{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"A Million-Brand Mission in a Post-Covid World","description":"As a bestselling author and keynote speaker, Deb Gabor, CEO and Founder of Sol Marketing, has, herself, become a \u201cbrand.\u201d She defines Sol Marketing as a brand-driven, strategy-led marketing firm in the business of creating irrational loyalty. Irrational loyalty means people are indelibly bonded to a brand.  When Deb talks about her agency, she does not list the provided services: she feels marketing services have become commoditized. Instead, she presents a passionate vision of what the future could be. She tells people she is on a million-brand mission \u2013 to impact a million brands in her career. She believes that the best brands in the world are truly unique \u2013 in why they do what they do. Her goal is to strengthen brands: making businesses more sustainable will up-level communities, and, ultimately, help people.  When the Corona virus hit, Deb\u2019s speaking engagements for the next 6 months were cancelled. She is sheltering at home . . . but not sheltering in her mind. The question was: how was she going to generate income when she could no longer speak at face-to-face events? What could she do? How could she help her company? She mobilized her team and made her personal brand a \u201cclient\u201d of the agency. \u201cFigure out how this has impacted us,\u201d she told her team, \u201cand then what we need to do.\u201d  Deb referenced an interview with James Stockdale in Jim Collins\u2019 book Good to Great. Stockdale was held for 6 years in a Vietnamese POW camp. When asked how he managed to survive, Stockdale explained that he faced the brutal facts of his situation, but also kept up his hope and optimism. Prisoners who were over-optimistic, but refused to face the \u201cbrutal facts,\u201d did not do as well. Deb\u2019s team identified around eight \u201cbrutal facts\u201d about how Deb\u2019s brand was impacted by Covid-19. Some issues were solvable, some were not.  The company pivoted and, got Deb back on track in a new direction \u2013 creating information products, building online courses, building sales funnels, and building webinar funnels. Deb identified the assets she needed her team to build, established a schedule, and set targeted monthly income goals for the information products, her speaking, and her book sales. Then, taking things a step further, the company prioritized a something new: authority marketing services for professionals, who, like her, were facing the same challenges. The assets her team built for Deb became a product that could help other speakers, authors, experts, coaches, and consultants.  Deb says she has never seen a better opportunity than now for \u201csmart people with expertise that can elevate other people in their own businesses, in their lives \u2013 I\u2019ve never seen a better opportunity for them to share generously that expertise with other people.\u201d She challenges people to think about: \u201cHow can I be indispensable to people at this time? How can I share something that I know or that I can do in a way that helps another person?\u201d In reaching out, Deb says \u201cbe helpful, be authentic, be true to your brand.\u201d She now spends around 6 hours a day, every day, presenting public or private webinars, and consulting one-on-one with business leaders, marketers, creators, or people with personal brands who are interested in setting up their brands to thrive during these unusual times. Deb can be reached through social media and on her website at: debgabor.com, where Deb is posting thought-provoking webinars that explore a post-Covid world. Deb\u2019s books, Branding Is Sex: Get Your Customer Laid and Sell the Hell Out of Anything and Irrational Loyalty: Building a Brand That Thrives in Turbulent Times are available on Amazon. Transcript Follows:   ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Deb Gabor, CEO and Founder of Sol Marketing based in Austin, Texas. Deb is also a bestselling author and keynote speaker, and I think you\u2019re going to enjoy this conversation. Welcome to the podcast, Deb. DEB: Thank you. I\u2019m really glad to be here. ROB: It\u2019s fantastic to have you here. Why don\u2019t you tell us about Sol Marketing and about your own journey as well into authorship and speaking?  DEB: Right on. I tell people that I\u2019m in the business of creating the condition of irrational loyalty, and when I say irrational loyalty, that\u2019s that feeling that you\u2019re so indelibly bonded to a brand that you\u2019d feel like you were cheating on it if you were to choose an alternative. It\u2019s kind of how I feel about my iPhone, and the weird feeling I get when my friends who have Android phones send me text messages and they show up in green bubbles. I\u2019m so irrationally loyal to i-thingies that even if I would hold a competitor\u2019s phone in my hand, I\u2019d feel dirty. So that\u2019s the business that I\u2019m in, and how I do that is by running a brand-driven, strategy-led marketing firm. We do all the marketing things, and the reason why people hire us is because they need a good kick in the ass. They\u2019re growing rapidly, they have a lot at stake to get it right, they have