How To Choose The Best Digital Marketing Channel with Internet Millionaire Dan Lok

(audience clapping) (woman speaks indistinctly) – Hi everyone, my name is Clio. I’m the founder of Booje Media, we’re a digital marketing agency, our office is in Gastown, and we do everything from content creation, to social media, digital marketing, and account management. – I follow you on Instagram, I’ve always wanted to meet you. (laughs) – All the way back. – My name is Dan Lok, and and I’m a serial entrepreneur, I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life, mainly because I’m unemployable.

(audience laughs) How many of you are unemployable? And I believe entrepreneurship, it’s basically a life sentence. You can’t go back. So I’ve only had one job in my entire life, and I make my living growing companies, building companies, turning around companies. We currently have a portfolio of 21 companies.

In my spare time my passion is I like teaching, I teach entrepreneurs through my books, through my Vancouver Entrepreneurs group.

In fact, how many of you are from my group here? Put up your hand. Raise them high. Okay.

And also through my podcast, Shoulders of Titans. – That’s fabulous. So I’ll start off with one of the questions that was most asked by (mumbles) community, which is what channels should businesses be on when it comes to social media? – So, yeah I definitely get that question a lot, and I think it really depends on your business, and really focusing on who is your audience. When you’re on different channels, it’s knowing what those channels’ purposes are, because you usually do have different audience, and they’re also looking for different content.

So do your research in terms of where your audience is spending time.

And then a lot of it as well is, like especially when you’re getting started and you’re putting your strategy together, is just understanding and knowing that it’s gonna take you know, three or four months of test and learn, and really put up different content out there that you think’s gonna resonate with your audience, and see where you’re getting the most traction and engagement back. – I totally agree. It’s like someone, if you walk up to me and ask me a question, “Well, Dan, which restaurant “is the best in Vancouver?” Well, it depends on what kind of food you like, you like Japanese food, you like Greek food, you like Asian food.

So I think before we talk about which digital channel you should focus on, go back to who is your ideal client, where are they, what channel are they using, and also how you are doing it. Because sometimes I hear people, they say, “Oh yeah, Facebook is great, and I do Facebook, “and how come it works for some people “and it doesn’t work for the others?” Very often the strategy is off. So that plays a factor as well.

But I think it’s knowing your audience.

If you’re selling B to B, maybe it’s more folks on LinkedIn. If you’re selling B to C, then maybe it’s Facebook. If you’re selling more to the female market, you know, skin care or cosmetics, then maybe it’s Instagram. And you’ve got a you know, face for radio, then YouTube is not so great, right? (audience laughs) So if you’re comfortable in front of camera, then yeah, YouTube is great.

If you’ve got a good interviewer, then maybe iTunes and podcast is great. So I think it depends. – So just um…

– And I just want to add too. I think it’s like realizing that the space is changing so much. I think a big thing too that has happened in the last couple of years, is a lot of these channels are becoming a pay to play channel.

So it’s also being realistic and knowing what’s my budget for this next year, and how many people do I want to target, and doing your research on which channels. I wouldn’t recommend being on Facebook anymore if you don’t have a budget to boost your posts, ’cause you’re not gonna get a reach.

So it’s also having a look at that, and which channels are changing that. Instagram now is you know, no one’s advertising. That’s definitely gonna change your strategy within the next year, so also evaluating that.

– So for the companies are represented tonight, how many are on Facebook? Okay, and Instagram?

So not many on Instagram. Twitter? LinkedIn? So most actually on LinkedIn. Okay, and so what about a question from the audience?

Yes. – [Woman] I’m pretty loud. – Yeah, perfect. – So I was wondering for people that want to self-brand themselves, what would be a good niche (speaks indistinctly) Would you suggest YouTube, or like, people who just want to be branding themselves, they have like some information flyers or some sort of value offer, (speaks indistinctly) – Okay, I think I will, may not be a popular answer here, but I think now so many startup entrepreneurs, they worry so much about personal branding. It’s like how I brand myself, what’s my identity, and all this shit.

(audience laughs) I mean it’s like the first 10 years of my career, I did not focus on branding myself. I was just hustling and executing and working my ass off. So it’s like a 22-year-old guy walking up to me, “I want to brand myself, Dan”. Brand yourself of what? You’re not an expert on nothing.

Like I don’t get it. So I think for most entrepreneurs that are starting out, let’s focus on, let’s have some substance, let’s have some substance first. Then you have the reputation, then you go on and brand yourself. I won’t be able to use, I like YouTube, I like podcasts, it just happens to be the two that I like, and if it’s my personality. And Facebook is nice too, as well.

But regardless of whatever channel, I think for most entrepreneurs we need to focus on one or two. ‘Cause every week, you got something else, it’s Periscope, it’s this, the flavor of the month, and you jump on one, as you’re working, it’s like you’re cooking this meal, and you’re like, well it’s not quite done, let’s turn on the stove and cook this meal, and then cook on this meal, and you’ve got 10 things cooking, none of them are done.

