Reality Check – Digital media is here to stay.  Question, what are you doing to “Humanize” your brand, your product and your company?  How are you leveraging your digital platforms for revenue optimization and blue ocean opportunities?  In short, you need a powerful digital media strategy – no exceptions.  If you are not actively engaged digitally, you are leaving money on the table and your competition is exploiting your digital weakness!  This weeks interview with Luke Wyckoff – Founder of Social Media Energy provides insight, strategies and tactics on how you can leverage the power of digital media today.  Get in the digital game, make it happen today!  Find out more about Luke at:

Website: http://socialmediaenergy.com/

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukewyckoff/

Podcast Transcript:

[00:04]                               Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional, dedicated to transferring, cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hardhat, grab your work boots and let's go.

[00:22]                               Alright, unit your dust real professional from all around the world. Thank you very much for joining the industrial talk podcast. You know, I'm your cheerleader, I just love the industrial world and I, I really appreciate what you guys do out there, so thank you very much for joining the industrial talk podcast. I need for you to just reach around your side, grabbed that buckle and buckle in because we've got a tremendous show. We're interviewing a gentleman by the name of Luke Wyckoff and he is the CBO, the chief visionary officer with the Social Media Energy out of Denver for does he bring the energy? It's an exciting time. Great interview. He brings tangible stuff, so let's get going.

[01:01]                               Yeah. Thank you very much for joining the podcast. I really enjoy this. I enjoy being with you guys and all that fun stuff and I'm, I'm just, you have no idea how excited I am to, uh, to bring you this Luke white coffee interview because he's, he does bring the energy man. It's a lot of flood and he knows his stuff big time and if you're out there on my YouTube channel and you'll notice that I've got a bowl of my macros, macros, that's a perfect blend of protein, carbs and fats. And my son is training me for an event in the end of September. It's an old man event and it's a physique con. Anyway, I've lost 10 pounds eating this way. Uh, it's not exciting, but it works. And so anyway, I'm going to be posting some stuff of how my son abuses me at the gym and makes me eat this stuff.

[01:51]                               Now, once again, I'm going to refer to Luke, but before we get going, we're going to have to start out with our tailgate talk because we want to start off safe tailgate talk number one. Okay? The first thing I'm always reading, and here's a book that I'm reading right now and it's called blue ocean shift and it's, uh, it's, it's been great blue ocean shift talks about, uh, taking your existing business model. They're looking for opportunities that are really outside. I highly recommend it because I think you need to know a little bit about that great strategy and that was referred to me by the gentlemen who have John Grubbs. He's been on the podcast a couple of times. He knows his stuff. Excellent raid. I highly recommend that you read it. Number two, you know, I'm passionate about you, the industry professional, you, the industry owner, business owner and a, everything is focused to making your success, filling that funnel because that's important stuff.

[02:50]                               And um, a couple of things that we are transitioning into. I'm using a platform called teachable.com. Now this is relatively new and been publishing a series called business beatitudes, beautiful attitudes for business leaders and uh, it takes into a seven, maybe a points of what that looks like. And I always, I'm always intrigued by purpose, but that purpose that is driven by the heart so that all those articles will be also out there. I publish on LinkedIn as well as Facebook. You can find me out there. And then I'm working with a gentleman by the name of Keith McAslan and he's got an extensive background in private equity and we're going to go and we're gonna Create a program called the foundation for business success. He knows his stuff because in the private equity world, that's what they do. They look for businesses, they turn them around and you get the picture.

[03:45]                               So Keith McAslan and I are going to be working on that. That will also be out there on teachable.com. And the final thing, the final thing is I'm working with a gentleman by the name of, uh, Jim Whitt and uh, I view him as a mentor and he's the one that really got me focused on, on purpose and why that is so important in the business. And in fact, if you're looking out on YouTube channel, the video, that's his book behind there. And he is a going to work with us on, hopefully we're working on it. So don't tell them that I'm doing this. No. Anyway, I had a good conversation with them yesterday and uh, we're going to try to put together a, a, a program that really identifies and drives that purpose at home. So I'm pretty excited and it's all going to be put out there on teachable.com.

[04:33]                               And so nonetheless, we've got one more. Number three mega, you know, that I'm affiliated, got a great relationship with these people reliability web and they have a podcast called reliability radio. And uh, for me, I'm very honored to be able to be on that. I am the host of reliability radio and I want to make sure that you keep current with all the activities that reliability web does. And one is July 17th through the 19th, July 17th through the 19th. This is a New Orleans, Louisiana right around the corner from where I live right now. And this is the vibration institute. This is a symposium is focusing on vibration analysis. And, uh, I'm going to be there and I know places that happen in our, in New Orleans, and uh, you got to come up and talk to me so that we can have fun and learn a lot about vibration analysis and have fun.