no time to waste, and they need someone to lead them through the hard work of branding. Is that a good explanation? ROB: That\u2019s perfect. How did you come to this positioning? A lot of people talk about what they do, they talk about the nuts and bolts, the details of what they do, and I hear you coming at the conversation from the complete opposite direction. You\u2019re coming from a vision of the possible future, a vision of where things are going. How did you arrive at that view that this is how it needs to be? DEB: This is the work that I actually do with my clients, so a little bit of this is the process of eating my own dog food. I firmly believe that the best brands in the world are not just different; they\u2019re truly singular and they\u2019re unique, and that uniqueness comes from truly why they do what they do. When people talk to me personally and say, \u201cHey, Deb, what are you obsessed with? What are you working on right now?\u201d, I tell people, I\u2019m on a million-brand mission. Through my career, I want to have impact on a million brands. The reason why that\u2019s important is if I can help a brand be a better brand, it helps them create a more sustainable business. More sustainable businesses are great for up-leveling communities and truly helping people. So, I\u2019m really internally motivated, and I\u2019m very, very driven. It\u2019s an obsession and a compulsion for me, so I can\u2019t really talk about it any other way. The other thing is I work in Austin, Texas. There are 150 other people who do exactly what I do, including a direct competitor whose office is directly across the street from me, and when I\u2019m at my office, at my desk, I look out this gigantic picture window and across the road I see the tombstone with her sign on it, and it drives me absolutely mad. Her services, her functional benefits, the stuff that she does as a company is exactly the same as the stuff that we do as a company, yet we don\u2019t compete. We really don\u2019t compete for the same clients because the reason that people hire us is vastly different than the reason that people hire her company. So that\u2019s one of the reasons why I don\u2019t default to the comfortable way of talking about agency business in terms of \u201chere\u2019s what we do\u201d because those services have become relatively commoditized. I want people to remember me for what I\u2019m about, and I want people to really understand the specific singular thing they get from us that they can\u2019t get from anyone else. That\u2019s why I talk about it in terms of \u201chere\u2019s the mission I\u2019m on and why I do what I do\u201d and being in the business of irrational loyalty. Also, if I told you \u201cWe\u2019re a branding and strategy and marketing services firm,\u201d you would be like, \u201cMeh, everybody else is that too.\u201d ROB: Yeah, you definitely hear that a lot, and it\u2019s a tremendous visual metaphor to have that nemesis across the street. I find it motivating for a lot of teams to know who the enemy is \u2013 not in a jealous way or a competitive way, but in helping you refine and define the mission. You mentioned you\u2019re based in Austin, Texas. We were originally supposed to meet up in person at South by Southwest. It\u2019s April; South by Southwest is cancelled. It didn\u2019t happen. We are sheltering at home. But you, as we were talking about before we started recording, are not sheltering, in your mind. How has your strategy shifted amidst this coronavirus outbreak, amidst this pandemic, amidst some companies pulling back and some accelerating forwards? DEB: I think I shared with you before we got on the interview here that I\u2019m in touch with a lot of business leaders through my personal and business networks, and they fall into two camps right now. There\u2019s one \u2013 these are the folks that are shuttering everything, they have their thumbs in their mouths, they\u2019re rocking back and forth, they\u2019re lying on the doormat in front of the front door \u2013 they\u2019ve given up. They\u2019re throwing in the towel. Then there are others who are really looking at this through a new lens and practicing the art of the pivot or figuring out, \u201cHow this is an opportunity for me to emerge with maybe new offerings, new products, new services and things like that that are going to position me for the long term?\u201d One of the things that I did that I think is going to be really helpful for your listeners is I went back and reread my copy of this great book by Jim Collins called Good to Great. The day that I decided to pick up Good to Great again, I opened up the book and it opened directly to a chapter where there was an interview with James Stockdale. Jim Stockdale was previously a vice presidential candidate, but he was also an admiral and a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. For 6 years, he was in a POW camp. Collins interviewed him for his book and asked him, \u201cHow were you able to actually get through that experience relatively unscathed? How did you endure 6 years in a POW camp?