Customer Story

How An IT & Management Solutions Firm Win Clients With Piktochart

Lloyd Parker

Vice President Programs & Solutions

Company

T.White Parker Associates
Company Website

www.twhiteparker.com/
Business Type

Solutions Firm
Location

Virginia, United States
Friends with Piktochart

Since 2021

How can an IT and management solutions firm incorporate visual communication in their work? As part of our #PiktoChat series, Wilson had a brief chat with Lloyd Parker, Vice President of Programs & Solutions with T. White Parker Associates, an IT and management solutions firm.

Lloyd is an executive and partner at T. White Parker Associates and he oversees program operations, client engagement, service delivery, solutions and strategy, and P&L for their client base.

As a Piktochart user since 2021, Lloyd shares how Piktochart has helped his firm to convince and win clients. The use of visual communication has benefited his firm in helping them stand out among its competitors and gain its clients’ trust.

WM (00:06):

Hello everyone. I hope you’re well out there and thank you for tuning in to our #PiktoChat series today. My name is Wilson and I’ll be your host. If this is your first time listening to us, #PiktoChat is a series of chats with leaders and entrepreneurs who share their knowledge and experience in using Piktochart.

Today, I’m delighted to be joined by Lloyd Parker, Vice President of T. White Parker Associates, and IT and management solutions firm. Lloyd is an executive and partner at T. White Parker Associates and he oversees program operations, client engagement, service delivery, solutions and strategy as well as P&L for their client base. Lloyd has been using Piktochart since 2021 and it’s my privilege to be speaking with him today.

Hello Lloyd and welcome to our #PiktoChat. How’s it going over there for you?

LP (00:50):

Wilson, good morning. It’s great on my end. Thank you. Glad to be here with you.

WM (00:54):

Firstly, thank you for making time for coming on this #PiktoChat and I’m excited to be hearing your story.

Before we begin, I’m sure our listeners would love to know you better. So would you like to introduce yourself further and let us know how you got started in your professional career and what led to your current role?

LP (01:11):

My name is Lloyd Parker. I’ve been working professionally for pretty much 30 years. I have a Bachelor’s degree in computer information systems. I also have a Master’s degree in electrical engineering. I spent a lot of my career doing systems engineering related work, big enterprise, federal systems. Some commercial work. Went from that, I’d spent a period of time in human capital. So I did some work in HR and eventually got to T. White Parker. It’s actually a company that I run with my wife. She started it. She’s primarily a business IT architect type of person. So her skills, she had started. I came over and joined her in 2009.

Since that time, I’ve been working here. Lots of presentations. Lots of executive communications. Lots of document writing and such. That’s all been a part of what I do. And so, Piktochart really came into focus for me. One of our employees, quite honestly, he had a presentation that we’d asked of him and it looked phenomenal and we said, “Hey, how did you do that?” He said, “Oh, I use something called Piktochart.”

I am a very creative person but I’m by far not a graphic artist. I’m not trained in any of that. And so I was familiar with PowerPoint and sort of embellishing PowerPoint with Adobe Illustrator. I had started to dabble there. I definitely am nowhere near an expert. I mean no one would want to pay for the things that I could create, but I was serviceable. I could come up with things that works for us, but not being a formal graphic artist, it was a challenge.

I never been formally trained in Ai and so I used a lot of web videos and things and looked at what other people were doing. And when I needed something, I would create sort of go and look at a model, get a video and try to emulate what I saw it. So that’s how I was living, but it was very complex and it took a lot of time. It wasn’t all creative time. It was a lot of trying to figure out how to use the tool time.

And so that’s what got me to Piktochart. And since then, it’s been really a wonderful experience for me. In fact, people are blown away at the things that I produce now and they’re like, “Lloyd is an expert. If you wanted something to look good, give it to him.” But all I was really doing was taking some of the things that were already out there that you guys had and I’d change colors. I’d put some of the graphic and things into it, but I’ve gotten more advanced with it.

And now I’m creating some of my own graphics, which has been great and that even works well. So it’s exciting. And when I saw your invitation, I mean, I was like, absolutely. This has really changed the way that we look and operate as a business and being a small firm, we’re competing in spaces with some of the big time professional firms who have full out graphic shops. And what we can produce now rivals what they produce. And so it looks like I’ve got a whole team of people behind me but I really don’t. So it’s kind of my best kept secret.

“Piktochart has really changed the way that we look and operate as a business and being a small firm, we’re competing in spaces with some of the big time professional firms who have full out graphic shops. And what we can produce now rivals what they produce. Piktochart is kind of my best kept secret.”
Lloyd Parker, Vice President Programs & Solutions at T. White Parker Associates

WM (03:59):

That’s amazing and thank you so much for sharing that. It’s so encouraging to be able to hear especially from you and hearing like real life examples of how people are finding Piktochart beneficial for their firm. I echoed what you say that especially in a small team and I think that was also what a lot of Piktochart users are from. You don’t have like a team of graphic designers doing it for them. But with the tool, they are able to do that.

So thank you so much for giving us an insight on that. I think that also answers the first question that I was going to ask you, which is how did you first discover Piktochart? So you mentioned it was through one of your employees, correct?

LP (04:35):

Correct. And at the time, we saw it and we were impressed. It kind of stuck in my mind that that’s what he told me he used. But I didn’t really go out until a few months beyond that when I needed to try something to see what I thought. And I used the free option just to see and I love what I could do and how quickly I could do it. And so did the people I was doing it for.

Then I said, I’m definitely going to go full out on this and went ahead and paid for the subscription because I knew I was going to need more than five and I’ve probably done maybe somewhere close to 30 or 40 different graphic presentations through the system. So I’ve done everything. I mean, I’ve done infographics. I’ve done PowerPoint presentations. I’ve done flyers. I’ve done programs. Now into my personal life as well. I mean, I use it for all sorts of things.

WM (05:19):

That’s great to hear. Well thank you so much for being an advocate of Piktochart and also for supporting us by subscribing to a paid account. We really appreciate it.

Let’s get our conversation going. Now we talked a little bit about your role in IT management. Can you let us know why is visual communication so important for your role in your industry?

