Joshua Altman explains why many sales slumps are really messaging gaps, and how a simple four-part model plus one clear message a day helps small business owners be the signal, not the noise.
GROWTH PILLAR: Marketing & Branding
WHO THIS IS FOR: SMB owners / Solopreneurs / Corporate escapees / Leaders building systems
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: A simple way to tell a messaging problem from a sales problem, a four-part check for where your message gets confusing, and a one-post-a-day plan you can start this week.
Most owners think they have a sales problem. They usually don't. Until you fix the message, more ads and more posts just add noise.
Joshua Altman helps small businesses find the messaging gap hiding behind slow sales.
Joshua Altman is the Managing Director of Beltway Media, a DC-based firm that serves as a fractional chief communications officer for startups, growing companies, and government agencies. A former multimedia journalist at The Hill, he explains why many business problems are really messaging problems, not sales problems. He shares his four languages model (read, see, hear, and experience) and his story, narrative, and branding framework, which reaches everything from sales scripts to email responses. He also covers clear communication habits, media training, and content repurposing, plus why you should never build your whole business on one platform. This episode is for small business owners and founders who handle their own email marketing and communication and want a clearer, simpler message.
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Bernie (00:22)
Now, question of the audience. Have you ever had a great product, but no one seemed to get it? Well, the gap between what you do and what people hear, that's not a sales problem. That's a communications problem. And today we're going to fix that.
Our guest today is
Joshua Altman, has been shaping the way people see, hear, and understand big ideas for more than twenty years. He leads Beltway.media. Beltway is all one word, and dot media, a DC based communications firm that helps startups, growing companies, and government agencies cut through the noise and say something that actually sticks. Before building the firm, he was a multimedia journalist at The Hill newspaper.
Covering federal policy, elections, energy, healthcare, and more right from the front lines. Today he works with everyone from scrappy founders to federal agencies, helping them turn scattered messaging into one clear, trusted voice. He's also served on the Telly Awards judging panel for over two decades, which tells you he knows the difference between content that wins attention and content that wastes it. Outside the office, he fosters dogs, training them and finding them forever homes.
If he can shape a message and shape a dog at the same time, he's having a good week. Find him at beltway dot media
And connect with them on LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com slash in slash Joshua Altman. Joshua, absolute pleasure having you here today. Thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing?
Joshua (01:44)
Doing well. Thank you for having me.
Bernie (01:46)
You have a favorite quote you like to share with folks?
Joshua (01:48)
When we say all the time is be the signal, not the noise, because that really boils down all of what we do.
Bernie (01:55)
So came out of journalism at The Hill and then you pivoted into communications. Why communications? as opposed to whatever else could be branched out to?
Joshua (02:04)
It was an accident. I wa I left the newspaper thinking I would be a freelance reporter for a few years and then go back into a newsroom full time. While looking for freelance reporting jobs, I also took corporate jobs and they were looking for someone who I was multimedia producer. They were looking for someone with video experience, with web experience, with content, with writing, and with tech who could bring all those together. And over time we found out that
there was a need for this, that it wasn't just one company looking for it or two companies. And it grew into the fractional chief communications officer that we are now.
Bernie (02:40)
So was there a a specific problem that triggered this this genesis that you saw that was happening out in the out in business?
Joshua (02:47)
Lot of small media businesses, startups, growth stage companies, they know they need some communications expertise, but they also know this is not a 40-hour a week hire in their business. They know that they need someone doing it, but it falls on a founder or an owner or often a COO or director of operations person to really be doing it. Because
That's who's there to catch it when it's not really a 40-hour week job. They also don't want to be hiring out to an agency, a large agency with $25,000, $50,000 a month retainers because they can't afford that. They're looking for someone to come in, bring one or two people, if necessary, work with what they already have in place, because they might have a Google Ads agency that they're already working with that they like.
They might have a social media specialist who they like what they're doing, but they don't have it integrated into the leadership core functions of the business. There's no one taking that big picture of you and seeing how these things connect besides the founder or the owner or the COO who has their own job to do and doesn't want to be doing this. We found that kept happening over and over. And we come in and fill that.
ok boy, fill that space for companies who need it, but not forty hours a week.