[05:27]                               So that's one. And then the second one is Maximo World. This is August seventh through the ninth and this is at a Lake Buena Vista, and this is in Florida of course, and it is at the Dolphin and a, if you're an asset manager of reliability, maintenance professional, and you guys use Maximo world considering to use maximum world, boom. That is the event you need to go to. So there you go. That's it. End of the tailgate. Let's get onto the interview. So as I pull up information. So here's this guy, Luke Wyckoff. His background is extensive in the digital marketing realm. And so I look at it as an iceberg, right? And it's because that's the only analogy that I can come up with. And I use that analogy because here in the industrial world we can be better at are in a digital presence. We are leaving money on the table from my perspective and we're not executing on strategies that quite frankly are pennies on the dollars that could prove to be quite profitable because we just sort of look at, okay, here's LinkedIn, we'll post this and uh, you know, this is something and we'll post it on Facebook and then we leave it at that.

[06:39]                               But I'm telling you, if you look at a, a, um, a iceberg that's just the tip, there is so much that lies below that iceberg, strategy-wise, digital wise, marketing wise. And this Guy Keith, that's the other guy, Luke their buddies, by the way, the Luke brings to the table and in this interview he's tangible baby. He gives you concrete strategies to deploy today and of course you can contact them anytime of the day. Right? He's, he's out there. He's prolific. He's got a great company. He's out of Denver. So with that, I'm done. Let's get on with Luke. Thank you very much. Enjoy the interview with Luke white cough. All right, welcome to the industrial talk podcast. I'm so glad that you are joining us. I've got a gentleman by the name of Luke Wyckoff, he's on the horn and he is spending time with you listeners out there in the industrial world. Hey Luke, thank you very much for joining. How are you doing?

[07:36]                               Glad to be here. I had a great fourth of July. Hope you do too. It was a lot of fun. What we did was barbecue and swam. That's pretty much it. And that's it. Nothing else. Yeah. And so anyway, how was your, how was your fourth?

[07:53]                               Ortho is great out here in Denver, Colorado. Interesting. I live, uh, I live in a large loft complex downtown and I lived on. I live on just high enough that you could see over the entire front range looking west and you could probably see, you know, 25 to 30 different fireworks shows all going off the same time from as far south as Colorado Springs to as far north as boulder, just looking west. And it's an absolutely amazing a picture now with the fireworks are illegal in Colorado, right?

[08:27]                               Ah, they're not illegal. The people had to, had to get a, an actual, a permit in order to have them are they also shoot them off over a mile high stadium. They shoot them off over Coors Field. They're playing the giants right now and then they'd do a big, big one right downtown Denver. Also what they do though is a fire. The fire chief always has the last call on whether we have a. We have a emergency forest fire type situation where it's not so safe, so a lot of the western slope, if you go west of Denver, it's either go no go within 48 hours of the, of the actual fireworks show depending on whether we have a forest fire alert, but it's always beautiful. And the mile high city, the C , two c, the fourth of July. A lot of patriotic people, especially with the United States air force, you know, just a 45 minutes. So yeah, you're right about that. That's right. That's pretty cool. Big fighter jets flying over last night, you know, to launch the Rockies and the diets and wrote patriotic. It's just beautiful.

[09:35]                               Nice. Nice. Now the reason why we're talking a Luke, does anybody give you a hard time about Luke? When Star Wars came out?  I never hear that. Now I get outta here. You're quite. I give it. I give it five minutes before either one of you say that you're my father.

[09:54]                               See, I wasn't going down at all and I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I was thinking it was going to happen. So anyway. But one of the things that I was really impressed with you about is how you've gone all in on digital marketing. You have a company and one of the things about the industrial world space, whatever we live in, right? I think that in general we're behind the eight ball when it comes to digital marketing, leveraging the tools and techniques out there because there's a strategy. And I think what, what we do and we don't do well is adapt because we're, we're risk adverse and we don't like change and we don't feel comfortable with that. But give us your, your background, Luke, of why who you are, why you're fantastic. And, and, uh, your company, uh, in a, in a nutshell.

[10:47]                               Well, if you want to know who I am and why I'm fantastic, we'll probably need to get my mother on the phone. She'd be the one who would give you that much better story. My, my company started as a mistake. So believe it or not, my background is industrial and organizational psychology. So if you're in an industrial setting and you're trying to figure out who's the best of the best inside of that company to promoted to senior executive executives, that's the world I came from for 15 years long before I started my digital marketing world. But it wasn't until I was in presenting to a group of companies talking to them about succession management. When all of a sudden one of the CEO says to me, they say, you started your whole company, you've seen the LinkedIn and Facebook, didn't you? And I said yes.