LP (05:38):

Our firm, T. White Parker is a management consulting and IT solutions firm. And so we do quite a bit of work with leaders across our different client base. When you’re dealing with leaders, you often have to communicate through presentations. It really is a sort of an express way of conveying ideas and thoughts when they don’t have the time to read long lengthy documents and that sort of thing.

So, presentations have always been a mainstay for us. In fact, as we hire people, we always say, being able to present is one of the key capabilities that you have to have in order to be effective in the role. And so it’s always been there. Graphics has always been a main piece of it and in fact, tables and charts and things like that, it just goes hand-in-hand. The more you can infuse some of these innovative ways of showing the data, it really helps you just sell the idea that you’re trying to convey.

“Graphics has always been a main piece of it and in fact, tables and charts and things like that, it just goes hand-in-hand. The more you can infuse some of these innovative ways of showing the data, it really helps you just sell the idea that you’re trying to convey.”
Lloyd Parker, Vice President Programs & Solutions at T. White Parker Associates

And so for us, making it look a certain way really instills a confidence from the receiver so that they know this clearly must be information I should take seriously because they took the time to put it into this format. It changed the nature of how we communicate and made the messages a lot more impactful. So that’s really been our experience and it’s come to be something people expect from us.

Now people are saying, give T. White Parker your charts if you want to make sure that they look good and you want to make sure that the messages are there so I can focus a lot more of my energy on the messages that we’re giving. Not so much on creating the visuals to go along with it. That’s much more simplified.

WM (07:10):

Yeah, I really appreciate your input there when you mentioned about how your design helps to convince people and help to sell your idea better as well. That’s great to be able to see visuals playing such a big part even in convincing your clients and stakeholders about the message that you’re intending to communicate to them.

Thank you for giving us an insight especially on that role in terms of IT and management. Now, you’ve been using Piktochart since 2021. Just now you touched a little bit about this but I know that you mentioned that prior to using Piktochart, you have used a combination of other tools to create graphics.

So how has Piktochart or visual communication benefited your firm or your career in general? Can you share more about that with us?

FP (07:49):

Yeah, we do federal consulting. So for the government, there’s always proposals that we have to submit to bid for work. And so the quality of what we’re able to produce in our proposals has improved. The things that we do on each of our engagements has gotten stronger In fact, I personally support each of our engagements graphically so I do graphics to support everybody.

And so everyone’s benefited from the high-end looking professional graphics that we’re producing, but more importantly, I would say, we were paying a lot of money to get this caliber of graphic support prior. We would have to pay thousands of dollars to custom firms that were able to go out and do above my level in Adobe Illustrator. When we really needed something to look really, really polish, we had to pay and it wasn’t cheap to get these folks to do this kind of thing.

So now we’ve eliminated all that cost and a fraction of the time I’m able to take the idea and the interesting thing is it was always my idea going to these other folks and they were now going in. We go back and forth a few times and then they would come up with something. Always look wonderful, but it was still my original idea. Now, I can take my own idea and I can go look for things that maybe you guys have. I can pull elements from various graphics together. I can add some additional elements. I can color it the way I want. I can put the words on it the way I want.

So I’m able to do in a fraction of the time and it actually has become part of my idea creation process. As I’m looking for ideas, I may look through some things you guys have to see what kind of hits me and gives me the idea of where to go and then I can use that as sort of my launching point to get started.

“We were paying a lot of money to get this caliber of graphic support prior to Piktochart. Now we’ve eliminated all that cost and a fraction of the time.”
Lloyd Parker, Vice President Programs & Solutions at T. White Parker Associates

WM (09:25):

I loved hearing that and also how it has helped you to save cost and also time, and I think making you independent where you’re able to design your own stuff and you actually know what you’re designing. I think also gives you a sense of pride like this is my work, I didn’t pay someone to do it and you can tell your clients about that.

FP (09:42):

That’s exactly right.

WM (09:44):

You mentioned that you’ve created about like 30 to 40 visuals, which is a lot. Now out of all of those visuals, is there a particular one that you find it most successful for you, something that you’re most proud of among all the visuals?

FP (09:55):

I could probably answer that two ways. I mean there’s probably one visual that at least the firm has really embraced and they love. It’s become sort of a mainstay for conveying what we do and what we’re all about. That visual is sort of a combination. You all had a, I think it was meant to be some type of, it was like an oval type of graphic and in that oval, you had done some things and I think it was like a flyer but I took it and use it as sort of a business process and then I overlaid a white center on it.

And now I’ve got some icons around it to sort of make it sort of like an infographic but it really conveys the nucleus of how we do program management. We call it program 360 so it’s a way of looking at all elements of how you do program management. It’s what we use for all our clients and it’s in all our proposals. And it’s really started to be something that people really want to know more about. So it’s become a major marketing tool for us.

That’s probably our most successful graphic, but for me, probably the greatest graphic that I ever did was probably an infographic. It was my first attempt at one. It had reddish and bluish color in it. It sort of overlaid with some designs and different things and it was for a railroad company. And so I brought in a lot of different railroad and train images and such.

It was such a powerful graphic that they wanted to know how much we pay because they hadn’t asked for it. And I said, “Don’t worry, we developed it ourselves.” And they were like, “Wow, we didn’t know you guys had that capability.” So I was able to surprise a lot of people with something that looked like it cost a lot of money but it really was a simple graphic that I had pulled together and created right in the tool.

“I was able to surprise a lot of people with something that looked like it cost a lot of money but it really was a simple graphic that I had pulled together and created right in Piktochart.”
Lloyd Parker, Vice President Programs & Solutions at T. White Parker Associates

WM (11:28):

Yeah, that’s impressive to hear and I love how you can also take different elements from different templates and make it your own. So it doesn’t just look like one of the Piktochart template. I’m glad that you can find inspiration and different elements that could actually work for your business proposal and for your use case. Thank you for sharing that. I’m so impressed to hear that and also hearing from you is so encouraging.

Now, based on your experience of using Piktochart over the past year and if you could offer three most important visual communication tips for anyone who’s listening to this, what would that be?

