Shama Hyder:
If there’s one thing that we haven’t had since, I don’t know, the ’50s maybe, is a captive audience. Those days of having your market in a certain place at a certain time, that’s just gone. I think this is such an interesting time because for people who are recognizing this moment and are saying, “Wow, my audiences right there.” They’re watching these videos, they’re engaging, they’re commenting. I think there’s that, and I think then there’s a real hunger for understanding how to make the most of what’s going on.
Charlie:
Now, today’s guest is actually one of the most fascinating people that I’ve had the opportunity to get to know over the last, God knows how long here. It’s been a while. She’s actually the CEO and founder of one of the, let’s just say … Well, let’s put it this way. She’s the only new media company to be honored by both the White House and the United Nations as a top 100 company in the United States. Her name is Shama Hyder. Shama is, well, let me see here. I’m going to pull up her bio. She’s got so many things that I want to make sure I hit it all. She’s the top voice in marketing by LinkedIn for four years in a row. She’s a two time bestselling author of The Zen of Social Media, an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, winner of the Tech Titan Emerging CEO award, one of the top 30 under 30 entrepreneurs.
Charlie:
I can go on and on and on. She was actually called the millennial master of the universe. One of the more fascinating things about Shama, and the reason why I wanted to bring her on, is that she has a unique concept of finding moments. Moments in companies that allow them to increase their demand gen by a significant number. In fact, 80% of all her campaigns go viral. I have seen this work behind the scenes, even in today’s market, in today’s very volatile economy, she has taken companies that were seamlessly underdogs, that one would think had no hope of generating much demand and turn that into one of the most extraordinary opportunities in their business today. It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you Shama Hyder.
Shama Hyder:
Hi, everybody. [crosstalk 00:02:53]. Charlie, can I have you do my intro every time I go live or [crosstalk 00:03:00]? That’d be pretty nifty.
Charlie:
I got to tell you though, in the beginning, I’m not used to getting on camera in a live situation. I had a little bit of a camera moment. I’ve gone, oh my God, the camera’s on me. I’m getting all tongue tied and whatnot. I’m used to being recorded, not live.
Shama Hyder:
Well, I was just about to say, I was like, your videos are some of the best that I’ve ever seen. I never miss any of your coaching videos. I love them all. So I was like, what are you talking about? Life is a little different. I could see that. I can understand that.
Charlie:
Well, this is not new to you, because you’re typically on stage when you can do conferences, what? Two, three, four times a month as a keynote speaker, somewhere around there
Shama Hyder:
Yeah. It’s funny because the keynote side, and then there’s the whole media side. I do a ton of stuff for like Fox business. I will tell you that the most harrowing thing, this actually doesn’t feel so foreign because I can see you. But when you do, and people don’t realize this, but when you do a satellite interview with a national publication and we coach our clients when they’re doing this, is you go into this room and there’s no one else in that room usually with you, so the sound engineers and stuff on the other side. You can’t usually see them, or you might be able to see them through the glass, and there’s literally an X taped, literally duct tape on the wall, and they say, “Look at that.” They put this little ear piece inside.
Shama Hyder:
It’s like having a little voice in your head, and then, but the audience sees you. So, you’re looking at this X because otherwise, it looks weird if they’re not looking at you.
Charlie:
Oh my gosh.
Shama Hyder:
That’s good practice because let me tell you, when you start, it’s the most unnatural feeling in the world because, even if you hear something in your ear, your instinct isn’t to look straight ahead and answer that question, it’s to be able to, I don’t know, like talk to somebody, to be able to connect. Just a lot of training, I guess, on that side and it will prepare you for any kind of live.
Charlie:
I would have to imagine. I want to do more of these Facebook lives, and actually this was inspired by a conversation that you and I had about the importance of just being out there. The content that you put out, I mean, you’re very voracious. You’re putting out content on LinkedIn and it’s why you’re one of the top influencers. You put out content on your Facebook profiles regularly, on Twitter regularly. Before we get into sort of those moments, why is what we’re doing right now so important?
Shama Hyder:
This specific live video? This is [crosstalk 00:05:41].
Charlie:
Yeah. Well, just in general. You’re so voracious in putting out content, and you really talked me into doing more of these Facebook lives. Why is what we’re doing right now so important, particularly in today’s market?
Shama Hyder:
Yeah, so a couple of reasons. This is, I think, what so many companies and people aren’t understanding. One, you have a captive audience. Now we can talk about why you’re a captive audience right now, but the truth is this pandemic and this working from home and social distancing, it’s forced us even more to be digital than ever before. If there’s one thing that we haven’t had since, I don’t know, the ’50s maybe, is a captive audience. Those days of having your market in a certain place at a certain time, that’s just gone. I think this is such an interesting time because for people who are recognizing this moment and are saying, “Wow, my audiences right there.” They’re watching these videos, they’re engaging, they’re commenting.
Shama Hyder:
I think there’s that, and I think then there’s a real hunger for understanding how to make the most of what’s going on. I think there’s a moment here from so many different perspectives, and when all these different things collide, that’s where you … I call this like strategic serendipity. There’s this greater strategy. I follow it, and I know, Charlie, you follow it, and it’s this idea of doing things purposeful. When I put a piece of content out there, what’s the bigger goal? Then there’s that serendipity aspect where you don’t know that one thing that will trigger someone to say, “Aha,” have that aha moment or that light bulb moment to want to work with, to want to learn more, to want to engage.
Shama Hyder:
We think this is just such a great time in history to be able to do that. I think the brands that are really succeeding are the ones that are saying, okay, how do I, even if you’re not like busy in the usual sense, let’s say your business is in the usual, which really business is not the usual for any of us, but let’s say it’s not the specific speed or whatnot, great time to address all those back burner things. I can’t tell you how many clients we’re working with right now, they’re like, “Oh, that project we’ve always wanted to do, let’s do it now.”
