Johnny Boy Marketing
Great Work. On Time. No Hassles.
A Secret Look Inside a Nuthin’ Story
One of my clients is a former newspaper colleague who now runs his own marketing firm and who has more work than he knows what to do with. Truth be told, whereas once I was a mentor to him when he was a young journalist, he’s now a mentor to me as I seek to grow Johnny Boy Marketing.
A major client for Marc is a well-known midwestern university that has some of the most successful masters degree programs in the world. When Marc heard I was looking for some side-gig work, he started steering some overflow things my way.
Marc sends me transcripts of interviews and oftentimes links to other information about some of the amazing graduates who are currently doing things in the working world that would blow your mind — from artificial intelligence to bioengineering, project management of massive commercial construction jobs to advanced cybersecurity. The people I’m writing about make me realize exactly how little I did with my own college years.
(Sorry about that, Mom and Dad.)
My job is to find the story inside those interviews and crank out 500 to 600 words that will be posted on the alumni websites and new-student-recruiting pages for these programs. If Marc had enough of these stories to allow me to pay the bills and live the life I want to lead, I would do this full time in a heartbeat.
And yet, every once in awhile, there’s a story he tosses at me that I refer to as a Nuthin’ Story. I experienced Nuthin’ Stories as a newspaper journalist back in the day, and it’s good to know that something hasn’t changed. There are definitely still Nuthin’ Stories out there.
This isn’t to say that the people behind the Nuthin’ Stories are Nuthin’ People. They’re not. In the case of this client, they still are amazing people who are doing amazing thing.
Nuthin’ Stories are the ones that come from interviews in which the subject of the story can’t conversationally articulate why it is I’m talking to him or her in the first place. Most often, these folks are highly technical and/or scientific people with no familiarity of what a storyteller needs to showcase exactly how amazing they are.
That’s not their fault. The last thing I want these people doing is taking time away from, like, saving the world to learn how to make life easier for marketing people. Rather, it’s my challenge to find a way to take what might be bland, short answers and turn them into something engaging that people want to read.
The Anatomy of a Nuthin’ Story
I had just such a story from Marc this week. Amanda Chen (not her real name) is an exceedingly brilliant person, with three masters degrees and a job at a Fortune 500 company helping industry leaders develop and unleash technological initiatives to grow their businesses.
Yet in reading what Chen submitted as her answers to Marc’s questions, I couldn’t initially figure out what she did for a living, nor why it mattered.
If you’re ever in the market for a marketing person to help you in your business, this is a way you can tell the good ones from the ones who are doing it only because they got tossed from the newspaper industry or they don’t want to have a boss: What will your marketing consultant do when confronted with a Nuthin’ Story?
Nuthin’ Stories aren’t just blogs and articles. They could be Nuthin Products, as in, a product that’s just another player with no real differentiators in an already crowded market. It could be a Nuthin’ Business … for example, another cupcake maker in your small town that already has five. None of these things are bad. They’re just challenging.
Marc would pay me regardless of how engaging my story was. It would have been possible to turn out 500 words that told a solid tale and then go onto the next one that hopefully was easier. But the fact is, Marc was willing to subcontract with me because he knows that’s not how I operate.
Back in the day, Marc heard me rant endlessly in the newsroom about how the people are the story. I don’t care what you’re writing about or what you’re marketing, it’s not the product or the process that’s what I care about. It’s how that product or process affects real people.
City council changing a parking ordinance is boring as hell; it’s the people affected by that change who matter. Same thing with the products I’m marketing in my full-time job. They clean HVAC parts. Boring, right? You might not think that if your HVAC contractor didn’t know how to use them correctly and fried your air conditioning system right about now.
In everything I do, I’m looking for the person. What Chen’s answers gave me was a lot about her process of working and the technical things she does. It included this gem that could only come from a techie:
My responsibilities include: Serve as a trusted advisor to business and technology leaders to architect, mobilize, and launch delivery constructs to execute a Transformation Journey with clients.
I don’t know about you, but I have no clue what a delivery construct is, and I don’t think I’ve ever been on a Transforming Journey, though I’m excited about it based solely on the capital T and J.
So I dove in. I googled the company she’s now working for. I googled her rather interesting job title — Transformation Excellence Consultant — and found a job posting for it. I checked out her LinkedIn page. I read and re-read her interview answers to try to figure out what she was trying to get across.
