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@Gapingvoid: How the movie making model can help drive better business

Many years after my stint in Tromaville, I had the pleasure and opportunity to work with business cartoonist Hugh MacLeod and his business partner Jason Korman at their unique “culture design” agency, Gapingvoid. Hugh has an uncanny talent for looking at complex business problems and distilling them into a simple image and a few words that resonate, connect emotionally, and have the power to instigate real change within an organization. Jason has such a clear vision and understanding of marketing and corporate culture that, combined with Hugh’s artistic insight, the two and their team have attracted some of the world’s biggest and best-known brands as clients, from AT&T, to Microsoft, to the University of Miami, to Zappos, and countless more.

It was a great experience working with Hugh and Jason and we share many of the same views about marketing and culture, which is why I started with them first as a fan of Hugh’s work. The image above is one of my favorites, and reminded me of a particular chapter in my book, Chapter 10: Find Something to Believe In. When I pointed that out to Jason, he was kind enough to share that chapter, along with the above image, in the popular Gapingvoid Daily Newsletter.

If you are not familiar with Hugh and Gapingvoid I encourage you to learn more about the Gapingvoid Culture Design Group and also browse some of the great prints and gift items available at Gapingvoidart.com.

And you can CLICK HERE to read the newsletter edition with Chapter 10 of my book. Enjoy!

 

 

 

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Sharing Some Marketing Smarts from the Book on the MarketingProfs “Marketing Smarts” Podcast

If you’re a marketer you have likely heard of MarketingProfs, one of the leading online marketing resources, with over 600,000 members. In their own words, “MarketingProfs is the one source that individual marketers, marketing teams, and some of the world’s largest organizations turn to for modern marketing tools, training, strategies, articles, online seminars, discussion forums, and much more.” As a marketer myself, who has written a marketing book, I was honored to be a guest on the popular MarketingProfs podcast, “Marketing Smarts,” hosted by the talented Kerry O’Shea Gorgone.

Kerry and I had a great conversation and not only talked about the book, Troma, and Toxie, but we also discussed new domain name extensions like .CLUB and some domain name marketing tips (I am CMO of .CLUB Domains) and we talked about corporate culture, including some things I learned working with cartoonist Hugh MacLeod and Gapingvoid. I hope you enjoy listening.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE MP3.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW ON MARKETINGPROFS.

 


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Samurai Says #46: B-Movies are Serious Business

I’ve been doing a bunch of podcast interviews for my book, and given the nature of Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER, I’ve had the chance to appear on shows focused on business, marketing, and entrepreneurship, as well as shows with a more pop culture appeal, including shows covering comic books, movies, and more. I recently had the chance to talk with Joshua the Samurai and his sidekick Chris on the Samurai Says podcast. Here’s how they describe their show:

“Join the Samurai, a man who’s many adventures in geekdom have given him a thousand and one stories that are equal parts tragic and hilarious, and his partner in crime Chris Maverick, as they talk about weird criminals, geek news, and strange old video games. The obscure, morbid, and weird are an everyday part of this off the wall podcast where there are no rules. Oh, and the world comes to an end every single episode.”

It was a fun, wide-ranging interview, where I talk about Troma, .CLUB and domain names, and even reveal the secret ingredient to Troma’s “fake blood” recipe.

You can listen to the show here or below. My interview starts at 17:40 into the show.

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Talking Business, Marketing & Toxie on the #ChansLogic Podcast

Chandler Walker is a walking example of motivation. He runs the successful StoneAgeFuel School of Fitness in Reno Nevada, as well as the StoneAgeFuel Barbell Club and StoneAgeFuel Youth Weightlifting and Sports Performance. He is also the host of the ChansLogic Podcast, where Chandler talks about marketing, motivation, management and more.

I enjoyed chatting with Chandler about my book, Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER, and how the lessons I learned making mixed up movies are applicable to all businesses. We also share some valuable tips on leadership, management, and culture. I think it was a good interview and hope you’ll check it out.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN to #ChansLogic EP 20 – Jeffrey Sass and The Toxic Avenger

 

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CMO and Author Jeff Sass on The Domain Name Wire Podcast

Once again my world’s collide as I am interviewed on the popular Domain Name Wire podcast hosted by Andrew Alleman. I have appeared on Andrew’s show several times before, but always to discuss my role as CMO of .CLUB Domains and other aspects of the domain name industry. This time I was invited on the show to discuss my book, which Andrew read and liked enough to still want to talk with me. 😉

Andrew is a great interviewer and we had a fun conversation which I hope will give you some good marketing tips and inspire you (and maybe even inspire you to pick up a copy of the book or download it to your Kindle).

Click here or below to listen to Episode #138 of the DNW Podcast – “The Toxic Avenger”

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A Domain Name Marketing Tip from The Toxic Avenger

Here is a marketing tip that is not in the book, but is something that I am doing to help market the book. While by night I am the author of the toxic tales told in Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER, by day I am the CMO of .CLUB Domains. We are the operator of the new domain name extension .CLUB, an alternative to having a web address that ends in .com, .net, etc.

As you may know, there are over 1,000 new domain name extension choices now, and many of them, like .CLUB, .Design, .blog, .shop, and others, have actual meaning. They are not just generic. Using a domain name that has meaning and relevance on both sides of the dot can be a powerful marketing tool. And to take advantage of the power of a relevant, easy to remember, domain name you don’t necessarily have to switch from your primary web address. There are many ways a clever, memorable domain name can act as an easily marketable shortcut to an existing online destination. A memorable domain can easily point to a deep link within an existing website, or even be used as a shortcut to a Facebook page or other social platform.

Here’s how I am leveraging a custom domain name as a shortcut to my book on Amazon.com. As a marketer, my primary goal is to get you to go to Amazon.com and buy my book, and I want that process to be as easy and seamless as possible. Sure, you can go to Amazon and search for my book by the title or by my name as the author, but I want to save you that step. But, the link to my book on Amazon is not something I can easily tell you about. It is:

https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Business-Marketing-Learned-AVENGER/dp/1544219245/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493773080&sr=1-1

Try saying that out loud in a podcast interview… Not very user-friendly or memorable. As noted above, the title of my book is Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER. A shorter, logical nickname for the book could easily be “Toxic Avenger Marketing” so I registered the domain name www.ToxicAvenger.marketing and set it to re-direct to the book’s page on Amazon. Now, if you type in “ToxicAvenger.marketing” in a web browser, in one click you end up here:

www.ToxicAvenger.marketing >>> https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Business-Marketing-Learned-AVENGER/dp/1544219245/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493773080&sr=1-1

So, for a modest investment of only $10.17 per year (thanks to GoDaddy‘s discount domain club), I now have an easy, relevant and memorable way to send folks right to my book’s page on Amazon.com.

With all the great domain extension choices now, what clever domains could you be using as marketing shortcuts?

 

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