Leveraging Return on Relationship To Boost Brand Reputation With Ted Rubin

Ted Rubin is a social marketing strategist, international speaker, business advisor, and author. Known for his ability to make personal connections with people, Ted coined the term Return on Relationship™ (ROR) — proposing authentic relationships create value for both parties. His book, Return on Relationship, is based on this premise and presents practical, real-world ideas to help businesses maximize their potential using community-focused internet resources.

Ted is also a strategic advisor, investor, and board member for multiple entities in various industries, including Evergreen Trading, The Coupon Bureau, Impactica, Spaceback, and SheSpeaks Inc.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Ted Rubin shares how his marketing background has fueled his passion for establishing relationships
The relevancy of maintaining a social media presence in an evolving marketing climate
Ted defines what it means to make digital eye contact
Strategies for personalizing the e-commerce customer experience
How impersonal email marketing habits adversely affect company reputation
The value of shifting to an omnipresent marketing approach
How the customer experience equally affects branding and reputation
Cultivating opportunities to network through unexpected mediums
How integrity was modeled by parental figures in Ted’s adolescence
Ted discloses how he met Seth Godin

In this episode…

eCommerce brands are quickly losing customer interest due to impersonal marketing strategies. With numerous companies selling similar products and services, novel approaches are sparse, making it challenging to distinguish between competitors. Amidst competing brands, how can you personalize your marketing efforts to entice and retain customers?

Mass emails are a leading marketing strategy for many brands because of their convenience. Lack of personalization, however, does little to convince a consumer they are valued. Ted Rubin implores brand marketers to invest in strategies that cultivate a mutually beneficial relationship. Gathering intel on customer preferences and prioritizing their worth will garner appreciation and loyalty — improving a business' reputation.

On this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris welcomes Ted Rubin, strategic relationship advisor, to discuss how e-commerce enterprises can boost their brand and reputation by valuing return on relationships. Ted’s marketing career provides perspective on maintaining a social media presence and strategies for personalizing the customer experience. He also urges e-commerce businesses to reevaluate the efficacy of their email marketing habits and shift to an omnipresent marketing mindset.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now, let's get started with the show.

William Harris 0:15

I have Ted Rubin here today. Ted is a leading social marketing strategist. He's the international keynote speaker business advisor. Formally, he was the emcee and host of the brand innovators Summit, Best Selling Author, connector provocateur. And let me tell you, he's brilliant. He used to work with Seth Godin, you want to listen up as Ted speaks. And Ted, I believe you and I were introduced by David Brier branding, genius, best selling author as well of brand intervention with Daymond. John, I'm excited to have you here today.

Ted Rubin 0:44

I'm excited to be here. With him. It's it's, you know, anytime we interact, there's so much value added to anything we talk about that I really enjoy it. And, yes, let's just throw a shout out to David Brier, because he's one of the smartest guys I know, I love spending time with him. And I believe the last time I was with him, you and I got together as well.

William Harris 1:06

We did. We got together at it was one of the brand innovators summits there that you did over at Linda lakes here in Minnesota, right? Yeah, I want to dig into some of your thoughts, especially on some of your more recent books as well. Before we do, I just want to say what our sponsorship is here. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired with the largest one selling for nearly 800 million. And we were ranked as the 12th fastest growing agency in the world Ad Week, you can learn more on our website at Elumynt which is spelled e-l-u-m-y-n-t.com. That said, enough of the boring stuff, let's get into the good stuff. I know I've known you now for almost a decade, I feel like and I believe that was because when you wrote your book, Return On Relationships, I quoted that in an article and reached out and we work together with you on that a little bit there. Because of that, I know that this is not just fluff that you talked about when you talk about return on relationship. This is something that you believe to your core. And so I wanted to kind of get into what led you to where you are, you're somebody who is at the forefront of a lot of what's going on in social media. What brought you to this point.