Bernie (04:09)
What's the flag they they normally trigger on and then they realize I need someone for this. I need someone to be my chief marketing officer. Maybe not full time fractional, like you said, but what's their first trigger that this isn't working out so well?
Joshua (04:22)
Usually they find themselves doing too much of it and not doing what they should be doing. And we're different from a chief marketing officer as chief communications officers. Marketing is one function. There's a lot of overlap. People are more familiar with that chief marketing officer. They're more familiar with that chief branding officer. They're less familiar with the chief communications officer, which is a role that's becoming much more common at the Fortune 500, Fortune 1000, major sports franchises.
Top educational institutions. And even I was talking with someone recently, their mid-sized regional bank hired someone as a chief communications officer full time because it's becoming more common. We focus on shaping perception and building and maintaining trust. Those are the two big buckets of what we do because communications is all about those two things.
Bernie (05:12)
So when they're doing it, is it because aside from doing a job that they they weren't really brought on for, is it do they make errors? Do they leave gaps? Is it consistency that they're normally finding that they where there's issue that is coming up? Or is it just feedback loops that's not you know, the the company's not doing so well?
Joshua (05:31)
It's a little bit of all of those things. They realize they're not putting as much time into this communications function that it really needs because they're doing their actual job as director of operations or the CEO. They realize they're not doing it as consistently because it's not necessarily an afterthought, but it isn't their core job. And they realize sometimes things are getting missed that they should be doing.
A lot of times a communications problem a business is having, they might have tried solving it. They say, think of it as a strategy problem first. Or they've thought of it as a process problem. When in many cases it is a communications problem, but they're seeing it through their eyes of being a chief strategy officer. You know, there's a saying, you know, pick your doctor, pick your diagnosis. You see one specialist and
They'll tell you it's in their specialty. Another specialist tells you your problem's in their specialty because they're always seeing it through their eyes. By that same token, we're gonna see a lot of things as communications problems because we are fractional chief communications officers. But if someone's tried filling this gap or solving a challenge they're having through process or with a strategy revision and it still hasn't been taken, then they're thinking, well, maybe it's something else.
And then they look at what that could be. Often it's communications.
Bernie (06:50)
I've talked to I've talked to people in the past and what they do, they specialize when someone is say a founder and they're looking for fa you know, financial support. they're looking for investors or someone is talking then to the the public and the person that's the founder is really well versed at the product and you know, it usually tends to be in the tech space and then you know if
They try to parlay that out to somebody else. So is the communications officer then communications officer then now translating what's being said so that's that's digestible to the right audience?
Joshua (07:25)
Sometimes we are. A lot of times what we're doing, especially if you're in a small company, a one or two pizza company, and you're really founder led. You might even be, you know, Smith Corp, where that founder name is your company. People want to see Smith. That is who they want to hear from. They don't want to hear from your chief communications officer. Especially if you're looking for early fundraising rounds, they want to see and hear from you. We do a lot.
Of media training with people. And media isn't simply go on TV. It's not just talk to reporters. It's not go on podcasts. If you're standing up in front of a room full of people giving a presentation, that's media training. It takes time. It takes practice. It is a skill like any other skill, like podcasting. I'm sure if you watched your first few episodes, you'd be like, what was I doing? compared to now when you've done one, two, three hundred episodes.
You've got this down. You've practiced it. Same thing with giving your presentations. It's something that you rehearse. And it's a skill that over time you learn. So we practice that with people. And of course, just like in any business, your CTO is going to be there to answer a lot of tech questions. You'll have a chief operating officer or your finance person, VP finance, whoever that is, there to answer those relevant questions.
But having your team does not absolve that founder in those types of companies from being someone that investors and the general public want to hear from.
Bernie (08:52)
So when you're communicating, it's it's one thing to be s the the the talking head, so to speak. Is it visuals? Is it other forms of media that you're also incorporating into this process?