Shama Hyder:
This is the time because it’s like the things behind the scenes, and when the curtain drops, because it will, right? The curtain will drop. Then it’s showtime. It’s the brands that have prepared, the ones that have put in the work. You know what? I love what you’ve taught me about only 3% of your market is ready to buy at any given moment. Right? That’s something you talk a lot about. We think it’s about that, about keeping consistent in the content that you’re putting out there, the messaging that you have and know that all these things are building on each other.
Charlie:
Now, this is the Beyond 7 Figures Podcast in a live episode format, and you talk a lot about moments. Now, talk to me about how a moment plays a part in taking a company beyond seven figures.
Shama Hyder:
Moments are really interesting things, because let’s step away even from the business side of things. I’ll connect the dots for you, but let’s just talk for people out there. If I asked you about your life, I bet you would answer in moments, right? It would be, maybe the moment you met Heather, it would be the moment you held your kid for the first time. Our lives are made up of these moments, and these moments have just such … We have such more emotional capital attached to them. You don’t tell me about this random Sunday that you had. That’s not usually how you describe life, but if you chain all these moons together, all of a sudden, you have a picture, you have a sense of someone’s life.
Shama Hyder:
Now, businesses, it’s very similar too, because even when you’re successful, especially when you’re successful, what happens is regular sort of marketing and PR, you’ll start to see diminished returns. This is just sort of par for the course. At any point, this is true for working out, as I’m learning now. [inaudible 00:09:59]. With anything that you do, you plateau eventually. When you hit a plateau, I think, this is where particularly moments are so crucial because you look at what’s the moment that’s happening, and then when you can leverage that, when you can fully take advantage of that, all of a sudden, you can catapult to the next level.
Shama Hyder:
It’s really great for breaking that plateau and getting to that next level. I’ll give you an example. Moments don’t even have to be major earth shattering things. But one of the [crosstalk 00:10:34] right now is, the Navy is one of our clients, the NEXCOM. For those who are not familiar, the NEXCOM for the military is like a Costco or a retail store on military bases. Anybody who’s military knows the NEXCOM. They do an amazing job. They really care about their customers. This whole month we’re actually doing customer appreciation, where all these entertainers and celebs are going live and entertaining the customers, and it’s really cool.
Shama Hyder:
It’s also the NEXCOM’s 74th anniversary. Rather than just taking that moment and saying, it’s your anniversary, this is happening, we have a sale, whatever. They’re really thinking about, how do we take this moment while we have this captive audience? So, we’ve been able to come up with this really cool concept that we’re executing with them and other partners, which is customer appreciation. You’ve extended sort of what might be an internal memo, what might be like a Facebook post, right? It might be, hey, it’s our anniversary, to really taking that, giving it legs, giving it … breathing life into it to turn it into a month long celebration of what the NEXCOM stands for, and being able to reach so many more customers with retention, but also acquisition. You’re getting on more people’s radar, you’re building that brand visibility. That’s just one example. It’s the idea of finding something that you feel is special. I’ll give you another example.
Charlie:
I’m going to interrupt you real quick. Let’s talk about NEXCOM for a minute. The traditional way of customer appreciation is to send a few emails out, maybe customer appreciations, or a few balloons in the front door, and maybe give away some handouts, something like that. They might do a little PR and say, “Okay, we’re going to do a customer appreciation.” That’s the way most companies will [crosstalk 00:12:31] customer appreciation, but what you’re suggesting is doing something different. Just so that I’m crystal clear, and so our audience is crystal clear, what’s so different about creating the moment? It’s more than just a few balloons and we’re going to offer a discount for a day or send a few emails. What are you doing that’s different?
Shama Hyder:
Yeah. I would say a moment is described … it has to have three things, right? It has to be meaningful, so it’s got to be relevant. It has to be unique, it has to be something different. So, not sending out the emails, or customers, we appreciate you. All right, that gets drowned out in the white noise. Then three, it’s got to be connected to business outcomes. Meaningful, unique and differentiator. When you look at that and you say, “Well, this could just be a regular old thing. We might see a little blip perhaps in sales because we reached out to our customers.” Instead, what this does is create a very different sense of brand loyalty. It extends that, what might be a one day occasion into something that’s a full on campaign.
Shama Hyder:
See, now the process of writing or not approaching the media and saying, “Oh, guess what? It’s your 74th anniversary.” Great. What’s great? That’s it. But you’re really able to say, “Well, in honor of this anniversary, we are celebrating our customers who’ve helped us get to 74 years of success as an institution in the military, as something that’s really well respected and loved.” People who are very emotionally connected to the brand. It’s not something that is just a traditional retail outlet. This takes all of those components, and it just creates so much energy around it that, rather than now see like a blip in sales, you’re seeing a much greater wave, you’re seeing much more customer retention, you’re seeing a much greater customer acquisition.
Shama Hyder:
Because it’s one thing to say, “Oh, cool. I feel appreciated. Let me use this coupon.” It’s another to say, “Oh my God, this band is performing. This is so cool. Let me share it with all my other friends.”
Charlie:
See, and that’s part of, I know that 80% of all the campaigns that you create go viral. Right? Part of, I guess, going viral is when you’re doing something that’s unexpected, people take note and they want to talk about it and share it because it’s unexpected. What else goes into a campaign that is the difference between a campaign that falls flat versus a campaign that goes viral?