\u201d What Stockdale explained was that he was able to maintain hope and optimism in the face of the brutal facts of his reality. He also explained that the people who were in the POW camps who were overly optimistic and refused to face the brutal facts were the ones that didn\u2019t fare very well. That\u2019s called the Stockdale paradox. I was reading about the Stockdale paradox probably right about the same time that South by Southwest was getting cancelled, and it was really empowering for me because I actually did an exercise with our leadership team where we went back and revisited our core values and our core purpose as an organization, and then we documented all the brutal facts. The brutal facts of the current situation are, personally, I make most of my money as a speaker and an author and a workshop leader, and every single speaking engagement I had scheduled between South by Southwest and the end of July was cancelled, all over the course of about two days. That\u2019s a brutal fact. Another brutal fact was I do mostly B2B work in our company, and we had already been seeing some supply chain issues with our clients, making it really difficult to do things like shoot videos of their products. That had started happening back in January, so that was a brutal fact. Another brutal fact was everybody\u2019s going to have to work from home, people are going to be less productive, we\u2019re going to have connectivity issues. Another brutal fact was I looked at how much per day does it cost to operate my agency, and how much cash runway do I have? How many days of cash runway do I actually have in the bank? And for each of these brutal facts \u2013 and there were about eight of them \u2013 there were some that I could do something about, and then there were some that I couldn\u2019t do something about. But for each of those brutal facts, my leadership team and I acknowledged every one of them, and then we flipped immediately to \u201cWhat is our response to this brutal fact?\u201d What I\u2019m doing during this time, which gets back to your original question of like \u201cyou\u2019re not sheltering in your mind,\u201d one of the opportunities that surfaced from really examining these brutal facts was the notion that I\u2019m at home in Austin, Texas for 6 months without anywhere to go. What can I do? How can I help the company? Two things came of that. One of them is that we made a very strong pivot to offering authority marketing services to other speakers and authors and experts and coaches and consultants \u2013 people like me \u2013 to help them share their expertise without the need for face-to-face events. We had already created a business for me out of this \u2013 I\u2019m a client of my own company \u2013 and we were offering it to other people. We turned this into a service. I\u2019ve had a number of conversations with other people who are in my same situation where we\u2019re offering these kinds of services, which are like creating information products, building online courses, building sales funnels, building webinar funnels. That was one thing. And then another opportunity that came from that, which is really where I\u2019m not sheltering in my mind \u2013 I have never seen a better opportunity for smart people with expertise that can elevate other people in their own businesses in their lives, I\u2019ve never seen a better opportunity for them to share generously that expertise with other people. I literally have been spending I would say probably 6 hours a day, every day, if I\u2019m not doing a public webinar, I\u2019m doing a private webinar. Or I\u2019m having one-on-one consultations with business leaders or marketers or creators or people with personal brands who are interested in understanding how they can set their brands up to thrive during this time. ROB: I love what you say about uplifting, because even though you could have a disposition towards making the most and really transforming business to thrive in this environment, we all I think still need a little bit of encouragement and uplift from other people for those days when maybe we\u2019re not feeling quite as strong about it. We\u2019re all going to have a down day here or there. I\u2019m very interested by what you said about authority marketing and focusing there. I think that\u2019s a word that has been used and misused. I\u2019ve seen it misused in such a reductive way as essentially buying a book for yourself. DEB: Yep, exactly. Which actually, I think the people who wrote the book Authority Marketing, the purpose is they wrote a book called Authority Marketing to teach you how to buy a book to do authority marketing. I look at authority marketing in a much more comprehensive way. ROB: And you\u2019re providing that service to people who know the difference, too. The people that you\u2019re going to work with are people who know how to get a book published, probably. They might change what they\u2019re writing right now, but it\u2019s not \u201cHelp me be famous.