Joshua (09:02)
talked about four things four languages we call it our four languages model what people read see hear and experience and if you're doing a fundraising pitch either for a small group of investors or you're at a big pitch event you have read see hear and experience read people intuitively get it's stuff you read most of what you see you're see you're reading also visuals video graphics all of that here
things like podcasts, but also if you're sitting in an audience of a presentation, you're hearing that. And then experience. People tend to think of that as big experiential events. They're thinking of it like conferences or pop-ups or anything like that. That's part of it. But it's also how you experience what you read, see, and hear. So if you're trying to do some fundraising, the experience of being at a pitch event where you're getting people up on stage every few minutes and they're cycling through.
Is very different than the experience of we are in a conference room with the people we've set an appointment with who this is our second or third meeting. We know them a little bit, they know us a little bit. Both are getting pitches. It could even be your first pitch, but if it's in a private meeting versus a big pitch event, two very different experiences. Oftentimes you'll have visuals, you'll have decks, you might have a sample product depending on what you're building.
You might have something for people to put in front of them, handouts, takeaways, but we're always looking at how all those four languages work together and amplify each other.
Bernie (10:27)
You have two main frameworks at the Beltway Media. Can you walk us through that?
Joshua (10:31)
Well, the first one is that four languages model, the read, see, hear, and experience. The other one we use is our story, narrative, and brand framework. And this is where we basically start every project. We're going to take you through this model. And you could do this on your own. You could just take a piece of paper, divide into thirds, story, narrative, and brand. Story has things. It has characters, it's setting, its situation, it's the beginning, the middle, the present. We're not at the end.
It's what you tell your friends at the bar. It maybe not the most uniform, it's not the best polish. It's the stuff that happened. Narrative's the next step of that. Narrative answers. It says what we're saying about who we are. It's how do the events in our story connect to our themes. It's polishing that bar story for a slightly better audience.
Because you kinda gotta draw connections. And what you really need is for people to conclude from the connected stories. Narrative is answering what should people conclude. Brand is. Brand is swag, is how we like to say it. It's the stuff. It is everything that stakeholders connect with the company. So yeah, people think of branding. They think of that brand. They think of the logo, they think of the mugs and the pens and maybe not so much any more mouse pads, but
We have all those things, but it's more than that. It is customer interactions, sales scripts. If you're in have a physical location, it's that interaction with the staff. It's email responses, chat bots, product packaging, everything that a stakeholder will connect with the company is part of that brand. And we'll take you through this and we'll work on it. And we come back to it over time because
It changes as you grow.
Bernie (12:08)
How often do you come back to it? Is is it semi annual, annual every five years? Or is it product and person dependent?
Joshua (12:16)
It wouldn't be every five years, gonna be a lot s shorter than that. And by that point, we might be taking less about the story on a shorter timeline than narrative or brand. Because if you are a company that's trying to scale rapidly, you're looking for investment, you're going through a growth period, things are gonna change fast. It might be a quarterly quick look, okay, does this still make sense for us? Because if brand is everything.
That those stakeholders are interacting with? Is your chatbot trained on the current products? Is it trained on the same products, but your updated documentation? That's all part of that brand because people are interacting with it and connecting it with your company. On a longer timeline, every six months, you're gonna start seeing a deeper dive. Are was what we're saying about who we are still who we are?
Are our event are are the events in the story, how are they connected to the theme? Are we still telling that the right way? Because over time, there's a little creep, maybe away from something or towards something. But just naturally it happens because you're having these conversations with people every day. Staff is having this conversation with someone every day. That creep will just naturally happen, which might mean we need to realign things to where it's going, or say we've drifted too far. We need to come back.
The answer to that's going to be company dependent.
Bernie (13:32)
Do you find that people worry about running out of content? the messaging has to go out on a regular basis. It's one thing to say, I'm here, this is what I am. Love me. here's my persona, right? I'm kind of chunking it out in pieces and not gracefully so, but you know, that's where that's that's comes the art of the communication process. But do you ever have someone going, Okay, I've I've said where the product comes from, I said what it does.