Ted Rubin 2:23

Oh, boy, trying to figure that out for myself. Well, you know, it's kind of a curving Road in in, it's one of the things I'd like to talk about, when I'm talking to younger people that, you know, a plan is fine, but don't expect your plan to pan out. Be prepared to to evolve it be prepared to to bob it and sway and, you know, find opportunity as you go. So my career kind of followed a bunch of different paths. But you know, we can have an hour long conversation about that. And I don't think that's the word we're here for. to fast forward. I was looking for a new opportunity. In 1997. I discovered the internet. I started looking for potential jobs. I was living in South Florida where I had relocated a number of years before I was looking to get back to New York, I felt it was the center of all that was going on with that then, and I discovered Seth Godin. So I basically wrote an article where Seth was interviewed by somebody, and he was talking about yoyodyne This day, which was the first online direct marketing company. And a lot of things he said just rang true with me. And at the end of the interview, the interviewer said, you know, Seth, this sounds like a really cool company. Do you have any job openings? And he goes, Well, I don't have any specific openings to share. But I, I will always hire somebody smart. That's how I build my company. He said, and I'm desperate for people that know how to sell something that nobody's ever sold before because nobody had sold internet advertising or promotion, or whatever the whatever the marketing vehicles he was building was new to the to the mix and to brands. And I immediate, like I sat there, raise my hand, I wrote him a letter typed on my IBM typewriter. I love it, along with a printed out resume. Basically saying, I'm smart, and I can sell anything. And I was at the point in my career where I was in the investment business, I had a very successful career in it. The market turned I got burnt out. I tried a few other things. I was I was building the Salesforce for a company but you know, enjoying the interaction with building the team, but not the business itself. I wanted something that I felt had this growth potential at that time of my life, I was turning 40 years old. And you know, my wife at the time, who was my ex said, like, why are you applying for a job that doesn't exist? And a week later, we got a call. And I say we because we shared a cell phone at the time, back when they were really expensive and you'd had you'd have one number with two phones. And she got the call and she called me she was oh my god they called and I I ended up meeting Seth, which is another great story, but I'm not sure we have time for it exactly how it happened. But I went up to New York, I met with a few companies. I was fortunate enough that Seth and his team wanted to hire me, I went to work with him, I realized very quickly that I was in the, that I was sitting next to brilliant. I mean, this is before Seth was Seth. Seth was already a wunderkind in the in the brand marketing world because he had been I think, the youngest brand manager at Atari. And then he had written books with with, with Steve Levinson about it about meeting people and about about relationships and things like that. It was before he really wrote his first best seller. And I was fortunate enough to I moved up my family was still in Florida, I made the mistake of living with my in laws don't ever do that. Especially because dances. But it was like it was meant to be because I am not an early riser, but I couldn't stand being in that house when they woke up. I was out early Seth was an early riser. We were the only two in the in this cavernous office at yoyodyne at 630 in the morning, and Seth had these ideas percolating out of him. And you know, I was smart enough to shut up and listen. And I I really just learned so much. I was sitting there when he wrote the article permission marketing for Fast Company, which became his first best selling book, when he standard. And again, I was there when e-commerce was a catalog online when internet marketing was just banners. And it was basically everything was CPMs. And it was a copy of what was being done in magazines and newspapers. And I was there for the whole evolution of it. So it was really cool. I lived through us being acquired by Yahoo. I worked for Yahoo for a while because of that I ran a whole sales team there months after I got there, I was able to have that opportunity. Again, Seth recognized that I didn't have experience in what he was selling, or his ideas, but I experienced it building a team. And then he allowed me to do that. And then I moved on to a gaming company. And then I moved on to 800 flowers and ran their corporate sales. And it just kept evolving. Where the way it got to today was I did a lot of consulting for a long time. Then I had the opportunity to join a company called Elf Cosmetics in 2008. And it was early for them they had not they were doing about four or $5 million in sales. They were strictly online. They had no marketing budget, you know, and people would say, Why are you taking the job as Chief Marketing Officer with no marketing budget? I said, because it's first of all, it was an amazing product, it was a great opportunity. And look, my opinion is no offense to major brands. But anybody can build a brand with $100 million marketing budget, or let's change that many people can build a brand with $100 million marketing budget, I have the opportunity of using every tool at my fingertips to figure out how to build brand awareness and drive sales without any marketing budget, basically, I mean, I had enough money to pay me, one assistant and a bunch of interns. And thank God that was back when interns only made 10 or $12 an hour. And I also was fortunate that I was in a company that recognized that they were so small that they had to be more efficient. And they let me do anything I wanted. I mean, basically they couldn't afford corporate counsel for every thing that you wrote. So this is back when companies like Sephora and Estee Lauder, and L'Oreal would not go on social media, or if they did, it was so limited, because they were worried about what to say. And I met some of the early players I met Gary Vaynerchuk. Back in 2009. I met Jeff Pulver who had the 140 conferences. And through that I met guys like Jeffrey Hayzlett and Barry judge who was CMOS of Best Buy and Kodak, and then brilliant ideas. And they really embraced the opportunity in social media. But they had legal teams to answer to and boards to answer to so we'd sit and brainstorm. And then at the end of it instead of arguing who's going to try this, they go You try it. Because as long as it costs money, let me do anything I want. I built the first aggregated content site for elf called Ask elf which sucked in anytime Their name was mentioned on YouTube or Facebook. And it generated huge referral traffic for us. And it was crap. I mean, it was I remember like the big brands going oh my God, how could you put that video on? It's a woman with a shaking camera. But here's think talk about authentic passionate suntan been courted by a woman who just got her $16 with a makeup that would have cost us $300 For a major brand. And all she wants to do is try it on oh my god, where else can I mean, and this was before companies recognize that this could have that, that this could have value. I mean, look at tick tock now it's kind of what it's all about. Yes, there are your professional tick talkers and your professional content, but the vast majority of it is passionate, authentic, either fans of the brand or influencers that are being brought in by the brand, creating content that is driving huge amounts of traffic to brands. So that's kind of how that whole thing progressed, I left there, I went to open sky learned about peer to peer commerce, I built the first Twitter syndication engine, have multiple handles that shared our content, took that with me to collect a bias became a partner build content for brands all across the country. And now, you know, I get to talk about it and advise companies and with all the people I met, I'm fortunate enough to be able to bring people together and be a connector and make return on relationship, really something of value for people.

William Harris 10:43

I told you, absolute genius, you want to listen to them. Like there's so much that has been done and said that you have just covered right now. And we haven't even gotten into like the meat of this stuff. But you've already covered a lot of things. And one of the things that I love that you said too, is one going way back, you're like I was smart enough to shut up. And listen, that's something that I feel like a lot of us aren't willing to do. We're so much we're so focused, especially like, you know, at a young age, we're so focused on wanting to speak and share and spread our thoughts and ideas out there. That's not bad. It's great. Get out there and do it. But also be willing to find those people that you can just say I want to shut up and listen, I want to you know, learn from what your wisdom has over the last, you know, 10 years, decades, whatever that might be and grow from that. And the other thing that you said too, is it's like, it took guts a lot of what you did, and a lot of success here was you had the ability to just say, go do it. Right? Don't overthink it. Don't overanalyze it, let's just go for it. Let's make this authentic. And like this, let's make this a real relationship, I think with with customers and brands, and I think that's kind of where almost like this, this peak of return on relationship kind of even springs from that idea of like having these real relationships, right?

Ted Rubin 11:59

Well, you know, that's the beauty of the way media works. Today, not all media granted, there are some things that you have to buy in advance, and you have to make a campaign. But even those things, you can put a stop on them in a heartbeat, you can alter them or, or evolve them or change direction with them on a moment's notice. So to take too much time to make a decision on what you want to go with rather than trying something and an orphan. You can also try something in a small way. And it's a mistake some of these brands make and we've heard about a lot of them, whether it's for the good or for the bad, you don't have to throw if something is is controversial, or is on the edge or something new, you don't have to go all out 100% Because you have to plan it eight months in advance, you can try it, see how the concept takes on and then expand from there. And look, I'm no genius. What I really am is I'm a guy that has opinions, and I'm willing to share them. And as you said, I'm willing to try them now. You know, don't try this at home kind of thing doesn't mean that it was the right thing. You also have to look around you and see is this is this an organization? Is this an environment? Is this a group of people or community I'm working with where that's possible? Today, it might not be but maybe next time you find a gig that is, you know, again, be aware of your surroundings? Look, I like to say there's an old think it's attributed to Dr. Seus. There's some questions about that be who you are, and say what you be who you are, say wait, be what you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter those who matter don't mind. And it's something I told my daughters all the time, but at the same time, be aware of your surroundings know you're you're talking with know who you work for it take baby steps, you know, don't just jump right out of the box. And then I also want to address something you brought up about, you know, I was smart enough to shut up. And listen, I happen to be reading an amazing book right now. And I want to I want to recommend it to your whole audience. It's called Shut the Fuck Up. S-T-F-U that what I'm going to tell you is don't just read the title, or read the blurb and think you don't have to read it. Because it's only about not talking so much. And listening. It's not just about we have you know, we have one mountain and two eyes and two years. It goes way beyond that to strategies of how to employ that to people that are over talkers, to manage yourself. If you're an over talker, to manage a colleague or a friend or a family member, that's that to realize that social media is a big part of this. And how do you wrap your arms around that? And how is social media evolve? Like I try to tell companies now, my opinions about Twitter and not just because of who owns it. But just because of the way it's evolved are different than they were 10 years ago are different than they were five years ago. I see value, but I also see different ways of using it. And I'll give you a perfect example. And I know I'm going on a limb here but I think important one, because I work with companies and I always tell them they need to have a Twitter presence now as recently as five years ago. Definitely 10 years ago, that would be a mistake, if you weren't going to man that handle, meaning you weren't going to be prepared for the for the conversation that would come in for the for the inquiries that would come in for the customer service that might come in. And some brands, you still do have to be prepared for that. But especially with b2b companies. The reason I think it's important, it's so someone can tag you. So I can share content about you, because I still believe Twitter is an amazing syndication. And discovery engine, not as great a conversation engineers used to be. And if you don't have a place that I can send people to, then I either have to just give your name, and you have to hope that they're gonna go to Google and look you up, if they don't know you. And the odds are, if I'm trying to build brand awareness for you, they don't know you, or I got to put your URL, which people are not necessarily apt to want to leave and click on to go to. So simply have a handle where you can have it branded where you can have a link. And again, if you're not going to participate a lot, put that in your in your in your in on your feed, put that on your page and say, Hey, we're here. So you can connect with us. But we don't communicate here a lot, or you don't have to do that. But I get so much pushback from companies, because now they're still listening to my advice from five to 10 years ago that said, we'll be there you have to participate. Guess why these these platforms evolve? And they change? I mean, all of them. You don't think Facebook has value anymore? But if you want to advertise for consumer goods, you better be on Facebook, I absolutely have a page again, have one so people can tag you. Okay.