And in the end, I did the one thing that has become a hallmark of my career when describing difficult concepts such as how electricity is generated and delivered or how air conditioning works: I found a good analogy.
Turns out, what Chen does, at its essence, is help important people change what they are doing to do something different in the hopes that it will make them and their business a lot more money than if they kept doing what they have been doing.
She’s a change agent.
So I thought of the 1998 best-selling book, “Who Moved My Cheese?” which is all about change and change management. This is another key when you’re hiring a marketing consultant: How worldly are they? Good marketing consultants make excellent Jeopardy contestants (or annoying people to watch Jeopardy with, depending on your perspective). They know a little about a lot — or even a lot about a lot.
I don’t remember when I read “Who Moved My Cheese?” and I didn’t remember exactly how it went, but I knew it well enough to know that it might apply here. So I refreshed my mind by googling the book, and from that, the beginning of my 500 to 600 word story was born.
Amanda Chen won’t hesitate to move your cheese.
Chen joined information technology consulting giant Accenture as a Transformation Excellence Consultant in May. Her role is one that would appeal to Spencer Johnson, author of the 1998 best-seller “Who Moved My Cheese.”
In the fable, two mice and two “Littlepeople” try to track down their cheese when they find the supply dwindling from its usual place. The moral of the story highlights the possibilities brought about by change and the principles to guide change management.
That is at the heart of Chen’s mission with the clients she’s working with in her new role. A main focus of her job is to serve as a trusted advisor to business and technology leaders looking to build and unleash changes that boost their companies’ performance.
Boom. Suddenly, an interview that had really interesting things in it that weren’t quite ready for prime time was transformed into something alumni of that program could fall into.
I Want Your MindSpace
And that’s what I want as a marketing guy: I want the person looking at the work I do to spend time looking at it … as much time as possible. I want you, the reader, to immerse yourself in the world I’m creating for you — if only for a few moments.
Whether it’s a brochure for an early childhood learning center you’re considering for your child or an article about an alumni from your school, I want your mind there.
So if I can find that thing you can relate to, then I’ve done a majority of the work. Tying Chen’s job to a book that has sold more than 30 million copies is a hook that takes a Nuthin’ Story and turns it into a Somethin’ Story for the target audience.
Johnny Boy Marketing is being built on the mission statement: “Great Work. On Time. No Hassles.” In the end, I was able to turn this story in ahead of the deadline, without having to bug Marc to go back to his source for more quotes or any clarification. This lives up to the second and third pillars of the Johnny Boy mission.
Whether the story is great or not is something I’ll leave up to the client and the readers. I think it turned out pretty good, but whatever the thought on it is, my client will know I gave it maximum attention and effort.
John Agliata is a marketing professional with more than 30 years of communications experience. Reach him at johnagliata@gmail.com or (352) 226-5852.
More From ‘That Marketing Guy’
Five Dumb Things About The American Workplace
Welcome to Issue No. 16 of Listicles, the feature that presents the Top 10, Top 5, Top 3, Top 100 or Top 1,000,000 of whatever it is you want to know about. Email your Listicle suggestions to johnagliata@gmail.com. Very few of us would actually continue at our jobs were we financially able to not. That…
What Type of Bosses Do Employees Leave?