Is is there more to leverage? Is there other areas they they work?
Joshua (14:00)
There's a lot more. And even if you've said it before, doesn't mean people fa saw it, doesn't mean people heard it, doesn't mean people paid attention, or if they even paid attention that they cared. Say it again. Put out posts on the same topic. Give talks on the same topic. There's no content police. No one's gonna come and, you know, lock you up because you reused the an infographic. Like that doesn't happen. A way you can think about this and read
Do this all the time is repurposing. It's something you hear a lot about. There are a couple ways of doing it. You can start with something big and go small. Start with something smaller and go bigger. And it works with everything in both directions. So if you're writing a corporate blog post announcing your new product, you might have three sections on each of the features. Each of those three sections on each feature is now its own thing. Each of those is its own Instagram post, its own TikTok video. Well
You're going talk about three or four points in each one of those. That's now three or four more. And that just scales over time and really keeps compounding because eventually you'll have a lot of content. It might take six months, might take a year, depending on how fast you're putting stuff out. But you'll have a lot. That can become a TED Talk. It can become a white paper. It can become anything that you scale up from these individual posts.
You can start with one thing and really work in both directions. And that is where you really start not running out. And if somehow you do run out and you have no new ideas, go back to the beginning.
Just talk about those same things again. Don't copy and paste. But talk about those same things because if it's been a year since you've talked about it, if you talked about your widget, guess what? You have more to say now. You've resolved bugs. You've helped people out. You have success stories. So bring that back in because you can always tell that same story.
Bernie (15:48)
Is this where you would leverage reviews then? Either testimonials or interviews where someone goes, that's the best sausage I've had ever, you know, you know, if you're selling sausages or whatever the case might be. Is do you also take that as part of your content? You f you frame it and then you you kind of scoop these reviews or even Google reviews. Is that part of the process?
Joshua (16:10)
It is, especially if you are something in the home services space or trust-based business, medical, legal, financial, anything like that. Those reviews can really shape your business. Now you have to be careful with this, depending on jurisdictions. We are of course available worldwide. Sometimes the ownership of reviews can be tricky. And check with your lawyers.
before you start taking screenshots of pages and posting them. Because you might not own that. That might be somewhere else.
Then that's going to be very jurisdiction dependent. When you start putting out a lot of content, especially t sourcing things from elsewhere, you definitely need a functional chief communications officer. You also need a legal team.
Bernie (16:51)
Sounds handy. Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, you know, whatever else is coming around the mountain. that's a social media platform. I know where the audience is is where you're gonna go, or you're doing live TV or radio. AM radio is probably a little weak, but you know, it might still be an opportunity there. You lock on a platform or do you build content and then shape the content to fit the platform?
Joshua (17:13)
Well we're gonna touch on that radio example. We actually had in our newsletter not long ago that radio is still a very successful medium for news information and ads because people listen in their car. Yes, we have podcasts, we have satellite radio, but radio still a successful way to communicate in twenty twenty six. And there's a lot of data to back that up. Now turns up the the
Platforms people think of more. The Instagrams, the TikToks, the Facebook. You want to go where your audience is. And that's going to depend a lot on your business. For some people, Pinterest is not going to be particularly valuable. For other people, home organizers, cleaners, people in that space, decorate, it's great. They can do a lot there and they're really successful. We primarily are using LinkedIn and Instagram. We found that those
tend to be where we're getting the most success. We have TikToks, we have Twitter X, but we're finding those are the most successful. And also Substack has been something we're growing because we're finding it useful. If it's not useful for you, don't do it. But we also are very worried with companies, we see this a lot, whose entire business is based on these platforms.
where their whole business is based off of I sell on TikTok. And when TikTok was potentially being shut down, they ran ads, big primetime T V ads, with business owners who are saying who said, I sell through TikTok. Without TikTok I wouldn't have a business. I couldn't support my they had the whole thing.
