Marketing for Marketers with David Dunworth

David Dunworth is part of Marketing Partners LLC and one of the members of the CLEAR Business Directory.

In today’s episode, he discusses Marketing Partners and how their services are so good that they actually do marketing for marketers. Their company is aimed at helping small business owners get more customers and be more profitable. He also talks about the future of marketing in this age of smartphones.

Welcome to the In The Clear Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Recla. Super excited today as we are doing a live, on the spot interview with one of the members of the CLEAR Business Directory. We’re down here in Florida at The Business Acceleration Summit. I’m speaking with one of the mentors today. David Dunworth is part of Marketing Partners LLC. He’s absolutely a really neat guy. You could tell that he is just 100% genuine and authentic in who he is and what he does. I’m excited to have him here on the show today. He’s got a business that is tricky for a lot of business owners. He brings an aspect of authenticity that I’m excited to dive in with him here on The Clear Podcast. David, welcome to the show.

Thanks for taking the time to invite me and spend a little time with me.

I spent a lifetime in hospitality sector.

I appreciate it. David, can you tell our listeners a little bit about your business and your background?

Sure. I’ll start with the background. I spent a lifetime in hospitality in a sector called The Private Club World, which is a little bit different. It’s a lot different than a public restaurant segment.  It’s a lot different than hotels. I have operated clubs that did have hotel rooms. But the mainstay of my entire hospitality background was in high end, private social athletic clubs, country clubs, things of that nature.

Fantastic. Tell me a little bit about Marketing Partners?

That segued into a 15-year consulting opportunity that I took on. I focused on generalists, but hospitality kept drawing me back in because my skill set was that strong. But all my entire career marketing was heavily involved; marketing, promotions, and advertising. To make a long story very short, I partnered with a financial backer who has nothing to do with business other than cashing a check, which is great.

That’s a good partner to have.

Because we actually have checks to cash. We service several different niches. We do stuff for small businesses. Most small businesses, the owner or the person running it is scratching their head most of the time, wondering, how do I get more customers? How do I make myself more visible online? All of those types of things. We solved that. We educate our clients what’s most important, what they can do themselves to become more visible online, and what we can offer them in terms of do it yourself, do it with you or done for you. Either way, they’re going to get as much help as they can handle based on what their objectives are. It’s like that bulldog in the corner. You don’t know whether you want to wake it up or not.

But regardless, you’ve got to feed it.

Exactly.

Regardless, you do have to feed it. I know that the concept of marketing, especially about videos, those sketch drawings. There are so many different avenues. Like you’re talking about, video is the new trade. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

The advance of video because of the mobile transition.

The advance of video because of the mobile transition. We are working with fully operational computers in our pockets. It’s in our hand. We look at it all day long. It’s like an appendage. The market is shifting to make a streaming video, the national networks are doing it, cable TV is doing it, business is doing it. The forecast is that by 2018 as much as 70% of all content viewed online is going to be video. That’s pretty shocking to me because the video is not inexpensive. To be done right, there are a few dollars to it. Hopefully, like anything else, when the automobile came online it was shockingly expensive for the average person. But as critical mass took over, like new TV, the first year it’s $2,500. Two years later it’s $299. Hopefully, the price of video will become more reasonable so that small businesses can actually afford quality video. There’s a lot of junk out there.

You see people that do a video on their own. You see people that do a video that right way, they hire a professional. You can see the difference. Like you said, you’re going to have to do it in order to keep up with the competition out there.

The competition is only going to get more difficult.

Exactly. David, what would you like our listeners and your prospective clients to know about you? What is one thing they should be asking you before they decide to hire you?

If they were to ask me why they should hire me over somebody else, I’ll give them a couple of reasons. First reason is, my biggest client, who actually is in New Jersey, is a marketing agency.

You’re a marketing guy who’s got clients that are marketers?

Yes, I have a client in Wales that is a marketing agency. He calls himself a media company. But it’s actually a marketing agency and I do some work for him.

You do marketing for the marketers?

That’s correct. The second reason that I think it’s important to know is that we’re experts at lead generation and that’s what small businesses need. They need more customers. We’re not going to be able to close the customer for them but we can certainly drive them to the business owner and teach them how to make that connection, to make the buyer’s journey end with them. We pride ourselves on being masters at that. Here’s the inside story. We offer a guarantee. Now, there are other marketing agencies that will guarantee some of their activities. We’re the only marketing agency in North America, I can’t say the world because we haven’t looked at Europe yet, but the only one in North America that offers a double back guarantee.

What’s that look like?

What that means is if you worked with us for a year, specifically geared towards awareness, lead generation, traffic to your website, and we don’t produce more qualified leads than you’ve ever experienced we’ll give you every penny back that you have invested with us for the entire year twice, double. That’s why we call it the double back guarantee.