If you accept the truism that people don’t leave jobs, they leave bosses, the next question is obvious: “What do bosses do that cause their people to leave?” The answers to that are as varied as the types of horrible bosses, but it’s possible to roll those individual reasons into just a few bigger buckets.…
Democracy and Newspapers
The three most influential people in my life as a journalist are, sadly, all part of the Great Newsroom in the Sky now. Professors Michael Perkins and Bob Woodward (AKA Bob Woodward-Not-That-Bob-Woodward) helped educate me at Drake University, and Lisa Warren was the best editor of the Dayton Daily News’ Southwest Ohio papers who ever…
Why Your White-Collar Job Is In Jeopardy
Far be it from me — a guy who struggled to get through high school algebra — to suggest performance on standardized math tests is the barometer by which we should measure a nation’s educational system. Yet it is true that those who do well in math and science move into more white-collar jobs than…
A Big Reason Your Workers Are Cranky About RTO
Here’s a workplace truth: Management often has no clue what the rank-and-file are thinking. This is often because employees suck at communicating directly, though their fear of doing so is often justified because of, shall we say, overzealous HR departments. Too often, however, it’s because managers are so used to being managers that they’re not…
The Biggest Hiring Mistake Managers Make
I received a phone call from the CEO of the company for which I served as marketing director at about 6:30 p.m. on Valentine’s Day. I was waiting in the parking lot of a nice restaurant for my wife to arrive. “John, our recent hires have been horrible. Why?” he asked. This was the same…
How Data Is Ruining Baseball (And How It Can Fix It, Too)
Smart businesses allow data to guide their marketing. The ability to do this is relatively new and likely not to last too much longer. A firehose stream of information is available on a company’s marketing campaign performance, its customers and its potential customers. That stream is so strong that there’s a movement afoot to create…
Your Car is Selling You Out
On the dashboard of my car is a tiny square, just a little bit bigger than a postage stamp, that is worse than my sister ever was. If I drive too fast, it tattles. If I brake too hard, it tattles. If I accelerate too quickly — though I struggle to think how this would…
Top 5 ‘Thank-Yous’ To The Bad Bosses Out There
Bad bosses shouldn’t be. Of course, I’ve never met anyone who self-identifies as a bad boss, yet we all know they’re out there, and yes, indeed, without a shadow of a doubt, they do suck. I’ve had more than my fair share of bad bosses over the course of my career, from the one who…
Meet Johnny Boy’s Newest Client
There’s some humor to be found in the newest client on the Johnny Boy Marketing roster. Envision Benefits Group is an employee benefits, payroll and HR consulting company based in Buffalo, NY. Started just before the pandemic, it has not only survived by is thriving under owner and president Kristin Devereaux. Now to the humor:…
The Most Important Work Lesson I’ve Learned
I’m not quite sure when I went from being the working world’s wide-eyed newbie to the grizzled veteran I see in the rearview mirror when I start the car for my evening commute home, yet here we are. I’ll be 48 years old in a few weeks, and I’ve been doing this marketing/communications thing since…
WFH 4EVER? Not So Fast
It’s good to be the king.” Mel Brooks, History of the World: Part 1 I am currently sitting in an office that no one else wanted to fill. Two weeks ago, I started a new job with a company that had a zero-WFH (Work From Home) policy as one of the conditions of hiring. That,…
The Rise of Horny Marketing
RadioShack is taking a controversial approach to its social media marketing. It’s capturing attention. But will the new approach grow sales? “If you find a squirter, marry her.” RadioShack’s Twitter RadioShack getting horny with its marketing is kind of like walking in on your grandparents having sex, and yet here we are, standing in the…
Gamifying War: Where Are They Now?
Nearly 20 years after the U.S. turned Iraqi’s Most Wanted into playing cards, many of the captured have been released or died while in custody, but several remain at large. A U.S.-led coalition stormed into Iraq on March 20, 2003, ostensibly to seek and destroy the weapons of mass destruction our intelligence showed most definitely,…
Four Steps to Market Your Way Through a Recession (Plus a Bonus Tip!)
THE FOUR STEPSNo Axes 🪓Strengthen 💪Attack 🥷🏿Don’t Stop ⏳BONUS: 🥶🧊❄️ The go-to inevitabilities in American society tend to be death and taxes — and with good reason. After all, death is coming for all of us at some point, and income taxes were supposed to be a temporary fix to help fund the Union effort…
An Ugly Consequence When Abortion and Big Data Collide
Every decision carries a consequence. Economists call it an opportunity cost. Politicians often simply call it an opportunity. Parents sometimes call it grounds for punishment. Whatever it’s called by whomever it’s called, the fact is that every single decision we make sets us down a new path, a new timeline, a new reality wholly separate…
Top 5 Cringeworthy Marketing Mistakes
The Top 55. Solving Racism with Kendall 🏴4. Coke is a Feeling 🥤3. Fish > Death 🐟2. Arab Spring Ignorance 👳1. White Power PSP 🎮 As most people do, I made my first on-the-job mistake in my very first job. I was a blueprint copier for an architect who ate a pile of onions on…
