Podcasts | BrandingBlog by Dave Young

BrandingBlog Radio: Brett Feinstein – Political Advertising

February 3, 2012 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

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Brett Feinstein - no doubt going negative

Brett Feinstein is a partner in the political advertising agency Pound & Feinstein.

He’s one of those guys that you have to get to know to understand. He’s loved and admired by those who take the time. If you know Brett Feinstein only superficially through Facebook or another near anonymous web arena, you probably only think you know him. That’s because he treats Facebook as his own psychology lab; questioning, pushing, shocking and provoking to see what kind of reaction he can get. It can be alarming…if you don’t know Brett.

I’ve known him for almost 10 years now and I always enjoy getting together for a meal when I can catch up with him or on Skype for a podcast interview. We talked for almost 4 hours. Most of it after I shut down the recorder.

I still ended up cutting about 30 minutes out of our official podcast interview just to get it close to an hour.

If you’re a student of marketing and advertising, you’re gonna like this one. We compare and contrast the various strategies used by retailers and candidates. I was surprised, enlightened and entertained through the entire conversation and I hope you will be too.

What I left on the cutting room floor was mostly a conversation about Facebook that got a little personal for a few third parties. So, I decided not to share it.

We did cover campaign strategy, messaging, research, direct mail and the life of a political campaign staffer.

Filed Under: Advertising, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Podcasts, Strategy

BrandingBlog Radio: Chandra Clarke – CEO of Scribendi

January 27, 2012 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

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Remember the scene in the movie Pulp Fiction where Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) accidentally create a serious mess of their car by shooting the guy in the back seat? The only solution is to call in an expert…a cleanup guy. Winston Wolfe (brilliantly played by Harvey Keitel) to the rescue. I love the Winston Wolfe character. He knows how to fix a bad situation.

When you’ve got a writing mess (a dog’s breakfast, as my Aussie friends would call it) you need to call in an expert. Scribendi is to bad writing as Winston Wolf is to Jules and Vince.

Scribendi is a professional editing and proofreading company. I did some copywriting work for them a few years ago and reconnected with CEO Chandra Clarke when Paul Boomer and I decided to include re-written articles instead of podcast transcripts with our Shortcut Blogging service. They created an entire new business line for us.

Chandra and I had a nice rolling conversation about how businesses can utilize her editing and proofreading services and why. I learned that her company has employees in every time zone on the planet and is available for projects 24/7, year round.

A couple of sites that I mentioned in the podcast were www.duhcorp.com and www.huhcorp.com which are fictitious companies on real websites with very creative tongue-in-cheek copy.

In case you’re wondering what kind of mess Vince and Jules have in their car… (If the bad words bother you, don’t play it. Seriously.)

Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncategorized

BrandingBlog Radio: Michele Miller on Sports, Politics and F.A.R.E.

January 20, 2012 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

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Recording this Podcast was a blast. I’ve been working with Michele Miller for 10 years now and being able to share conversations like this is exactly why I started podcasting.

What really made this one fun is that we were face-to-face instead of on Skype. We were both in Palm Springs to have an annual meeting with a client that we’ve worked with almost as long as we’ve been Wizard of Ads partners. This past year our retail client grew 28% over the previous year. That’s a big deal any way you look at it.

In this rambling conversation, we discuss trends in societal change, sports (was it baseball or football?), politics and New Year’s Resolutions, or the lack thereof. You’ll learn about Michele’s F.A.R.E. mantra and my own twist on it.

I hope you enjoy it. I think I managed to maintain my family friendly rating on iTunes. Somehow, turning on the recorder kept us both from flinging f-bombs around the room.

This picture was from her Wonderbranding Class at Wizard Academy on Halloween, 2007. Yes, she taught the class dressed like this.

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Podcasts, Quotable, Rants/Raves, Sports, Wizard Academy, Wizard of Ads

BrandingBlog Radio: Raffy Pendery, Interwebs Genius

January 13, 2012 By Dave Young 1 Comment

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I love talking to Raffy Pendery. You’ll like him too.

We chatted about 3 of his amazing creations. RealStatistics.com is an online graphing tool that lets you upload all of your business stats and helps you make sense of it all. If you need to keep your training ducks in a row, he’s also developed a platform called RethinkTraining.com for managing your company’s training materials while monitoring your trainees’ progress. Brilliant.

And, if you’re a local business that relies on brick & mortar sales, plus ecommerce, plus email marketing, plus putting your goods out there on Craigslist, all while keeping close tabs on what’s working and what’s not…his team co-developed GreySuitRetail.com. It’ll blow you away.

Raffy is truly one of the good guys on the internet. I met him when he was just starting to grow his empire. (This picture is a very young Raffy at Wizard Academy.)

At the end of the podcast, we talk a bit about Hana-Li, his very talented singer-songwriter wife. Check out Hana-Li on Facebook.

Filed Under: Podcasts Tagged With: ecommerce, training

BrandingBlog Radio: Craig Arthur and Big Plans for 2012

January 6, 2012 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

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After a busy holiday season, it was nice to have a leisurely chat with my good friend, Craig Arthur.

Since this is the first episode for 2012, we mostly talked about his plans for the new year and his renewed commitment to blogging. He is using the free outlining process that I produced for Shortcut Blogging. If you’d like to try it, just go to www.shortcutblogging.com/outline.

It may not sound like it in the podcast, but I got pretty excited when he talked about doing more free workshops this year in Australia. I may have to weasel my way onto his stage somehow. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been down under and I’m missing it.