William Harris 16:34

Shut the fuck I love it. Yeah, no, no, that's good. Well, and so, you know, there's, there's a lot there that I want to unpack. If I was going to push it forward a little bit, though, it kind of reminds me of something that you said before, which is looking people in the eye digitally, right. Like, that's kind of almost what you're getting to hear a little bit with this, where it's like, you know, if I was to meet you on the street, and I wanted to communicate and talk to you, I might know if you're the type person who wants to have a conversation, if you want to be left alone, there are cues that I'd be able to pick up from this and looking somebody in the eye digitally, like you said, Hey, okay, if you're not going to communicate that much on Twitter, fine, have the presence at least be there to be able to be approached, but you can say I'm not probably going to communicate that much on Twitter, that's okay, too. That's at least communicating that you're not going to communicate. But when you talk about looking people in the eye digitally, what does that mean?

Ted Rubin 17:28

What it means is, okay, I was, I don't know, sick, I'm losing track now that I'm 65. But I was probably 16 going or 17 going on, like my first real date, that must have been 17 because I was driving. And I was my mom, my dad's giving me like the typical dad advice about the gentleman open the door, this and that my mom looks at me and she says, Forget everything else you heard. look her in the eyes, let her know you're paying attention to her. Don't look around because someone else walks in, don't look at other women don't look at other men show interest. And then my dad taught me a lot about that from a business perspective where you're paying attention to somebody, you're not just jumping in to say the next thing. You really listen to what they say. But more importantly, you're you're hearing them and getting to know who they are. You're listening to the stories they're telling you now, in the digital world, that's a little bit more difficult to do. But how do but but in many ways, it's a lot easier to do. Because before we get on a call, I can go to your LinkedIn, I can go to your Facebook, I can go to your Twitter, I can go to Google. First of all, the first place I usually go is Google. Because I want to see if there's anything about you that's that's really out there, whether it's articles or things that I want to know some more personal things. And by the way, you don't even have to post a lot. I imagine what I can learn from LinkedIn, every other place you've worked at, yeah, where you went to college. These are our clues that give me the ability to show that I'm interested. So I'm reaching out and I send a note and I say, Hey, I LOVE Park City. I love no RSA. I love skiing while you live in Park City that shows that I looked at where you were living. I mean, if I mentioned like, you know, you know, going to the park with your kids looks so amazing. I'm so glad you posted that or asking those questions and then looking at that information. So I'll tell you another story. When I graduated college, my first job was in the investment business and my initial job in that was to get appointments to meet people face to face. And my dad was in sales most of his life. And he calls me up Dan, in my first week and he says So how'd it go? And so it went great. He goes, Did you get an appointment? I said, Yeah, he goes, When isn't I said next Thursday. He said what time I said 10 o'clock. He said, When are you going to get there? I said I don't know five to 10 He goes no, get there at nine o'clock. Now remember, this was 1980 Okay, there was no such thing as social media there. There was barely anything that you could find about people and she went to a library and looked it up on something called microfiche, which had old articles that were printed. He goes walk around the neighborhoods Do what restaurants are there, what the what the neighborhood looks like, go inside to the building, look up on the board and see what other companies are there, get to the office at least 15 to 20 minutes early and see if there's any way that the person you're meeting with assistant can let you into the office. So you can see, are there photos on the wall? Are there? Are there trophies on the desk? Are they are they a grandparent, a parent, a skier, a golfer, find points of emotional connection, because people love when you when you care about them, when you can make a comment about them when you don't necessarily say Oh, I see you have grandchildren. But you can say, wow, you know, I was with my grandparents the other day and they are like the light of my life. It's just gives you tools to be able to make that connection where as you're not just walking in the door, opening up your case and saying this is what I have to sell to you. So looking people in the eye digitally is kind of like I call it Dale Carnegie for the digital age. Dale Carnegie stressed one of his stressed connecting with people knowing something about them, right I write down I in here in my in my contacts, I will write down when we met where we met, on I'll put into my into my notes, the first email exchange we might have had, just so that I can have points. And when I meet people, I will quickly look back into my thing. And by the way, there's two ways to do this. You can do it if you're lucky, maybe on the side and someone doesn't notice. And you go wow, William, we met with David Breyer in 2018. And you know, whatever it happened to be, and then you go, Wow, I can't believe you remember that? Or you see me looking it up. Don't hide it. And you go, what are you doing? I said, I'm looking into my notes about you because you got notes about me. Yeah, we met here and we went here. And then I think he emailed me and you're like, you save that. That makes as much of an impression on that person as them thinking that you remembered without that, because you cared to take that time. And then they also look at and go, Wow, that's a great idea. Maybe I should do that. Now most people won't just like for birthdays when I personalize it. And I send a quote, and I send something about it. And if they respond to me, I respond how many people do you write something to, or they write to you, you respond back, and then you never hear back from them. So that's what looking people in the eye digitally, is it's taking that time to use the tools at your fingertips. I've been to business meetings, it freaks me out. I'm an advisor, I'm on a board. I'm doing consulting, I go to a meeting the sales guy, the first thing he says to the person we're meeting with is, so how long have you been here? And I want to like I want to hit my forehead and I want to smack them on the back of the head. You didn't go to link I mean, LinkedIn for God's sake. Like even take note of that like the way that should have happened. And not necessarily one of these two ways. But either the person has been there for 15 years, and you go, wow, well, you've been here for 15 years, I can really learn a lot from you about this company. Or way if you've only been here for a few months, what can we do to support you? Rather than How long have you been here? Like you didn't bother checking? That's the first thing it goes through my mind. You didn't care enough to check it out?

