Creating a Stage and Building a Platform in Marketing | How to be Adaptable and Exploratory in a Changing Industry — Clint Mally

How are you supposed to expect people to want to engage with your brand if you do not have a platform, if you don't have a stage, if you don't have a way to be able to promote yours or other people's content?

Welcome to the Raccoon Pirate podcast with me, Clint Mally, where I help you create consistent, value-driven, and quality content. We'll learn from the lessons and failures of experts and my own experience to make marketing simple and more fun.

Why You Need a Platform

What is up, guys? Clint Mally here, episode number one of the Raccoon Pirate podcast. I am so excited that you're here. Listen, we have a really awesome kickoff show for you. I'm going to be telling you some stories, and our first story is going to be about Arsenio Hall.

Now, some of you guys may know Arsenio Hall. He had a syndicated talk show in 1994, it was called “The Arsenio Hall Show.” And he was pretty famous. He was so famous, in fact, that when Bill Clinton went on his show and played the saxophone, many people described that as being the thing that helped him to win the election because his show was so popular.

So, Arsenio Hall, he's a Black comedian. He's a super funny guy. He was in movies like “Coming to America.” But after a little while, his talk show got canceled. He was no longer as popular as he once was, and he just kind of fell off the face of the earth for a little while.

He showed up on “The Celebrity Apprentice” in 2012. In this show, they have a lot of different challenges. Oftentimes, they're raising money to give to the charities of their choice.

So one of the things they had to do was raise money from their network. And what most of these celebrities did on “The Celebrity Apprentice” was just take out their phone and call all of their famous and rich friends and say, “Hey, I need some money.” And they're like, “No problem. I'm super-rich.” Awesome.

Well, Arsenio Hall was doing this and he had his phone out and he's calling person after person after person. But the problem was, nobody was answering. Nobody was picking up his calls. And you can tell in this show, he starts getting more and more frustrated.

And he says, “When I had a show, everyone used to pick up my call. When I had to show, everyone used to pick up my call.”

It's a really, really interesting premise that when you have a platform, people are more likely to engage with you. When you have a show, people are more likely to pick up your call.

Now, I can say that Arsenio Hall later went on to defeat Clay Aiken fto win “The Celebrity Apprentice,” which, by the way, for Clay Aiken,that's the second time he was on a live reality show and came up short.

He was in the top two of “American Idol” and he lost to Ruben Studdard. I know that may date me a little bit, but at the same time, sorry, Clay Aiken, that must have been tough.

I think the premise for content marketing, for marketing in general, is that having a platform is so important. It is one of the most important things.

How are you supposed to expect people to want to engage with your brand if you do not have a platform, if you don't have a stage, if you don't have a way to be able to promote yours or other people's content?

Putting In the Work

This brings me to my second point, which is about Seth Godin. Seth Godin is a digital marketing guru. He's a really cool guy. A lot of people in marketing know about Seth Godin. He's an author.

He's a blogger. He's written tons of books, like “Linchpin” and ”This is Marketing.” He's also got a podcast and he's doing a bunch of different things.

So obviously, he's got a huge following and he's constantly being asked to be on people's shows, their podcasts, or whatever. And he has a rule. His rule is that he will not be on someone's show until they have one hundred episodes.

That's so interesting, isn't it? He refuses to be on somebody's show, he's just going to say no, unless they have at least one hundred episodes. Now, if they do have one hundred episodes, even if they're not super famous or popular, he'll be on their show.

It comes down to the fact that if you haven't put in the work, if you haven't put in the time to be able to build up a platform, to have some episodes under your belt, to have some experience in actually creating content consistently, then you're not worth being on their show. Not worth making an appearance and spending the effort, investing your time into pouring and dropping some knowledge.

Now, here's the truth.

Most people don't have a stage automatically. It's not given to them. They don't get hired into a company and the company says, “Here's my platform, I just want you to use it for yourself. Go be great.” That's not usually the case.

Oftentimes, you have to go and build it one by one, video by video, podcast by podcast, episode by episode.

The truth is, if you don't have a platform, you need to go out and make one. Every famous YouTube channel, every famous podcast, every single famous show in general started out with the first episode in which no one wanted to be on their show.

It was probably just them talking like I'm talking to a camera into a microphone right now.

You have to start somewhere.

Sometimes that can be a paralyzing fear. It can be paralyzing to think, “How do I actually engage with this? How do I create new stuff? How do I start something?” But more important than being good is actually just doing the work. Just putting in the reps and the time.

Building Your Platform

There are three things that you've got to do when you're trying to build a platform in order to be successful.

1. Be valuable

You're actually giving valuable stuff. You're actually saying things that make people's lives better. You're helping them in some sort of way.

