Un-Selling, with Scott Stratten – Episode 140 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

Scott Stratten, Creator and President of UNMarketing Inc, explains how the context defines which sales approach you need, why marketing is an “always on” function, the huge lesson he learned from his wife’s business, and the fear, promise, and future of social media and AI.

About Scott:

Scott Stratten founded UnMarketing in 2002 on the belief that we can build a better business world based on integrity, community, and authenticity.

It began with a call to step away from hypocritical marketing practices, the ones we use even though we hate them ourselves, and instead build community and connection. Position ourselves as experts, solve problems for our clients/customers, and treat everyone we work with – from our front line to our suppliers – with respect and integrity.

Scott is co-author of 6 best-selling business books and co-host of The UnPodcast.

Scott is an award-winning keynote speaker known for his energy, passion, knowledge, humor, and man-bun. His live and virtual presentations bring UnMarketing to life, energizing attendees, and creating experiences audiences will remember and learn from. Bridging the business gap between the virtual and real-world, Scott’s presentations not only get people laughing and thinking, but also doing.

Before founding UnMarketing, Scott managed bands in Toronto and went to school for Human Resources, was an HR Generalist at Goodwill Toronto then a National Sales Training Manager for Polyair/Cantar before returning to Sheridan College to become a Business Professor.

Learn more at UNMarketing.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Host
Scott Stratten is the leader of the UNMarketing movement, and we’re going to talk about the dichotomy of marketing and selling and what it means in the future generation, and how they kind of work together. And we even ask the question, Does cold calling work anymore? So that’s a great conversation. So Scott, your whole deal is on unmarketing, unselling. Why UN?

Scott Stratten
It came out of anger, like everything for me, I just got so frustrated by people doing and marketing the way they hated to be marketed to that they wanted to learn how to cold call better. They wanted to learn how to do a mass blind mailing better. They wanted to learn how to do these things. And I’m like, why are you doing it? And it all came to this kind of blowing up point for me when I was in a friend’s office and he’s in sales, and a guy cold calls him a B to B thing. Cold calls him, and he berates the guy on the phone. He’s like, Hey, you get a real job, and you’re interrupting my day and freaking out. And I’m like, behind the scenes. I’m like, Yeah, you tell him. And he hangs up the phone, and we start talking some more, and then he’s like, Hey, Scott, I gotta go. I gotta go do my calls for the day. And I’m like, you gotta, you gotta go do your calls. You just told this guy that he’s useless. And why would he be calling you? He’s like, Yeah, but I have something people need. And I’m like this. There’s this hypocritical mindset. And there’s a group of people, the majority of the human race, who hates doing things like just straight cold calling, no warmth at all, no research, no nothing. And there’s people who are great at it. I call them psychopaths, but there’s most people have ways that they’re good at doing things, getting to know people, relationships. We call that going with their marketing grain. That’s their natural ability. Yet we try to force people down this road, especially new people. In every sales organization, by the way, we get new people and just say, Go, knock on doors, go to start smiling and dialing. I had a guy show up at my house. Think about this for a second. My house last month, at my door, trying to sell financial services. I am in my robe, okay, imagine this guy opening his front door, except my hair isn’t tied back at this time, so it’s all hanging down in front of my face. Looks like I just left a slayer concert, right? I opened the thing with my tattoos and door, and he looks down. He’s like, sir, I’m here to talk. He looks up and goes, Oh, I’m here to see if, if you’re happy with your financial investments. I’m like, Really, what is, what do you think is about to happen right now? I’m going to say, Come on in. Here’s my bank account. Check my financials. You’re not going to might you know why he was doing it, because he’s new, and they told him, go walk around the community. That’s not community knocking on my door. Isn’t being community. Community is being part of the community. So that’s where I said, What could we do that the opposite of that? And that’s where, that’s where un came out.

Host
So, here’s part of why I brought you on, and I don’t know if you know this. So Southwestern consulting, so we do sales consulting, and we teach people to not only cold call, but to use a system we call pre approach of getting information, and also to warm call and get referrals and work smart and do stuff like that, but we teach people to make sales calls. So the problem I have with marketing is it takes too long. To me, it’s not sales or marketing, it’s both. So can you kind of reconcile these ideas between, like marketing, kind of like the aerial support and selling, and do you really think that’s true, that marketing takes, takes a longer time, like a longer runway?