[11:36]                               And they said, what is that stuff? I said, you want to know about social media? And everyone in the hendricks, 13 ceos represented about one point 6 billion in revenue in that room. And I said, everyone shook their head yes. And I said, okay. So I got up on the Whiteboard, no whiteboard and out a three month strategy for this entire role of these companies and I get done. And the CEO over the system says, well, why don't you just do that for us? And I said, do what? He said, all that stuff you just said you could do it. I said, I didn't say I could do it. I said, this is what you should be doing. And, and he said, yeah, we don't have anybody that knows how to do that for us. Would you just do it? I said, you want to outsource your social media to me like you all sorts of counting.

[12:22]                               He said, Yep, let's do it. And I said, let me think about that. So I went and got my old study buddies together from Grad school because they're actually, they're actually huge, a single malt scotch fans. So I knew I could like bring them in and we pro forma out the entire company. We finished it up, I take it back in, they said Yep. And that was the launch of Social Media Energy, which, uh, started nine and a half years ago. And since then we've been voted top five fastest growing private companies twice in Colorado. We're up to 22 employees. We're in five states. We're in every vertical industry that you could possibly think of with a. We do have a quite a few success stories and horror stories within the industrial space that I'm having any of those stories with us.

[13:12]                               Well, of course we want the horror stories because that's important to us, but that's more fun. Yeah, it is. It makes for a more colorful conversation. Let me ask you this real quick. You get that, that gentleman that, that story were you saying, Hey, you do it for us. What was the sort of a general result of huge to say, oh, okay, I'll step in and we'll just implement this three month, whatever strategy. What happened?

[13:38]                               Well, for the entrepreneurs that you have to listen to this podcast, this is normally where I stopped the story. Uh, but for the entrepreneurs, the next part of that story, it was me walking out in the parking lot and going, what the hell just happened where I thought, I don't have a phone number, I don't have an email address. I don't have a website, I don't have a logo, I don't have business cards. Think about everything it takes to get you think you need in order to actually support our company. You've got to prop it up, get it. The traditional way of thinking about starting a company. You're like, I need this. I have to have that. I couldn't launch a company without this. I'm telling every entrepreneur who listens to this show that yes, you can. What it takes, his tenacity and resilience and a lot of energy to go out and make it happen. It doesn't, it's not, doesn't matter how great your website is or other or your other types of things in order to launch and get going. What you need is the most important thing, which is a paid clients.

[14:41]                               She'll read, are you going to pay me eventually? Um, I mean, maybe like in whiskey or something. I mean, you prefer that, right? I do.

[14:50]                               I can't believe. I believe that reads now earning $500 for a show. That's amazing. Yeah. It's a little upwards of that actually. Now we did a little contract deal. Oh my gosh. I better check on that.

[15:05]                               Well, well, so yeah, you're absolutely right. From a, from an entrepreneurial point of view, I think that the worst decision you could make us is a. I quit in a sense because that's sort of that permanent decision to maybe a temporary problem and and there, there, there are no books out there that say. And when I became an entrepreneur it was just smooth sailing and I was just happy as. And we were dancing around and, and, and it was so easy. Yeah. It's tenacity. It's grit. It's, it's, it's that stuff that comes from the gut.

[15:37]                               It's energy. It's. I tell every entrepreneur, you can't live your first year without a paycheck. I'd seriously consider not be becoming an entrepreneur.

[15:49]                               Very good. Yep. Get wise counsel. Most definitely now without origin, there is no Mr. Mission, that's what it says in my bathroom every day without margin. There is no mission, you need revenue number one thing that you need and if you, and that's, that should be your focus going into it.

[16:09]                               Well look, let me ask you a question too. So I'm a little younger. Some of us would really apply to me, but I think this could apply to like calm the older crowd. So you've been doing Social Media Energy for nine and a half years, you said?

[16:22]                               That is correct.  Okay. So you were around 39 when this started, correct?  Yes, correct. So which already made me a diamond, right? Well that's covered my questions going. So I mean I'm 23 so, but I feel like, you know, in my own opinion, and correct me if I'm wrong, because again, I'm young around that age is when most people are kind of set in stone with what they're doing, you know, they're like, okay, I've been sitting at a desk for like 17 years now. So what gave you the push to be like, you know what, I'm going to take this new path. I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to do this Social Media Energy thing.

[16:57]                               It was what, what gave me that push was I, I've always had one of the behavioral competencies that is very easy to measure. And in fact, one of my, uh, one of my better industrial clients that make office furniture, in fact, many people listening to this podcast might be sitting on steel case furniture today. Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm not one of their areas that they love to assess people in. It is your ability to learn. So the people that are not set in their ways, people, people that are never happy with just knowing what they know, they have this constant desire to want to know more. There's ways to assess for that when you are looking to hire people to come into your company. And that's something that...