2. Do it with quality

If you're a videographer, make sure your camera's not shaky, or that people can hear you if you're a podcaster. It's pretty simple and straightforward.

3. Create consistency

If you're an author, this might mean you write a book once a year. If you're doing a blog or you have a YouTube channel or podcast, you're going to need to put out content much more consistently, every week.

We want to be able to rely on the people who are giving us knowledge. If I get invested in one person because they create some great content, but then I don't hear from them again for a year, I'm probably not going to stay subscribed to their channel because I can't really trust them.

We don't trust people in relationships like that. And we don't trust content creators or companies or brands who do the same thing. This brings us to the topic of this podcast and the name of this podcast.

Why the Raccoon Pirate Podcast?

It's called the Raccoon Pirate Podcast, which is a really weird name that's meant to get your attention and to be different and to stand out. But there's a very specific reason why it's called the Raccoon Pirate Podcast.

Be Adaptable

Let's break this name down. The first part is raccoons. Raccoons are adaptable. They're one of the most adaptable mammals on the planet. They can live in both rural and urban environments, and they can thrive in those environments.

Content marketers, or marketers in general, have to be adaptable, too. Let’s look at interruption marketing — Billboards, magazine ads, or TV commercials — things that are meant to interrupt you from your day. This is the way that marketing has been done for years and years and years. “Buy from me, buy from me, take my stuff, buy from me!”

Slowly though, with the birth of the Internet, this has changed. You're able to watch shows and stream them. You're able to upgrade to a paid version where you have no commercials. You're able to record your favorite podcast or shows and listen to them without commercials.

Suddenly it became easier and easier to just do away with these types of interruption marketing.

Marketers had to figure out a new solution. And that solution was content marketing. Basically, selling without selling, giving people enough information so they know that you understand what you're talking about and helping them in some way. And if they want more, being able to give them your product or service.

It's that whole adage of, if you teach somebody to fish, they're eventually going to learn that you sell fishing poles. But the point is that you're adding value first.

The marketers who are still not doing this, the marketers who are still self-promotional first, the marketers who are just asking people to buy from them but are not willing to actually drop any knowledge, those are the people who are not adapting.

Embrace Your Inner Raccoon

Raccoons are so adaptable. One of my favorite anecdotes about raccoons is that in Europe there are engineers whose whole job is to try and create structures that prevent raccoons from climbing buildings and making little homes on the roof and in the crevices of these buildings.

They put up spikes and they make these slidey-rail type things. Here’s the link for this documentary I watch called Raccoon Nation, where it talks about this.

The challenging thing for these engineers is that every single time that they create some sort of structure to prevent these raccoons from getting up, they adapt, they figure out a new way, they will figure out a different way, and the engineers are constantly having to redo their designs because the raccoons figure it out eventually.

The second anecdote I love about raccoons comes from a Japanese anime. There is this popular anime cartoon in which this little girl has a pet raccoon and it is super cute.

The people who watched this very popular anime eventually said, “I love this raccoon. I want to have a raccoon as a pet, too.” But in Japan, there were no raccoons at that time. They were not native to the island. So they started importing raccoons and trying to keep them as pets.

Now, as you can imagine, this didn't turn out super well because raccoons could get into crevices and they could open things up. And as they got older, they would mark their territory and all kinds of other things.

Eventually, they had to take these raccoons and release them into the wild. What's so interesting, though, is that these raccoons eventually found each other and built up huge, thriving populations.

They were taken from a place that was not their original home, and then they were abandoned and sent out into the wild, and then they found other raccoons and built up huge populations.

So much so that they've started to taking up residence in one-thousand-year-old Shinto temples and have become kind of a nuisance for these really historic buildings.

What I love about raccoons is that they are adaptable. And if you are a marketer, you've got to be the same way. What works for you right now may not work for you in five years.

The Internet is constantly changing. We're constantly doing new things. There are constantly new social media platforms. And we can't be the kinds of people who just dismiss something because it's new or because it's different.

We actually have to be willing to adapt to the current context and the environment where people's attention is going, how things are changing.

So the first part about this podcast is being that raccoon. Being the gritty, infamous, almost deviously curious and adaptable creature.

Be Exploratory. Embrace Your Inner Pirate

The second part is being a pirate. Now, pirates have been romanticized, but I'm not talking about Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm talking about real pirates. Pirates are known for being ruthlessly exploratory.

They went everywhere.

And one of the things that made them such an interesting character type is they had so many different influences. The way that they talked, the way that they dressed, was influenced by going to many different locations.

They were one of the first types of people who were seafaring and made it their business to explore other places.