Scott Stratten
I think if you’re going to try to market by being part of, let’s say, a community that takes a very long time, and that that’s that’s an issue, that’s an issue where you have overhead and you’re paying people, but when it comes to unselling, is also looking at doing things differently. I’m not against that anything works. Anything works if it works and you do it right and everything doesn’t work. Twitter does and doesn’t work. Knocking on a door doesn’t doesn’t work. You know what works? Knocking out my door, this guy, this company called King’s paving, that will come by and say we’re already in the neighborhood. We’re already paving this person’s driveway. We’re bringing all the equipment. Anyways, we’re wondering, did you need your driveway done at a discount because we’re already here? I love it. I don’t need you to sell me a vacuum cleaner. I don’t need you to sell me financial services where there’s a giant trust gap, where I have to get to, you know, trust you and think you know what you’re talking about before I would talk to you. It’s a very practical makes very much incredible amount of sense to do that. Same with a landscaping company. These just had something hanging on my door. Today we looked at your lawn. This is how much it would be every week. Awesome. That’s smart, but it’s but the problem is, when we say everybody should be doing this, where everybody can do this, it’s not, doesn’t make sense. Sense to me, which is, by the way, which also goes to marketing and things like digital and social media that people think I’m saying to people, everybody should just use Facebook or Twitter and use or LinkedIn and use all these platforms. And my whole thing is saying, no, nothing works for everybody, and everything doesn’t work for nobody. We’ve got to say what works for me. Do you have time for me? I built my entire empire based through Twitter. Twitter literally changed my life. Literally changed my life. I built I got the whole momentum because of that. But here’s the thing, I was a guy on Twitter talking about Twitter, so it worked for me. I’m naturally my humor. I’ve been told it’s I’m pithy, and I’ve had to look that up and see what that meant. And it worked really but it worked really well for me and but, but if I did the same things today I did eight years ago, it wouldn’t have the same traction, and it just worked out for me that, like the house that you see me sitting in right now is bought because of what we’ve done because of Twitter. And that, to me, is something that says, okay, but I am so hesitant to say. And now you can do this too, because it’s so individually anything in sales, I know you could teach anybody listening, watching right now, you could have two people in an organization teach them the exact same things, exact same tools, and you’ll have two separate results sometimes, because there’s a personality driven behind it, there’s a motivation driven behind it, and there’s a skill set as positioning. And the bigger the trust gap in the sale, the more you have to realize you’ve got to build that trust. That’s why a guy doing paving can sell to me the first meeting, right? He’s right, paving my driveway, my driveway, yeah, I can see it’s not good. You’ve got a machine. Let’s do this. My finances, real estate, same thing, right? There’s giant insurance accounting, there’s there’s a gap you got, like, I gotta know that you’re the right choice. And that’s where this, especially in the past five years, the digital side of things, has made it even more impactful, where I can do much more research on you, the vendor, than I used to be able to do as well, and that there’s a lot that plays into that.

Host
Basic question for you. I’m genuinely just interested. What is Scott Stratten’s definition of marketing?

Scott Stratten
Driving awareness of a product or a service that then leads to sales? Then that’s pretty much the classical one for me. But for me, on marketing really is, is the same as unbranding, which is, we’re not marketing. And branding is not a task. You’re always doing it. You’re not doing it when you tweet. You’re not doing it when you think, Okay, here’s my quarterly marketing quarterly marketing meeting. Let’s put out some materials. I’m marketing right now to your audience. I have books, I don’t have anything to sell, I don’t do consulting, I don’t do any of those things, but I do. I make at least a nickel off my books, so that’s awesome. But you know, I’m marketing right now. By doing this with you, you’re marketing to people that I will share this with so that’s, marketing is always happening. I don’t want to sound holistic on you here. I don’t want to sound like cheesy on but it’s always happening. And the biggest impression sometimes I find in marketing, when it comes to people, individuals as brands, is when they think they’re not marketing, when they think, Oh, we’re just having a casual conversation, or you tweet about something like, you know, politics or or religion that comes out, that’s, that’s that starts crossing people the wrong way, that is more effective in a good or bad way than really anything. You’ll never forget somebody, let’s say you become contacts on LinkedIn, which is kind of, I always call it the gateway drug of social media for businesses, right? People like, use social media. No. Use LinkedIn. Oh, yeah, I use that the digital Rolodex. Well, if you post something on there, LinkedIn is starting to have this creep a bit, which is going into more personal than business. So some people start doing personal updates on there. It’s almost a little Facebook ish E for some people, and people start getting angry that people will post personal things anyways. You’ll never forget if somebody says something that is against your beliefs, your morals, and that in A, B to B sense a lot that that, especially in B to B, where your targets are not as big as A, B to C type of thing, right? You’ll never forget that the thing about social media I love is you get to see the real person. I like that. I like that almost, not on purpose, transparency, where I get to see you. I get to see you in the bar, sitting back drink two has happened, and now I’m like, All right, I know what this guy’s like, the wheel, the walls are down. The problem is people assume that, you know, it’s a casual thing. We’re always looking, we’re always thinking, we’re always seeing, and I can’t, and I’ve changed minds. I’ve changed I don’t refer some people because of what I’ve seen. I’m like, because if you give a referral in business, it’s an extension of your business, and you’re looking like, whoa. I didn’t, I didn’t realize that’s what that guy was all about. And maybe I’m gonna, you know, not put that person’s name out there for it’s like a gig. You do a speaking gig, somebody’s like, who will be good for next year? And you saw me post about something that we’re our lizard overlords are going to be taking over the world next year, you’ll be like, maybe not Scott, maybe he’s not the best guy to do that gig. And then you never know that happens, right? You never hear about that happening.

