[00:20] Intro Dan – our connection briefly explained
[01: 12] Early affiliate marketing stories
[04: 59] Curiosity as a starting point vs focus on results
[09:22] Yin and yang of digital marketing: data / creativity, numbers / people, dollars / empathy
[11:22] Empathy as essential to meeting others, marketing, and coaching
[13:20] Reboot.io: Dan’s current day job in which he is Co-Founder and head of product
[16:04] Dan using digital marketing as tool / process to meet others in NYC, various jobs
[21:08] Conclusion
BRIAN: Alright, welcome again to Matchcast. Today we have a very special guest joining us for episode number 3. Our good friend Dan Putt. Dan has been a co-founder, he functioned as a board member for matchnode, he’s fulltime at reboot which we will talk about. He’s been our business partner in the past and most importantly he’s been a mentor to both Chris and I throughout the years.
So welcome to Matchcast Dan.
DAN: Thanks Brian, and Chris, it’s good to be here. I’m impressed already.
BRIAN: Well awesome man. Today we thought it would be interesting to trace a little bit of your life cycle and your journey in the digital marketing world and see how it’s evolved over time, take a look at some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way and see some things that are applicable to todays digital marketing world, even though a lot of the things and tactics you’ve used over the years have changed, the lessons you’ve learned and the journey is still very very relevant today.
DAN: Great, that sounds good to me.
BRIAN: Alright man, so how did you get started in digital marketing? You were in the very early days of AdWords and affiliate marketing, what introduced you to this world?
DAN: Yeah that’s a good question. I was trying to think about this, what was sort of the genesis. I’m heading to Italy in a few weeks, we do these boot camps in reboot so I’m heading for out Tuscan boot camp, and Italy is actually where I got my entrepreneurial start. Just being kind of a nerd that I was and noticing that every computer and little electronics stores had overpriced computers. So after my first trip to Italy where I studied abroad, when I got home I cold-called Toshiba and HP and basically negotiated a purchasing agreement with them where I could buy their off-lease computers and sell them. First to Italians on eBay.
And it was while I was sort of a couple years into that business which taught me a lot about entrepreneurship that I read an article in Business 2.0 about somebody, I forget the guy’s name, Dan something, who I ended up connecting with later on.
He had just written a story about running AdWords ads for top Amazon books that they were selling, as an affiliate. This was back in the days when it was easy to just direct link AdWords ad to whatever book or product on Amazon and how as long as his cost-per-click was lower than his commission-per-click he could do it all day long and I was extremely interested in that and fascinated by it.
I’ve always been a guy who likes to figure out how things work and kind of deconstruct it. This was like early November 2005 and I remember reading, just diving in all kinds of research and finding the top toys for the upcoming Christmas, setting up my Amazon affiliate account, setting up my Linkshare account for my Walmart affiliate, and running some campaigns. Not really knowing what I was doing, and racking up some credit card debt along the way and having faith that Linkshare and Amazon were going to pay me the commissions that I was generating. That was kind of my first foray into the digital marketing world. Very different time.
CHRIS: Dan, that’s so amazing I mean one of the things that’s really fun about this is the three of us have known each other for a long time, I feel like we’ve talked about this subject so many times but I never knew the Italian piece of your story. So that’s really fun.
How did you get traffic from Italy at that point?
DAN: I was just selling on eBay, eBay Italy, and just using Goggle translate or Babelfish, whatever was popular at the time to basically write my eBay listings and then translate them to Italian.
CHRIS: Wow
BRIAN: So Dan, one of the big takeaways is you’ve got a reputation as an early adopter and jumping on to new platforms even when you’re not totally sure how they work. Can you tell us about that process and the mental aspect to it to try a new platform even when you’re not sure what the outcomes were going to be?
DAN: Yeah, I mean I think I touched on it a little bit. I’m very curious on how things work and I can’t help myself from trying to figure out how they piece together. So when I’m in that mode I’m less concerned about outcomes and more interested in just learning. So the AdWords example, this is brand new AdWords. This was late 2005, I don’t remember when Google launched AdWords but it couldn’t have been more than a couple years before this.
Endlessly Googled and read about it but most importantly just was willing to throw it on a credit card and start running some ads. I remember it was a little scary at the time, but just driven by the fascination of how does this work? How does this come together? What is this piece? “How are other people doing it?” has always been a central theme to my digital marketing approach is what are other people doing that’s working and kind of deconstructing what they’ve done. Hopefully leveraging their own failures.
But I think that’s always been key for me.