Because these people really had built their business on TikTok. But any of these companies can shut down at any moment. They're private companies. They can change their algorithm, they can ban you, they can do anything to really make it difficult for you. So don't rely completely on one of them. You want to diversify. Of course you want to have your own owned property.
a website that you control, that you can direct people to. Even if it's not the main thing, it's still there. If you're selling mostly through TikTok or Instagram, you still have something that is not going to be completely shut down because you get banned by Meta or TikTok. You have those choices.
Bernie (19:25)
Is that something you I've I've come across a couple of people and they've gone I've just got booted off Facebook Meta and don't know why and you know they're they're trying to work out that is that something you help resolve or is that is that a specialist that's a substance?
Joshua (19:39)
Resolvable. We do it. Sometimes it's resolvable. Sometimes it's designed to be not resolvable. These companies don't, they just tell you you are banned. The decision is final. Have a nice day. Sometimes they are much better about appealing it and giving you a chance to be like, what rule did we break? Why are we banned? Sometimes it's just a bot made a decision because someone could have been a competitor.
Reported you. That can happen. And you got banned. And you could look at it and say, you know, tell the company, we didn't do what they're saying, but the bot automatically flagged it. That can be resolved. But it depends on the company. Some have a process, some don't. Some you can talk with real people there if you know them, if you can get in touch with them. Some, even if you can do that, they do not have the power to reactivate accounts.
Bernie (20:25)
So not all eggs in one basket.
Joshua (20:27)
Never.
Bernie (20:27)
And have lots of baskets and wow.
AI. How does that interleave in this? Because I a lot of people like the authentic side. Sometimes they view AI as not authentic. Sometimes someone clones their voice or you know, it's th the talking head or you know, if it's a cartoon character, you know it it's not you know, you don't have to worry about it being is it recognized as real or fake.
Is that a is that an issue? Is that a problem to even to capitalize on, or do you just leverage it in in certain measure?
Joshua (20:56)
We use AI. It's a tool. That's what it is. If you think of it as the be all end all will save me, will take away all the work that I do, it won't do that. Because you have to know how to use it. You hand me a hammer, if you're lucky, you'll get a crooked bird house no bird ever even wants to look at. You hand a master craftsman that same hammer, you'll get a great-looking structurally sound house that families will live in for hundreds of years. Well
We both had a hammer. That guy just knew how to use it. And I offend birds with my construction. Very different. Same thing with AI. Someone who knows how to use the tool and is using it for where their expertise already lies will find a lot more success than someone who just says, make me a website and put my business on there. Because you don't know if it's right or wrong. You don't know if it's making good suggestions.
And you don't necessarily know how to fix things that doesn't give you the result you want. I can and I have vibe coded apps, programs, efficiencies, all those sorts of things. I have workflows that have 70-something steps in them. We have all of that running. But it took a lot of time. I am not developing the next operating system by vibe coding it. I'm not.
solving quantum computing or doing drug testing by. You need people who actually know those topics to really succeed in that. A real developer will get you a better result with building an app than the good enough solution that me, a non-developer with some technical coding background, can do.
Bernie (22:26)
Is there a single biggest mistake people make in communications and for small businesses?
Joshua (22:32)
overcommunicate. They feel they have to engage with everything. And you can't. There's too much out there. we started this and be the signal, not the noise. That's what you need to do. If you're contributing to everything, if you're responding to every comment, you're replying to every post, trying to be part of all the conversations, you can't do it. There's too much. You need to focus on running your business. You could have a team of people devoted to it and they still couldn't do it.
They need to focus on what the business really needs. Be selective. Make sure everything has value, that it's delivering value. If you're doing an ad for an ad sake or doing a post because someone said you need to have three posts and three comments a day to succeed in the algorithm and it's just there, well, it's not helping anyone. It's not going to help you either. Do what makes sense. Be strategic.
Bernie (23:17)
You find people that and I've heard this about LinkedIn. It's one thing if you're posting, yeah, don't overpost. I get that part. But also engage in other people's posts, you know, the and and and rightly so, not not just old, you know, thumbs up, two word comment, you know, great stuff, keep up the good work. But having having a dialogue. Is this something that's also part of that communication process where you're engaging people in their space?
within the same platform or other platforms?
