1:04 David: How is your marketing effort these days? Have they gone off the rails do wonder why nobody is calling is the phone really ringing off the hook? Why does all this happen?
With us is Chala Dincoy. Chala is the president of Coachtactics and the author of Gentle Marketing a very unique book that talks about all of the ways to get unique sales and business as much as you want. Welcome Chala.
Chala: Gently…
David: Thank you for coming in…
Chala: You’re welcome.
1:32 David: Chala what’s the big challenge for people in the marketing realm and in the sales realm they feel that they need to be out there and banging on the doors and almost banging on people’s foreheads. Saying ” come to me buy form me” But you have entirely a different approach to the whole marketing game.
1:53 Chala: yeah. Well first of all it would help if they had a voice like yours a very gentle soothing voice. Have I told you have a radio voice? So marketing is like about what I just did is about being yourself. First and foremost have the freedom to use your own personality as part of your marketing and to just step out there and be yourself now. If you were my CEO in a former life and I would talk to you in that way in a meeting of 3 levels of bosses that may not gone over well. but in your own business do it.And that’s the first part of that people banging on your door is Because you’re so attractive to them as a personality and it is not for everyone. You will turn off some people i know it’s hard to believe that i turn off some people.
2:50 David: did you tell me once that has got you into trouble where you have been so honest and been so direct with the bosses.
2:58 Chala: Of course who wouldn’t get into trouble, right. Who wouldn’t get into trouble for saying what they think all the time. I mean I have learned to temper it of course in the cooperate world I learned to become someone entirely different. But in my own business this what I try to teach other business is you really have to be yourself. Because once you start to work with them they get to know you anyway. If they hate you they will leave you anyway.
3:20 David: So they might not get to know you upfront.
3:20 Chala: Do you not find people leave you if they hate you.
3:28 David: Well that bring up a story from a long time ago but we won’t talk about that today.
3:33 David : What are some of things that people can focus on if they are not used to marketing and they are not used to sales, What would be the first that you will ask someone to focus on?
3:44 Chala: That’s what I would ask them exactly to do is just focus on focusing because you know there are fancy words for it. and I’ll go to the fancy words for it in different countries they are pronounce differently in all of this. But the real issue is this how a business owner starts a business. They get an idea they get out of bed or whatever is they been dreaming about it and leave their job however it works. And they get the idea and they try to get clients by just going after everyone. And being everything for everyone in that field that they have chosen to do.
4:20 So for some reason that they seem to think that works and then they find that it doesn’t works or it’s too slow for them so then they go and look at what the competition is doing and trying to emulate them and that might not be right for them. Or they go and the may ask their husband or wife. And God knows that I know you love your wife, she’s is your best friend you always tell me and I love mine– my husband. But you know God bless them they are great but they are not strategic business partners.
4:49 David: so when you say focus and I know what you taking about when I ask people how i can help them because we all want to help people that’s just a need in us as good human beings. We want to help people other people to achieve their goals. So I will ask someone “who is it you help, help me understand about your business, Help me understand about your perfect client. And I ask them to describe their perfect client to me. And the say” Oh everyone is my client” How often do you hear that?
Chala: Well for startups and for unsophisticated businesses all the time but if they have taken some form of course if they had read some book about marketing. They start to understand that you need to get allot more focus who is your ideal client. And what are you a specialist in. And this is very interesting for the first time you haven’t seen me this summer. And this summer I started to go to the U.S to do some trade shows for the first time ever. Because I have a five year old I don’t like to leave him.
5:46 Anyways so I found out that this focus thing is way better known in the U.S, small businesses are all over it.They know it and they love it and they want it. But the businesses I meet in Canada–and I don’t know if you found this, but they are so much more afraid to do it and they are less specialized more generalized. And they have many more fears about starving or being pigeon-holed. I was stunned at the difference and you know what I think it is: it’s that the U.S market is more competitive.
6:18 David: Well, I think the U.S market is so much bigger that you can focus and you can specialized if we don’t have that market to deal with here in Canada, We might feel to deal with here in Canada. now that we need to be more of a generalist and take on products and services or offer products and services. That might be a little bit outside of the our area of expertise if we don’t make our client happy. Maybe they will go down the road to somebody else. So that detracts from the focus which is not good for everyone.
6:47 Chala: That’s right and unfortunately it probably comes from the fact that people here in Canada think there is less competition. But there is still competition. And so I have seen in my own business and my clients’ businesses and when they focus everything clears up for them. One of my clients- lovely guy-very similar to you. Lovely gentle man.
David: I am sure he can’t be as good looking as me but that’s okay.
7:21 Chala: He was a marketing branding consulting like me. And we got him needs into become an expert who gets small food companies distribution in grocery stores and his tagline  is we help you get listed and stay listed. Because most
7:39 David: In that business is the name of game because it is expensive to get listed.