Now, oftentimes the things that they were doing there probably weren't great. They were boarding ships or they were plundering land.

But the point is, they were constantly going to new places and exploring these new places to take in what worked and to make it a part of their daily life. It’s not just about getting rich. It was about getting rich, but it was about being exploratory. It was about trying to do new things.

Hyper-specialization vs. Range

I think this point is no better emphasized than through David Epstein's book “Range.” If you haven't read it, it's a great book.“Range” is about the difference between somebody who has hyper-specialization and somebody who has a diverse or a variety of influences, much like a pirate.

Before the book even starts, they talk about Tiger Woods and Roger Federer.

When you think about Tiger Woods, he's the person who's hyper-specialized. He was famously winning tournaments when he was a super young kid. He hit a golf ball when he was three or four years old.

He is the person who we tend to think about when we think about the ten-thousand-hour rule. Somebody who just put in the reps and the time and eventually became so good at their craft.

Many people think they need to do this with their kids. They put them into hockey when they're super young and just have them play hockey and do nothing else.

And for every person who becomes successful at their sport, you can imagine that there can be some imbalances when you have that type of hyper-focus or specialization.

For every person who's like Tiger Woods, there are a lot more successful people who are more like Roger Federer, who have what's called range, who have what's called a sampling period in their life. Roger Federer is a famous tennis player, and he went through what was called a sampling period.

This is where he did a wide variety of activities or sports. He wasn't just playing tennis. He was playing baseball and basketball and football. Sometimes he was in structured activities and sometimes in unstructured activities.

The point is that through this variety of experiences, he was able to learn and to use the things that he learned in one sport and to bring that over into tennis. By the time he specialized in tennis, he was really, really good.

So what I want you to think about is that we have to be adaptable and we have to be ruthlessly exploratory. We have to be willing to change and innovate to the time period that we are going through. We have to be able to take in a variety of influences and to make the most out of them.

The Story Of Clint Mally

Take my example as somebody who has not taken a conventional path into marketing. I was a terrible student in high school and middle school, I got in trouble a lot. I had a very difficult childhood and did not do well in the structured environment of school.

I loved school on the one hand, but I was a terrible student.

I was good at sports. And because I was good at sports, I was eventually kind of passed along and was favored by schools because I was an athlete, but I was not a good student.

I was so bad at school, guys, I was such a disruption, that I remember my physics teacher during class would give me a trash bag and he would have me go around and collect the recycling from the other classes, instead of sitting in class and reading the book because he knew that I would be a distraction in class.

And at least if I'm going and picking up recycling, I would be more productive. He happened to also be my wrestling coach. I look back and think, you know, I was a terrible student.

I did not do very well. I barely passed high school. And then I applied to college. And because I came from a less affluent home, I was given what was called the Pell Grant, which paid for my first year of college. But then I failed out of college.

Becoming a Stunt Performer at Medieval Times

Instead, I had to go into the workforce. I got a job at Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament. I was a stunt performer. I started by mucking horse stalls and being what was called a squire, which is just running weapons to knights in the show.

But then I eventually grew through the ranks and became a performer. I was sword fighting and jousting and playing out the story line and microphoned-up and doing all of these stunts and these equestrian things. I grew through the ranks in that, and that was my entrance into the workforce.

I knew that I couldn't do that forever because it was so hard on my body, doing stunt work. So I was like, “I've got to actually go to college.” I reapplied to college and I got interested in humanities and in literature of all things because I had a really good professor who just made it seem accessible and interesting, and it made it so I could actually do it.

I learned that if I just read the book, I could actually do well in the class.

It was so simple, but it was such an impactful thing for me. That was my entrance into academia. I eventually graduated with my undergraduate degree, my bachelor's in humanities, with a minor in literature.

Becoming a Teacher

I thought I'd go into the workforce as a teacher because I liked helping people and I liked explaining things and I liked learning and I liked books now. But at the same time, I realized that I did not like teaching kids.

I worked with Teach for America. I taught in the inner city of Atlanta for four years, and I enjoyed the process of creating lesson plans, of being able to take things and to make them very simple, or step by step, or sequential.

But I didn't like the process of behavior management or really investing in the emotional feelings of students. I know that might sound bad, but I know amazing teachers who feel called to do an amazing job of that.

And because I was around so many amazing teachers, it made me realize that that wasn't what I wanted to do.

Now, during that process of teaching, I went and got my master's in education, my master’s in teaching. By the time I realized that I didn't want to do this anymore, I had this degree already. So I was like, “What do I do now?”