LP (12:00):

So, I would say by far to start off with graphics that are there. There are a ton of different already created graphics that you can take and look at to see. Sort of start there to get your ideas. Once you have your ideas, everything you see can be modified so you can change colors. You can change positioning. You can really customize it from their template and make it your own. Not to try to be someone that you’re not. Take advantage of what’s there.

You can usually find something that will get the job done for you and then you can just customize it. But as you do more and more of that, don’t be afraid to try the original blank canvas and try to create some things on your own and see how it goes. For me, I kind of actually start from a blank canvas now because there’s so many things that I can do. I just go grab icons and images and I can pretty much bring in all the other elements that I know that I want.

And if I get stuck, then I go look at the templates and kind of say, what’s another way that I may be able to do that and then if I see something, I can replicate it now. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m able to do in Piktochart now the things that I would originally try to do in Adobe Illustrator but I can do them much more quickly and I kind of feel like I’m almost an expert in being able to do what I want to do. I don’t have a concern that I’m not going to be successful. I already go into it knowing that I know this is going to end up looking like something that’s really, really nice and I have a confidence there.

“I’ve gotten to the point where I’m able to do in Piktochart now the things that I would originally try to do in Adobe Illustrator but I can do them much more quickly and I kind of feel like I’m almost an expert in being able to do what I want to do. I don’t have a concern that I’m not going to be successful.”
Lloyd Parker, Vice President Programs & Solutions at T. White Parker Associates

So to me, that’s my recommendation. Start off with the templates. Use what you see. Customize color and not play around too much with the graphics. As you get more comfortable and it won’t take long, begin to branch out into the blank canvas and see what you can do. You’ll be amazed. You’ll become an expert real quick.

WM (13:37):

Those are really great tips. I love how you also mention that after trying with the templates and stuff, you should start creating on your own. I think that’s where your own creativity flows instead of relying on our templates. I think that’s our goal as well, which is to unlock the graphic designer in us. Making everyone look like professionals. So I’m glad to hear that the tool has been helpful for you in that case.

To wrap up, my last question for you is this, what is your favorite feature about Piktochart?

LP (14:03):

I would say the tool continues to add new things. There’s a new series of graphic elements. They are like already made. They almost look like animation type of graphics. I’ve really enjoyed the icon builder too because when you’re looking at creating infographic type of things and using icons that you can color however you want to, it really allows you to quickly come up with something that works.

So for me, I go into the graphics mode and then I go into icons and I usually get the majority of my content right from there. I’ve really loved how there’s so many things to choose from. I pretty much don’t need to go outside the tool to find any type of icon. For me, that’s been by far the most powerful feature. It’s really helped cut the time it takes for me to develop the things that I develop.

WM (14:48):

That’s awesome to hear. Icons and illustrations are also one of my favorite features about Piktochart. I think there’s just so much in there and also we have a collaboration with IconScout, so you can find all of those icons on Piktochart for free. It’s great to hear that it’s helpful for you.

Well, thank you so much for making time to speak with us, Lloyd. It was a pleasure and it’s inspiring to hear your story in this #PiktoChat. We’re grateful to have you advocating for Piktochart and also visual communication. For those of you who are listening, if you’d like to get connected with Lloyd or myself, feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn.

If you’ve enjoyed this #PiktoChat episode, feel free to check out the rest of our episodes to hear more inspiring stories from leaders and entrepreneurs. That’s the end of our #PiktoChat today and until the next one.

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Customer Story

How An IT & Management Solutions Firm Win Clients With Piktochart

Lloyd Parker

Vice President Programs & Solutions

Company

T.White Parker Associates
Company Website

www.twhiteparker.com/
Business Type

Solutions Firm
Location

Virginia, United States
Friends with Piktochart

Since 2021

For researchers, numbers and data points are key for analysis in making any decision. The nitty-gritty details behind the data cannot be undermined, but those data may not be translated clearly for non-researchers.

As part of our #PiktoChat series, Wilson had a brief chat with Jesse Stringer, a research analyst with the Alaska Department of Corrections. As a government research analyst who deals with data and numbers, Jesse has been using Piktochart to visualize research findings in a clear manner for his audience.

Visual communication has benefited Jesse’s career and the community in his state, as information is communicated precisely and understandably.

WM (00:06):

Hello, everyone! I hope you’re well out there and thank you for tuning in to our #PiktoChat series. My name is Wilson and I’ll be your host for today’s #PiktoChat.

If this is your first time listening to us, #PiktoChat is a series of chats with leaders and entrepreneurs who share their knowledge and experience in using Piktochart.

Today, I’m delighted to be joined by Jesse Stringer, a research analyst with the Alaska Department of Corrections. Jesse has been using Piktochart since 2021 and it’s my privilege to be speaking with Jesse today.

Hello, Jesse and welcome to our #PiktoChat. How are you doing?

JS (00:37):

Hi, I’m doing well. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

WM (00:41):

Firstly, thank you for making time for coming on this #PiktoChat and I’m excited to be hearing your story. Before we begin, I’m sure our listeners would also love to know you better.

Can you introduce yourself further and let us know how you go started in your professional career and what led to your current role?

JS (00:58):

Definitely. As you mentioned, my name is Jesse and I live in Juneau, Alaska, which is in the southeast portion of Alaska. It’s a temperate rainforest and I grew up here. I have a background in education as a teacher and I also have a background in accounting. So I’ve done some accounting work with the state of Alaska.

And after doing a bit of accounting, I was asked to move into the research department for the Department of Corrections and I’ve really enjoyed it. I feel like I have found my spot as an analyst.

WM (01:38):

That’s an awesome journey from an educator to also becoming now a researcher. Thank you for giving us an insight into your journey.

Now, let’s get our #PiktoChat started and I’m curious to know this, how did you discover Piktochart?

JS (01:52):

I discovered Piktochart because I was a new analyst. I was new to the whole study, the whole field in general. I didn’t really know much about how to present data or what are the best way to present data was. So I started doing research on YouTube. I like to watch videos to learn about what the best technology is or what I should be doing.