Host
So I have a question for you, what is one thing that you have recently changed your mind on? In other words, like you had a philosophy and you were like, you were sure. And certain the world was this way, and now you kind of step back and you go, maybe, maybe not.

Scott Stratten
It’s gonna be surprising for people to hear that know me, but over the past few years, at least, I’ve decided I’ve changed my mind about certain cold calls. I was so anti door knocking. I was it was just black and white. And I know the world’s not black and white, and I’m very black and white, because that’s how my brand is. Do this. You don’t do this. Nobody wants somebody to go you should maybe do this. You know, you just put your foot down, and that’s what I do. But there’s living proof it works. Allison, who’s the co author of the books, who’s the co host the podcast, and who’s my co host in life, who’s my wife built a maternity lingerie, nursing bra company, by knocking on store doors. And she got it into over 100 independent retail outlets all over North America. She would go and fly. She would flew to shenzhen china and checked out the factory like she She’s the real business person of this, of this group I’ve been consulting my whole life, like I think this, and she’s the one who did it. But if the woman I have the most respect for in this entire world, and stuff knocked on doors. How can I say that? That never works, but that, and here’s the thing, it’s in context. In the industry, in retail, you expect that. You expect a new product, somebody to come because you actually want to see new products, and somebody comes in and shows it to you, then you have the chance. Do I carry it or do I don’t? It’s not like a Target or WalMart, whereas a buyer 18 layers behind you, the person working the counter at these independent stores is the owner a lot of the times. So I’m realizing what I hate is the wrong context. Cold calls. I hate the phone call at dinner offer me something who knows nothing about me. I hate the financial planner showing up at my door, but I don’t mind the paving guy that, to me, was a shift I never thought I’d make in my life, because I was the anti cold guy. My brand is set up as you that is evil, but I’ll give you a real quick story. Then a realtor did this, a realtor at my door, and he’s now my realtor and a friend. You got to get this one. Okay, so I’m talking locally a year, two years ago, at a Real Estate Board event for our town. I live in a smaller town west of Toronto, and it’s if you think I’m animated right now, you should see me talk to realtors. I lose my mind on them, because they have such a great potential, yet their face is plastered on every bus shelter and billboard in town. So he sees my talk, and he’s at the back of the room, and he’s like, I want that guy. I want that guy as a client. And he goes and does some research. So he does some some reading up, and he starts watching me on podcasts, and then he realizes we actually have a sister podcast called the Vegas 30, which is Vegas for people over 30, right? And we’ve been over 100 times, Allison and I, so we know everything about the city. And the tagline is too old to stand in line, but too young to retire to bingo. And he watches the show. And we start raving about this place called Ronald’s donuts, which is an independent donut shop in Chinatown in Vegas. You’d never see it if you drove past it, but it has 405 star Yelp reviews. That’s how good this place is. And you go in, and it’s amazing. So we we we tried it because of Yelp, we found it. We and I told the story on the show. Well, two weeks later, there’s a knock at our door, and Allison goes down, and all it’s, there’s nobody there. It’s just a dozen Ronald’s donuts from Vegas. And Allison’s like, Scott, there’s a dozen dough, and she gets the dough, and I’m already down the stairs, and I’m like, free donuts, and I’m eating I’m shoving them into my face and and she’s like, you don’t even know who they’re from. I’m like, I know, but he should come for sleepover. I don’t know who this guy is. And in the box is his card and a note that says, We hear you like Ronald’s donuts. Thank you so much for the talk a few weeks ago, and now I go hunt him down, like I’m trying to get in touch with him, and I get on Twitter and Facebook, and I see him, and I’m like, dude, donuts. And he’s like, I hope you enjoy them really, like the talk. And I’m now, he’s like, am i Are you doing? Like a reverse ninja mind, screw on me like you don’t. And then we just stayed in touch. And then a year later, we realize we need to buy a bigger house, and like, Allison Tex him, who’s like, we’re looking at buying, and he’s already at our front door, like, you know, he’s already, he’s like, he’s like, I was in the I was in the neighborhood, how you doing? Yeah, it was talk, and he was but then he was also brilliant as a realtor. And here’s the key, you can’t just get awareness that you’re there and market well without performing well, yeah, but he dropped donuts on our front door. So I cannot say that doesn’t work. When he and we go for dinner and people are like, how did you go out for dinner with a realtor? You don’t like them. I said I didn’t go out for dinner with a realtor. We went out for dinner with friends.

