Jab Till It Hurts - Chapter 6: All About that Jab

It would be impossible for me to say too much about jabbing. So, let’s do a whole chapter on it, shall we?

I’ve never felt like I give too much information for too little return when I’m jabbing because I don’t look for a return from everything I do. The return, to me, is often as simple as a person having a lightbulb moment and figuring something out— because I gave them an insight they didn’t have before.

Knowledge is not a commodity; it’s not like soybeans or coffee beans. It’s freely available to everybody on the internet; you can Google search anything these days. Schools are backward because they teach rote memorization and we don’t need that anymore. We need access to data and access to people who will help us understand the data in a meaningful way.

I like jabbing. If I could dedicate eight hours a day to giving value in Facebook groups, I would totally do it. I enjoy it; I love making a difference in people’s businesses. It’s a high for me. I felt like I was on Facebook 24/7 when we first start Ad Zombies because the company was me—I was Ad Zombies. Fortunately, by Day 15, I had help. On Day 30 I had more help. Then I got real help when Brandon Disney, our Operations Ninja, came on board.

In short, I found that the more people I had around me, the easier it was for me to jab, which is what I want to be doing the most.

Give your help, your knowledge away. Help as people have questions about what you care about, about what you know. Provide value. Give, give, give. Once you’ve done that, it’s a hell of a lot easier to say, “Hey, by the way, I have a new advanced XYZ course you can check out,” or “Want to try my beef jerky?” than if you’re throwing an ask out there without any history.

Start your business. Begin giving. That’s it.

A Memorable Jab

One of my most memorable jabs comes in the form of an ad I wrote for a swim school. The jab was done specifically for a colleague and friend of mine, David Tash of Tash Advertising, who needed to pump up enrollment for his swim school client.

Why this is such a memorable jab is not necessarily how David implemented the ad with his clients, it’s how another swim school caught the concept. That swim school reached out to us, and we created a different, albeit similar, ad strategy for their swim school.

Their swim school was having horrible enrollment problems and, like my friend David’s client, they were using images of happy babies in swimming pools and trying to sell the joyful experience of swim lessons. The reason this doesn’t work is because it doesn’t stand out. It doesn’t connect emotionally and viscerally with the audience; it’s just wallpaper when you scroll through your newsfeed.

The ad we created was vastly different.

The ad we created shows a father and daughter standing graveside at a cemetery, looking down. The headline of the ad read, “Don’t let this happen to your child.” Then, over the course of the body of the ad, it painted a picture of what it’s like to drown from the child’s perspective. As they fall into the pool, they don’t make a sound, no one hears them, yet they can see everything going on around the deck as the water fills their lungs. It burns, it’s excruciating. As they continue to sink, things get farther and farther away. The child sees the dog barking at the deck, but no one sees or hears this event because a child drowning in a pool is silent. They don’t make noises like you think; they don’t splash. Slowly, the child sinks to the bottom, the light begins to fade, and he’s gone.

As you can imagine, that ad had an emotional impact on the audience.

The swim school having trouble booking ended up selling six months’ worth of swim classes in three days. That’s how you get an audience to react. This ad is probably, to this day, my most memorable jab. This jab turned into something very powerful and effective—not for the original person intended, but for another company.

Jabs Change Everything

Jabbing has changed the course of my company. Ad Zombies would not be where it is today if not for my jabbing in Facebook Groups. However, as the company has grown, it’s been harder and harder for me to devote the time needed to jabbing. This is a mistake. In fact, it goes against everything I’m telling you to do in this book. Wait, did I just admit I’m not drinking my own Kool-Aid? Remember when I said admit when you’re wrong? Getting busy shouldn’t get in the way of bringing value. You’ve got to continue jabbing even as your business grows and finds success because that is what brings value to the community.

Continuous jabbing keeps the snowball of growth in gear.

When you are jabbing every day, and then suddenly you are jabbing every other day, you’re still present. But when you’re jabbing every four days or every month, it changes the momentum—the energy of the growth of your business, of your brand. You’ve got to stay in the Facebook Groups if you’ve established a presence and a good reputation there. Spending significantly less time in Groups earlier this year was the one oversight in my time management that I can’t reverse, I can only course correct.

Don’t beat yourself up if you make mistakes or if you need to course correct. It’s okay, it happens to all of us. But jabbing and staying engaged with that core audience of people that have built your company, your customers, is critical.