\u201d They probably have a brand. They probably have some opportunity. They probably have some skills. But a lot of these folks probably don\u2019t have the tools around them the way you do. DEB: Right. I invested significantly over the past couple of years to actually build these things. I\u2019ll tell you a quick story about where this all came from. I wrote my first book, called Branding Is Sex: Get Your Customer Laid and Sell the Hell Out of Anything. Yes, I am the person who used both the words \u201csex\u201d and \u201claid\u201d in the title of a book. When I wrote that book, it really was part of this compulsion to share that information with as many people as I could. I give away our methodology, my expertise, 30 years of experience and track record in brand strategy \u2013 I give that away for the cost of a book. But what I didn\u2019t do was connect that back to how I wanted to grow in my own career, how I wanted that to serve my agency business, and how that was going to be the pathway to what my vision is for myself. I wasn\u2019t very intentional about it. After that book came out, fortunately for me, because of brand disasters at the hand of such great brands like United Airlines and Pepsi and Uber and Papa John\u2019s, lots of other branding dumpster fires that happened, I became the world\u2019s resident authority on brand disasters and botched corporate apologies. I became the person who was able to answer all the media\u2019s questions about who\u2019s handling it well, who\u2019s not handling it, what brands should do, what brands can learn. It was really during that time that the second book, Irrational Loyalty, was written, because that book basically wrote itself. I thought, I need to be smarter and more intentional and definitely more thoughtful and strategic about how I want these pieces of content that I\u2019ve created to serve me in the long term. That\u2019s when it became apparent to me that I needed something other than just a book to express my authority, because a book is just one method. I do a lot of public speaking, but I also wanted to share my expertise in other ways so that people could consume it in more actionable methods for them. So I went out and attended a Mastermind of some of the best digital marketers in the world. This is one of those Masterminds you pay $30,000 a year to be a member and then $10,000 an event. Definitely the upper echelon. I happened to be there because I was a speaker, but I got to spend an entire 3 days with people who had 9-figure sales funnels. I thought, all right, these people are selling information products and they\u2019re selling a buttload of them. They\u2019ve created a way to scale their personal brands or their business brands or whatever. I could do that too. I went out and asked all those people, \u201cCan I hire you to build this for me?\u201d They were all like, \u201cNo, you can find other people. Go see this person, go see that person.\u201d I started talking to people, and I was interviewing people, and there was no shortage of people who were willing to put me into a sales funnel to sell me a course on how to build a sales funnel. I was like, what the hell? This is ridiculous. So, I mobilized my team, and my personal brand became a client of the agency. I was like, \u201cYou guys are going to figure this out. We\u2019re going to build all of these assets. We are going to build all of the automated marketing platforms. We\u2019re going to tie all of this stuff together, and we\u2019re going to build a business for me. Here\u2019s a metric, and by this time, in this many months, we\u2019re going to be making this much per month revenue off of these information products. I\u2019m also going to do this much in speaking, I\u2019m going to do this much in book sales.\u201d We built a business around it. Over the last year, I had a number of clients coming to me saying, \u201cI want to be you. How do I build that footprint?\u201d I said, \u201cWell, interestingly, we built it internally.\u201d When the current coronavirus situation hit and all the other authors and speakers and experts and coaches and consultants, like me, were like, \u201cOh my gosh, I\u2019m stuck in front of a computer in my dining room, working over Zoom; how do I impact many, many people?\u201d, I was like, I\u2019m good. I\u2019ve got stuff. But I also was able to work with the company, and we made a pivot. We made this quick pivot. I said, \u201cWe need to really prioritize these authority marketing services.\u201d So that\u2019s the story of a pivot. I hope that\u2019s helpful to your audience. ROB: I think it\u2019s absolutely impressive and resilient, and something to learn from. I think a lot of people strike out to write a book as a hunt for where their expertise is. It seems to me that in particular, the services you\u2019re providing require that somebody have an expertise that goes beyond just a book. But if someone\u2019s feeling like they really need to have this expertise and this array of services around it, but they\u2019re not quite sure where to go, where to focus on their expertise, how do you think about zoning in something that a person can offer that nobody else can offer, but they can\u2019t put their finger on it quite yet? DEB: That\u2019s an interesting question. That\u2019s a question that I\u2019ve been answering for a lot of people over the past couple of weeks \u2013 people like me who are sitting around with a little bit of time to really navel-gaze and pontificate for themselves about where they\u2019re going. My recommendation for that is to just ask the question of \u201cHow can I be indispensable to someone at this present time?