Shama Hyder:
Yeah, so it’s really interesting. When I say viral too, as you say it, I think for some people they might think, oh, does that mean it gets a billion views? Some of our campaigns have. But what’s much more important is virality is described by business outcomes. For campaign like NEXCOMs to go viral, per se, specifically, it just means that it has to appeal to their audience. It goes viral in their ecosystem. Because if you’re not a shopper and you’re not a potential shopper, great, you can support it, but you’re outside our arena of influence. You’re not our target market.
Shama Hyder:
Virality for the sake of virality, and that doesn’t even get me excited. I’m like, okay, cool. But when you can connect the dots and you say, okay, this is how you drive business, I think that’s really key. The way you do that is obviously build awareness, you create just massive buzz around something, but it’s relevant too. It’s not buzz for the sake of buzz. It makes sense. Think about how timely this is, because you look at you look at very specifically, everybody being home, we are a captive audience. You can’t necessarily do … you also have all these artists. That’s the other piece of it.
Shama Hyder:
Or you got all these artists who want to perform. They’re artists, they love performing, they love connecting. They don’t have an outlet necessarily. They could go through their social channels, but it’s not like performing on stage. It’s a little bit different. So, you take that element and you say, wow, this is great. We can pull from this piece. We can pull from giving these artists a platform. They want to support the military. They want to support their country. They’re patriotic. That’s awesome. Wing All those pieces together. I think the difference too, when you look at moment-based momentum, the work that we do, is we pull from different areas where it makes a lot of sense.
Shama Hyder:
It’s so funny because it really is … it does have a time clock on it. I talked to another company.
Charlie:
Moments of a time clock.
Shama Hyder:
Yeah, it is. Absolutely time clock. I talked to another company about a month or two months ago. They’re SaaS, they do financial services, and they have a lot of data. They have a lot of data on how Americans shop and consume and whatnot. A month ago I said, “Listen, I think this is amazing.” I don’t say this lightly and I don’t say this often, but I said, “This could be like a New York Times cover story, because you have data that if we track it, we can say, how is this pandemic changing habits for customers, how are the American people, how are their buying habits different now three weeks into working from home social distancing versus before?” I was so disappointed because this was one of those things where it was like, my point of contact, they were excited. They were like, “Oh, I can’t get buy in for my team or whatnot.”
Shama Hyder:
We had lots of other projects, so honestly, Charlie, I know you won’t love me for this, but I was like, “Okay, whatever. That’s fine. I’ve got other stuff to do. I’m not going to sit …” The team always jokes that I don’t like to preach. I will just baptize those who are ready. I think that’s the other thing about like, if you’re ready, so it’s very much that 3%. You’re ready, we’ll make it happen. It was really funny, because after that conversation, it was like, okay, the team’s just not ready. I’m like, “Okay, fine.”
Shama Hyder:
It’s so funny because just two days ago, New York Times did a cover story on exactly that topic. They talked about how Americans were changing their buying habits. They pulled from a lot of their competitors. It frustrates you, because I was like, that was their moment. What’s that word? What’s a covered story in the New York Times like that worth? [crosstalk 00:19:07]. Yeah, but so it does have a time clock. A moment is … you have to act, you have to act fast, you have to be decisive and take action. But if you do it, you do it right. You definitely see the benefit. I had so many examples of clients who’ve trusted us and said, “Let’s do it,” and it’s paid off.
Charlie:
Let’s talk about something for a second. As you know, I work with a lot of companies that are doing seven and eight figures a year. They may be comparing themselves the Navy saying, all right, well, I’m not sure that we’re the Navy, but is there a moment in my company, if we’re doing seven, eight figures a year, what kind of moments can we create? When you’re looking at a seven or eight figure company, and I know that you work with several as well, what are the type of moments in … There are two types, right? There’s ones that are basically gifted to you, right?
Shama Hyder:
Like now.
Charlie:
Like now. Then there are moments that you can manufacture and you can create. Can you go over a bunch of different examples of the different moments, and maybe how you applied it today when things are more volatile and tough for many [crosstalk 00:20:21].
Shama Hyder:
More again.
Charlie:
Yeah, load of questions.
Shama Hyder:
No, I love this. It’s so much fun. I could talk about this all day. To me, this is a really fun thing. Regardless of this is the thing, it doesn’t have to. Yes, we work with the NEXCOM, we work with Chase. We work with a lot of these brands, but we also work with a lot of these middle market companies, smaller businesses even, because much more important than the size of your is the size of your vision, and your ability to say yes to things, to play the game. I think that’s so much more an attitude. We worked with huge enterprise companies, where the team was so smart, and yet, such a hard time getting buy in from their top brass because they didn’t get it for whatever reason.
Shama Hyder:
That’s really hard. Then the cool thing about working with middle market and small businesses sometimes, the seven to eight figure folks that you’re talking about is, the buck stops with them. So, as long as that leadership is excited and good to go, the sky’s the limit. You can actually move faster because there’s not as much red tape. When you work with the military or enterprise or anything, often the time it takes to sometimes get to something, you lost some of the time and flavor, versus when you work with a company, where decisions can be made rapidly, like, yes, no, we want to do this different. Yeah, let me give you a great example of a smaller firm that we worked with, manufacturing. You wouldn’t think it’s the sexiest of industries, and let’s face it, it’s not Coca-Cola.
Shama Hyder:
It’s a manufacturing company based out of Kansas, so not a major co. What was really interesting was when all this happened, the moment was to talk about supply chain, and because they’re manufacturing, and they actually … it’s not even that they just have all their operations domestic, they actually even had international. But here’s the cool thing is because we’d worked with this company over the last year or two, we’d already those kinds of relationships, like, we’ve got some of that going. So, when this hit, we were able to take that client, right now he’s the defacto expert on supply chain for most of the major networks. [crosstalk 00:22:42].