As of the writing of this book, yes, my jabs have decreased dramatically. I’ve allowed other things to get in the way. However, that is not going to continue. I’ve started increasing the amount of time spent jabbing in Groups and I’m going to continue to do so until I’m in multiple Groups every day, jabbing and jabbing and jabbing. It just takes a little extra effort, an extra hour a day to do it. If you are consistent, your business will continue to see new explosive growth long-term.

Leveraging the Power of Barter to Jab More Effectively

When you start your new business, you might not have the working capital to get things rolling. In fact, you might be living paycheck to paycheck in your 9 to 5, and that’s part of why you feel trapped and why you can’t ever escape “The Man.” But there’s always a way forward if you get a little creative.

One of the ways you can escape your job and build your business is with bartering. Let me explain.

Let’s say you are an expert at growing herbs and vegetables. That’s your thing. On your one-acre lot, you have the most incredible organic garden anywhere in your community. The thing to do is approach a local Mom and Pop restaurant that would use your produce in their cooking. Tell them you’d like to supply the herbs and spices for a cooking demonstration or cooking classes put on by them. In exchange, you’ll get a little brand recognition for your organic herbs and vegetables within your small community. It’s a start. It’s small. Remember, baby steps here. We’re not trying to become a multimillion-dollar corporation overnight—we’re trying to build a small local brand with a real following.

Prior to the cooking class, you make a video of yourself talking about the herbs you’re choosing for the class or picking the vegetables for the demonstration. Discuss the dishes the attendees will be making or tasting, and why you’re choosing the produce you’re picking—what these herbs bring to those dishes.

Create two or three 1-minute pieces and co-brand the restaurant in these pieces. If you don’t have any budget for event promotion, you can post this as unpaid content to Facebook. Organic content is unpaid content—stuff that you publish to Snapchat or Facebook or Instagram that you don’t put any marketing dollars behind. You just let it ride and people find it organically.

At the same time, you can have a conversation with the restaurant and say, “Hey restaurant, could you do me a favor? Are you going to promote this event on your Facebook page?” Yes? Great. “Could you hashtag my new business page, please? Or @ me?”

An @ means that if the restaurant posts on Facebook and your business has a Facebook page— which it should, by the way, what are you waiting for?—they’ll simply use the @ symbol and begin typing the name of your Facebook page. Doing this will tag your page in their post and make it bold so people can find you. It’s important because it gives love to your brand.

So now, even if the restaurant posts the event organically, if they have a following of 5,000 people or 20,000 people, every person who interacts with their brand that day is going to see your brand name and what’s coming up. It gives these individuals an opportunity to click on your name and see your content as well. It’s the circle of life again.

Let’s say you’ve done all organic posts and the restaurant did all organic posts. You’re both cross- promoting. You’ve got 100 followers; they’ve got 10,000. You’ve now got some brand-love from a powerful partner, and it didn’t cost you anything except some time and some herbs.

Amp Up the Power of Barter with a Few Dollars

If the restaurant in our example here puts some marketing dollars behind your event, or if you have the ability to put some marketing dollars behind it, here is what you should do prior to the event: put a dollar a day behind each of those videos you created earlier and target a 15 or 20-mile radius around the event, depending on the geography of where you are. Target people who are interested in cooking or herbs or eating healthy using Custom Audiences on Facebook. It’s a remarkable tool. Or, you just do Open Targeting and let Facebook decide for you.

Anyway, at the cooking event, offer a discount coupon for anyone attending the class to come pick their own herbs from your land, or get weekly deliveries of fresh herbs, or whatever it is you’re doing with your business. You’ve just connected in a meaningful way with a dozen or more customers! And hopefully, had some fun at the same time.

Another Powerful Example of How to Barter for Growth

Let’s say you’ve designed the most awesome clothing ever worn by any human being. You’re an artist. Your dream has always been to create, or re- create, 80s album cover art on denim jackets and sell them. You’ve got jackets featuring Journey and Def Leppard and you want to start a Shopify store with these products but you don’t have any photography skills or styling skills. You’re afraid your photos are going to fall flat.

No problem—it’s time to reach out to local photographers. Find a photographer in your neighborhood, and say, “Hey listen, I’m starting this new business. I need help with product photography, and I see from your Facebook profile that you’re a fan of Pink Floyd. Would you be willing to help me with some product photography? In exchange, I will do my custom painted Pink Floyd The Wall jacket for you.”