\u201d That\u2019s the first question, honestly. I always start everything from a reexamination of my own personal core values and my own core purpose and my mission and my big hairy audacious goal and where I\u2019m going in life. I\u2019m lucky that I have that as a compass. If people are thinking about this and they\u2019re like, \u201cWhat expertise can I share?\u201d, the first place to start is really with, why do you do what you do? Or why are you? It\u2019s a very existential question. Simon Sinek\u2019s stuff helps with that a lot, too. I recommend that people do some examination of that. But then ask the question, \u201cHow can I be indispensable to people at this time? How can I share something that I know or that I can do in a way that helps another person?\u201d If you\u2019re looking at creating content and putting content out to the world to share your expertise with only the goal of making money, you will never be able to make money. If you are putting content out in the world because you truly have a message that you need to share with other people because it\u2019s going to elevate them in a particular way, it is your job to figure out specifically what you do. I always tell people, just ask the basic \u2013 I have these three brand questions. The questions are, \u201cWhat does it say about a person that they use my brand? What does it say about them?\u201d The second question is, \u201cWhat is the one thing they get from me that they can\u2019t get from anyone else?\u201d And \u201cHow can I make my customer or my reader, my listener, my viewer, how can I make my person a hero in his or her own story?\u201d I think that people will find a lot of answers there. In my own experience with not being super intentional about how I\u2019m going to use a book \u2013 I\u2019m very intentional now because I have a book and I have another book and I have a speaking business and I have classes, and we\u2019re starting up some online courses, I now have a webinar series, all that kind of stuff \u2013 the whole purpose of that is to create a community, and create a community that I can engage with and share my expertise with. My goal in my approach of sharing expertise first and not asking for anything in return, my hope is that it\u2019s going to elevate a lot of people and make them irrationally loyal to me. Then, when people are in a situation where they\u2019re back to buying stuff, they\u2019re going to want to buy that stuff from me, or they\u2019re going to want to buy that stuff from my company. ROB: Right. I think what you\u2019re saying there \u2013 it\u2019s subtle, but this is not a time, for the most part \u2013 unless you\u2019re selling surgical masks, this is not a time to be selling for a lot of people, but it is a time to be investing deeply and helping, and sometimes helping \u2013 I think you\u2019ve done some work with startups; a common thing in startup land is a lot of times you\u2019ll ask for help, but you get money. If you ask for money, you\u2019ll get help. DEB: [laughs] That\u2019s true. I have a business where I work with early stage companies, helping them tell their story effectively through their investor pitch. That\u2019s something that we always say. You have to treat fundraising like a branding exercise, but the ideal customer that you\u2019re going after is an investor, and you have to figure out how you\u2019re going to elevate that investor\u2019s life. How are you going to give them bragging rights from offering you that kind of help that you\u2019re looking for? But you\u2019re 100% right. Now is a time to be looking at everything through this lens of helping versus selling. I\u2019ve been telling everybody this. You really, really have to ask that question of \u201cHow can I be indispensable at this time?\u201d There\u2019s lots of businesses that we can\u2019t use right now. There are lots of things that feel to us that they are maybe luxuries that we shouldn\u2019t indulge in right now. As a brand, any kind of brand, you can still help during this time. It\u2019s not just like the parent company of Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior retooling their factories to go from manufacturing perfumes to making hand sanitizer, or Tito\u2019s Vodka here in Austin doing the same. It\u2019s also, how can you help people deal with the current situation at hand in a helpful way? Really good example \u2013 I\u2019m a skier, and I was super bummed that my season got cut short this year. One of the places that I buy gear from sent me the most delightful email. It acknowledged the current situation, showed real regard for humanity, and it said, \u201cHey, we\u2019re also bummed out that the season got cut short. If you\u2019re feeling bad, here\u2019s a link to a playlist of your favorite ski porn\u201d \u2013 which is a playlist of really fun ski movies on YouTube. And further down in the email, there was a nice feature that you could link to on their website about ski touring \u2013 which, for people who are not skiers, that\u2019s the process of climbing uphill and skiing down. You don\u2019t ride a chairlift; you climb uphill and you ski down. The ski areas are closed, but there\u2019s plenty of places to go into the back country. A lot of people need tips and tricks for doing that and doing it in a way that\u2019s appropriate for the current pandemic conditions, so how do you still stay safe and ski with a buddy without getting too close? Also, safety \u2013 it\u2019s avalanche season, all that kind of stuff. Further down in the email, they merchandised, \u201cHere\u2019s the best of the 2021 gear that\u2019s coming out. Ski season 2020 is over; however, it\u2019s never too early to dream.