Piktochart was recommended quite a bit on YouTube. So I checked it out and I started using it. As I practiced with it and use the free trial version, I found that it was easy to use. The interface seemed pretty great and I really enjoyed it. I liked the icons. They just weren’t too cheesy. Sometimes with some software, icons can be a little bit cheesy but I basically found it through recommendations on the internet.

WM (02:47):

That’s awesome and I’m so glad that Piktochart has been helpful for you as well and also with the icons.

So you are a research analyst yourself. Can you let us know why you think visual communication is so important for your role?

JS (03:00):

Definitely. As a research analyst, I handle large amounts of data. Oftentimes, we can be dealing with millions of data points. We try to figure out if certain sets of data correlate with other sets of data. That can be done with tables and numbers and spreadsheets, but usually, the reader doesn’t want to go through and analyse the spreadsheets and the tables.

That’s my job as an analyst. And so being able to use Piktochart and create various graphs or infographics that the reader can use to understand what we’ve analyzed is really useful. The example I like to use is if we were counting all of the people in any home town, wherever a person lives.

“Being able to use Piktochart and create various graphs or infographics that the reader can use to understand what we’ve analyzed is really useful.”
Jesse Stringer, Research Analyst at Alaska Department of Corrections

If you were counting the people and their eye color. So you wanted to find out how many people in my town have blue eyes and how many people in my town have green eyes and how many people in my town have brown eyes? We could count everybody. We could put all those numbers together and depending on what town you’re in, that could be pages and pages and pages of numbers.

And we could present that to the reader and they could figure it out and look through that to figure out which eye color was the most popular in their town, or we could give them a good graphic and they wouldn’t have to weed through all of that. With the right graphic, they can know in a matter of seconds which eye color is the most popular in their town or whatever piece of information you’re trying to display. If it’s done with a good graphic, the reader can figure it out pretty quickly.

WM (04:47):

I think that’s a great example that you mentioned because I think for researchers, you all love getting into the nitty-gritty and the details of the data, analysing it, and coming up with a certain trend or pattern. But for lay people like myself, we might not be able to understand that. So I appreciate how you mentioning and giving us an example because eventually, we are all visual learners and when we see a graphic, we tend to get information much faster than reading through a research and many pages of reports.

You’ve been using Piktochart since 2021. Can you share a bit on how visual communication or Piktochart has benefited your work with the state of Alaska?

JB (05:28):

As I mentioned earlier, I was an entry-level research analyst trying to figure out how to best present the information that I was finding. I came across Piktochart and found that I was able to create some infographics pretty quickly and in a way that I enjoyed creating it. I felt like they looked good. I felt proud of my work and I was able to pass that on to my supervisor and I asked him if he thought was something that we might want to use.

“I came across Piktochart and found that I was able to create some infographics pretty quickly and in a way that I enjoyed creating it. I felt like they looked good. I felt proud of my work.”
Jesse Stringer, Research Analyst at Alaska Department of Corrections

They really liked it and so they encouraged me to keep doing that. Although I started out with trying to present one piece of information, because of the way I was able to present so clearly with Piktochart, they asked me to create the annual report for the whole Department of Corrections, which was just a real big honor and a privilege.

I really, really like my work. And I like the people that I work with. I feel like we’re all trying to do something great for society and to be given that responsibility is just phenomenal. I work with research analysts that have been doing this for five years or 20 years. And for them to feel like I have the tools to convey the information and share the data that they worked so hard to find and pull out. Yeah, it’s helped me quite a bit.

WM (07:04):

Kudos to you! I’m so happy and also encouraged to hear your story and how it has benefited your career as well and to be able to see Piktochart being a tool that actually helps to elevate your work and also not only in your career but also to get the research out there, especially with the annual report. I’m glad that it’s also making a difference not only within your department but also for the state itself.

JS (07:24):

And one more thing to mention is that the same report that I give, it goes to my community members, it goes to people that live in my town, that live in my state. It goes to legislators and lawmakers that make decisions. So I’m able to display the information so that the readers can see it quickly, understand it quickly, analyse it themselves in a reasonable manner and then make educated decisions on what they think is best for society.

To me, that’s really a lot more valuable than just what it has done for my own career. I feel like it’s helping my community.

WM (08:03):

Yeah, I think that’s the rewarding part of our career and the things that we do making an impact in the community and society out there. Kudos and great job to you!

Well, let’s talk a bit about the visuals that you’ve created with Piktochart. If you could narrow it down, out of all the visuals that you have created, what was one that you’re most proud of?

JS (08:24):

The visual that I’m most proud of would be a report called the offender profile. The graphics within that. I feel good about almost all of them. I feel like Piktochart gave me the ability to use so many different types of graphs and different types of icons that I don’t feel like I had to repeat myself.

“Piktochart gave me the ability to use so many different types of graphs and different types of icons that I don’t feel like I had to repeat myself. The report is a 50-page report and I don’t feel like it was redundant. If anything, it was exciting as each page is turned.”
Jesse Stringer, Research Analyst at Alaska Department of Corrections

The report is a 50-page report and I don’t feel like it was redundant. If anything, it was exciting as each page is turned. The annual report would be the thing that I’m most proud of.

WM (09:02):

That’s great to hear. Is there a way for also our listeners to be able to view the report publicly?

JS (09:08):

Yeah, definitely. So if you go to the state of Alaska website, that would be alaska.gov and navigate to the Department of Corrections and then research, you will find the 2021 offender profile there.

WM (09:25):

That’s awesome. We’ll be sure to also link that if that’s okay in the show notes so that our listeners and our users can actually go there to see the report itself and perhaps find inspiration when they are coming to also creating their own annual report.

Now based on your experience of using Piktochart so far and if you could offer three most important visual communication tips for researchers out there, what would that be?

JS (09:49):

I thought quite a bit about this, what would my three tips be. I think my first tip for someone that is working on visualizing data is to find a statistician hero. Find someone to look up to. That could be a boss, it could be a co-worker, you could look on Piktochart and find some inspiration there. I like how that’s readily available. For me, it’s a lady named Florence Nightingale. I really look up to her and that helps me having a hero that’s a statistician and seeing what they did in the world with data and data visualization and conveying their point with good graphics. It makes me want to do the same thing. We really can make the world a better place with good graphics. So that was my first tip.