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Instead of just having one. Any one of them will work. If you master Facebook, it’ll work.

If you focus on YouTube, it will work. But I think most people don’t give enough time, that they’re, “Oh I post three videos. “How come I don’t have a million views?” Like, Jesus, right? I mean come on, right?

How about post 100 videos, how about 200 videos? You look at a lot of YouTubers, they’ve been around like wow, one, two, three years, and suddenly one year, overnight success! But it’s actually been working in two, three years.

– Yes, I like that. And I mean, to add to that too, the game is being really clear on what your brand’s gonna be.

I’ve worked with a lot of individuals that are really trying to get their brand out there and I think the biggest thing is like, what do you want to represent? Like, two words that you want your brand to represent, and then think about what kind of content you’re going to be putting out, is gonna be almost even more important in terms of how to get out there right off the bat. And then another thing too is like, something that I think works really well and I’ve seen work really well is, once you’ve kinda worked on the content and you’re building an audience, try to find other people in the community that have the same like brand representation as you, and kind of working off each other and doing a lot of collaboration, looking at other people in the space and industry that have a good reputation, and see how you both can work off of each other.

– I love that point. I was just um (mumbles) We have a new Director of Community at Change here, and she came from Leedergram and Hootsuite was a big part of building Hootsuite’s community before that.

Dustin Jones, she’s amazing. But one of the points that she was making is exactly that if you have a business partner that you’re working really closely with, do a collaboration, do a takeover. If you’re not on Instagram, ask them for that Instagram takeover. If you’re working with somebody on an upcoming event, how can you get exposure on a new social channel and test that out, and I think what you were both saying is really listening to your community. So does your community respond, are they engaging with you on that new channel before moving forward, and yeah, I think that’s excellent, yeah.

– I think in fact if you go to some of your close friends, regardless of your brand, you have a personal brand, everybody does. You can go to your closest friends, and you ask them, “Well, you know, “give me the top three five words, “how you would describe me?” And they will give you like two, three, five words.

Well that’s your personal brand right now. And if you actually go through that exercise, you may not like the answers, ’cause you might have a perception of you a certain way and they think of you a different way.

That is your personal brand. And I might just want to add one more thing. When it comes to social media, most entrepreneurs they focus on too much, everybody’s talking about engagement and shares and likes and viral explosion, and whatever the shit that is.

To me, the problem is, you can’t go to the bank and deposit those things. So results rule when it comes to social media.

Nobody talks about return on investment, and nobody talks about ROTI, return on time investment. So yeah, Facebook can be positive and you can pose as this or that, but if you spend three hours on it, and then you spend weeks on it, and you haven’t got any return, any clients, then something is wrong. So I think for entrepreneurs, we gotta focus on the profit. How is this helping your company? Not revenue, profit.

Is this working? If it doesn’t, do I have tweak something, is it the strategy, am I focused on the right thing? But you have to focus on just profit.

Don’t believe in the, I mean I think 95% of these social media experts and companies, except Social Bites, except Social Bites. I think most of them, you know, it’s crap.

– Lots of hot topics here. Um, somebody else from the audience? Yes, please. – [Woman] This event is called Creating Genius. – Yes.

– How do you just uncover the genius or the giant inside of you? – Okay, so the question was, this event is called Creating Genius, and how do you discover the genius, giant inside of you? (audience laughs) – Good question, good question. I feel like I’m still looking for that. I think for me, my focus and it’s just like especially this industry really challenges you in terms of like, it moves so fast.

It’s humbling and you always feel like you can’t catch up. So I think it’s just like really learning as much as you can all the time, surrounding yourself with people that I get inspired by.

And I think my team too, coming up with ideas together, and where I feel like you have a genius moment, is when you see results, and you can share that with your team, your clients. But yeah, genius not yet. (interviewer laughs) – That’s a very Tony Robbins question.

I think, I believe every single person is a genius.

We might not start off as a genius, but we all have talents and potentials within us. I would suggest, not so much focus on the genius, but it would be…

Here’s what I believe. All knowledge, ultimately leads to self knowledge. Understanding yourself. Aware of your strengths and weaknesses. So as a person, if early on you can self reflect, and you find out what your gift, what your strength is, and you focus on that.

Don’t buy into the whole notion, what are your weaknesses, and da da da da, don’t believe in that. I believe if you spend your life working on your weaknesses, at the end of your life, you have a lot of strong weaknesses.

(man laughs) Yes? So I’m only good at two or three things, and outside of that, I’m an idiot. (audience laughs) (woman speaks indistinctly) Making money.

Yes, making money. I can’t change a light bulb. I can’t cook. I just, it’s not what I do, right? I’m a very good teacher.

I’m a very good speaker, communicator. Those are the two, three things. So I spend 90% of my time focusing on that. Thank you, thank you. Maybe that’s a side project, comedian.

But that’s all I do, and everything else I don’t do. I delegate other people in my life, because I don’t believe, and here’s a question you can ponder.