Joshua (23:45)
It is. And for most of these platforms, the algorithms will benefit comments and people who comment substantively infrequently because it'll show up more. I see, just on LinkedIn all the time a post from someone who I've never heard of. And I see it because a connection of mine commented and left a substantive comment, not a thumbs up.
Not a hey, nice work, really left something thoughtful there. Because that's how it gets shown to more people. Because if you're just relying on your posts, on your network, on LinkedIn or on any channel, you have a fit set number.
You need that extended reach to really have it be a successful use of the platform.
Bernie (24:28)
So with all these different approaches you can take, whether it's video, written message, oral, just audio, how do you track the impact? How do you track the impact? Let's say here's the source of of a message, and now it's been cleaved up a couple of different times. There's little snippets that are, you know, the quote for the day comes over here.
Snip it over here, it goes, if you see this, if you see a red light, stop for it, you know. if it's, you know, those type of things. How do you know that that you've had success and it and it's resonating? And not only have you reach people, you because you you can you can say something and people go, hmm yeah, I heard it. look, here we go again. I heard it, right? How do you know that it goes bang? That that's that made a resounding success.
Joshua (25:10)
It's difficult in part because the tracking tools are imperfect and you never know what really made the difference. There was an old statistic that's been around for a while, takes seven to fourteen touch points for someone to, commit to the purchase. I think now because we have so many more touch points and so much more content and more places and ways to engage, that might be up to 21 or even higher. Which one really made the difference? It was a cumulative effect.
It's very hard to say, well, it was that Google ad or it was that LinkedIn post that really, you know, did it because I could see that they clicked on that one and they sent me a LinkedIn message. That was the final one, sure. But it doesn't count in the 20 that came before it that laid the groundwork for that. So it's hard to say that that LinkedIn post happened to be the one at the right time, but repeating that won't necessarily get you the same result.
There are some tools out there that can help track this, even at the individual user level. Problems with that are well, what if my wife shows me something on her phone? What if you look at something on the kid's device, on another screen, if you see also a billboard? So yes, there's tracking of that, but that is itself a very imperfect system. Best way to look at the results holistically.
If something is truly getting no traction, you're getting no responses from it, no one's watching, no one's clicking, that's a pretty good sign it's not working. But it might be people see something and move on and it's done a really good job laying that foundation.
Bernie (26:37)
So there's one thing a business owner should change this week that would make the message clearer. What would you suggest they do?
Joshua (26:43)
What I would do is I'd start down start take a piece of paper, divide into four, go read, see here, and experience. How can you make it see where the confusion might be and think how can we make this clearer? Simplify. Simple messages work well. Most of what we do, most of what most businesses do, is the basics repetitively and well. You don't have to get fancy.
Come up with a content calendar. Simple. Just think about a week. Because a lot of times people think I need to do this and I need to be thinking for a long period of time because that's what this article online said to do. Think about what you need to do for a business week, just Monday through Friday. One post a day, one piece of content a day. And that could be if you are a physical location, you're a restaurant, you have a tax office that people walk into.
That could be a pamphlet. That could be a sign, that piece of content. Think about where people are engaging and what they're experiencing. And come up with one thing you can do per day that might help you grow and lay a foundation for something that'll come in the future. Because you don't have to solve it all today. Like I said, 21 touch points, maybe more. You need to get that first one. So think about that first one that people.
are going to engage with.
Bernie (27:55)
We do find then that if you had and I and where I'm thinking of this right now, if I'm gonna promote something, it's it's advertising. And if I'm gonna advertise, let's say at a sporting event, if you think hockey, football, baseball, NASCAR, all these locations, all these different venues have some sort of identifier back to a product. Is that part of the process then of getting the communication out?
And you find that this brand alignment. Obvious obviously if you're selling geriatric supplies, you know, a hockey game may not be the may not be it unless of course it's the old timers you know league that you're doing, right? but you know it's usually beverages, you know, that tend to flow or automobiles. Do you find that leveraging and using that space, ad space is also part of that?