Chala: But there are ways that you get listed without listing fees but you have to prove and stay in the list. So all of that once we change his URL into (fooddistributionguy.com) his whole marketing changed the way where goes to market changed. How he is talking. You see how when you specialize everything opens up for you.
David: Did you start off specializing in your own field or that did take you a while to develop that.  Did you start off as a generalist and now you are focused.
8:13 Chala: Well so here is the thing yes I admit it I’m an alcoholic I’m not an alcoholic. But when I left my cooperate job for your years I did marketing. So I left 2 and a half 3 years ago and I couldn’t decide– this is the speech I did this morning so I will tell you real quickly. So I couldn’t decide whether I should help cooperation’s with people fighting. I don’t know if you have work for a cooperation before but people fight allot. So didn’t know if I should do coaching for teams or interventions for teams or whatever i should do what I’m been doing now. And it was devastating because I didn’t know what to say on my website I had a free e book download for them. And I didn’t know which one to have. I use to speak one week at entrepreneurial events the other week i would speak at cooperate events It was horrible.
9:06 David: So it had to be very difficult for you to market as well and very difficult for you to brand and that’s our next topic. If you know how to brand like celebrity and we are going to talk about that when we come with Chala Dincoy with more Biz Canada with on connect me Radio.
9:21 (commercial break)
9:21 David: Welcome back to Biz Radio Canada Radio my guest is Chala Dincoy the of president Coachtactics and the author of Gentle Marketing. One of the things you talk about mostly how to brand yourself like a celebrity or that maybe a foreign thing for some people or why should I even do it when it comes to my business how those 2 things relate help us understand.
9:48 Chala: Branding yourself like a celebrity is really using personality we talk about it at the beginning. Your personality or to picking a personality be Representative of your brand. So for example: If you think about Richard Brandson he stands for the crazy guy who jumped out of the air plane in his bridal gown and didn’t he travel in a balloon through the world. So his brand stands for that crazy maverick that goes up against the established big giants. So that personality if you go onto his website this is in my presentation. When I took a a web capture there are lines of coke that he was doing on his home page.
10:43 David: So it depends what kind of product you’re selling or depends on when ever to be your spokesperson are not?
10:46 Chala: Yes, exactly but it had nothing to do with it the actual coke but how many multi billion multi-national companies do you know that would have that imagery on their home page it’s because of that brand character, That it is okay to do that and it’s because of that character that people are attracted to him.
11:01 David: So when you’re saying brand like a celebrity are you supposed to take on the persona of the celebrity, That you want to be associated with is that idea?
11:10 Chala:  If you don’t like your own or you don’t want to use your own but the whole idea is to give a whole human characteristic to your company name, your brand and identity. Because humans relate to humans that’s the whole idea even Nike that doesn’t have a crazy founder like Richard Branson who has a crazy characteristic. It is the ultimate athlete.
11:36 David: You talk about branding like a celebrity. So how do brand like a celebrity. How does Chala Dincoy brand like a celebrity?
Chala: So this how I do this with clients: We come up with human characteristics that your wife would describe you as or your loved ones. So why don’t you tell me what three– so let’s brand you.
11:56 David: What do three things. My wife says I’m extremely humorous and I’m funny. I’m very affectionate and I’m a very great story teller.
12:13 Chala: So what celebrity do you know who is like that?
12:15 David: David Wojcik.
12:22 Chala: So it is good to be a celebrity in your own mind and that’s the start right? But what we want to is expand that who is better known than you?
12:28 David: Who is better known than me.
12:30 Chala: Who shares those characters.
12:40 David: I’m trying to think of some of the people that do biography so they are great at telling those stories.
12:44 Chala: I like Jimmy Kimmel.
12:45 David: Jimmy Kimmel is a great story teller?
12:46 Chala: I think so and I think he is really and he is funny. So you find a celebrity that has those same characteristics and that celebrity becomes your sort of check point for your entire presents where ever you brand makes an appearance. So does your brand name say Jimmy Kimmel ? Does your logo say Jimmy Kimmel , If Jimmy Kimmel is the fact you associate with. Then you look at your website in terms of content language, tone, colours. So really a celebrity help you because you association with that celebrity and take them through a consistency through the entire messaging. That’s what I called a celebrity using your brand.
13:31 David: So who is your celebrity. Who did you brand you self after?
Chala: Who I had is Reece Witherspoon and so it is like a combination of Reece Witherspoon and Lisa Ling. I don’t know if you know Lisa Ling she an Asian reporter she was on the View. She does the exposes and has a show called Our America which is a show on the O network.
13:51 David: I would go with Reece Witherspoon I know her better.
13:53 Chala: You know the perky blond figures.
14:03 David: What are the analyses on yourself. What are 3 characteristic that you have or wanted to have that you are associated with Reece?
14:11 Chala: It was successful fun and smart and caring. So those are the three and caring was from Lisa Laing because she exposes Trans gender. So the combination of those two for me what i was about?