Charlie:
Because you created that moment for him to be [crosstalk 00:22:47].
Shama Hyder:
Yeah, of course, because we laid the groundwork, so got sites in place, like build thought leadership, your bio, who is this guy you’re pitching [inaudible 00:22:54]. No, no, you’ve got to structure. The cool thing was we built that structure. When we could manufacture this moment, so it’s like what’s happening right now. Even three weeks ago, when all this happened, one of the things that’s been, of course massively affected is supply chain, and there’s huge focus on, should be focused on international supply chain, like is domestic always the way to go, and to be able to take our client and say, “Here you go. This is the moment where you step forward, because not only is this your wheelhouse, you do manufacturing.”
Shama Hyder:
Imagine, when he gets on Fox Business and says, “Listen, this is what we’re seeing with our customers. This is what we know to be true about manufacturing. This is what we know to be about supply chain. We’ve been doing this for 20 plus years. This is our expertise.” The phone rings.
Charlie:
Yeah. I’ve talked to several clients who have been remote their entire lives, and one particular client, they have a hundred employees that have been remote.
Shama Hyder:
This is their moment.
Charlie:
[crosstalk 00:24:05] tremendous opportunity to leverage a moment when people are wondering, how do we go remote? Well, Hey, guess what? We’ve done this for a while. We can leverage remote.
Shama Hyder:
Yeah. Sometimes things, even when there’s … I will say this. Even when there’s a macro moment, it’s still on you to weave that in and create that micro moment. It’s kind of broader context. The cool thing is people don’t realize you can have moments simultaneously. You could have this moment where you’re talking about how remote businesses is the key to success, or another client of ours, this was really interesting, small business. They do digital newsrooms for huge corporations. They run Nissan’s media room, like the online room. Of course, the cool thing is they see trends that nobody else is privy to.
Shama Hyder:
Generally, it’s like an interesting business, but right now, to be able to say, guys, finding moments is like you have a spotlight and there’s a big dark stage, and you can put that light where you want it to go, and to say, look, what role are newsrooms, media rooms playing right now in this ecosystem? How did they, all of sudden … they used to be like the stepchild of websites, and now they’re so important because it’s the first step. It’s more than media right now. Every consumer, every customer looks at immediate room, like that’s where people get their tweets and so forth.
Shama Hyder:
There’s just so many ways that you can create moments, but also leverage kind of what’s happening in the ecosystem right now to take full advantage of it.
Charlie:
Yeah. I think that one of the more fascinating things, what I love about a moment is that we live now in this market or this economy where there’s just so much noise, and everybody is saying the same thing and tripping over each other and just trying to scream louder and scream louder and scream louder. But to your point when you mentioned that, if you can take a unique angle on a popular or interesting, or notable type of event, you end up almost putting mute on everybody else, and all the attention is immediately focused on you. The funny thing is, is when you own the moment, you’re going to find competitors trying to piggyback on that moment. But then they end up looking like the copycats.
Shama Hyder:
We’ve met plenty of that. Trust me. We’ve had plenty of that from clients where they’re first and then they’ve got lot of copycats. I have clients, and I won’t name them, but I have clients with their competitors, and they’ve sent me screenshots of copying the exact, you know what I mean? To a T.
Charlie:
I don’t know if you’re comfortable with talking about this example, but one of the ones that stands out to me when we’re looking at an industry right now where the entire world is shut down with coronavirus, restaurants are being closed, many of them going out of business, you took actually a company that you work with in the restaurant industry, and you actually created a moment where they are thriving, I dare say, even better than they did in the good times, but I’m not sure. I’ll let you take it from there.
Shama Hyder:
They’re doing just phenomenally well, and I’ll tell you a couple of keys to their success. One is their leadership. The company is OneDine. They’re in the restaurant tech space. As you can imagine, when this happened, restaurants were so hard. What was interesting is I got a call from the CEO, and his name is Rom. He’s a good dear friend, very smart guy, brilliant even, and just a great heart. He called, and we have that kind of relationship. I like having that kind of relationship with my clients where we have, and I know you do Charlie, where you feel like I love working with these people.
Shama Hyder:
It’s fun. So, I get this call, and I’m thinking, oh man, he’s going to be freaking out right now. This is bad. You’ve got restaurants shuttering. This is right when everything happened, just nobody knew what was going on. It was complete chaos. He calls me and I picked up, and I was like, “Hey, how are you doing?” I was like, “Crazy times.” He said, “We have to double down.” And I was like, “What?” [crosstalk 00:28:47]. You always want to be sensitive in times like these. I tell this to clients, and sometimes people look at me like I’m crazy until they see the results.
Shama Hyder:
Then it’s like, ah, that’s what you’re talking about. Before Rom called me and say, “We should double down.” I was like, “Okay.” He’s like, “Listen, we have this team. I don’t want to lay people off. We have this industry, we’re still committed to. I’ve been working this industry for 20 plus years. I don’t want to let these guys down. If for some reason, it all goes to hell like, oh well, but at least we know we did everything possible and we left no stone unturned, so what can we do?” I loved that. He said, “Do you think this is our moment? Because I do.” I was like, “Yes, it is our moment.”
Shama Hyder:
It was really cool within that one call, and it’s very energizing too, again, when you have a leader that comes from a place of not fear, not from a place of, oh, no, like could have been a very different approach. We talked and we said, listen, this [crosstalk 00:29:58].
Charlie:
Hold on one second though, you say I think this is your moment. Now, I want to dive into your head. When you say, I think this is your moment, walk me through what are the internal questions that you’re asking yourself in order to determine, yes, I think this is a moment and here’s how we’re going to create a moment from this.