“We really can make the world a better place with good graphics.”
Jesse Stringer, Research Analyst at Alaska Department of Corrections

And then my second tip is to use the help videos on Piktochart. They are really valuable and they help me with things like color schemes and making sure that my colors didn’t clash. I really like those.

The third tip that I would give is to learn from a lady named [need clarification] She is a statistician that is really good with data visualization and she has a lot of good tips about how to make sure that the product that we create is not overcrowded with too much that would distract the reader.

WM (11:21):

I think those are some really great tips for researchers out there to also consider when it comes to visual communication.

Finally, to wrap up this #PiktoChat, can you let us know what is your favorite feature about Piktochart?

JS (11:35):

Yeah, my favorite feature is definitely the charts tool. I especially like the icons option, the one that gives you the option to. You could use triangles. You could use circles. You could use smiley faces if you want to show different proportions.

For me, I like to use. If I’m presenting data on males, I’ll use the little male icon. If I’m presenting data on females, I’ll use the little female icon. That could go for whatever you’re reporting. If you’re doing a report on trees, you could pick a little tree and use that. It’s really helpful when people are looking at the shape of the actual thing they’re trying to analyze.

WM (12:16):

I think that’s a great feature and also a hidden one that not a lot of people might be aware of. Instead of just using the basic icons to represent your data, you can actually customize it according to your preferred icons. Like what Jesse said, it actually helps to communicate the information and message much clearer. Thank you for bringing that to our attention as well.

It was truly a pleasure to be speaking with you, Jesse. Thank you for sharing your inspiring story with us in this #PiktoChat. We are so grateful to have you advocating for visual communication and using Piktochart as one of the tools to make that happen.

If you’re listening to this and you’re enjoying the #PiktoChat episode, feel free to check out the rest of our episodes, where you can hear more inspiring stories from leaders and entrepreneurs in different industries. That’s the end of our #PiktoChat today and goodbye.

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Show Notes

01:14 – Joe’s Career Journey As a Business Journalist to B2B Brand Builder
02:00 – What is Social Selling?
05:07 – The Importance of Social Selling for Brands and Businesses
07:17 – The Rise of Content Creators
09:04 – Breaking Down ‘The 3C Social Selling Framework’
13:23 – How Social Selling Has Benefited Esco Media
16:05 – Three Challenges to Overcome in Social Selling
19:29 – Three Tips For Doing Social Selling Successfully
22:05 – Brands That Are Nailing Social Selling
24:03 – Fun Question with Joe

Transcript

WM (00:23):

Hi there and thank you for listening to The Business Storyteller Podcast! I’m your host, Wilson and in today’s episode, we’re diving into the idea of social selling. What exactly is social selling and why do brands need this as part of their strategy?

This is the question that we’ll answer today and it’s my privilege to speak with an expert on this topic, Joe Escobedo, founder and CEO of Esco Media. Joe is one of Asia’s most respected B2B marketing and sales leaders. He has advised over 12,000 executives, from fast-growing startups to Fortune 500 brands, on building brands and businesses online. On top of that, he has been a contributor for Forbes, Inc, and HuffPost with his articles garnering more than 1 million views.

Hi Joe, welcome to The Business Storyteller Podcast I’m so glad to have you with us today. How are you doing?

JE (01:03):

Doing good. Thanks for having me, Wilson.

WM (01:05):

Well, I’ve fairly introduced you a bit, but I’m sure our listeners would love to hear from you directly. Would you like to tell us a little bit more about your career journey and also more about Esco Media?

JE (01:14):

Yeah, I think you gave a pretty good summary. If I look at my career journey, for those who are interested, I started out as a business journalist many years ago in China. Worked in PR and comms doing B2C for Nike, Mercedes-Benz, and then joined the dark side, B2B about five years ago and I’ve been doing work for a lot of B2B tech companies like Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce. It has been quite a journey over the past, I would say 15 years.

WM (01:43):

There are a lot of milestones that I’m sure you have achieved throughout the period. Thank you for giving us a short glimpse into your journey so far. Let’s get our conversation started today and we’ll be talking about the what and why of social selling.

For those who are not familiar with the term social selling, can you introduce this concept further to us?

JE (02:00):

Yeah, so I think there’s a big misconception when it comes to the word social selling because people hear social selling and they think, “I have to use social media to sell my products or services”, and that’s commonly what happens and there’s a lot of bad practices. A lot of executives know – of just getting these spammy InMails or LinkedIn messages from people who are basically trying to push their products upon you. So that has been kind of the traditional idea or misconception of social selling.

But what we try to teach in our training and online is that social media is really a tool to build relationships with your target audiences. It’s as simple as that. It’s about putting the social element back in social selling rather than the selling element. In fact, the selling portion shouldn’t even happen on social media. It should happen offline. Either one-on-one, a catch-up like this, or over coffee. You shouldn’t actually be selling online. What you could be doing your best is just trying to facilitate a meeting, which is honestly the hardest part. The way to break it down in our training is the three C’s of social selling.

So the first thing you need to do is you need to build a credibility. This comes in through your LinkedIn profile, through the content you put out. You need to be making sure that you’re portrayed as someone who’s credible and knowledgeable about your particular industry or particular space.

The second thing we want to look at is once you start to establish that credibility, how can you start amplifying? This is where content comes into play and so that brings to the conversation. Creating great content, like this is a great example, I followed your content. You followed mine. And we naturally just got talking about podcasting and you invited me on your podcast. And so the conversation happens very naturally because you put yourself out creating this content I have as well too and people just gravitate toward people like that.

So, that brings us to the third portion which is conversion. Now, this is the thing that many people jump straight to, so they skipped credibility. they skipped the conversation, and they go straight to conversion. “How can I book a demo with you or how could I book a 15-minute call with you?” And people just aren’t ready I always think about it as the dating analogy. It has been said many times but many salespeople when they’re reaching out, get down on one knee and they are hoping that everyone is going to agree to marry them. Marry them on the first date, which never happens.