William Harris 23:08

Sure. Yeah, yeah, it shows a lack of care. And I'm going to call you out on this right now. You actually do send very personalized message on birthday, because I know I get one from you every year. And I'm like, Man, this guy is on it. Like, I think you send me a better message than maybe I even send my brother on his birthday. I'm like, This is really good message. So you, you live it.

Ted Rubin 23:30

I live in. It's something again, my dad told me. I always kept people's birthdays in a date book. Remember the ones who aren't, you might not remember the ones we used to write in. And, yeah, every Christmas week, we'd be off from work. And I would take my old date book and take my new one and go through every day and add the birthdays of the people that were in there. And, you know, that made me stand out back then. Because people didn't take the time to do that. Now, of course Facebook and LinkedIn alert everybody about everybody's birthday, if it's on your profile. So what do you do that's different. So I every year pick a special quote that I share with people, I personalize it. If I have a deeper relationship with that person than just someone I met once or twice, I'll make a comment in that note about something else. And then I started listening harder for other birthdays, the ones that aren't on your profiles. So I have a net now in here. I have anniversaries. I have children's but all my friends are all the people I've known if they had kids or grandkids while I knew them, and they announced it, I would add it to my date book. You know very often if you see me and we're out to dinner with some people and someone mentioned something like that, you'll see me if if if you're attuned to it and you watch me, you'll see me grab my phone, and I'll either if I don't have time to look up the person in my date book. I'll just send an email on myself. You know, we have Harris's daughter's birthday July 7 2014 Because now I put up my date book I reached out to them person and those connections are what kind of what returning relationship and looking people in the eye digitally is all about?

William Harris 25:06

Yeah, I want to take this and make this very practical for people that are listening then in the e-commerce space, right? Where it's like, okay, taking this making this digital, when you're talking about hundreds of 1000s of customers, it can sometimes feel daunting as far as well, how do I make that a reality versus just employing some kind of like, cheap text message or whatever that goes out. And one of the phrases that I've used that I think fits very well with something that you've talked about here, too, is there was a company that I said, I want to, I want to make sure that they became your local online retailer. And the reason why I said that is like, yeah, it's kind of going back to like old school. It's like, Oh, your local hardware store or your local, whatever store, it was, like, I want you to feel as if it's your local online retailer. So that way, when people reach out to you, they feel as if they're getting that personal connection that it's like you know them by name. Oh, Joe, Ted, Hey, come on in. Like I'm excited to see you check out what new I've got here for you. I know you like this. Just got a shipment of these in here. And I know you love these, right? So it's like, how can you make people feel as if they are welcome where they just came in to a place that loves them and recognizes who they are. That's the key. And there are very few people that I think do this exceptionally well. There's one that I'll call out here that I'm very impressed with whenever I ordered from them, which is Sweetwater so musician, I love ordering stuff from Sweetwater. And there's, you know, a special, basically, like, it's like my guy kind of thing there. And it's like, I order something and you know, I get a text message from him, not just from the company, right? He's Hey, so the order this, I want to let you know, we just got that shipped out for you. If you need any help getting it set up, let me know happy to set up a call basically, it makes sure you can get it into you know, greater with the rest of your, your stuff. And, and they mean that too. And so it's like sometimes I'll order something like boy, I'm struggling. It's like you know, Aaron? Alright, I need some help here. I'm John, I'm getting my settings, right. It's no problem. Let me walk you through this. And it feels like I'm talking to like my guy down at the store. Right. And I think that the idea here is it's like you talk about looking people in the eye digitally. This is a really great way to do this. If your store is not leveling up to that level, it's very easy for them to just start going to Amazon to buy your stuff. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to compete, it goes beyond just fast shipping good products that goes to how can you look your customers in the eye digitally. And that's one way that I think that you can level that up. That's not practical for everybody. But that's one way.

Ted Rubin 27:33

It's especially for specialty retailers who have something who have that opportunity. Because it is especially roadworthy sports does a good job with that. They know every sneaker I've bought that will mention it if I call them for some advice. You know, I call it retail coming full circle. So I love your point about your digital retailer becoming your local retailer. Because what I talk about is when when I was a kid, it was mostly local retailers, even the big department stores were fewer and far between. So you went into your local store it was Nemo is where we bought sneakers, and we bought hiking boots, and we bought outdoor gear. It was SWAT skis, where we bought our, our clothing and our back to school clothes, retailers come full circle, there was a time when that was expected. Your merchant knew you they made recommendations, they had to be very careful with those recommendations because you'd be back the next week to complain if it didn't work out. And either they would have to eat it by taking it back. Or they lose a customer or at the very least you might not shop there as much. And then the era of of being able to go incognito to major department stores came in and everybody kind of relished in that they could go nobody could see them. Nobody knew them. But people missed the personalization. And And again, there are even Amazon you might call that they are the big player, but they are the most personalized of all now they might not have that that deep personal relationship with you. But they know everything you bought, they've got a million people to solve your problems. They're incredibly good at solving those problems. So if you want to compete with them, and you are a specialty retailer, especially there is an opportunity, whether it's you're selling alcohol that might be special, not just mass marketed or music, musical equipment, or running shoes or so many others and then even all the rest. I mean, my business partner and I wrote a lot about this in retail relevancy, that simplicity is eDLP if you're not in the retail industry eDLP is everyday low pricing that was made famous by Walmart, which was you shouldn't be discounts. You should have good prices all the time. And we like to sit in the simplicity is that new thing? It's so important, but simplicity doesn't just mean in in and out quickly. It means simplicity in solving your problems. It means simplicity and finding information. It means simplicity. In canceling an order or changing it or, you know, there's a lot of great tools out there now because I see all these merchants that I buy from one is a company called hydrant that sells a electrolyte drink that you subscribe to, but they warn you a good week in advance when the next shift is coming. If you'd like to cancel, just click on the button and change your date. spindly delivers my vegan meals, same thing, they give you alerts, they let you know when it's on its way, they personalize in ways that they can do without necessarily knowing you that well. And then when it gets to the point of knowing you better, there are so many tools available now that there's really no excuse except for maybe a very beginning startup, which clearly you might not have the budget for it. But it's so important because again, like you said, it's what locks people into you. I mean, it's what's done it for Amazon for me, mainly because they make it easy for me and they solve my problems. And truth be told, they always have from the beginning, even when they were just a bookseller. And maybe all these tools weren't available to them. I guess, Jeff Bezos seemed to be obsessive about that. And granted, now it's a lot easier for them because they have unlimited budgets, and it's a little bit harder for others. But if they what you mentioned about your music retailer, here's a guy that does have that ability, because he knows this stuff, he can reach out to people, his business isn't millions and millions of customers. And if it is, my guess, is someone like him will bring in more people like him to be able to give that kind of service to his customers, which again, adds to raises the average order value, it raises frequency of purchase, and it raises lifetime value of a customer which are all big time all incredibly important and can be affected by looking people in the eye digitally by making things simple. by by by valuing return on relationship.