\u201d So it was a light message, and it was not sales-y at all. Then what I loved, at the very bottom of this email, I truly was delighted to see there were the signatures of everybody who works in the store. It was very personal. It was very authentic. It was really sincere. It was totally on brand. It was helpful. They\u2019re not selling ski gear right now. People are not going online and buying a $1900 pair of skis and a $700 pair of boots right now. They\u2019re just not. However, this brand is going to stay connected not just in my mind, but in my heart. The next time I do need something, I\u2019m going to go to them. Looking at everything from this lens of helping versus selling is what\u2019s going to help brands connect in the long term and remain relevant and thrive when this is over \u2013 which this will be over. Come hell or high water, it will be over, and people will be back, but nothing will be the same as it was before. ROB: It ties back nicely \u2013 it sounds like they even may have asked some of those questions that you asked, of what are the things they can\u2019t change. The thing they accepted that they can\u2019t change is that people cannot go skiing, and asking people to buy a pair of skis to sit in their closet for next year is not maybe a very good message. I\u2019ve seen, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen, I\u2019m sure everybody has seen an unbelievable number of emails from companies about their response to COVID-19, and half of them say, \u201cWe\u2019re just going to keep being the business that we already are.\u201d That\u2019s maybe an innocuous brand fail. But you, being someone who keeps track of some bigger mistakes, what are some bigger mistakes people have made in messaging around this crisis that we can learn from? Not to trash them just to trash them, but to trash them by way of example. DEB: I have something that would be really fun right now, which is this morning, I wrote something that is the perfect COVID-19 email that comes from that brand \u2013 I call it the perfect \u201cwe\u2019re all in this together\u201d email. How many \u201cwe\u2019re all in this together\u201d emails have you received from brands that you didn\u2019t even know you were on their email list? ROB: Oh, uncountable. DEB: Yeah. Let me read you the message. It\u2019s entitled, \u201cAn important message from our CEO\u201d: \u201cDear Deb, \u201cYou don\u2019t ever remember giving us your email, nor do you know how we got a hold of it. You once briefly thought about us 7 years ago; however, we\u2019re here for you during these (unprecedented, uncertain, challenging, unsettling, unusual, rapidly evolving) times (pick one). We\u2019re keeping everybody safe and monitoring the situation. If you need a new wine rack\/sofa table\/machete\/floor lamp\/outdoor fireplace\/Aston Martin, we\u2019re in this together. \u201cAlso, here\u2019s a reminder that we\u2019re also here for our employees, whom you didn\u2019t even realize existed until just now. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everybody affected by the current health crisis. Just know that (brand that you didn\u2019t even know had your email address) is by your side during these tough times. \u201cWe\u2019re in this together, and I\u2019m on Richard Branson\u2019s yacht \u2013 \u201cA Brand You Don\u2019t Really Know.\u201d That\u2019s the big crime right now. During the first week \u2013 this was just post-March 11th \u2013 everybody was rushing to send out their COVID-19 email. All of them were \u201ca letter from our CEO,\u201d and they were all entitled \u201cWe\u2019re in this together.\u201d That\u2019s my parody of that. Worst is automated marketing. Turn off your freaking automations, people. The day that the WHO announced that we had a global pandemic \u2013 and it was also the same day, I believe, that we closed off our borders to people arriving by airplane from most countries in Europe \u2013 I got an email from Air Canada asking me, \u201cHey, don\u2019t forget to opt in to get insider information and savings on your next flight!\u201d I also received an email from another brand, like a big box retailer, from whom I recently purchased a box of legal pads \u2013 you know, those yellow lined pads that we write on at work \u2013 and they wanted me to give them a review. I was like, \u201cOh hey, let me stop everything and give you a review.