14:26 David: Do you need to know how to do any transformation in your own right to get yourself to that point where you actually branding like that celebrity because it takes some pervade and it takes some personality that’s right out there. So did you have to change the way about the way that you presented yourself in order to brand like that celebrity.
14:47 Chala: it took me along a time to dare to say the things that I truly wanted to. And Joan Rivers just passed away right. And my last blog is about how she stood for she said that everything that other people were afraid to say. And that’s how she made her living.
15:07 David: So you see that my wife says I have no filter. And I said well everybody is thinking it and I just happen to say it.
15:19 Chala: I teach my clients to have no filters any more I really– unless it truly hurts someone who can’t help themselves. I have grew up in a Turkish immigrant family where we had filters and they put filters and my mother was a lawyer.
15:51 David: So you always need to be politically correct and are saying the right thing and doing the right thing.
15:52 Chala: they probably wouldn’t think so and nobody sat me down when I was 2 and say “Chala you have got to be politically correct” but it is what I saw and it’s what I have learned, right?
15:59 David: so how did you break out of the mold?
16:05 Chala: I guest I just got too old and I just didn’t care anymore and then I recognized and I had big teachers I recognized what’s happening to the people who ignore who they are especially in their business. I have so many clients like multi -six figure business. Women work successful employ like lots of people and they can’t even put onto picture their LinkedIn profile, Because of how feel about them self.
16:32 David: They don’t like the way how they look?
16:34 Chala: No.Well a researcher says 82% of women don’t, Canadian women refuse to take a picture or feel bad about it.
17:01 (commercial break)
David: So you grow up in a house hold where you need to had filters and you had to say the right things at some point you said “it doesn’t fit with your personality I have to be me” Was there any blow back? Were there any repercussions because of getting out there and being Chala?
17:35 Chala: In the coperate world I lost some jobs because of it. I lost probably opportunities and probably lost colleagues over it, but i learned quickly to hide it and how to say what was expected but yet it was still so hard for me to stop saying what I really think so I was never going to make it as a cooperate success story. I was never going to make it the c-suite now having my own business in the entrepreneurial world it has only served me. And because people that are not attracted by whatever style I have and whatever truth I think is. It’s better that they don’t work with me.
18:19 David: So the thing that you were doing inside the coperate world that got you in to trouble is the way that people you money to do outside of the coperate world.
18:28 Chala: Is what they are attracted to it is wonderful. In fact i show a clip of our Rogers show that I was on. And I talk about my personality keeps me in the lime light. Because I did another interview earlier in the day there was another speech they were all request. I never applied for any of them as was today. So it’s what you truly are that’s attracting the kind of people that you really want to work with.
18:59 David: So the question is this your real persona? is this really you, Are you really out there? Are you energetic or you like the Everready bunny that you always going from place to place. If I call up your hobby what do you say” She is a real peach she is always on the go.
19:19 Chala: What people don’t see is of course what does everybody has is self-doubt. Because I started my business 3 years ago. I tripled my year last year, so I’m in phenomenal growth. In order to do that I am doing really scary things like changing my entire packages or changing my pricing or going to the U.S and having some potential of cavity search because I’m doing a trade show. So all sorts of scary things I’m pushing myself and he’s always there and he’s there with me through the sleepless nights. He is there with me to calm me down. So there’s enormous fear that I talked about because I think it’s so important to talk about that. Because people think ” Oh she’s got it made oh my gosh she’s great” and there is every level. New level new devil.
20:09 David: So you have a freak out every now and then?
20:11 Chala: All the time. I’m scared all the time and i read this quote from a great entrepreneur I can’t remember if it was Gary V. He says that if you not scared as an entrepreneur all the time there was something really wrong. And comfort is comfort security and the enemies of growth.
20:32 David: So if you want to be comfortable secure and safe you should stay inside the cooperate world.
20:35 Chala: And if you believe that it’s safe. It’s probably safe for them to probably go and get your own clients. Like both of my parents was restructured into retirement I come from that.
20:47 David: What’s the best piece of advice you have for entrepreneur that are out there. That might be sure of which direction they should go and how to market them self’s, where would you start with them?
21:05 Chala: Get over your money issues in your head that I also had because I come from this immigrant background and get help. Like hire high level and that’s the only way that my business was able to triple. I was able to hire but not that I have anything against group programs but get the one-one stuff that people. Get like the Tony Robbins that works with the celebrities and the athletes, treat yourself that way by coaching. I wouldn’t be here without my coaches and get a good one.
21:38 David: And what you look for in a coach how did you know when you have a good one?
21:43 Chala: Well make sure that they themselves are successful because there is alot of them that aren’t. So do due diligence to and talk to the people who they have helped to figure if people has implemented the stuff. And if they implemented did they actually achieve any results.
22:00 David: Always a pleasure to have you thank so much for foe coming in and chatting with us about gentle marketing. Chala Dincoy the president of Coachtactics.
 
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