Read more about Craig’s activities by following him on his Wizard Chronicles blog, on Facebook and on Twitter.

Thanks for coming along in our podcast journey!

The photo is Craig peeking out his room’s speakeasy window at Engelbrecht House on the Wizard Academy Campus.

Filed Under: Craig Arthur, Podcasts, Uncategorized, Wizard of Ads

BrandingBlog Radio: Irene Watson on Book Publishing

December 23, 2011 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

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Irene Watson’s media empire focuses primarily on self-published authors who need reviews, publicity and coaching for making the most of the book creation and promotion experience.

Her site, Readerviews, offers a wealth of knowledge archived over years of helping authors. Her services are priced and sized just right for authors trying to break into a bigger pool of exposure.

I first met Irene at Wizard Academy. She took the Blog and Web workshop from Paul Boomer and me several years ago.

I really had a good time catching up and learning about the many things she can do to help someone maximize the potential of their book.

Filed Under: Blogging, Books, Podcasts, Wizard Academy

BrandingBlog Radio: Year-End Tax Advice from Adrian Van Zelfden

December 16, 2011 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

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I’ve been getting Adrian Van Zelfden’s “Tidbits in Time” emails for several years. He’s a huge history buff and he enjoys a historical almanac to the point that he started sending out a monthly missive to share his celebration of what happened when. He started by sending it to his friends. None of that opt-in stuff, just a “hey, you might enjoy this as much as I do” kind of spirit. And, when you get an email, any email, from the smartest CPA/Lawyer around, what do you do? You open it and read it.

For his friends who also happen to own businesses, he started putting a section at the end “For Business Owners Only.”

The December issue had a 12-page, single-spaced PDF attached to it full of Adrian’s best Year-End advice to business owners. As I skimmed and scanned it, I knew that this was information that would be helpful to a lot of my readers, so I got Adrian to join me for conversation and this podcast is the result.

If you’d simply like to get to know Adrian, you could bail out after 15 minutes or so when we start to get our hands dirty in the numbers.

If you’d like a copy of his checklist, go to Adrian Van Zelfden’s Facebook Page, Tidbits in Time and click on the “Join My List” link in the left column. He’s also given me permission to send it out, so if you join my list you’ll also get a copy. A third option is to go to vanzelfden.com and shoot him an email. You’ll get a good sense of his dry humor if you google the latin phrase in the header of that page.

So…how good is he?

In 30 years of helping clients with taxes and going with them to countless IRS audits, he’s often walked out with the IRS owing his clients money. More importantly, he’s never lost a dime of his client’s money in an audit. That is, his record is perfect. He’s never had a worse outcome than having the IRS say, “Yep, this tax return is just fine. No changes.” Damn. That’s good.

I like doing interviews that get me a bit out of my comfort zone. Finances, taxes, government…you get the idea. For an example, if you haven’t listened to my interview with Pamela Yellen, you missed out on her surefire way to grow your cash without exposing yourself to risk. And now, I hope you enjoy Adrian and that you find his timely advice worthwhile as you seek to keep more of that hard-earned money for yourself while staying out of trouble with the IRS.

Filed Under: Leadership, Money, Podcasts, Uncategorized, Wizard Academy

BrandingBlog Radio: Magical Thinking with Jeff Sexton

December 9, 2011 By Dave Young 8 Comments

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Sometimes I’m a bit intimidated to talk to Jeff Sexton. It’s kind of like going back to high school and having an intellectual chat with your old English teacher…or in this case, an Olde English teacher.

He’s been doing an awful lot of Magical Thinking lately. One of the more interesting examples involves tiger penis. Yep.

In addition to discussing feline phalluses (phalli?) I also got him to talk about how a business owner can use Magical Thinking to improve marketing, merchandising and the customer experience. That’s the practical application of Magical Thinking. Of course, if it’s phalli you want, go check out this guy.

One more thing….if you enjoy this podcast and get it on iTunes, it would be so cool if you could give it a rating and a comment. Thanks!

Filed Under: Copywriting, Customer Experience, Podcasts, Wizard of Ads Tagged With: Magical Thinking

BrandingBlog Radio: Mark Effinger

November 25, 2011 By Dave Young 1 Comment

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I managed to corner Mark Alan Effinger for this week’s podcast. If you know Mark, you’ll really enjoy this episode. If you don’t know Mark, just buckle your seatbelt, hit play and hang on.

Mark and I helped teach a book writing workshop several years ago with an all-star cast led by Mike Drew.

We talk about PR, Brain nutrients, Amazon, Sean Phillip’s Full Strength shakes, and loads of other crazy stuff, including the time that Mark overdosed Rich Christiansen with niacin. It’s basically unedited and rambling and just soooo Effinger.

This is the kind of conversation that I love having with Mark. We’ve had so many of these, and this is the first I recorded for a podcast. I know there will be more. Effing Effinger.

Filed Under: Podcasts, Quotable, Rants/Raves, Uncategorized

BrandingBlog Radio: Wizard of Ads Partner, Tom Wanek

November 18, 2011 By Dave Young 1 Comment

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Tom Wanek is the author of Currencies That Buy Credibility. A great little book for finding some unique ways to give your business sound credibility in the eyes of your customers.

On the podcast this week, we discuss the chicken and egg scenario of customer experience vs strategy and core values. Which should you focus on first?

Tom is one of those guys who I’m always having interesting conversations with about marketing, branding and strategy. This time, I had the recorder running and you get to listen in.

Filed Under: Advertising Performance Equation, Books, Customer Experience, Podcasts