Joshua (28:40)
You definitely want to have in person ads when it makes sense for you. It doesn't make sense for every business and those ads that you're talking about are very expensive. A lot of businesses can't necessarily afford to be advertising at an NHL or NFL game. They might need something a little smaller scale. When you can't afford it, it's great. There's a reason companies buy naming rights to stadiums. Because it works. There's a reason people
Have ads, Super Bowl ads. There's a reason people advertise on courts and on the ice. People are seeing it. It works. They're not necessarily, seeing the Coca-Cola or the Budweiser logo on the arena floor and thinking, okay, I'm buying Coke or Budweiser. But it's reinforcing that brand recognition because it takes a lot of touch points, a lot of repetition to get people to buy.
Bernie (29:28)
So if if it's a small business, for example, should they look in their community and find a business that runs parallel to what they do? you could see that sometimes maybe not so much with a doctor pharmacy thing because only for the fact there there might be restrictions on that. But little but let's say I I'm running a a a pet food store or a pet store and the my someone else runs a kennel.
you cross pollinate. So they're in alignment because they both deal with the canines, for example. Does that does that make sense looking for those other other businesses in your community where you could cross pollinate?
Joshua (30:01)
Makes a lot of sense for people, especially if you are like those two businesses you describe that have physical things that people come across. you mentioned that, I'm involved with dog rescue. I see it all the time in that area where vets recommend to pet services in the area, that they have a list on their website of services that they know. Because they get asked the same question all the time. Where's a good kennel? Who's a good trainer?
They just have a list. They'll have a handout for you. this comes with all our new patient information. It's on our website. We don't have to memorize the list of 25 trainers that we know and we've talked with and we can recommend. If you have something more service-based, where you ni, like what we do, fractional chief communications officers, we host webinars, we host things, that type of stuff with related businesses where we could offer that.
And you get our audiences who know both of us, who are now meeting the other party. And that tends to work really well. Sports advertising in a community for local teams, there's a reason people do it and get on those t-shirts or have an ad up at the local park. That might be more effective in many ways because people aren't only there for a couple baseball games a year.
They're walking by it all the time because they're walking by the park all the time. So they see that. That could be an effective way. Go where the people are, but also you need to experiment. Just because you don't think it would work, doesn't mean it's not worth necessarily trying at a smaller scale. If you could buy a baseball field ad for one calendar year or one season, maybe it'll be worth it. Maybe not. But there's no
anal no test you could try besides really doing it to see if that's going to be successful for you. And that's something that a lot of businesses don't necessarily do is try out things live. It really often is the only way to really have good information on what's going to work for you.
Bernie (31:53)
But you see some of the process also of when you're doing a message, much like when let's say if I go clothes shopping, right? I'll the my wife will come along and she'll say, Yeah, that looks good. And she does the same thing in reverse, like she'll what's how's this look on me, honey? Right. Is are you providing the advice not so much how what they're wearing, well only if they're speaking in in those clothes, right, at a public event.
You don't want to show up a a a a a rodeo clown at a at a business meeting or at a you know news conference, unless of course you happen to be in that business. Do you provide that type of advice and going, Okay, got the message. Now here's the look and the sound bite that has to or the sound that goes with it. Even even the music in the background of that's you know, there's a jingle. Are you also involved in that stretch of the road?
Joshua (32:40)
Yeah, that's all part of the media training. So what they're wearing is definitely part of giving that presentation. Sometimes, especially at maybe a pitch event, pitch conference, they want that, tech founder hoodie look that can work. That might not be the best everywhere. If they're at another meeting, they might want something more business casual than founder hoodie. And
You can even use it as a prop. You pull something out of a pocket. You take something out and hold it. You put it in a pot. Those are all things that you could do. And they also anchor your presentation and help you, especially if you're not the most experienced presenter. Picking something up, putting something down, they they're they're anchor points that you can refocus throughout your presentation.