William Harris 31:53

Yep. Absolutely. And, and I'm glad that you brought up retail relevancy, because I wanted to get into that book a little bit as well. There's a couple of other things that you mentioned in there that I think go along with this. One of those you talked about me email instead of email, right? So like, what's, what's me male versus email?

Ted Rubin 32:13

Well, I find so many brands are creating terrible brand equity destruction, by banging people over the head with email. Email is one of the most vastly used retargeting formats. Again, same thing, online, it happens, but mostly via email or other type of text messaging. And they're killing people. It's one email after another. And what I like to say is they are not looking at the way it's affecting the customer experience, all they're looking at is the percentage raise in sales they create, they're not looking at the customers, they're losing all the people that are no longer buying, they look at the sale itself, for the most part, don't get me wrong. I'm generalizing, you have to do that, when you're talking about things like that. There are brands that do a better job of it. But for the most part, we get bang over the head with email. And I like to say make it mean mail. We all want something that's valuable to us, whether it's your newsletter, having valuable content, not just something pushing your products, whether your emails, again, advice about the product that they just bought something, asking them how they're how they're how their experience was, are you enjoying the product? Are there other products that maybe we can add to our product line that would make you happy? It makes me personalized, but not everyone thinks personalization now is including your name and an email. That's not personalization, that's basic email marketing, that anybody can do the you know, on Cheeta on on on any of the email applications that are available now, it's me mail means it's something important to me. It's a topic that's important to me, it's given me the opportunity to opt out of emails that I'm getting that aren't that actually let me unsubscribe, what brand actually let you unsubscribe anymore. It doesn't exist, you hit the unsubscribe button. It says, first of all, not not at a time to get a message that takes it takes us 60 to 90 days to get you out of our out of our chair. That's total bullshit. It takes three seconds takes less than three seconds. It's It's nothing. I mean, that's crap. That's because they want to email you for another 60 to 90 days hoping they can turn you around and you'll change your mind from unsubscribing. Second of all, even when they do take you out right away, they tend to add you back. I mean, you notice that right? You stop getting emails for a while, all of a sudden you're getting them again, because there's no organization that's overseeing that. So they think they're getting away with something but actually what they're doing is they're hurting their brand, and they're hurt and they're not looking at why is Chase still sending me advertisements. I've been a chase customer since 1981. They will count I've had every business account I've ever had where I was in control at Chase it my bet my business partner, John Andrews, who co wrote who's the primary author on the book talks about Bank of America doing the same thing for him how they targeted him with ads, and the dollars that are being wasted because they're just not paying attention to these things. Because it's mass email. It's it's numbers, it's can we get up by a fraction of a point? And what does that do? That's what retargeting is all about. And again, it has value, if used judiciously and appropriately. But in essence, I think so many brands are killing themselves with this. And then part of that goes to public companies and venture money, and having to make your quarterly numbers and not looking at the long term, but looking at the short term. And you know, that's kind of what it's all about. So me mail is about making it about me, and I will open it every damn time, make it about you. And it's way less likely that I'm going to do that.

William Harris 35:50

It reminds me of something that I talked to my team about often, which is romance our customers, when you think about it, so we do advertising, right for e-commerce brands, and you buy something from an e-commerce Store, and almost inevitably, the very first ad that you're going to see from that company, let's say, you know, the following day is an ad to buy something else. And the email that you're gonna get is, you know, hey, confirming it, and then you're gonna get an email to buy something else upsell, and then you're gonna get a text message to buy something else, right, just a romance, and that there's no developing that relationship with the customer. And so that's fine. On the short term, you'll absolutely increase some of those numbers that you're talking about. But in the long term, you haven't developed that relationship with that customer from a really, truly loyalty perspective. And so one of the things we talked about is like, how do you make them say, Wow, I definitely made the right decision in buying this product. This could be showing them a video of that product in use, and they go, oh, yeah, see, that's it. I love it. I love seeing the way that stuff. Or it could be an email talking about how, you know, thank you so much. We just donated this, or we just planted these trees, or we just did something like, it has nothing to do with buying again, it's just how do you and you would know if that matters to that person. But how do you start to develop that relationship and romance them as a customer, that's gonna have a much longer lasting effect in new talk about LTV, that's gonna make a bigger difference on your LTV, rather than just immediately asking them to buy again, right after they just bought Exactly. Something else you talked about that is ignoring omni channel instead omni present, what do you mean by ignore omni channel instead look at omni present.

Ted Rubin 37:28

Now if I did say ignore, I'm gonna correct that. Now what I really meant was, it's time to shift from omni channel to omni present, I just to be clear, because omni channel is important. I'm not saying ignore just like I don't say ignore ROI, it's incredibly important just add the ROI or factor the return relation factor to it. So when I'm saying about that is omni channel implies silos. It's right there. And our biggest problem in most of our companies is silos. I mean, I work with a company called Evergreen trading, their media trade company, they help company dispose of troubled assets at their book value instead of at the big losses they would take. And they trade it for media. And their biggest challenge is that they need to bring together a CFO or procurement person and a marketing person. And sometimes these people don't even know each other in the organizations. You know, so to me, what happens with omni channel is you think of them each as a separate channel, when they're not, they are all part of your process of either building brand awareness to your clients or, or getting them or embracing them as a customer. So when I say I'm the president, meaning make it so if I'm on this, if I'm on my laptop, if I'm in my car, whatever new technology comes out, however, AI is going to change our world or make it better. embrace that and make your products and everything available across make make it omnipresent. Make it something that you can get everywhere. Make it that you don't have to worry about where you buy it and where you return it because it's the same thing. And to me again, I will get a lot of people to send me well that's what omni channel really is. And I'm saying words are important. Yeah, when you when what happens with omni channel is again, I hear I still hear people talking about mobile. Everything's mobile. Why are we having a conference about mobile marketing? Why is there somebody standing on the stage talking about their mobile marketing initiatives? That creates a silo? Everything's mobile? For God's sake on laptops? I mean, look at the new Apple product now will

Unknown Speaker 39:34

it be people vision Pro

Ted Rubin 39:37

on the President I mean, let's bring it all together. Let's get rid of the silos let's get everybody working together. Let's make it one purchase not Where did you purchase?