Shama Hyder:
Yeah. To me, when I say this is your moment, I’m thinking the precedent is talking about restaurants. Everyone is talking about restaurants, but [crosstalk 00:30:31].
Charlie:
So then, where do you go from there now?
Shama Hyder:
Because they’re talking about restaurants, and the current narrative is scary. It’s scary, it’s fear, everything’s shutting down, it’s pull back. The moment there is, it’s almost a little counter intuitive, but it’s like, what would be the opposite approach? I was just reading this article about Rockefeller, and I’ll share it with you, Charlie, because I know you love this stuff about how, when he was a young man, I think 1857, he’d just gotten his first job and saw the market crash and it lasted for years. But one of the things people said about him and he learned in that crisis was that, when people got scared, he got braver.
Shama Hyder:
The more chaotic it got, he got calmer. I think the moment for me is like, I look for that within that framework. In all this chaos, I can see opportunity. In some ways, I will say just naturally, it’s a gift, right? And not give people a lot of things. You know me well enough to know that story. People [inaudible 00:31:42] often borderline terrible, if not just outright inappropriate. I’m not great at a lot of things, but one thing I will say has been a talent from a relatively young age is being able to kind of spot those opportunities. When you can spot that opportunity and you have that lens and you hone it over the years, doing this for so many clients. So, I know what works, I know what doesn’t work. This is very different than a gimmick. This has to come from a place where it serves a natural need. Again, it’s meaningful, it’s unique, and it’s a business driver. In this case, [crosstalk 00:32:17].
Charlie:
Which is interesting that you said one of the first things you look at is how can I do something opposite of what everybody else is saying? Because that initially is unique.
Shama Hyder:
It is. You’re right. All this kind of smoke, and to be able to see the exit sign through the smoke. The difference is, and we had a moment here, but I also knew it was going to be a long game to some degree. It’s funny, because it is counter intuitive. You don’t think, oh my God, I’m losing customers. Let me invest more. But it’s the very thing that works. We looked at the technology and again, Rom is very committed to the restaurant industry. I think that, again, this comes to the leadership. I can’t make this up. You have to have the steak, I can provide the sizzle. In that case, there’s a lot of steak.
Shama Hyder:
There’s heart, there’s good ideas, the team is there. All those pieces are there. They have expertise. They know their industry really well. So, we were able to say, we have this technology, let’s pivot this and let’s offer it. Let’s offer any restaurant that wants to now offer curbside dining to be able to order, pay completely contactless for free. We will give them that technology. Within, let’s say 48 hours, 1500 restaurants had called up.
Charlie:
Wow. That’s phenomenal.
Shama Hyder:
It’s massive. Because again, what’s going to happen is this crisis is going to lift, restaurants are going to reopen one. OneDine is very smart. We’re now constantly looking at micro moments and how we pivot, and I’ll give you an example of that in just a second. You look at this big picture and you say, okay, as we’re working these restaurants, what percentage do you think have said, “Hey, this technology is really cool, thanks so much for helping us out right now. We’d love to keep working together once things get back to [crosstalk 00:34:11].
Charlie:
Right. That’s brilliant.
Shama Hyder:
Then a micro moment in all of this [crosstalk 00:34:15].
Charlie:
How many of the press picked up on it, and how many people on social media picked up on it, and then said, “Hey, you need to take advantage of this if you’re doing curbside check-in?” Because [crosstalk 00:34:27].
Shama Hyder:
Millions. I tweeted myself, and it had, I don’t know, last I checked 800 retweets.
Charlie:
If I was to pay for that type of exposure, what would that dollar be?
Shama Hyder:
No, you can’t even pay for that kind of exposure.
Charlie:
Take a guess at what is the impact.
Shama Hyder:
It would be the same number of views that a Superbowl ad gets you, but with a lot more authenticity.
Charlie:
So, millions of dollars. Right?
Shama Hyder:
Yes. Easily.
Charlie:
The beautiful thing about an ad versus a moment is an ad historically is not trusted because I’m putting out an ad about myself. You’re not going to trust what I say about me, because you’re expecting me to say, I’m Nicole, I’m the best of everything else. But the moment you create a moment, you’re actually creating a situation where other people are now talking about you and I am more likely going to believe somebody else. Therefore, my conversion rate will be higher. I’m going to be pre-sold because I trust somebody else. It’s really exciting because, when we’re talking to small business owners many of them would think, okay, moments are great for big companies, but moments are equally as powerful, if not more powerful for small business owners.
Shama Hyder:
Yeah. They’re more powerful because they give you an advantage over huge competitors. It provides leverage like no others. Huge companies sometimes don’t need that leverage as much, or it does, like it moves them maybe a little bit. For a small company that’s starting over here, you give them leverage, they’re over here. It’s very different than seeing me on the screen. It’s a very different concept. Yeah, and it’s really funny. That’s the thing. Once you have the moment, you create momentum around it, and it keeps growing and growing. That’s the cool part about it.
Charlie:
How do you create momentum around it?
Shama Hyder:
You keep it going. One of the things you mentioned was so smart, and I’ll this only for your audience. This is not something that I generally share across the board, but one of the things that we’ve had a lot of success with is, rather than running ads to … Again, we’re very different than a traditional PR firm or traditional marketing firm. Our focus is very much these moments creating momentum. Part of that is looking at multiple tactics, not just media relations or whatnot, but one of our tactics has been to amplify press wins using Facebook ads.