It costs you a little bit of material, it costs you your time, but at the end of the day, you have that anyway because this is what you do. So, you’ve just gotten product photography in exchange for a jacket. That’s how this should and could go down.

I barter all of the time. When you don’t have the capital, it’s a great way to get ahead. When you do have the capital, it’s a great way to conserve cash and get value for value from a business that you respect.

M&M Jabs

M&Ms are my favorite jab. Several years ago, M&Ms was looking for a new creative campaign for their My M&Ms, the custom M&Ms they produce as wedding favors or party favors. Together with my brilliant creative partner Sean Hughes, we created a concept that became an ad for them, they bought the ad rights and we produced the ad for them. That interaction became the basis of my most favorite and ongoing jabs to date.

When I have an exceptional customer experience, a great review from someone, an instance where a customer goes out of their way to thank us for what we do or I have a great experience with a vendor or a business that does something nice for us, I find their address. Maybe I know who the CEO is, or the person I dealt with, or the customer, and I order custom M&Ms that have little personalized messages for them and our branding on it. So, one group of candies might have the Ad Zombies head logo, and the rest have custom messages. People love it because it gives them an opportunity to see what I took away from, or remembered, about my unique relationship or interaction with them.

I will tell you, that jab goes so far because it’s so personal and unique. I don’t cheap out and just send them a bunch of M&Ms. I customize them for the interaction we had. It’s a personal, thoughtful gift that brands the company. I can jab without an ask and still enjoy creating some value for my brand.

Jabbing Today and Beyond

You’ve found a couple of Facebook Groups that you’re a part of. Let’s say you’re in a Facebook Group full of construction people, builders and other professionals in this industry. You are trying to leave your big corporate accounting firm. You want to start your own firm. A lot of questions are showing up in these Groups about the tax law changes and how it affects their companies. There’s a lot of information being thrown around, but none of the individuals in this Group are tax professionals. You, on the other hand, are a tax savant. You understand the ramifications of the new tax law on their businesses, whether they’re an LLC, an S Corp, a 501c3, whatever their status is.

Rather than saying, “Hey, Joe Builder, I’m starting my own business and I can help you,” just give your advice in the group. “Hey everyone, I’m a tax professional. This is what I do for a living. Let me explain why you don’t want to do this.” Or, “Hey, in my 15 years as a tax professional, I can tell you that the changes will affect your business in ways that you haven’t even thought of. In regards to your specific question, here are some things to consider.” Now, you’ve come in and stated very clearly that you are a tax professional, but you’re not pimping for business. What you’re doing is adding value and helping these people.

If you don’t think that this approach is going to make you rise to the top like the cream, you’re wrong. It will. Everyone in that Group is going to have their attention on you. Next time someone jumps in with a question about accounting in their business or their tax liability, chances are very high that over a hundred people in that Group are going to say, “Talk to Jane Accountant. She’s amazing, she knows everything.” Guess what? You’ve started building your brand credibility.

How do you put that out there as content? Well, easy. “Hello, this is Jane Accountant. I was in a Facebook Group the other day, and a great question came up about the new tax law. It made me think that other businesses probably have the same question. So, here’s my answer.” Create that quick video. It’s really easy to make that content because you’re not producing it out of thin air. You’re merely documenting what’s already going on as you grow the business.

Get in those Groups. Jab and jab and jab and your brand will start to grow.

The Future of Jabbing

As more and more businesses realize the value of giving, rather than having this scarcity mentality, I think you will see more and more jabbing in the future. The reality is, the marketing profession is changing. The scarcity mentality that has existed since the beginning of marketing is starting to slowly erode. The big companies that are in control of messaging are starting to lose their power to smaller agencies that add a lot more value. Many companies are realizing that they can do this shit directly to their customers.

The future of jabbing is very strong. If you always go into it with the intent of bringing more to the table than you’re looking to walk away with, you’re going to win. Big time. Giving is very powerful. I’ve often found that when I give of myself, I’m rewarded in ways I’d never even thought of. I jab for one company and get an introduction to a bigger company. I surprise and delight a customer with custom M&Ms, and they introduce us to an agency client who ends up spending thousands of dollars a month with us. It has a very powerful pay-it- forward feel to it. If you go into it with a pure heart, if you go into it with no expectations other than to bring value, you’ll get way more than that in return.