CHRIS: Yeah, so this is definitely resonating a lot. You’ve talked about deconstructing a couple times and just the general curiosity of wanting to figure something out. When we’ve talked about it, the three of us have talked about it in terms of it being a puzzle, which is a really consideration and when you’re in that mode, do you find yourself in your career so far, have you gotten better results when you’re in that mode of just satisfying your curiosity because you want to do something disconnected from results? Or has that sometimes led you down the wrong path?
How have the results tracked these kind of two different approaches you seem to allude to?
DAN: I’ve found that generally the more it comes from a place of curiosity and trying to learn something and understand something, the better the results have been. When it starts to be really high stakes, and we can talk about some of the projects you and I did way back when, Chris, when we were starting. You know, it had to work, we had to figure it out for x, y, and z reasons. It was much harder I think, because you weren’t as open or I wasn’t as open to learning the lessons as they came, it was just another failure in the process that I needed to work.
When I approach it with curiosity and playfulness it tends to come much more easily. And I know this logically but it’s much harder in practice.
BRIAN: Dan that speaks a little bit to the creativity balance with the numbers and data of digital marketing and what comes first. And it sounds like you’re advocating much of the creative approach coming first.
DAN: Yeah, I think it partially for me at least, it’s kind of the initial intent or intention that drives the project. It gets me into the process. It’s learning to understand things better and see what I can figure out, then the outcome, the results tend to be better for me. And I think part of that is I’m more open to the testing, I’m more open to what the data says.
If it comes back and says that this approach is not working, then I’m willing to try a new one. Versus when I need to make this project work, when the data comes back and says this approach is not working, it’s much scarier and can be a much bigger setback. So I think it comes from, “hey I want to try something” and that’s why I think my best projects in the digital marketing realm have been a “hey let’s just try something”.
I mean, we met Brian, or we starting working together from that same approach, when we generated the leads with NCSA
BRIAN: Right, I think that’s a perfect segue. Let’s talk about some of those early projects you worked on either with me or Chris. Most importantly, not so much the projects, or tactics but the lessons you learned in some of those instances.
DAN: Well, we learned a lot when the three of us came together to generate leads for NCSA.
BRIAN: Our first official project with the three of us working together was when I worked at company called NCSA athletic recruiting and we helped match high school athletes with college coaches, and Dan and Chris came on board to help us drive digital leads in some creative ways that we weren’t nimble enough to approach.
Do you want to talk about that process a little bit Dan? And maybe give us some of your takeaways?
DAN: Yeah, I mean we had talked quite a bit about some of your ongoing challenges generating leads for them, and I just knew there were ways that other people had been generating leads or that we could do it more efficiently.
So Chris and I came to you and talked about how we could figure out ways to be more efficient. And one of the things I knew was that there were a number of areas that were generating leads, that could generate targeted leads that were not being utilized by NCSA. And, again, an arbitrage opportunity, which has been a common theme for me, we could generate those for far less than what NCSA was going to pay for them.
It was a lot harder than what both Chris and I thought. But we learned a lot about the affiliate world, we learned a ton about pay-per-lead, cost-per-lead, and I think one of our best tactics ultimately, which was a matter of hey let’s experiment, was calling and qualifying leads we were buying from other sources. Which was adding a step to a process that other people weren’t willing to do, but we figured a way to do it cheaply enough and efficiently enough that we could generate qualified leads in a profitable rate.
BRIAN: Right, so it’s kind of a counter intuitive thought to generating leads on the internet, calling them.
DAN: Yes.
BRIAN: But it really speaks to your overall approach when approaching a problem and most importantly in finding a solution, is looking at things a little bit differently to ultimately have success.
DAN: Yes, absolutely.
CHRIS: And one thing that happened in that situation where the three of us are kind of witness to or participants in, is that the three of us are good friends our relationships kind of deepened through digital marketing.
Dan, knowing you and knowing Brian, there’s this part to good digital marketers where there’s kind of a yin and a yang within the approaches we use and within the ability to use some of these very dry tactics, not dry necessarily, but very-data driven but very much about numbers and dollars and cents and to use them. If you were only good at that, if that’s your only way into it, it’s going to be a struggle. Because the other part of it is very creative, it’s very much about people. It’s seeing that behind the click is a person and then there is this other layer where the three of us had our relationship deepen through this work.
And Dan, I know from talking to you, you use some of these skills as a way to meet new people, or a way to start a conversation with somebody you wanted to meet.
Can you think of any examples of that which would tease that out a little bit?