Shama Hyder:
Rather than someone saying, “Oh, we’re so cool. Here’s your ad.” You’ve got Forbes saying, you’re so cool, what they do, and then amplifying that. There’s multiple ways to keep that going. The other part is, when you have that moment, you’re always looking for more sparks, if you will. I’ll give you an example when, and one of the press conferences, and God knows we have enough water these days. Every day there’s … I watch them because I’m like, I know there’s moments in here. Dr. Fauci gets on, and this was maybe a week ago, and he says, “I was taking a walk right outside in D.C.,” and he says, “I was so proud to see a restaurant offering curbside. They’ve got a sign outside. They’re telling people where to sign, where to stand, where to get their food.”
Shama Hyder:
I was like, that’s us. That’s us, that’s what we’ve been doing, It was really cool too. Then of course, we start that tweet, and we start that going. Now, we’re even pivoting because we’re looking ahead, and in fact, just yesterday, I was talking to Rom, and we said, look, the moment now is to … like the next. You always want to look at what’s next. You want to be able to keep that going. What’s next is we’re not going to go back to normal. There’s a new normal. I know you and I’ve talked, Charlie, and I guess your wife is lovely enough where she’s cooking you a lot of meals. I’m still risking COVID because I’m ordering in. I just don’t order in a ton.
Shama Hyder:
We know that when people go to restaurants, they’ll expect a different experience. We will expect a different experience. When you hand your credit card to someone, you’re going to think twice about them handing it back to you. When you’re looking at that menu, you’re going to think twice about how many people have flipped that menu. All these things. With OneDine, we’re really focused on what is this pure order paint solution of the future look like where it’s the most hygienic experience a restaurant can offer? I think this is going to be the new normal. Part of that is pivoting and figuring out, all right, how do we take our offerings and make sure that we are now creating that next moment and so forth?
Shama Hyder:
In some ways, it’s a campaign approach, in other ways, it’s very much a process. The majority of the clients that we work with, we’ve worked with for years, because you’re constantly … Once you understand the audience and you have those media connections and you’re this media darling, in some ways, you want to keep that going.
Charlie:
Let’s play a game. Let’s go back and forth to uncover as many different moments to give our listeners an example as we can think of, either company examples or whatever. I’ll start.
Shama Hyder:
So many. Okay.
Charlie:
I’ll say Amazon Prime. Prime Day, rather. Prime Day. That’s a moment. Prime Day is a moment. Your turn.
Shama Hyder:
I was going to say Harry Potter. I don’t know [crosstalk 00:40:23].
Charlie:
You must have your son somewhere near you, right?
Shama Hyder:
Oh my God. Yeah. Home Depot, not to be confused with Harry Potter. Home Depot definitely use the moment because they said we’re not going to sell masks to the public. We’re going to donate them. That was a huge move.
Charlie:
That’s actually pretty cool.
Shama Hyder:
Very smart. Who goes to Home Depot to buy mask? That’s a very small part of their business. But it’s a very brilliant strategy to be able to say all right, we won’t sell these. We’ll just donate these.
Charlie:
Yeah. I think that’s a good idea. Another moment is, I’ll say probably a moment that they could have leveraged it far more than they did. Volvo decided that rather than you having to drive to the shop to have your car done, they were going to offer a valet service. They could have created a moment, so now …
Shama Hyder:
I didn’t know about it, so they clearly missed the boat.
Charlie:
Yeah. That’s the thing. They missed the boat on a moment that they could have taken advantage of. What they did is they pick up your car, they cover it in plastic, totally hygienic, they drop it off, all covered in plastic, take it off, scrub everything down with anti-bacteria. It’s a moment that they could have leveraged.
Shama Hyder:
It is. Here’s the thing about moment. This is really interesting, Charlie, you said there’s two parts to it. It’s creating that, like that was a cool, that’s a great way to capture a moment, but then you have to amplify it, and they didn’t amplify it. [crosstalk 00:42:06].
Charlie:
You’re absolutely right, and that’s why it fell flat. So, they have a moment, but they didn’t amplify it, because-
Shama Hyder:
[crosstalk 00:42:15] the amplification.
Charlie:
Yeah. Go ahead.
Shama Hyder:
My turn, right?
Charlie:
Your turn.
Shama Hyder:
[crosstalk 00:42:23] so many. Okay. This one’s a client, go figure. Forbes. Forbes8. Forbes8 is like the Netflix for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t checked it out, it’s a really cool app. You get to see a lot of entrepreneurial content. Again, I love the leadership because this is where it makes a difference. I had this idea when South by was canceled. I called, Tom was the CMO of Forbes8. And I said, “Tom, listen, South By got canceled.” Again, you pull different pieces. All these speakers that were going to speak, I know many of them, their friends, their colleagues. They don’t get to do their talk. Their audience were very hungry. They wanted to hear it. You guys serve entrepreneurs. This is your chance. Why don’t we do a summit for business resiliency?” I said, “Tom, I think this would really be solid. This is your moment. You serve entrepreneurs.”
Charlie:
[crosstalk 00:43:20] moment.
Shama Hyder:
“You’ve got, again, this other piece that we can pull in from.” Tom and team said, let’s do it. We’re passionate. We want to help our entrepreneurs. We literally put this together in a week, getting these speakers, getting this whole Business Resilience ESummit.
Charlie:
You had one really good speaker there, for sure.
Shama Hyder:
Yes. I think his name was Charlie.
Charlie:
Charlie’s something. I don’t know. I have this weird multicolored goatee, a lot of white in there.
Shama Hyder:
[crosstalk 00:43:46]. Yeah, Charlie, your topic was actually one of the most that we had the highest feedback for and people were so excited. It was very well received.
Charlie:
Really? Oh wow, thank you.
