The Solopreneur's Guide

Interview with Greg Digneo

Last year, I did a series of interviews with solopreneurs to help you understand what others like you went through when launching their businesses. I did an interview with Greg Digneo, author and marketing consultant of MoreCaffeinePlease.com.

With the start of the new year, I wanted to find out what’s new with some of our solopreneur friends. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be catching up with the people previously interviewed. First up is a chat with Greg.

 

TSG:     Happy New Year, Greg. Did you have any big business revelations starting the new decade?

GD:     Happy New Year, Doug. I don’t know how big of a revelation it is, but I think that business in the US is moving full circle. What I mean by that is 80 years ago, a business owner opened something like a cheese store, and everyone in the neighborhood would buy cheese from him. He also knew the residents in the neighborhood, and engaged in friendly conversation with the residents as they were buying his products.

Then television kind of changed all of that. Not that the neighborhood business owner went away, but he sort of went out of fashion. Entrepreneurs wanted to build brands and use mass distribution to market their products. Engaging with customers became almost obsolete. Think about it, how many times have you spoken to the folks at General Mills or Proctor and Gamble?

Today, I see the neighborhood mentality coming back. Business owners are specializing in a specific niche (like cheese), however they are no longer limited geographically. And they are engaging their customer base with alarming efficiency. I don’t think mass marketing will go away, but consumers are demanding more. 

 

TSG:     So what’s been happening with your blog, MoreCaffeinePlease.com and your marketing business since we chatted last May?

GD:        More Caffeine Please was originally a one person marketing consulting business. It also allows me to share my ideas and engage with the small business community. But, around November, I decided I was ready to grow from a one person consulting firm into something a little bit bigger. The blog still exists; my business is becoming a little bit more organized. 

 

TSG:     What inspired you to launch Cloud Marketing Labs?

GD:     The reason that I wanted to launch Cloud Marketing Labs was to create an organization and change the business model. When the business was More Caffeine Please, it was just me doing individual projects for small businesses – i.e. writing a landing page or a sales letter. The down side to this is that I had very limited capabilities.

You can think of Cloud Marketing Labs as an outsourced marketing department. Instead of doing individual projects, we are hired on a monthly retainer where we build and execute a full marketing plan. Marketing isn’t just about design, or technology, or copy, it’s about putting all three together so that the business owner can engage their customer base. 

 

TSG:     How did you connect with your partner, Usman Sheikh?

GD:     Usman and I both had our blogs posted on Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop site on the same day. He contacted me and introduced himself. This was about 6 or 7 months ago and we have kept in touch ever since. Well, mostly it’s been me asking him for advice.

Usman is a brilliant and very accomplished entrepreneur. He started several companies, in multiple countries, including a Human Resources consulting firm and an incubator. By the way, he’s only 27 years old. 

Usman is a perfect compliment for me. He is an operations aficionado. In November, when I was thinking of starting Cloud Marketing Labs, I wanted someone who shared my passion for startups and had the ability to help me take the company to the next level.

 

TSG:     On your site, you promote “inbound marketing”. How do you define this term to prospects?

GD:     There are two kinds of marketing. First, there is outbound marketing. This type of marketing includes renting a list of 10,000 potential customers and sending out a direct mail letter, creating television and radio commercials and running ads in print magazines, and cold calling. Outbound marketing is about interrupting people. If you can interrupt 10,000 people and have 2% respond to your ad, then you have just made 200 sales.

Inbound marketing is about being found and engaging your customers. There are several reasons that inbound marketing is extremely effective.

1. We are getting better and better at ignoring outbound marketing. One person’s “direct mail campaign” is another person’s junk mail. We have DVR to fast forward through commercials. We have other options for radio. And we have all read about the slow death of print media.
2. It’s easier than ever to be found through Google.
3. Word of mouth spreads faster with the myriad of social networking tools. These tools also make it easier for people to get to know a business. Just like it was 80 years ago, consumers want to get to know the businesses from which they are purchasing products.
4. You are building an asset. In other words, with outbound marketing, every time you want to reach 10,000 potential customers to tell them about your new product, you have to rent a new list, or create a new television. Compare that with a 37Signals product launch. At the time of this interview, they have over 94,000 blog subscribers. That means every time they release a product or service, they inform every one of those subscribers for free.

 

TSG:     How do you use your blog, MoreCaffeinePlease.com to assist with your goals for Cloud Marketing Labs?

GD:     I’m using More Caffeine Please to educate and share my ideas with my potential customer base. If enough people read and like what I have to say, I win.

One of the core principals of Cloud Marketing Labs is that we eat our own dog food. I don’t want to preach inbound marketing, and then cold call prospective customers.

 

TSG:     How much does social networking play a part in the services you offer?

GD:     Social networking plays a huge role in the services that I offer. I tend to think of it like a cocktail party. While I can’t have the conversations for my customers, I can introduce them to the people who would most benefit from hearing from them.

 

TSG:     In your opinion, Greg, can good marketing save a bad business model?

GD:     I believe in the opposite actually – good marketing will make a business with a bad model go bankrupt faster. 

 

TSG:     Do you find that hesitant prospects have more of an issue with admitting they need help or are they simply concerned about adding cost to their bottom line?

GD:     I think the people who aren’t hesitant are those who contact me. They have read my blog for quite some time, or have connected to me on Twitter, or heard me speak or were introduced to me by a friend. By the time they contact me, they’ve overcome their objections. I think that’s another bonus for inbound marketing, you only work with people who actually want your products or services, instead of preaching to the unconverted.

 

Greg, great to catch up with you. Thanks for talking with me today.

If you would like to learn more about Greg and the services he offers through Cloud Marketing Labs, here’s some contact info:

Greg Digneo

Cloud Marketing Labs

Phone: (609) 634-0336

Email: Greg.Digneo@MoreCaffeinePlease.com

 

All the Best,

 

Doug Dolan

The Solopreneur’s Guide