Even a five minute presentation, if you have three of those, walk left, walk right, take out of pocket, you have something because you know what you're doing and coordinating what you're saying with an action, which can really help when you're trying to deliver that presentation. The music, most conferen most boardroom meetings, I don't think have music, though these are the ones I've been to, it's not been common.
Bernie (33:48)
play the shark theme, you know, Jaws theme. I I've got some news for you boys or gals.
Joshua (33:54)
But when it's relevant, we the whole experience is what we're looking at and how all those things come together.
Bernie (34:01)
So who's your ideal collaboration partner or great referral look like for you? What shape do they
Joshua (34:06)
Collaboration
partners, we're looking, we work with primarily small, medium businesses, startups, and professional services firms are our core areas. Anyone who is too small to have a full-time chief communications officer, but knows they need something. If you've been struggling with any business problem and a couple of solutions might not have worked, try communications fix.
If you're launching a product in a year from now, start your communications on it now. We get called in when people are launching. 30 days. We could do a lot better job if we have one to two years. Just like if your product development only had 30 days, you might get something, but it won't be nearly as good as if you had that full two-year development cycle. Same thing with the communications. Bring it in early.
People, one of the few things we hear all the time is we're not big enough to need it. We don't have enough communications needs. Our product isn't there yet. That's why it's fractional. You could be five hours a month, you could be 20 hours a week. It depends on where you are. And if you have five hours a month, we can we're there to grow with you as you succeed. Because ultimately you're going to need more. But you need to lay that foundation.
Bernie (35:15)
It almost reminds me of a golf tournament for a charity. yeah runway length is really important. So what would you say, like six to eight months before you push something out the gate, to get people kind of s spun up in in in and paying attention? Or do you do a cliffhanger? you know, you've s I've seen that happen with there was one band, rock band that came out, greatest band ever, and then that's that's all you heard and you'd never heard the name.
being announced, right? And th which w built up the anticipation. I is that is that a tactic, a style to to emulate or is is there
Joshua (35:48)
But we want to start working with a product or a company when their development starts. So if you know you're looking at a two-year period before you launch, bring in the communications now. Because just like you're writing your documentation for the product as you go along, that documentation, even if it's internal, that's part of your product communications because that documentation is going to be supporting all the problems that your customers have.
That they're calling in about or emailing in about. So that's important. And on the public facing side, you want to get people ready for it, you want to get people excited for it. That could mean for depending on the business, starting to talk about it on active social accounts, just the big themes of what's coming down. Because mobility, if that's you have something that's easier to use, that's more portable, you can start talking about that. So people are primed for
Another company, maybe a startup that doesn't have all that yet, it could be going on podcasts and doing webinars and conferences where you're talking about your big products and your big themes and getting people ready that way. But you always want to start priming them as early as possible.
Bernie (36:56)
Fostering dogs. That's that's an interesting interesting pastime. What's been your most favorite dog to foster?
Joshua (37:03)
So I'm not a foster anymore. I used to foster, now I handle dogs, now I'm a I work with the fosters. the dog I kept.
Bernie (37:09)
nice. What what'd you get? What type of dog?
Joshua (37:12)
No, I he was a I had him as a foster at first and then I kept him and he is a true mix.
Bernie (37:18)
A true mix? What's that?
Joshua (37:19)
Got a little bit of everything in him. He's a super mutt.
Bernie (37:22)
Heinz 57. Okay, got it. Got it.
That's perfect. That's that's those are the best breeds. The best of all the worlds. You know what, Joshua I want to say thank you. for those that are listening in. Joshua offers a free strategy session, no strings attached, no pitch deck, just a real conversation about where your communic where your communications are and where they need to go.
you just book it through beltway.media slash free consultation. And also, you know, head over to beltway.media to learn more about what Joshua and the team can do for you. Grab one of the free tools they posted for startups and growing businesses. If your message is getting lost, that's the first place to start. And just I want to say thank you so much for being here today, Joshua. And if you want to find out more about Knack 4 Business, just go to knack4business.com. That's Knack.
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