DAN: Yeah, there’s been a number of those throughout the years. Pretty much for me it’s always come down to a genuine curiosity in people and their stories. That’s a particularly helpful approach to the digital marketing world because good digital marketers out there are testing and experimenting and trying different approaches. A shortcut to learning the same things they’re learning is getting together with them and learning their stories.
I have a number of friends who were these affiliates you’d read about, the people who are making all kinds of money while they’re traveling all over the world. I’ve met a number of people who are doing that just living in the shadows just out of curiosity asking what they are doing and how it’s working. And developing relationships through that curiosity.
It feels like everything good in my career has come from a genuine interest in what someone is doing and what they’ve learned. Initially it was mostly around marketing, but it’s expanded more recently.
CHRIS: You’re drawing a lot of very important to you lines through developing relationships with other people out of the pure curiosity and interest in them. And you talked about the psychological tactics of setting up a successful digital marketing campaign and empathy being an ability to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and understand what that experience might be like for them when they are sitting across from you at a table or on the other side of your digital marketing campaign.
Do you find that practice has enriched your professional life, is it something you would actually practice regularly? Are you always trying to do it throughout life? Or do you find that something that develops as you go?
DAN: That’s a really great question actually. If I were to think about I’ve had success beyond what I’ve talked about curiosity, I think it’s when I was able or when I am able to really deeply connect with what another person may be experiencing or has experienced. It really very very much connecting with what they’re going through and their experiences.
It’s worked very well with marketing and extremely well with copywriting. You know, not just trying to imagine what somebody might be going through as they hit this landing page, or read this email, but really trying to feel it. And it’s interesting now how you’re asking that question that’s the same skills and the same toolbox that I’m reaching into with my work with Reboot, whether it’s actual coaching which I do a little bit of, or facilitating some of our groups or developing products.
If you can’t really emotionally connect with what someone’s experience may be, then it’s hard to really develop either a language or a product that can serve them and support them. So there is not question that developing an empathetic connection with someone and being able to step into their shoes is really important.
CHRIS: It does, it does, and your kind of were starting to go there and I think this is a good time where we wanted to talk about Reboot a little bit and it sounds like you’re just about to take that step, so why don’t you go forward and tell the listeners a little more about Reboot. How you got there and how it overlaps a little bit with some of these lessons you’re picking up as you developing your career in digital marketing, if you feel that’s an aside to it, or you see it as something that overlaps.
BRIAN: Really quick, what is Reboot for all of our listeners?
DAN: So Reboot is a coaching company, we work with pretty much exclusively tech companies and entrepreneurs. We coach in a number of ways, whether it’s one on one coaching, we do boot camps, we do peer groups. And really the whole structure of the organization is to support the emotional rollercoaster, the ups and downs, the personal struggles of really building great companies.
For me personally, and Chris was there for a lot of this, I’ve experienced the real struggles of trying to build a company, and knowing what it does to you personally, what it does to you emotionally, and what it does to your own mental awareness and sanity and health. Knowing the importance of having whether a coach, or a good friend, or some kind of peer group. Somebody you can talk to about what’s going on and knowing how helpful that can be to your own sanity and also ultimately your own performance.
So having had that support while I was trying to build companies, I knew how important it was for me and it was always something I wanted to do for someone else. And when the opportunity presented itself to help start Reboot, and kind of pay it forward, I jumped on it. So I know how important it is, I know how hard it is to build companies. And I know how important it is to have that support. So that’s kind of a long winded answer to what Reboot is.
I’m in Reboot because I saw one of my partners and co-founders, Jerry, give a talk, Jerry Colonna, he’s a former VC turned coach, and he gave a talk about 7 or 8 years ago, maybe 10 years ago, geez.
Just about, I’m just starting coaching, but he was mostly there to talk about investing, and that’s what people wanted to hear him talk about. But I was immediately intrigued about what’s a coach? How does that work?
And so using some of the stuff I had learned previously, I came home, tracked down Jerry’s information sent him a cold email, which I often did. Like, hey I’d like to hear more about your story, ultimately he became my coach and now my partner.
Just having that curiosity in people really led me to where I am now with Reboot.
BRIAN: I think that was a really interesting point about sending “a cold email as you often did”. Over the years estimate how many cold emails you’ve sent out?
DAN: I don’t do it en masse, but I do it when I’m genuinely interested in connecting with someone. Gosh, I can’t even begin to estimate, in the thousands I’m sure. Especially when I was in New York, when there were so many people who were accessible.
BRIAN: I think it really speaks to the importance of taking the first step.