Shama Hyder:
It was crazy. We pulled that off in a week. Again, it’s cool because captive audience, speakers are ready. These speakers, like yourself, Charlie, usually in a non-pandemic time, not the right moment, they’re not available like this to pull something together quickly and record. I couldn’t do it. I’d probably be on a flight somewhere. It just takes longer. But in this given atmosphere, it makes perfect sense. We’re able to pull people like you and pull speakers were like, this is great content. God, almost 3000 people attended live.
Charlie:
That’s phenomenal.
Shama Hyder:
I think we’d over almost 6 million impressions on the campaign, huge success. You couldn’t even do that in a live event. You just couldn’t. It was such a great moment. It was taking advantage. But I think these are sort of the key things. The leadership has to understand, they have to be willing. It’s a different mentality. I think there’s definitely a sense of like, you have to have a little bit of playfulness to say this is good. This is cool. Not that they didn’t have concerns, but they were definitely … You have that conversation. The concerns were so wonderful too, because they said we want to be sensitive to what’s going on.
Shama Hyder:
We also don’t want it to seem like we’re trying to take something from South Island. I said, “No, not at all. People are hungry right now. It makes a lot of sense. You’re providing value. You’re serving your community. That’s all that matters. They got that. They were like, “Oh, okay, I get it.” I think all these things make a difference, but I loved that. That was such a funny example. We pulled this off. Again, all these campaigns we’ve pulled off in the last … these examples I’m giving you are literally in the last couple of weeks.
Charlie:
There’s traditional advertising and then there’s traditional PR, and then there’s I guess moment advertising, right? Traditional advertising, it’s, you’re not really going to believe what I say about you, but it’s still really important because you’re creating that effective frequency and you’re sending those impressions, and you’re still creating some demand. Regular PR, that’s great. But regular PR, it’s nice to say I have a placement in the New York Times or Fox or whatever, but that doesn’t always necessarily create demands. You’re like that bit in the middle where you’re getting the media impressions, you’re getting the people to talk about you, but you’re also creating that demand. [crosstalk 00:46:23].
Shama Hyder:
Because it has to be relevant to your audience. I think this idea would only work for certain brands. You had to serve entrepreneurs for this to work. If I take this to someone else and say, “Oh, you should do this.” If the audience is like, but we don’t serve entrepreneurs, for example. If that’s not their audience, doesn’t make sense. Might do really well, but you don’t connect those dots. In this case, those entrepreneurs watching and stuff, not only do they get value, they’re now introduced to the Forbes8 app. They’re like, “This is cool.” It’s a whole different level. You’ve got to pick something that makes sense for your audience. I think this is very key, rather than this is the difference with the bullseye approach, or say, the let’s throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks approach.
Charlie:
I gave another example of one that you and I spoke about prior, and it was just a really phenomenal small company. It’s called Alehorn. They sell really unique drinking mug, a fascinating product. When you’re apart from your friends and whatnot, the conversation was, so how do you create a moment right now with a drinking horn? How would you create that moment? In a conversation with you, you came up with a #ApartButNeverAlone. Then we built an entire campaign with the client about apart, but never alone. It was really just a phenomenal way again, to get people engaged wonderful, wonderful, wonderful opportunity. The company is just fantastic as a great product. It makes the product very relevant in today’s economic situation. That’s another example, and I know we’re running short of time, so let’s rapid fire, either examples that fell flat or examples that were awesome. Let’s keep going.
Shama Hyder:
Okay. Another example that did well. I’m such an optimist, positive person, I guess. Carter’s. Carter’s did this great video campaign, which I thought was so cool, because you’re not shooting ads. They collectively, all the employees shot their children at home during this time and they have this lovely song that all the kids sang separately, and then they put it together, and it’s really cute. It’s wonderful [crosstalk 00:48:58] children’s brand. So, I’m watching that again, I’m their market. I have an eight month old. I buy Carter’s. [crosstalk 00:49:06].
Charlie:
Yeah, totally.
Shama Hyder:
It spoke to me as a mom. I’m watching this and going, “Oh, that’s so cute.” It’s not for everyone. It’s not meant to go viral to people who could care less. But if you were a parent and you see that and you see these cute little kids making chalk drawings on the sidewalk and saying how they get more piggyback rides now, it speaks to you. I thought that was such a great campaign. Great example of leveraging the moment that really speaks to their audience. Of course, it’s going to drive business. Like I thought about that, and I thought, oh man, my kid’s outgrowing his pajamas like crazy. I need to buy more. Really, it was like an instant connection.
Charlie:
Another moment, and this would have been a controversial moment is when the founder of Dick’s Sporting Goods, during the massacres that happened, the school shootings, he made the decision that he was going to get rid of … some of the stats, I may be a little off on this, but he made the decision that he was going to get rid of guns, not sell guns inside of the Dick’s Sporting Goods. But rather than sell it back to the manufacturers, he said, “No, we’re going to destroy them instead.” He created that and ended up a controversial. He took a topic that people were talking about with school shootings and created a moment from that where he got rid of the guns and destroyed them instead of selling it back. So he got tons and tons and tons of notoriety and discussions and whatnot related to that. So, [crosstalk 00:50:42].
Shama Hyder:
Yeah. Here’s the thing too. This is also interesting, based on leadership. We have clients who are totally fine pushing the envelope and say, “Listen this is what we believe in. This is what we stand for. We want to take a stance.” That looks very different. A moment can be contentious and polarizing, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ll give you an example of the flip side of that. We worked with Dippin’ Dots, the ice cream brand. At that time, Sean Spicer was Press Secretary, and he had, for some reason, been very irate with the ice cream band, and he tweeted all these things [inaudible 00:51:19]. I don’t know. The idea was like, how do we respond to this in a way without polarizing? Because shocker, Democrats and Republicans enjoy ice cream, who knew?