\u201d Then probably the worst offender that I saw during that time period was the email that I received from a clothing retailer. The headline on the email was \u201cStaycay is better than vacay,\u201d and they were advertising a 40% off friends and family sale. This is anything but a staycation, people. We are sheltering in place. This is for the safety of all humanity at this point. Don\u2019t make light of the situation. On the flipside, like the example that I gave you of the ski gear retailer that sent me that great message, I\u2019ve also seen incredible efforts from brands, big and small, to be helpful. I have a really good friend who owns a chain of ecofriendly dry cleaners, and if you think about it, dry cleaners are not doing really well during this time, are they? It\u2019s considered an essential service, but since we\u2019re working from home \u2013 I don\u2019t know about you, I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re wearing, but I\u2019m doing what I call the \u201cbusiness mullet,\u201d where I\u2019m wearing business gear on top and I\u2019ve got workout pants on the bottom. It\u2019s business on top, party on the bottom. We\u2019re just not wearing dry clean-only clothes. He called me in a little bit of a panic and he was like, \u201cI think my business is going to completely tank.\u201d I said, \u201cLet\u2019s think about this for a minute.\u201d He\u2019s an ecofriendly dry cleaner. He also has a network of vans and drivers \u2013 it\u2019s a pickup and delivery service. They come to your house, they get your stuff. I said, \u201cEverybody\u2019s working from home in their day pajamas, and they make the transition to the night pajamas later, so they\u2019re not doing dry cleaning of their clothes.\u201d However, I work in my dining room and I have a set of really hideous, very dirty drapes. I said, \u201cDo you guys dry clean drapes?\u201d He was like, \u201cYes, I do.\u201d I said, \u201cYou know what? It sounds like a time for you to educate people on the household items in your home that, while you\u2019re working from home and looking at them for 24 hours a day, you might think about getting cleaned, to have a cleaner, healthier home.\u201d I said, \u201cHow can you be the arbiter of helpful content? You\u2019re an ecofriendly dry cleaner. How can you be the arbiter of content that is cool, that\u2019s helpful content about how you can keep your home clean during this time that you\u2019re sheltering in place with products that you have around the house that are also ecofriendly? How can you also provide helpful, useful content to people while they\u2019re working from home? Nobody sees more business casual clothing than the dry cleaner. How can you, in a fun and uplifting and elevating way, create some content for your immediate community showing them the best and worst of Zoom fashion?\u201d Just to bridge the gap with content. This time is bringing out the best and the worst in people. Don\u2019t send the email that\u2019s the \u201cWe are in this together,\u201d and God forbid, please don\u2019t use any of those words that I used in my parody email. Make sure that you\u2019re being authentic and sincere to your brand. What you do as a brand during this time is going to define you, more so than what you say. This is a time for people to take action. Thank you for listening to my TED talk. ROB: Oh, it\u2019s fantastic. To take action, to give, and to rethink. If a dry cleaner can rethink their business for this time, then so can any of us. I know, Deb, you\u2019re certainly not the only one with the \u201cbusiness mullet.\u201d You might\u2019ve seen this \u2013 I saw Walmart said that their sales of shirts are up and their sales of pants are down. DEB: Yes. [laughs] I love it. It\u2019s amazing. ROB: It\u2019s pretty universal. Deb, when people want to get more from you, when they want to see what you\u2019re doing \u2013 you mentioned all of this content you\u2019re putting around your brand, all these different tools that you\u2019re putting out into the world \u2013 where should people go to find those things? DEB: People should go to debgabor.com. All the things are there, including the webinar series, which we\u2019re adding new webinars every day. These are open and available to the public. Like I said, I\u2019m bringing on a bunch of really, really interesting experts. Our focus really is just to help people. Nobody gets paid for this. I have experts in my network, and I\u2019m helping them connect with people and share their expertise to help other people. There\u2019s ways to get in touch with me. You can send emails to me via the site. I\u2019m on all the social media stuff as Deb Gabor. You can find me. I love to hear from people. If you hear this and you\u2019re like, \u201cWow, what you said, I really like it\u201d or \u201cWhat you said, it\u2019s complete B.S.,\u201d I want to hear from you. I love to talk to people. I\u2019m an extrovert, so this time of sheltering in place is really hard for me. So please, connect with me. Please, please love me. ROB: [laughs] Fantastic. Yes, I am in that boat with you of severe cabin fever. DEB: [laughs] Yep. ROB: Thank you for coming on the podcast, Deb. You\u2019ve given a lot today. It sounds like you have an absolute ton more to give. I hope people will seek you out, and hopefully next year we can actually connect in person in Austin, Texas for South by Southwest. DEB: Yeah, I hope so. Thank you. ROB: All right, thanks, Deb. DEB: Take care. Bye bye. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com. ","author_name":"The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/spinutech.com","html":"