Host
I love it. I have one more question I do want to ask you, and we have to go, but tell, tell us a little bit about unselling. And where do you want people to go to connect with you?

Scott Stratten
It’s called the new customer experience. It’s the same thread as everything else, that doing great things can provide great results. We’re really proud of the on podcast. It’s called the Business Show for the fed up. And we do, we do full studio three. Camera, video, shoot, and everything else, just on podcast.com, and on marketing, I am use that name anywhere, even Snapchat. I don’t even know why I’m there, but I’m at, you know, every platform as on marketing. So there’s a reason why the youth have gone to Snapchat is because we are not there. That’s why you go there. And so I show up there. I’m the creepy dude at the bar. Hey everybody, like oh, he’s here. We got to go.

Host
So what do you think? This is my last question. What do you see in the trend the future of social media content marketing? Like, how much more can people take? How many more platforms is it going to go on and on? Is it going to die and go extinct and completely disappear? Like, what do we need to know, to like, survive and prepare for the future of this?

Scott Stratten
Batten down the hatches, get non perishable foods and stay on Facebook because, well, here’s and this is, this is really what keeps me up at night. I know I’m in the right industry and doing the right thing when I can’t stop consuming content about this world where, where Facebook is now the homepage of the internet for most people, and it’s on their app. The majority of people access Facebook through the app. And here’s the most fascinating thing to me, they did a survey in India and asked people, How many of you go online every day on the internet, and it was like 30% and they said, How many of you go onto Facebook every day? And it was 80% people don’t even realize they’re on the internet when they’re on Facebook and realize that has become our homepage, right? You see, you open it up, it was a search, or you pick your homepage, and then you’d go check different things, especially, I say social media, but Facebook, that’s unheard of. And when people tell me, these people are leaving Facebook, or these people I’m like billion people a day, I don’t I don’t care what demographic is dipping and dodging around a billion people a day. And that, to me, is a point of Earth penetration that says, Okay, what’s next? From there, I’m watching their moves, and they’re like, well, they moved to Instagram. Like, well, they own that too. Like, it’s and fascinating how they broke out messenger as a separate app, and where that’s coming from. And now, of course, the sexy thing to talk about is bots. Is UI. Is this whole, this whole sorry, AI, where they’re coming in and you just, you text something in the Facebook Messenger, and it automatically gives you an answer back. There’s airlines doing it. You know, my boarding pass, please. Your boarding pass comes up and rebook my flight and hotels good. And it’s all this artificial intelligent we’re getting to this point where I’m gonna get freaked out and creepy, yeah, but, and then I love things like 360 video. I think it’s great. It’s got a camera. It’s got 360 camera. And the impact in the to me, in the real estate world should be just epic on how it’s doing if it’s done, but again, if it’s done well. So as example, here I have in the room somewhere here, UNICEF sent us a like a Google Cardboard mask in the mail, and you put your phone in, it becomes a virtual reality thing, and they sent it, and you go to their URL, which is, I think, UNICEF, three sixty.com I go to it, and I’m in a refugee camp in Somalia looking around, and there’s kids running up, playing soccer and stuff. And I’m like, that’s how you do it. Like that, to me, is a big impact. And then the kids watched it, and then we what, you know, what we did after we watched it, we donate. That’s what I love. That’s what fascinates me.

Host
That’s experience. Scott Stratten is his name, folks, thank you. Thank you for that, man.

Scott Stratten
Thanks for having me, man.