Side note: Jabs are NOT “Free consultations” or “Free trials.” A jab is a selfless act without expectation of reciprocation. Jabs are helping an old woman cross the street, returning someone’s wallet, et cetera. They don’t benefit you at all.

Entertaining Jabs

Not all jabs have a direct net positive effect on the recipient. In fact, sometimes it’s a good idea to deploy a jab just for the sheer entertainment value of it. For example, many of the ads that we run for

Ad Zombies don’t have an ask attached to them. Instead, our goal is to simply entertain the people who stumble upon our ad. Okay, they don’t actually “stumble upon” our ad content; those ads are deliberately served to them. However, we are not going to bore them to death with messages that have asks attached to them. We are trying to build high-level awareness by providing things that make people laugh and things that make people feel good.

When our ads appear in a customer’s newsfeed, or a potential customer’s newsfeed, many times they don’t even realize they are looking at an ad. What we are doing is creating an indelible mark in their brain, so we become the go-to for ad copywriting, or for any copywriting.

Think about this for a moment. Close your eyes and imagine you are in need of a few products. Let’s say you have hemorrhoids. What would you go to the store and buy? Most people, by default, would buy Preparation-H, because it’s the only brand they identify with the condition. If you had a cut on your finger and you wanted to put something on it to protect it, what would you use? A Band-Aid. But the reality is, it’s a bandage. Band-Aid is the brand, but it’s been so marked in your brain, it’s hard to distinguish it from the product category. The final one: if you had a cold and needed to blow your nose, what would you use? A Kleenex. That’s right, but it’s not a Kleenex, it’s a tissue.

Brand awareness creates that indelible mark in the brain that puts you first in the consumer’s mind. Sales don’t come through marketing, they come through brand awareness. It’s very powerful to entertain and engage your audience at all times.

Give at Scale

As you build your dream business, remember to always give back. Give, give, give. Jab till it hurts. Do good things for people because it’s the right thing to do, not because you’re looking for brownie points or accolades.

For example, one Christmas Eve, my wife decided that she was done cooking Christmas Eve dinners and that we should go out to eat. So, we made reservations and took the family to Buca di Beppo for Christmas Eve dinner. We made a decision to do something very different that night. We decided to scope out the restaurant and find a family like ours—a family that had children or was large—and surprise and delight them. The way we did that was we schemed with our server to make sure that the bill for their table came to us. We then paid that bill. Instead of delivering a bill to their table, a Christmas card was delivered to that table with a handwritten note from my wife.

Now, every year the note is a little bit different, but it talks about how our family has been blessed and we just wanted to bless theirs with this simple gesture, and wish them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And that’s it.

I have to tell you, this tradition has changed the way my children think. It has changed the way people in the restaurant behave when we come in. It has changed peoples’ Christmas Eve, and I know we’ve touched so many lives over the years. It is so much fun to watch it unfold. In fact, when our favorite waiter left we were so disappointed that we were considering not doing it anymore. But we persevered, and every year we make that reservation.

We have the ability to give and do like this because of my business. It isn’t lost on me that my business affords me the opportunity to do good for others.

You don’t have to give monetarily, either. Prior to making this giving decision, my wife and I have done other things to give back to the community. We decided several years ago to become foster parents, and we wound up fostering 19 children and adopting three of them.

You can give back in so many ways. But just make sure you’re always giving. If you give without any expectations of receiving, you will receive in an abundance. It’s just the way the world works. I don’t know if you believe in God or karma, or magnetism or whatever it is that causes this, but it just is true. When you give with no expectations, you receive in ways you never, ever dreamed of. So, don’t ever stop giving, especially as your business grows. Because you will have the opportunity to give and give, and give.

Key Points from Chapter 6

  • There’s no such thing as too much jabbing.

  • To create a memorable jab, connect with

    your audience’s emotions.

  • Leverage the power of barter to jab more effectively.

  • Partner with other businesses on events and cross-promotion to increase the organic reach of your brand.

  • Make your jabs personal and creative to impress your valuable customers.

  • The future of marketing is jabbing.

Did You Get Value From This?

Yes? GREAT!

If it did and you feel compelled to buy a few copies of my book to give away as Christmas gifts to friends, I’m okay with that!

Get your copy of Jab Till It Hurts here or tap on the book cover.

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Ken 'Spanky' MoskowitzJab Till It Hurts, Gary Vaynerchuk, Spanky Moskowitz, TYC, Best-Selling Author