So that’s where bringing the three C’s – credibility, conversation, and conversion, which is it could be a podcast partnership like this. It could be a coffee, it could be a one-on-one, whatever it is, but that’s what we’re looking at when we’re talking about conversion. So that’s how I summarize social selling.

WM (04:40):

Those are really great insights about your three C’s and I think we’ll uncover a bit more about that later on as well, but I love what you said because I think at the basis of all of that you mentioned, it also comes down to trust and relationship with your customers and your audience. I’m keen to learn more from you.

You have been in the marketing industry for close to two decades now. Why do you think brands and businesses should place an emphasis on social selling at the present time?

JE (05:07):

It’s a very good question. I think, at the end of the day,- it doesn’t matter if you’re in B2C or B2B, particularly in B2B, you’re buying from another person. Now, many people think you might be buying from your organization, but at the end of the day, I’m buying from Wilson. Because I like Wilson, I trust Wilson. I know he can deliver on whatever he promised because I have that existing relationship with him. That’s something that a lot of organizations forget is that people not only buy from your brand name, they also look at who are the people, who are the team is actually delivering upon that promise. I think that’s where social selling and having a face to an organization is really powerful, so that’s one.

The second thing that’s really important is if you look at it from the algorithm, so or fortunately, guessed how you look at it, the LinkedIn algorithm tends to favor more individual posts versus companies. So you can see a company post have let’s say a million followers and maybe two or three people like that. Those two or three people are probably their employees. So whereas you could have maybe a thousand followers and you’re an individual and you could get massive engagement and conversations. Going back to what we’re saying is people relate to people more than they do brands in terms of entity. That’s another advantage is leveraging a team to build up not only the awareness but also get a lot of inbound inquiries.

I think Dreamdata, the team over there does an incredible job at that. Laura, who really kick-started their social selling journey along with their co-founder and CEO has really built up a cultural DNA of everyone sharing not just product stuff because I think everyone gets tired of that. But everyone is generally sharing either insightful data and strategies on analytics, or they’re sharing entertaining memes or GIFs. All the different things that you would want to consume as a prospective buyer. I think they’re a great example of an organization that has done that very well.

WM (07:00):

I think that you also mentioned that it’s a way of humanizing a brand as well. Putting a face like what you say to a brand. So that is the present but perhaps in the longer term, 10 or 20 years from now, how do you envision the idea of social selling to look like? How is it going to impact businesses and brands?

JE (07:17):

Very good question. I think you started seeing this in different spaces, particularly in B2C is the concept of more than influencers is content creators. I think eventually more B2B brands will hire people like yourself, Wilson who are content creators, who are able to generate not only the right content, but able to amplify, able to distribute it across relative channels. They are going to become incredibly valuable because if you look at the playbook most B2B companies are doing, it’s the same thing over and over. We run a webinar. You have a landing page. We send follow-ups , etc. But the great thing about content creators is you get to have a unique spin on different things.

I was actually working on a webinar promotion right before this call and the idea was to combine two different concepts, one of which was this idea of the CMO Confessions we’re running with ON24. And it’s a kind of executive chat and I tried to marry that with pop culture. So I found this hilarious movie in which this family is giving these very hilarious takes on their own confessions and trying to melt those together into something that people would actually want to watch. That’s something I’ve done a few times recently and people really like it because it breaks away from the usual, just static images or static posts. I think content creators will become even more powerful and much more sought-after going forward.

WM (08:44):

I love that insight about the future and what we can foresee the trend would look like as well. Let’s talk a bit more about ‘The 3C Social Selling Framework’ that you have developed. I know that you’ve trained brands to adapt this framework with a lot of success. Would you mind giving us more insight on this? Perhaps you would like to elaborate further on all of this?

JE (09:04):

I think we have implemented this in multiple organizations but going back to the first C, credibility. One thing we always try to do with all the team members is the top three things you see on your LinkedIn profile are your banner, your profile photo, and then your headline. If you at a bare minimum just update that, that’s already much better than 99% of people because most people just have their name. Maybe a photo that’s five to ten years old. Maybe it’s blurry. And then they have their title. That’s it.

It doesn’t really tell you what is the value add. What we try to do is obviously the bare minimum. Have a photo that portrays who you are. For me, I wear the same shirt in different colors in every episode and most of my talk. So I try to keep that consistent with my own profile photo. I’m usually smiling. That’s kind of my personality. If I look at my banner, my banner is because I host the B2B Marketing Asia podcast as well as develop branded podcasts for other organizations, I have kind of a snapshot of all the different faces that have been on the show. So it’s really about highlighting them, not so much me because people see enough of this ugly face already. We want to highlight some of the people who have been on the guests and so I have that kind of wallpaper as my banner.

And then the headline is one that is quite tricky because it’s very difficult to do from your own point of view. How do you position yourself? One thing I’m working on for a university is how do we take what people are already saying about you? Because if you think about a brand, a brand isn’t what you say about yourself. It’s what people say about you. So I’ll give you a couple of different examples. One of which is people always ask me. I have the moniker next to my name, “B2B brand builder”. Now, I would like to think I thought about that because I’d feel very smart, but that wasn’t the case.

So quick back story is I was creating these superhero names for my colleagues in my previous company. And one was like a digital transformer and one with something else. I asked one of my colleagues, “Hey, how would you best categorize me? What would you give me as a superhero name?” He said, “The brand builder. You’ve helped develop the brand for our company.” I said, “Okay, that has a nice ring to it.” And that has stuck with me for so long to the point where before I introduce myself, I go, “Hi. I’m…” and they go, “You’re the brand builder.” I go, “That’s correct.” So I think having that little moniker has really helped me stand out, particularly with a name that’s not the easiest to remember (Escobedo) or pronounce. So that has really helped me.

The second thing I do is if you look at the headline is gathering all the testimonials, all the things that either your clients, your partners, your bosses, or your peers are saying about you. Categorizing all of that, copying and pasting that into a word cloud. And then once you have that word cloud, you look at the biggest words that are standing out. These are the most common words people are saying about you. One thing I tell myself and others to do is to identify what are the common words people are saying and then sprinkle that in throughout your content.