Charlie:
Me, maybe too much. I might enjoy ice cream too much.
Shama Hyder:
Yeah. You and Patrick both. Oh my goodness. I cannot [inaudible 00:51:38] the same, or like, yeah. I’m glad that that’s not, by the way, an emergency supply, because we would have none. It’d never lasts. I wonder if he’s here listening to me saying this. But it was interesting. We can’t be too divisive here. You don’t want to be too divisive. Ice cream brings people together. The campaign there was an open letter from the CEO that really spoke to the press secretary at the time, and said, “We’re sorry you’ve had these experiences. We’d love to do an ice cream social for the press report.” For the press room. “Let’s be friends.” It was really like this sweet, almost sugary like that’s ice cream. It’s about ice cream. It’s funny.
Shama Hyder:
It’s a little tongue in cheek about how the company was creating American jobs. It made the point without being, in any way, contentious. That was such a massively successful campaign. I think there were like a billion impressions in the first 48 hours international press. We won two Gold Addy awards for that campaign. It was great. Part of it was also because, when we talked to the CEO, when we talked to the leadership team, they said, “Let’s do it.” They trusted. It could have been like, well, we should probably not say anything. Step away. That would have been an option. It was an option, but because they were like, let’s do it, let’s take that risk, let’s get it out there. It was amazing.
Shama Hyder:
I love Dippin’ Dots was trending for like six days straight on Twitter. By the way, to get a promoted tweet, because I know you like these numbers, Charlie, it’s $200,000 a day to promote a tweet roughly. When you see those little promoted tweets, so you can organically get something like that to trend, I’ll let you do the math.
Charlie:
Yeah. That’s pretty damn good.
Shama Hyder:
Yeah. I’d say so.
Charlie:
All right. So let’s recap here. In order to create a moment, a moment needs to be unique, it also needs to what?
Shama Hyder:
It needs to be a business driver, so meaningful …
Charlie:
A business driver.
Shama Hyder:
… or unique. Something different than the norm. It has to be a business driver. It’s got to be meaningful, it’s got to be unique and it’s got to be a business driver.
Charlie:
Then to create this, it needs to be simple. So, simple, so easy to understand.
Shama Hyder:
Easy to understand, yes. Relevant to your audience.
Charlie:
Yeah. Then so the same method. So, simple then the A is amplifying.
Shama Hyder:
Yes.
Charlie:
That could be amplified through PR, in addition to social and so forth.
Shama Hyder:
It’s telling the story. Storify, how do we turn it into a story? Not just for the media, but the bigger story, how do you amplify it? Then how do you measure? Because part of this is also like, what are we seeing? It’s funny because it starts with art, but there’s a lot of science to this in that we’re looking at numbers. Wow, this is really doing well. This is the message people are resonating with. This, not so much. You’re, in very real time, also honing that.
Charlie:
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. All right, so any last minute advice for companies that want to go beyond seven figures?
Shama Hyder:
Yeah. I’d say absolutely look for those moments because they exist. I promise you, I’ve yet to meet a company, Charlie, where I could not find a moment for them, really. Whether they were ready to take advantage of that or not is a separate thing, but it’s just … The more you do it, the more you develop a lens for it. There’s companies like you look at Zappos, they were great at finding those moments. There’s a lot of companies that excel at customer service regardless of what the industry would have you believe, there are.
Shama Hyder:
But they were very good at constantly capturing those moments, those little things, and building momentum on it. I would think start creating an eye for that. It does require a little bit of adventure, playfulness to be able to embrace this type of … it’s, again, not exactly marketing, not exactly PR, it’s a very different way to approach business and getting your message out there. I would say, don’t undersell yourself. I think people just don’t realize sometimes, or they’ll be like … I recently heard this story, and I think this is a good point for everybody. The CEO of Girl Scouts of America used to be a rocket scientist.
Shama Hyder:
She said that she felt like that was too long ago to be relevant. I thought, wait a second, I’m glad she’s talking about it now because of course you want someone who’s at the helm of an organization that touches so many girls’ lives and teaches them. Yes, you want them to be a rocket scientist. [crosstalk 00:56:38].
Charlie:
Really?
Shama Hyder:
Yes, so we think it’s also this being able to, and I think sometimes it’s forest from the trees. Right, Charlie? This is why people work with you, this is why people work with me. This is why so many times like we work with other people. I work with you to be able to get that forest from the trees, because you can’t always see it for yourself. Sometimes it takes someone at a distance going, “Dude, that’s cool.” Or, “Wow.” I think just because you can’t see, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Charlie:
Now, if people want to follow you or learn more about you and whatnot, where’s the best place for them to go?
Shama Hyder:
Well, definitely check out zenmedia.com. That’s where we have all our resources. We’ve actually put together a crisis success kit right now, which is daily videos of me talking about things like the moment, how to find it, examples of companies doing it right. So, if you sort of enjoyed this and are curious about getting your business to the next level, then that’s a great place. Of course, connect with me on social media, pick your poison. I’m quite active on LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter, I guess, Instagram as well. Not on Snap.
Charlie:
Or TikTok.
Shama Hyder:
Or TikTok.
Charlie:
All right, and that’s Shama Hyder, H-Y-D-E-R. Of course, if you have any questions about growing or scaling your business, even in today’s day and age …
Shama Hyder:
Especially in today’s …
Charlie:
Especially in today’s day and age, you can check us out over at predictableprofits.com. Thank you very much, everybody, for being here, and we’ll see you in another episode of The Beyond 7 Figures Podcast.
Shama Hyder:
Thanks for having me on, Charlie.
Charlie:
Thank you very much.