Starting a Business as an Online Fitness Coach

My parents were in the fitness industry and I knew that I didn't want to teach, but I knew that I wanted to help people, and because I had been an athlete and in fitness my whole life, I decided, “Hey, I'll just go into the fitness industry.”

I immediately wanted to create something that was scalable. I didn't want to be the personal trainer who was just trading time for money. That seemed like a deadend thing to me. It seemed like something that had limited growth potential.

I wanted to be an online coach. I wanted to be able to create a platform that would be scalable so that I could have many clients.

So I started an online coaching company in which people would film themselves doing barbell movements, and I would give them twenty-four-hour feedback on their lifts and I would give them nutritional coaching. I had a lot of certifications through Crossfit and stuff like that on all of these different things like gymnastics and nutrition and weightlifting and competition training.

I took what I learned and I tried to do that and I did really well at that. I was able to take the stuff that I was doing and I was able to turn it into a successful business. But what I realized is that when you're doing something online, you've got to actually have a whole lot of content.

If you have an online coaching company, you've got to be able to send people videos. If you have an onboarding process, you don't want to be on Zoom every single time for a forty-five-minute nutritional consultation. You actually need to create a video. You actually need to be able to get new clients who are not just in your physical location.

I had to learn how to do marketing things. I had to build a website and create Facebook ads. I had to create videos and content to be able to put on YouTube and to share with my clients to scale and to automate my business.

What I learned throughout this process is those things, that whole part about marketing my business, was the thing that I really loved. I loved creating this funnel sequence. I loved being able to add value to people I had never met by creating valuable content.

And I loved creating websites and running ads and figuring out the stuff that makes people feel invested enough to be able to actually buy from you. That stuff made me excited. And what happened was, I got more and more excited about the marketing side of it and less and less excited about the actual form coaching and nutrition coaching with people.

And just because that's the kind of person I am, I tended to learn everything throughout this process. Because when you're a small business owner, you don't have the time or the money.

Well, you have plenty of time because it's just you, but you don't have the money to be able to hire out. You don't have a graphic designer or videographer or website designer. You have to wear all the hats.

So I learned how to do each of those things, how to build websites, how to run the ads, how to create the videos, how to shoot and edit the videos. When I did all of those things, I learned that I can help other people who are in a similar situation.

I knew other people who had local businesses, who were gym owners, and that kind of thing. When I learned a sales technique, I'd go to this gym and say, “Have you tried this, or have you tried this with your ads, or have you tried this with your website?”

And these people kept saying, “You know, you're actually kind of good at this. You should probably just do this kind of stuff because it seems like you're really interested in it, you're really fired up about it.”

Eventually I made a pivot and went from online coaching to just doing marketing and consulting, working with different businesses and industries.

And I loved it. I loved being able to take somebody who had a great product but did not market or create an online presence that was able to scale itself, and to be able to help them market their business and sell their stuff.

Are You a Raccoon Pirate?

But my point with all of this stuff, in my own story, is that I did not go to school to be a marketer. I did not have a hyper-specialized path to becoming a marketer.

I actually had a long and winding road to be able to land where I'm at now to where I love helping big businesses, multimillion-dollar businesses market their stuff.

The reason why I'm able to do that now is not because of having a degree, but despite not having a degree in marketing. I'm able to take all the variety of experiences that I have and be able to use it in my marketing.

For example, when I was a stunt performer in a dinner theater, I had to be charismatic and engaging. When I was a teacher, I had to learn how to create systems and processes and procedures to promote clarity for people who have developing brains and who are trying to learn things.

I had to learn how to create a lesson, which is really the same thing as creating content. And when I had an online coaching business, I had to learn the technical aspects of web design and ads and all of these things through a fitness lens, but also through a marketing lens.

If you're that person who wants to be adaptable in the market, to be agile in the market, to be that gritty type of raccoon person who is constantly learning new things and adapting to the context that we're in, and you are also that person who wants to be ruthlessly exploratory, who, like Bruce Lee, wants to take the things that work and to cast away the things that don't, and who is constantly learning and building themselves up, then this podcast, this show, is for you.

This is for the raccoon pirates. This is for the people who want to learn new things all the time to make themselves better and to do better at their work.

If that's you, I would appreciate it if you’d subscribe, so you get notifications every time I put out a new podcast. I'm going to be doing one every single week. It would mean the world to me if you leave a review.

If I say anything that is valuable, give me a five-star review, because I will always come back and I will always reach back out.

That is my promise to you.

If you want to learn anything more, and more details on the stuff that I'm putting out, you can see my other videos and detailed blog content at clintmally.com and you can connect with me there. You can also follow me on LinkedIn.

Creating a Stage and Building a Platform in Marketing | How to be Adaptable and Exploratory in a Changing Industry