So if I do my own and I’ve done it recently. I have about 70 testimonials and one thing people keep talking on and on is about practical insights and strategies. That’s something that I wanted to imbue in terms of how we teach and how we educate executives, but I wasn’t sure if that was the messaging. I wasn’t sure if that actually resonated with people. In fact, if I look at what they’re saying, that was the case. I tried to sprinkle that in when people ask me, “What’s your approach to content and what’s your approach to podcasting?” I say we try to make it super practical such that you can apply it to that day. That’s something that once again didn’t come from me. I took it from my client, I took it from my peers and I sprinkle that back into my profile.

WM (12:57):

Well, I love all the little details and the backstory that you mentioned. Indeed, now when I think about some of the people that I follow on LinkedIn, some of who I would see them as successful branding people or in marketing, they all have all those little monikers as well. So now I can see the details of it and I really appreciate you sharing that insight with us.

In relation to that with ‘The 3C Social Selling Framework’, how has social selling benefited your organization as a brand?

JE (13:23):

Tremendously. I think every single client that we’ve gotten. Every job I’ve gotten has been through some form of social selling and to remind the audience, my goal was not to get a bunch of clients, was not to build the business crazy. It was to build relationships. And I can tell you, if I look back at my biggest clients, people we work with over the past few years, one thing constantly stands out and that is I actively was interested in them. I found something that they wrote or they commented on, and I was generally impressed with their insights. So that genuine interest, that genuine fascination with them led to natural conversations.

I’ll give you an example. One of our biggest clients for many years, he had written an article on social selling. This was about 6-7 years ago, so he was kind of a pioneer in the space. And when I was writing for Forbes and I said, “Hey, I really like your article. Is it okay if I interview you for an upcoming story I’m doing?” And he said, “Sure. Yeah, happy to.” So we did the story. It went very well. We got along quite well.

And then about a year and a half later, he calls me up out of the blue and he says, “Hey Joe, we’re doing these regional white papers across APAC and EMEA. I thought of you. Do you want it?” And I was like, “Okay sure, happy to take it on.” That led to one of our biggest accounts over about three year period, but it goes back to the goal. The goal here was not to sell him that. If I just came in and said, “Hey, let me sell you our content creation packages.” He might have been like, “I’m getting flooded with these kind of packages. What makes you special?”

But because I was generally interested in him. Once again, I was not trying to sell him anything. I just wanted to compliment him on his work and involve him in a piece. That stood out to him and he said, “I like this approach. I want to work with this person because that is how I like to build relationships. That’s how I like to work with other people.” That has been the biggest factor I think how we’ve grown Esco Media over the past four years. It’s just building relationships with cool people, smart people. That’s how we work.

WM (15:38):

That’s amazing to hear the insights and how it has benefited you. I think it comes back to what you say in the beginning, that conversion isn’t the main thing. In fact, it’s the last C before the two other C’s. So I think it’s great to be able to hear even from you how it has benefited your own organization.

So now we’ve talked a bit about the benefits of social selling for brands, but I’m sure there are a lot of challenges as well in this road. What do you think are some of the challenges that one has to overcome while doing social selling?

JE (16:05):

I think there’s a couple different ones. One of which is just the fear of putting yourself out there. I think that’s what stops about 90% of people that I speak with, whether it’s the training or executives who reach out to me. This is not just fresh graduates. These are senior executives, VP’s, directors in their organization. They said, “I’ve been wanting to do a video for years now, but I just don’t feel comfortable. I don’t have the confidence to record the video or even publish it. What I always tell them is at the end of the day, particularly on LinkedIn, no one really wants to see you fail. It’s not like one of those platforms where we’re like we want to mock and ridicule each other. We want to see each other do well, so I think having that in mind is really important.

The second thing to remember is it’s going to sound harsh, but no one cares about you. What I mean is everyone cares about themselves. The reason they are on LinkedIn, the reason they are on Twitter, or whatever platforms is they want to learn. So if you can teach me something, I don’t care if your hair is messy or you have bags under your eyes or your shirt is a bit wrinkled. Whatever it is, I don’t really care. What I care about is, can you teach me something that’s going to make me think in a different way, or it can be something I can apply to my day-to-day job? If you can do that, then you have me. Everything else, I don’t care about. When you think about it from that point of view when you’re creating content, it kind of takes the stress off of you. Because you don’t feel like you have to speak perfectly or you don’t have to look perfectly on camera. You just have to share your insights, your learnings and hope that it resonates with people. So I think that fear is probably the biggest.

And the other thing, which I think is really hard is for people to sustain the momentum. This is where we come in with our training and workshops is how do you build a cohesive content strategy whether it’s from a brand’s point of view or an individual’s point of view? Because I was guilty about this- and I still am to some extent. It’s getting much, much better. It’s talking about specific pillars. When I first started LinkedIn and social selling, I will talk about everything under the sun. I like photography. I like traveling. I like marketing. I like sales. It was all over the place. So now I really try to hone in on what are some of the things where I can add the most value? Things that I’ve actually done. Things like podcasting and writing and training, and then I share those. I try not to deviate too much so people kind of know what they expect from me.

This is a great example. I did a series on social selling. I think I did like 7-8 straight posts and then the amount of inquiries from people saying, “Hey, you do social selling. Can you teach us or can you work with our leadership team and so on?” That has been kind of two obstacles and key learnings for me over the years.

WM (18:45):

I think it’s so reassuring and encouraging for business leaders to know that there are going to be challenges when it comes to this but also, there are ways to see beyond that. All of us have a certain value or lesson that we can share and something that we can bring to the table for our friends and the network that we have on LinkedIn. I remember I discovered you on LinkedIn also through your posts and seeing your series on social selling and seeing a lot of people commenting on it. “Wow, this guy knows what he’s talking about and I’d love to invite him to be in our podcast.” And here we are today, so it has definitely worked out for you.

So with your years of experience and I’m sure you’ve been speaking with aspiring business leaders. If you could give them three tips for doing social selling successfully, what would that three tips be?