DAN: Yeah, absolutely, and in not really having any concern about people saying no or people blowing me off, which plenty of people did.
CHRIS: What would you guess your conversion rate was on that as far as getting a response and having it turn into something.
DAN: I’d say getting a response was actually pretty high, I mean even for well-known authors and speakers, it’s probably at least 50-60%. Getting together or having a conversation, that was probably 30% of the time, maybe. And then I would say I have had some really good relationships and friendships and partnerships come out of maybe 5-10% of those.
So it’s been a remarkably effective approach for me. This seems like a theme of this conversation, but coming from a place of real curiosity about the person. A lot of times I would go into those meetings and the people would say, “hey so how can I help you?”, and I wouldn’t have an answer to that question. Because I didn’t have any intention, I just wanted to meet them and hear their story.
CHRIS: Did you ever find some people would have a funny reaction to that, like I’ve had situations before where maybe I was trying a similar approach, and when I didn’t have a great answer to that question, “how can I help you?” I sometimes got a look back like, “what are we doing here? Don’t you need anything, or don’t you want something?”
DAN: Absolutely, I got my fair share of those. Sometimes I felt bad about it, like “oh shoot I really need to get better about thinking about that”. But at the end of the day, I felt like my approach worked pretty well for me and has led to some really good relationships.
CHRIS: For sure, it sounds like the cases that have worked best for you, have been really driven by that curiosity and a lack of concern for maybe the outcome or the finances involved, which I think a lot of entrepreneurs make the mistake of putting that first.
Do you see commonality within yourself in that kind of interpersonal interest you have with others, as well as, maybe a more tactical kind of numbers-focused, roll up your sleeves and dig in to some digital marketing campaign, do you see those coming from the same place?
DAN: I think so. I mean I think it’s an interest in wanting to know what makes people tick and what makes things work. And so, with a person that’s getting together and hearing their story, with a campaign for example, that’s having the data and seeing what’s working, what’s not working. In some ways, it sounds cheesy, the data and the metrics tell a story themselves.
What’s always been interesting to me is the psychology that comes hand in hand with developing a really strong and effecting digital marketing campaign. Even so, there’s obviously some similarities in terms of meeting with people and developing relationships. Understanding where they’re coming from, how are they ticking and the same is true with what’s driving good metrics in a campaign.
BRIAN: Now Dan, you’ve talked a lot about mentors today, you’ve had a number of mentors over the years. Can you just briefly talk about a few of them and the big lessons or takeaways you got from those opportunities? I mean I’d venture to say you were a mentor for me when I barely knew what a landing page was. And that was a huge step in my career.
DAN: Well I appreciate you saying that, I mean, to me it always felt like you were tremendously effective at making things work in at times a challenging environment. And in that environment, I didn’t recognize the value of what you were bringing to the table. So I remember looking over Windows Media embedded videos on a landing page, and playing in a buggy way, and you reaching out and saying how do I improve this?
And I was like, “oh man, that’s a rough place to start”. But you made it work, so I appreciate you saying that.
BRIAN: Well, in some ways it was an easy place to start, because when you’re starting from the ground floor, there’s only one place to go, up.
DAN: That’s true, but I think that says how long ago that was too, the fact that there was a Windows Media Player.
BRIAN: Yeah, I’m guessing some of our listeners won’t know what that is.
DAN: I’ve been fortunate to meet some really wonderfully talented people and learn quite a bit. Maybe if I were to try and distill it down to one commonality I’ve seen throughout with all of them, is, a real self-awareness. A real understanding of what’s important to them and what they want to work towards and what they are working towards and what they want to work on.
And what their strengths are and what their weaknesses are. And being comfortable with that. It’s not something I’ve totally stepped into yet, but I’ve seen pretty consistently with a lot of my friends and a lot of my mentors.
BRIAN: Well, Dan, we really appreciate having you on Matchcast today. We appreciate you taking some time us of your busy schedule. Anything you want to leave our listeners? Any final lessons of wisdom?
DAN: Yeah, don’t be afraid to follow your curiosity and see where it takes you and make mistakes. Also, thanks for having me on, it’s fun to chat with you guys about this. And it’s always fun to talk about yourself.
BRIAN: Ok, well, thanks to everyone for joining us again on Matchcast. We will be back, hopefully very soon with yet another exciting guest. And Dan, I’m sure we will have you on the podcast soon in the future. Thanks for listening everybody.
CHRIS: Thanks Dan.
DAN: Thanks guys!
Resources:
— intro and outro music from our friends at Sabers: https://sabersmusic.bandcamp.com/releases