It’s a (Dysfunctional) Family Matter
Top 3 questions to ask yourself before going into business with relatives. My wife, Carla, is an amazing woman. She is exceedingly brilliant, the owner of a whole lot more A’s in school growing up than her future husband had. We’ve known each other for nearly three decades now, the past 25 as spouses. And…
The Inside Story of Johnny Boy Marketing
Big things happen in odd places and at the strangest times. I met my future wife in the basement of a dingy college residence hall. The biggest boost to my career came when I had to cancel an interview with someone who could have been President of the United States. And I realized I could…
Why So Much Marketing Data Analysis is Wrong
Any idiot can gather data. In fact, idiots are gathering data all the time. Smart people are, too. So are ants and mosquitos. Every time I drive a car, I’m constantly gathering data. My brain is doing what human brains do to judge distance, speed and alignment and how each might be influenced by things…
The One Thing That Makes a Coach ‘Good’
What makes a good coach? Interesting question, but it’s the wrong one. Oh, that question has all the right words. They’re just in the wrong order. If you want to talk about what makes a good coach, we can list a bunch of coach-worthy attributes — things such as charisma, assertiveness, fairness, consistency. But again,…
Top 3 Super-Secret Event Planning Tips
I have absolutely zero formal training when it comes to planning events. Before this became part of my job duties, I hadn’t planned so much as a birthday party for my child. Of course, I have zero formal training for a lot of the things I do in my job as a marketer and communicator.…
It’s Not the Technology; It’s Us
It’s easy to say Facebook — sorry, Meta — is evil. They do such a good job of proving the point for us. They routinely violate their own privacy policies, they know what they do is bad for people and bad for society, and they lie when subpoenaed to testify before Congress because they know…
When the Popular Vote Doesn’t Matter in Marketing
⬇️ What’s Below ⬇️Marketing: Science or Art? 🔬🎨The nature of feelings 🤗😭😡How to measure success in marketing 📊 Here’s one thing that doesn’t impress me much as a marketing guy: The popular vote. This might seem crazy, considering the goal of marketing is, at its core, to inspire the most people to buy your product…
The BM Files – Goodwill/St. Louis Aquarium
Welcome to The Bad Marketing Files, the place where we look at marketing efforts ranging from the slightly off-message to the truly horrendous. The SettingA Goodwill/St. Louis Aquarium billboard on Interstate 70 The ProblemThe billboard sends messages neither entity wants associated with its brand. Today’s BM Rating💩 out of a possible💩💩💩💩💩(Translation: It’s not good, but…
Sharing My Story Via Podcast
When it comes to podcasts, I need a 12-step program. I counted this morning, and I regularly or semi-regularly keep up with 16 of them. There are dozen and dozens of more that had a limited run that I plowed through at some point over the last seven or eight years. My addiction is a…
Let Your Storytellers Explore Their Multiple Personalities
One of the best parts of being a professional storyteller is that, if you find the right environments, you can explore the many different facets of your personality. And it’s a storyteller’s obligation to explore them, as well as to find the parts that are hidden in the dark corners or are guarded by the…
The Dark Side of Marketing: Big Brother Really Is Watching
What if I told you… … that when you visited a certain website, every single thing you do is being monitored? I’m not just talking about what you click on or what you buy. Most of us have at least an inkling that companies are doing that. I’m talking about actual recordings being made of…
The Boy Scouts are wrong: Preparation is overrated
Back in college at good old Drake University (JO 92… T-Ders will understand), I had some pretty fantastic journalism professors. There was, of course, the legendary Bob-Woodward-Not-That-Bob-Woodward, who, though he worked in Washington, D.C., during the Watergate era, did not, in fact, do any of the reporting that brought down a president. More important to…
My Most Important Interview
I have interviewed hundreds of people during my career, everyone from professional athletes and presidential candidates to the woman promoting a charity bake sale. This past week, I interviewed my wife. Her dad — my amazing father-in-law — died early Sunday morning after a two-month fight with COVID and other complications. I sit here now,…
Patrick Ewing in a Jock Strap
When I was a wee-little storyteller of 17 years, I had the opportunity to go to the New York Knicks training camp to interview their rookie point guard, Greg Anthony. At 6’0″, I was able to look eye-to-eye with the just-out-of-UNLV star while I talked with him in the weight room. Five feet away, a…
Storytellers vs. Content Writers (and why your business wants the first one)
All storytellers can be content writers. Not all content writers can be storytellers. And if you’re running a business or a marketing department, you most definitely want storytellers. So what’s the difference? There are many, but the key one is the focus. Content writers are fine. The good ones will produce lots of copy that…