Do you believe that you have a better chance of going to heaven if you spend your life doing shit that you don’t like? Okay, but when the society somehow, you’re supposed to do that, you’re supposed to you know, wash your own dishes, and mow your own lawn. As an entrepreneur, if you do those type of what call minimum wage work, you can never build a company, there’s just no way.

– Yeah, we have one more in the front here. – [Man] This question is, how do your train your team (speaks indistinctly) – How do you train your team to… – [Man] To have the mindset of an entrepreneur.

– How do you train your team to have the mindset of an entrepreneur? – They will never have the mindset of entrepreneur. If they do, they won’t be working for you.

(audience laughs) They just won’t. Employees are employees are employees.

It’s like I say, I use the analogy, is like, you want them to have the ownership mentality, they will never have the ownership mentality. ‘Cause if they do they will start their own thing, they won’t be working for you. So forget that. It’s like, here’s analogy.

It’s like you want.

.. How many have you been to Disney World? You know, there’s the animal kingdom. It’s like, when you expect the employee to have that ownership mentality, it’s like you expect the zebras in the animal kingdom to care about the front gate ticket sales.

It’s the last thing that’s on their mind. It’s the first thing that we think about, are we making profit today, as entrepreneur. It’s the last thing on their mind. The zebra is thinking about am I gonna be eaten alive? Am I gonna get food?

They’re not thinking about that.

If you own a retail store, it closes at 6 p.m., it’s 5:55, a customer walks in, you’re like, “Yeah, that’s awesome! “Can’t wait, another customer!

” Your employees like, “Shit!” (audience laughs) “It’s 5:55, my God, can we not do this customer? “‘Cause like I kind of have to meet my friend after, “like, 6:15 at Apple Beans before “my chicken wing gets cold”. That’s how they think, so. – So one of the terms for this is an intrapreneur.

So it’s the idea of an entrepreneurial person being inside of an organization. And Clio, what do you think? – So I have had employees go on and start their own business, and I think that it’s obviously it’s a bittersweet thing because they have the qualities that you look for, they’re self starters, they’re motivated, they do say it later because they truly care.

So I think Blue Lemon’s a really good example, like they really empower their employees to look at what they really care about, and you know they’re very open about the fact that Blue Lemon might not be your full career, but we’re here to help you find it, and a lot of people do go on and start their own businesses. So I think if you really want that, it’s knowing what qualities to look for when you’re hiring, but also knowing that they will potentially move on and start their own thing, but I think what you can do is either support them and show them a good work environment, and yeah.

– Okay, I have one last question here, which is, what is the largest mistake you’ve seen a company, a brand make on social media? (man speaks indistinctly) (audience laughs) – I think that would be what I just mentioned that, don’t buy into the whole notion that it’s engagement, it’s shares, it’s all these things. Everything has to be measurable. Everything has to be trackable, that you know, that if you can spend time, are you getting a return, if you spend money, am I getting a return? I would say one of the largest mistakes, here’s a good one.

Social media is not free. It is not free.

People think it, it is not free. Either costs us time, effort or money. And most companies, the largest mistake, I think they go with the mentality of because it’s free then they don’t want to spend money.

I go into, let’s say Facebook, my goal is not to spend the least amount of money, and get the most results. That’s not my goal. That’s 95% of entrepreneurs, that won’t change. My goal is to have a conversion process that works, so every dollar I put in there, I’m getting a dollar 50 cents, two dollars back. So how many of you if I give you a dollar, no if you give me a dollar, and I give you two dollars, for every dollar you give me, then I give you two dollars, how many of you would do that all day long?

It’s the same.

So I want to have a conversion process that works, and now then my goal is not to spend the least, my goal is to spend the most. If my competitor is spending, whatever 2,000 a month, I want my matrix to work then I can spend 4,000. I want to spend 5,000. I want to spend 10,000 on it.

Because my conversion is working. So then I can outspend them. If you’re running two ads, I can run five ads. Because my sales process works. So my goal is to go in there and dominate.

I don’t want competition.

Competition’s for losers. Don’t compete. Go in to dominate. I want to be able, to outspend every single damn competitor that I have, then that’s how you win a game, ’cause then you get most traffic, you get most of the customers, you can resell them, that’s my attitude.

That’s just what I think. – I feel like we have very different views (laughs) (audience laughs) But I love it, I love it. I see social media as a kind of little bit long term investment, but then you know you get results. I think that like the biggest mistake that I see sometimes is completely promotional content, and when it’s just all promotional content, and not mixing up your content enough, where you have things like community content or things that are gonna give back in terms of lifestyle, or whatever it is, the brand that you’re promoting.

And especially now too, Facebook has changed its policies and if it’s very promotional driven, and a lot of people don’t know that, Facebook is actually not really pushing out the message, or very little.

So just knowing that, and knowing it’s like, give value-added content. – Okay, well thank you so much, Dan and Clio for joining us. (audience applauds).

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