William Harris 39:46

I like that. Yeah, I'm glad you called out the apple vision pro because I'm a big fan of VR and AR and Mr. And XR, whichever Are you want to call it but are on our right lots of hours in so I like where you're going where it's You know, what is mobile even mean anymore? In today's world, everything's mobile, your watches mobile, I mean everyday, there's so many mobile things now. And it's a matter of just how do we just unify all of that and like you said, omnipresent. The other thing that you said that I really liked too is, the only time you have 100% of your customers attention is when they're looking for customer service. Take me through that one, too.

Ted Rubin 40:23

So it's basically on the premise is that when someone wants something from you, you have 100% of their attention. If someone's trying to sell you something they are, they're at your beck and call, they are going to watch every movement you make, they're going to see what you do. If you work into A into A auto dealer, they're going to be watching you and looking for signs that you're ready for someone to talk to. So the story I like to tell is, I'm a divorced dad. And when my daughters were young, as we all know, sometimes it's hard to get your kids attention, especially when they're starting to get to the age where you feel like you need to give them advice. That's important. No, it's not that simple advice, but the advice about how to fix a tire or, you know, not to take a ride home for someone that was drinking, or whatever it happens to be. And I like to say that when my daughter's wanted money, was the best time to communicate with them when that hand is out. That That child is listening to every single word that comes out of your mouth, waiting to hear if they're getting money, and if they are how much. So to me as a dad, that was my best time to market to my daughters. That's what I knew they will listen it. Okay, honey, I'd really love to talk about this. But this, I want to make sure when you go out tonight, if anything happens, don't go home with someone that was drinking, call me if you need anything, I'll be happy to pick you up. You know, again, this was before Omu days, and and all the other kinds of advice we want to give our kids whether it's listen in school, or pay attention and make sure you get your homework done on time. And you know, I'm exaggerating a little bit here. But the point is, they want it the minute you put that money in their hand, hands closed, they're gone. Yeah. So I liken this to customer service when a customer has a problem. And listen, let's not limit customer service to the customer service call Customer Services, when someone's in your store customer services when someone's checking out customer service is on digital when someone is deciding between something and maybe you know that there's a text application or some way you can communicate with them. When they're in that decision making mode and they have questions or they're having a problem with the product and they want to return it or they want to figure out how to get it fixed. You've got them. So there's two types of marketing that go on now. There's your brand and your reputation marking. So I like to say that a brand is what a business or a person does. Our reputation is is what people are repping reputations when people share is when people remembering share I'm sorry, a brand is what you do. Reputation is where people remember and share. So where does brand and reputation come in? They took my call, they were quick to get back to me. They got me answers, I needed that brand and reputation. Then the other side of it is you've got their attention. Now you can talk about things to them. How is your by the way, you know, I'm looking this up, it's gonna take a moment to come up to know how was your brand experience? Did you get what you needed? Is there any other questions you have, this is a time to connect with them, not to connect with them, and waste their time. But to connect with them, and let them know that you're concerned and you care. So and again, the best time for that is when they need customer service, you have 100% of their attention. Don't miss that opportunity. Take that opportunity to build your brand and to build your relationship with the customer.

William Harris 43:37

That's huge. Yeah. And we've all had those moments where customer service turned into the exact thing that you don't want it to be where you're like I have absolutely, I had little faith in this brand before and now I have even less faith. And so if you had 100% of my attention, and you gave me the absolute worst you possibly could at that moment, did you cement it, you're your own fate in that?

Ted Rubin 43:57

Well, and a big part of that is is having the right tools available to your people, whether it's again, your people that are facing your customer on the store, the people that are communicating people through apps on the on the on the digital e-commerce sites, and the people that are in customer service, whether it's digitally via text via messaging, or on the phone, giving them the tools to solve the problem, whether it's access to people that can give them answers, whether it's allowing them the ability to make decisions. I mean, that's so important. One of the reasons I was caught as one of the best brands in the world is they give every single employee that faces a customer and open to buy to solve a customer's problem. Now obviously that open to buy goes up as a person goes up in authority or in their ability to work with customers. Granted, your general manager has the most but even even a person cleaning your room has the ability to make a decision to do something to help you and then what Rich does it so amazingly they they don't just allow it to happen. They analyze it they look at they work with the people that give away to Too much they work with the people that don't give away enough. You know, there's something to be said for both of those things. If you're not, if you're not using some of that that ability to solve problems, then the odds are you're probably just saying no, instead of utilizing it. So this is this, to me is what is what's so important.

William Harris 45:19

I love it. I we're getting closer towards the end. And so I want to shift into the who is Ted Rubin a little bit. And I want to start by asking about your shirt. Let's ripple. What does this mean?

Ted Rubin 45:30

You know, it's funny, I've been sitting here, holding back from mentioned anything, because I literally just said in my head, I'm going to wait till the end and see if William mentions it. If he does it. Now bring it up. So let's ripple is around the concept that every action creates a ripple effect. Think of throwing a stone in the pond, even if it's just during the middle or skimming it. And then the the circles of movement of water that come out from it. So the concept is start a ripple and make a difference. Every action we take. We're rippling right now I come on your show, you create content for your audience, it helps you and helps your audience, it helps me because it creates content for me to share, because I will take this and I will first of all listen to it. Because I find that on all of these and we spoke about this briefly when we got together before the event about a week ago that I love when I'm asked questions that I'm not prepared for because I come up with ideas that I want to extend upon. So you know, my buddy Steve Harper, is a guy like you that I knew for many years online before I met him face to face. And either I was in I was in Austin and he wasn't there or things didn't happen. Steve is a local entrepreneur, Austin, he owns a number of software companies mostly smaller, locally targeted like school districts, things like that, that he does locally and he started talking about he loves to say it's like return a relationship about how when you do things for people that affects you like I you know, same thing we all say I like to say do for others, without an expectation of anything directly in return. It will always come back to you in one way or another it has to do with brand it has to do with a network gives you reach and a community gives you power networks connect communities can return relationship be good to people. I love adopting. So I some of my own return relationship is my own. This dad won't quit is my own. I love to adopt other people's thanks. So you've seen me with be good to people. So I'm always wearing a bracelet, you see no letter, which is become part of my life mantra, which came from a buddy of mine named Tony Luisi. These people either come to me and asked me to embrace their concepts, or I discovered them and I reached out to them. So Steve had been back and forth with me forever. He finally got me on his podcast about six or seven months and months ago, I was heading to Austin, thank goodness this year, he was there during South by Southwest. We got together, he shared his T shirts with me. I love it. I've got I've got hat says ripple on. Because here's another part of it. It's not just adopting people's things and sharing it because they relate to what you believe in. It's when you wear a t shirt with a message. Exactly what just happened here happens and it happens on a regular basis. So I didn't necessarily need to engage you. That's what this talk is all about. But when I'm at events, when I'm on the street, people will come up to me and say so what's let's ripple and it creates that opening for people to converse with you. We all say go to events network, get to know people. It's not easy walking up to people cold by the way people think of me as an extrovert. I am not. I'm an introvert. I hate walking into a room where I don't want people to start conversations. So what do I do I gain the system by wearing things or having a message you know, I bought my socks, I wear socks and I have to take Saki so a lot of people will recognize me will say hey man, show me your socks. That's an easy way to start a conversation with me without having to say, Hi, Ted, what are you doing now? Or are you Ted Rubin or something which is uncomfortable for people. And for me, it gets people to walk right up to me. And now I have the ability to say, Hey, William, what do you do? Oh, I see you're with you know, Elumynt. What does Elumynt do? Maybe there's an opportunity for us to work together. So that's kind of what it's all about. And let's Ribble just embraces that completely, because that's what it's all about.

