that market. You just need the right people to be on the show, or listen to your show or be on your show. A lot of times for us, my company tight media works. We are maybe more interested in the guests than one of the people who are listening because that guests becomes a potential new choice as well. It gives us the opportunity to kind of do an audition for the show machines that we provide. And we can kind of show them how it works and how it’s going to work for them. You know, and so then it becomes a lead generation tool in that manner to, again, I think it spells gently generation tool, Jonathan, right.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. So as Garth, I like to ask all my guests, and is this what is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish every leader, a founder or entrepreneur out there listening today knew?
Neal DiPentino
I wish, necessarily a secret or not, but I think a lot of us think that we’re on an island by ourselves. And there’s a lot of a lot of help out there for us. Business Coaches, business breakthroughs. My podcast is about working with business coaches, and consultants. And what I found it was interesting that a lot of the coaches that are talked to are helping other people actually have coaches themselves. And they’re, they’re getting guidance and mentorship from people who, you know, have been in business and have been through different situations. They don’t know everything, we don’t know everything. So it’s always great for us to have somebody that could potentially help us. Again, I don’t know if that’s a big secret or not, but a lot of business owners, maybe don’t even think about it because they’re so busy, so focused on the day to day tasks, that an A at the end of this week, you don’t hear it way too often, probably but they’re working on their business, or in their business, not on their business. So that’s I guess that’s what I would say.
Scott Ritzheimer
I have told many a client alone takes a long time. Sure you can do it alone, right? Do you want to why would you want to there’s so many folks out there that you can access? So absolutely. Yeah. So some folks listening to this. And it’s like, Finally, someone that can trust right? Maybe they’ve been bitten by marketing stuff in the past, or they’re just afraid of getting started on it. And they found they found someone here that gives it to him straight who can help them navigate that space? Or maybe even thinking about starting their own podcasts? How can they find out more about you and your organization?
Neal DiPentino
Well, we are very involved in LinkedIn so you can get in contact with either myself or any of my partners on my debts. We have the Titan Media Worx website, which titanmediaworx.com works is spelled worx where you can reach out to me directly through an email Neil@titanmediaworx works spelled w o r x.com. And we’re glad to talk to you and tell you a bit more about what we do and how we might be able to help you.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. Well, Neil, thanks so much for being on the show. It’s an honor privilege having you here really appreciate your time today and the wisdom and advice that you shared and for those of you listening you know that your time and attention means the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did and I can’t wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Neal DiPentino
Neal DiPentino serves as the President of Titan Media Worx Inc. and hosts the Business Breakthroughs Podcast. With over four decades of experience in high-level sales and marketing across various channels, Neal has collaborated with multiple clients, from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. His expertise is helping businesses optimize their marketing and advertising investments for maximum ROI. He believes that many companies face challenges or setbacks simply because they fail to recognize these tools or lack the knowledge to leverage readily available resources.
Want to learn more about Neal DiPentino’s work at Titan Media Worx? Check out his website at https://titanmediaworx.com/
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