JE (19:29):

I think it kind of goes back to what we talked about is kind of first know it sounds very cliché but know who your audience is. This is hard to do I think for most entrepreneurs because when you’re starting a business or even for executives, you’re kind of going as wide as possible. You’re saying, I want to relate to everyone because that’s how I’m gonna grab a bigger audience, but in reality that doesn’t work. So really going into a niche audience. In my case, I started the B2B Marketing Asia podcast because there are a lot of marketing-related podcasters. Some B2B, but they are either US or Europe. I really wanted to hone in on B2B marketers in Asia Pacific because once again that’s where my expertise is. That’s where I’m fascinated. That’s where I think that it’s under leverage in terms of the quality of speakers. So the first thing is really having a clear understanding on who your target audience is and niching down.

The second thing we talked about already is, what is your value proposition? What do you want to be known for? Is it your unique moniker like brand builder? Or is it some kind of value proposition that once again came through based on what other people are saying? What is it you want to convey or share with the audience?

The third thing really goes back to another C. Bonus C we’ll call it. It’s consistency. You’re not going to start getting flooded with leads or podcast interview requests if you post one time and just say, “Where’s all the business coming from?” I always tell people, equate it to your favorite television or Netflix series, if they do one episode, you might be interested. But you’re probably not going to get hooked on to it versus if they have like 10-20 episodes you can kind of binge watch and so on.

I think that same mindset needs to be when you’re putting content out there and building relationships is, it’s not just a one-time thing. You have to be doing it every day, even if it’s like 10-15 minutes a day, checking other people’s posts and commenting on that. So you have to build a lot of your interactions and engagement by not creating content, but by commenting on other people’s content, which I seen some folks do. That might be helpful for those who are scared to put out content but are interested in others. It just commenting on other people’s posts.

WM (21:48):

Well, those are really great tips and I think some golden nuggets that our listeners would be able to take home today. Thank you for sharing those. We’re in our final question for this episode. From your experience, I’m sure you’ve helped and witnessed many brands that have grown through social selling. So if there are perhaps some examples of brands or individuals that are excelling in this, can you share some examples with us?

JE (22:05):

Yeah, so I really like once again, a bit biased, the Dreamdata guys because I’ve had them on the podcast and I like what they have done. Maybe I’m a bit biased because I like their style as well. I think it’s very different and that Laura, and I’ve complimented this to her is her posts are very candid. A lot of times people think, you have to have a proper camera, like I do a proper mic. You have to have proper lighting. That’s not the case. What really fascinated me about her initial video was just her just walking around Europe, just talking to her phone. They are as simple as that. They are dynamic because she’s always in a different background. Her personality is very engaging as well. And so that really shows us that we don’t have to have these high production facilities put on nice videos. You can literally just walk around and record stuff with your phone and I think that really stood out to me.

The second thing I think, once again, I may be biased because I tend to like memes and GIFs. So they tend to generate a lot of humorous content around B2B, which most folks aren’t doing. I think going back to an underleveraged skill or tactic when it comes to B2B marketing is adding humor. I’ve seen this in just how I interact with people. So I have a very self-deprecating style of humor that I tried to inject in either my post or comments or messages, and I’ve had people in the past week. I can show you screenshots saying, “I love this post or I love this comment. It’s the best one I’ve gotten on LinkedIn. I’m a huge fan of yours now just because you sent me one message that had a meme or a GIF, or whatever it was that I thought was relevant to that conversation.”

They (Dreamdata) are one that I really like because I like the content and also from interviewing them, I know it has had tremendous success on the growth of their business. They kind of have a win-win where you’ve learned something and then you get to help them grow their businesses as well too. So yeah, it’s worked out very well for them.

WM (24:03):

Thanks for sharing the example and we’ll be sure to also link that in the show notes so that you can also check out the example that Joe has mentioned here. Joe, thank you so much for sharing so many valuable and helpful insights with us today. I’ve enjoyed learning from you and also understanding more about social selling and its importance for businesses and brands. So thank you for being so generous with your knowledge and for sharing with us.

Now, before we wrap up this episode, I’d love to ask you some fun questions to help our listeners learn what inspires you as a person. My first question for you is this, what is your favorite movie?

JE (24:39):

One of my favorite movies is a cult classic called Office Space. If you’ve ever worked in the office or corporate environment, you’re going to relate to this one. It’s directed by Mike Judge who was a brilliant director and writer who did Silicon Valley, many of their kind of cult classic comedies. Office Space is one of my all-time favorites.

WM (25:00):

I’ll definitely have to check that out. My second question for you is this, what is the productivity app on your smartphone that you would recommend?

JE (25:07):

I live and breathe the Google Suite. They have me shackled to them. I use Google Docs as I’m riding on a train. I use Google Slides for all my university presentations. Google Sheets for our CRM. That’s one that I’m constantly using every day.

WM (25:24):

My final fun question for you is this, if you’re not doing what you’re doing today, what do you envision yourself doing?

JE (25:30):

That’s a good question. I think I’ve finally gotten to a point where I really enjoy what I’m doing. I enjoy writing. I enjoy creating content and I enjoy teaching other folks. So, I’m very fortunate and blessed at this old age of mine that I get to do things that I love. I would do it for free. I get to do it as part of my business.

WM (25:50):

That’s the ideal life. Thanks for sharing that as well. Well, that was fun and I trust our listeners have also enjoyed knowing you better and what inspires you. Finally, I’m sure some of our listeners would love to stay connected with you or reach you. How can they do that?

JE (26:04):

Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn – Joe Escobedo. We’ll probably put in the name somewhere or look me up on our website, escomedia.co. Happy to chat.

WM (26:15):

We’ll be sure to also link that in the notes so that you can get connected with Joe. If you’d like to get connected with him to learn more about social selling, you’ll know where to find him. Once again, thank you Joe for coming on this episode of The Business Storyteller Podcast. That’s all for today’s episode. And until the next one.

Resources

Esco Media: https://www.escomedia.co/

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-escobedo/

Connect with Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilsonmoy90/

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