William Harris 49:22

I love everything you said. In the last ripple idea. It reminds me a lot of actually our our mission statement at Elumynt, which is amplified joy through profitable business growth. And it kind of came to us with this idea of if you've ever been in a car and somebody honks their horn at you what happened? You're angry, right? You don't even know if they necessarily honk their horn at you but you're angry because you think maybe they just taunted me and you're like, I'm going as fast as the guy in front of me, right? Like get off my case. And you almost inevitably want to be a little bit aggressive towards the next person that you run into as well. It's a very, you know, it ripples in a negative way. But the opposite is also true joy ripple as well. And so, you know if we can say, well, sure, profitable business growth, that's mostly what we're focused on, that's like what we do. That's the core of what we're doing. But that might not always happen. There are going to be days, weeks, months, where economies down or whatever happens, and they don't grow, how can we still amplify the joy of working with us? And that can be through just did we do we said we were going to do when we talk to you, do we talk to you, like you're a human being? Or do we talk to you, like you're a robot and just expect things out of, and so, you know, having these conversations of ours? How do we amplify that joy, and if we amplify, let's say, Joy towards one of our customers, well, they're going to take that to the rest of their team, they're, you know, because that joy, you want to spread that as well. And then they're going to take that home to them with their kids, and then their kids are gonna want to take that to their school. And this just amplifies very much. And so it's very simple way of just simply making sure that our whole team is thinking through, is that interaction, is that going to amplify joy or not? If it's not, maybe we need to consider whether or not we do it. I love that. I also wanted to ask you about, Okay, what about your childhood? Is there? Is there something growing up that led to you being the guy that you are somebody who says, I'm not gonna let up? Somebody that says, I believe in the value of return on relationship? You know, you talked about your mom and dad a little bit, but it's like, is there something that they instilled in you as a young age? Or where did this come from?

Ted Rubin 51:23

Well, that's a that's a great question. And it's funny, you bring that up, because there's absolutely a number of people in my life but you know, first and foremost, it was my folks. My parents were very much about being good to people and they didn't tolerate, you know, negativity in that way. They face their own challenges. They were both depression era kids. My dad's father died at the age of 47. He had to leave the house at 16 when his dad was still alive. So I found this out after he passed away. I never understood this. My dad worked up in the Catskills when he was 16. And I always thought it was a summer job because that's the world we live in. And those were our mindset comes. And then after he died, I had lunch with my uncle who explained No, your dad moved out because there wasn't room for him in the apartment anymore because we had this much younger brother who had been sleeping in my parents room, and he needed to send money home. So my dad just taught me about doing for others my dad was the guy that pulled over on the road and took garbage cans from that with that would have been blown off of people's front walks and put them back he was the one that made me before went out shoveling walks to make money I had to do my house and and my neighbor's turns, who the ones that didn't have a kids like me that could do it. I am now the guy that stops in the middle of the road when there's something I'll cone laying there and it's blocking traffic. And I'll stop my car, put on my flashers jumped out, tell people to stop pull the thing out of the way get back on my car. So that was a big thing. Went my mom, as I told you taught me to pay attention to people look at people she was an educator. Mom, you will right? I didn't work hard enough in college. I should have worked harder. I'll tell you that. Now. I hope you're listening. You know, but the person that really instilled the most about no letup in my life was my junior high in high school wrestling coach, Ira guy who him and his wife Roz are like second parents to me have been my entire life. I visit them every year. I will be visiting them in July when I drive north for a couple of months. For the summer from Florida. They live in Virginia. Now they live in Pine, Arizona, people that follow me are always seeing me post about them whenever I visit. He was just an amazing coach. And I was fortunate to have him all through junior high and into high school he moved up became the high school coach. He taught us about respect. He taught us about never giving up he was the kind of coach that didn't believe in necessarily having the most winning team. It was more about everybody getting an opportunity to participate. So if you were a junior, and there was a senior that you were better than he got to wrestle half the season in the starting matches because it was about experience. This is high school. This isn't pro sports. It's not college. He was building men. And you know, he built me I mean, he taught me about I wash there's I have something that I post I use a hashtag what you can when you can WNYC WNYC, which I got from two fitness bloggers, Ronny noon, and Colin bernburg, who wrote a book about it, about how you don't have to go to the gym to work out you can walk walking cars far from the gym as possible. And how many people do you see circling the parking lot of the gym, and then they go on to run five miles they couldn't just park their car and walk up in their person while they can't find the spot. My coach told me to take the stairs whenever you can to walk to stairs at a time. His line was if you take the stairs two steps at a time you'll be in shape for the rest of the real life when I worked in Manhattan. Anytime I worked in an office where I was not above the fifth floor I walked the stairs I didn't take the elevator and he was just about doing for he was about doing for others we he taught us teamwork we this was back when you could workout in the coach's basement and he'd have us over his house and we'd, when we couldn't wrestle the gym, we'd wrestle there we, we built the fence and the walkways in his home. It wasn't child labor, it was taking teammates and teaching them how to work together over something that wasn't necessarily fun. Like the Sport Plus, we were wrestlers. So team was a little different concept than being on a soccer field or, or relying on somebody, you still had scores for a whole team, but you didn't have someone to fill in for you or to sub for you. And, and he's been a part of my life forever. He's 81 years old, he is nonstop. He's, he's, he's the reason I'm vegan. A lot of people know I've been vegan since 2016. That's because of him. It's something he discovered when he had issues with his health, even though he looked like he was in amazing shape. So thank you, Ira. Thank you, Ross. His wife has been as much a part of it as he has, because they were always an amazing team. And still, I love

William Harris 55:55

that. I had to laugh when you talked about parking far away. My daughter has given me tease me about how far I Parkway, I'll find whatever the first parking spot is. That's where I pulled on. There's like, there's like 30 more parking spots there Dad, like what are you doing? Right? So then the one time I parked is absolutely far away. There was no cars even remotely close to us. Just have a little fun with them. I wanted to ask one more. What's that? How old are you girls? 1310 and seven. Oh, awesome.