That’s something you’re not going to hear from most people.

You won’t hear it from anybody.

I’m pretty sure you probably will never have to do it.

We’ve been in business almost five years. Haven’t had a client that said, “You failed me.” We’re pretty proud of that.

David, you’ve been in the business world for some time now. As an entrepreneur, you know we all have lessons that we go through and stuff. Is there anything in your business background, in your business history that you wish you could go back and do over again or something that was a huge lesson for you?

Sure, there’s a lot of things.

Anything that stands out?

There’s one thing that I think bothers me more than anything else. That’s when I ran a club that had more than 3,500 members and their families. That’s a population of almost 8,000 people. It was a ragtag mess when I got there and became a club of the year when I left. My biggest regret is I left. I should’ve stayed a little bit longer. But things happen for a reason and people make decisions that they may regret, but it all turned out for the better. I missed probably the best year I could have ever had, was to bask in the glory of the success. But being an entrepreneur, I’m looking for that next challenge. I don’t really regret it, but if had to I would redo it.

That speaks volume as to who you are. That tells me that you dived fully into the projects and the businesses that you work with.

Mohammad Ali was the greatest ever.

That’s also been a challenge for me. In the hospitality business, you tend to live your business. You’re married to the business. I was no different. The 70, 80 hour work weeks were routine. I’m in it, heart and soul. My greatest idol as a youth and still believe that Mohammad Ali was the greatest ever and you couldn’t knock him out. You could knock him down. He got knocked down a couple of times. But that’s like me. I boxed because of Mohammad Ali. I boxed amateur while I was in the military and I had a pretty good record. I was 23 and 3. 23 wins, 20 of them knockouts, 3 decisions and they were mixed decisions and there was no knockout. You can’t keep me down. I refuse to stay down. Maybe that’s why I’m still working at my age. I don’t know. I feel like I’m 30, and I’m twice that. In fact, it’s my birthday next week.

Happy birthday.

Thanks. I’m just going to keep going. One of my catchphrases or clichés, I’m known as the Over Caffeinated Entrepreneur because I’m at a high pace. I have no fear of caffeine. Even though my doctor says I might want to cut back a little. There’s plenty of time for sleep, and when I’m dead I’ll get plenty of it.

I tell people, “I’m an entrepreneur. Sleep is a crutch.”

It’s a choice. Most people make it. I fight it because there’s so much that I want to do. There’s so much out there that needs help. We work with veteran-owned organizations. We give them a 50% discount on everything that we do for them. Non-profits, we offer the same thing. We’ll help whoever needs the help. We even have a non-profit client who is struggling so much to stay alive. We’re just doing the marketing for them pro bono. It’s more about their bottom line than mine. I’ve had a lifetime of successes. Some failures. But it’s my way to give back. The universe is taking good care of me.

That’s awesome. David, thank you so much for being on the show. Before we head out, can you share with our listeners, outside of looking at your profile inside the CLEAR Business Directory, can you share with our listeners where they can find more information about you?

The Entrepreneur’s Amended Bill of Rights.

Sure. They can find us at MarketingPartnersLLC.com. I have my page. On the About page, there’s the story of how the business got started, some of the key players that are involved. Right now, there’s a free release on a book that I’m about to publish. It’s called The Entrepreneur’s Amended Bill of Rights. I wrote the original one back in 2011 and it was published right after the first year in 2012. But it’s sorely outdated. I amended the Bill of Rights. It’s pretty interesting to read. It’s based on my beliefs in the entrepreneurial environment, what entrepreneurs are really entitled to. They have rights just like anybody else. It’s formulated from the belief system that I have that I inherited from my grandparents. I talked about my grandparents in all my books. That bothers people that it’s in a non-fiction business oriented book. I’m sorry, but that’s who I am. That’s my story. My grandfather was a tremendous man with a third-grade education who built the largest World War II manufacturing plant for the B29 Superfortress Bomber. They made the engines there. He was the guy that put it together with a third-grade education. He had a story, he had his ways. I learned everything that I know from him. It’s a good read. It’s not heavy. It’s not technical. It’s a light read. It’s fun. You’ll learn something, hopefully.

Fantastic. David, thank you so much for being on the show today. Again, we’re here at The Business Acceleration Summit here in Florida. David Dunworth is one of the mentors here at the summit. We’re just super excited that he’s part of the CLEAR Business Directory. You can check out his profile inside the CLEAR Business Directory at ClearBusinessDirectory.com or you can take a look at his website at MarketingPartnersLLC.com. David, thank you so much.

Thanks for the time. I appreciate it.

Take care. Before you get involved with anybody, make sure that business is In The Clear.

Amen.

Learn more about David Dunworth