Ted Rubin 56:24

So that that's got to be a lot of fun. You know, you get from them. And but you know, like I look I talk about skipping and how we how you can never be unhappy. And whenever I learned this, when my daughters would fight, I take him by the hand and skip and it would all stop. And now I try to teach companies that if you can make your vendors, your partners, your employees, your family members, metaphorically skip with every interaction, you win. And that's just a great opportunity to like I would park farther away just so I'd have more time with them. Because my time Our time is limited whether you're a divorced data or not. You go to work, you have other obligations. You got to suck that time up, buddy, because it's going to pass and they're going to be older and you're gonna miss it.

William Harris 57:05

I already feel it's it goes by way too fast. I wanted to ask you one more. I know that we're over time. Are you okay to go over a little bit longer?

Ted Rubin 57:14

I can go a little bit longer. Sure. As long as you're bored and clicking out already?

William Harris 57:18

Well, no, I hope they're not. I wanted to ask you, you because you talked about Seth Godin, you said there was an interesting story there. And I actually haven't heard this story before. So about how you met him or something like that, right?

Ted Rubin 57:33

So it was kind of a fun story. I'm coming up to New York. It's 2000. And I'm sorry, it's 1997. You know, the internet. And encoding was kind of a new thing. I mean, at least new to the world, obviously not new in general. But it was on people that heard about and like the internet and started this thing with people like oh my god, there's these guys. They're always on the computer. And they're something so I'm getting ready to come up. I tell a few people that like, oh, man, be careful because those coders are really weird. So just keep your distance from them. So I by the way, again, this is early, there's no social media. I'd never seen a photo of Seth. So I didn't even know what he looked like. I did research him but the books I found didn't have his pictures on them. And I come up to New York and I go to Irvington, there's this big cabinet office that's right next to the train station, and I go inside, and I go up to the front desk. And right away, I see this really weird guy walk by. And he's bald, and he's got big glasses. And he's wearing a turtleneck sweater that goes from his neck down to his ankles, and he's got flip flops on and is December and freezing out. Okay? And I'm like, oh, it's one of those coders, man, I got. People were right. So I mean, I need to date this guy, David Simon, who at the time was running all their sales I have to me, we go into the conference room. And we're talking and we're going back and forth, and we're hitting it off. And he's like, wow, you know, you are just what we need, but we've got I want you to meet somebody and he didn't say I want you to meet said he just said I want you to meet somebody. Again, I was not quite used to the startup environment where you know, it kind of goes from that guy, right to the founder doesn't necessarily go to all these levels. And I and some of the other companies I interviewed with when I was up there again, what level so I'm sitting on my back is to the door. And if your audience knows, you know, Seth is bald, and like me, and all of a sudden, I don't hear the door open and I feel a hand on my head going all day. Now, I'm a New Yorker. I was living in Florida time but you know, you know how we are named my niches. Like I'm ready to turn around this guy. And I turn around and it's the weird corner guy. Something in me something in his eyes just made me hold back. You know, and of course part of it might have been I'm on an interview. Don't be an ad. You know what's happening. So I go, I turn around, I go, Oh, hi. And you go Seth Godin. Nice to meet you. It was Seth with the tone and character, his ankles and the flip flops. And, you know, and the fun of the story is that again, if I had overreacted, it probably would have been the end of the conversation. Meanwhile, he ended up hiring me on the spot. The thing was, I was like, I needed more money than they had, it wasn't nearly what these jobs pay. Now, it was nothing. But they made an accommodation to figure out how they can make it work for me that I can move up with my family. And they were not a heavily financed startup with just unlimited funds to move people. But yeah, we worked out something where I got some advances on commissions, etc, etc. But the funny story is that that crazy coder guy, and by the way, Seth is not a coder, but it was just, it has to do with the stories you hear. And these images that people give us, and then holding back and realizing it's better to be nice to someone regardless of what they're doing than the other way around. And I would have to say that a big part of that is responsible for you know, what I've learned and what I've done since and everything else since

William Harris 1:01:15

I like, yes, that is wild. If people wanted to work with you, if they wanted to reach out, connect with you follow you read your books, what's the best way for them to just stay in touch and keep keep in touch with you?

Ted Rubin 1:01:28

Well, the easiest way to be directly in touch with me is to email or call me my email address is tedrubin@gmail.com. My phone number is 516-270-5511. My my voicemail is not full. So if I don't answer you can actually leave me a voicemail and I will call you back I answer my phone. If I'm available. Email is the best medium for me for follow up, feel free to text me if it's immediate. Google, Ted Rubin, the first 15 or 20 pages is a lot of my life. Building SEO for yourself really does have value because it's easy to find me. I'm Ted Rubin on every social media platform, connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, those are the ones Instagram that I use most, I have a tick tock account, I publish on it periodically. I'm not real active there. But I will give you one last piece of advice related to this part of the conversation. Connect with people the way that's best for them. If it's if you want the one that has interest in connecting. And this really goes to sales people don't insist on emailing me if I say text is best don't insist on texting me if I say email is best when this happens with me most is people message me on LinkedIn or Facebook. And I am very upfront, I say this is great. I'm so glad to connect with you. But the best way to communicate with me going forward, if you're really looking for follow up is email, the most immediate is text. And they keep messaging me on LinkedIn and want to know why I haven't responded in a timely manner, or something like that. You know, and I learned this again, back to stories about my daughters that were honest about my daughters, because I'm like all dads, it's tough to communicate with your kids these days. And we all want them to pick up the phone or maybe less of us now than when then 20 years ago when it was for me. But as the divorce data was even more critical. I didn't see my daughter's I only got them every other weekend every Wednesday night. So what I would call them and what we I made this happen everyone who you call your kids, and you get a text back that says what? With an escalation. Okay, yeah, that's their way of telling you that they don't want to communicate by phone, that they're available, but they're not going to pick up. So you know, learn to communicate with them the way they want. So there was a point where I was communicating with one of my daughters via Snapchat, because it was the only medium that she listened to. And he really goes in the business world and with friends if you want to stay close to people communicate the way they want to, and if you are the person, communicate to people how best to communicate with you. And then the last thing I'd like to close with, which basically wraps this all up is that relationships are like muscle tissue. The more you engage them, the stronger and more valuable they become.

William Harris 1:04:14

That's beautiful, Ted, I can't thank you enough for the incredible wisdom in the time that you gave us here today. Thanks for coming on.

Ted Rubin 1:04:20

My pleasure. And William, a lot of is because of you. I don't say yes to everybody. And I enjoy it. Enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed it with you. So let's do this again.

William Harris 1:04:30

I bought that. Thank you everybody else for listening in. Have a great day.

Outro 1:04:34

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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