 Welcome to another episode of the non-profit show everybody. I'm thrilled you're here today We have a really exciting guest coming to us from Atlanta, Georgia Rafi Norberg is joining us as the president of Nexus marketing and we're going to be talking about something that's really really interesting And if it's not of interest to you, it should be Being an industry influencer in the non-profit sector and what that might look like what you should be thinking about and Actually, how it works so Rafi We are thrilled to have you hold on when I do a little bit of my housekeeping which includes reintroducing myself If we don't know each other, I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American Non-profit Academy Jared Ransom the non-profit nerd. I'm gonna tell you I think she's out camping somewhere Not in in the desert Southwest some place much cooler, but she'll be rejoining us on Monday We are here because of the immense support that we get every day 830 plus episodes from our presenting sponsors and they include Blumerang American Non-profit Academy Your part-time controller Non-profit thought leader fundraising Academy at National University staffing boutique non-profit nerd and non-profit tech talk These folks have a mission that's your mission and they want to help you achieve your mission vision and values So check them out like Jared says not right now at the end of the show find out what they're doing We also have the super cool sexy app that the folks at the American Non-profit Academy created for us And you can find us there every day if you hit that QR code We will notify you every day which just didn't within a couple hours Once the show is up and you can also search those databases You can find us on any streaming broadcasts and now also on Podcasts so however you like to consume your content. We're with you and the non-profit show Continues to grow and go with you. Okay, Rafi. Thank you. Thank you for taking this time to join us Talk to us about nexus marketing Yeah, absolutely, and thanks for having me on I'm excited to be here So my role is the president of nexus marketing so I started the business almost ten years ago at this point and I Run a really unique marketing agency. So what nexus does is we are specialized primarily in digital marketing For businesses that are trying to reach Different mission-driven audiences So most of the clients that we're working with are looking to get in front of non-profit professionals or get in front of professionals that work at associations or education groups such as schools and universities so In order to achieve that one of the areas that we focused a lot on as a business is really trying to get to know different Mission-driven markets so trying to help companies enter into how do you get in front of a non-professional or professional works for a healthcare Organization and in order to do that one of the the big Accelerators to success is trying to understand the ecosystem of influencers and thought leaders in each of these individual Mission-driven sub markets so where our agency spends a lot of time and we've got a whole team dedicated to this is reaching out and connecting with different Quote-a-quote influencers within the market to try and figure out where their win-wins between different brands and themselves and are their opportunities for brands to support these different influencers or vice versa to Help get in front of people in a way that is educationally really interesting and useful and helps achieve both the influencers goal, but also the brand's goal so by doing that we have developed this really big network of different influencers that we will go to Often times to try and help get our clients broader exposure But also support some of the objectives that the influencers are going for so I guess as someone who has spent a lot of time Thinking about what is it like to be a digital influencer within a mission-driven space? I probably know it to a thing or two about or certainly seen some lessons learned over the last 10 years Within these markets, so I'm excited to talk today about what do we think about when we talk about influencers? What do they look like? What are the behaviors that they do? How do we measure it? So happy to jump in wherever you want? well, I love this concept and I love I Love where you are because we were talking in the green room the word nexus is such a powerful underutilized word and I love where you're moving with this but let's talk about This value And I would I'd love to get your opinion in both directions from the influencer But also from the nonprofit What is the value to us in the nonprofit sector as getting getting somebody in creating that partnership if you will with an That's a great question. So like you teed it up I think there's value for the individual who is becoming an influencer and then I think there's value for the Organization as it relates to trying to find people who whose advice you want to listen to and you find interesting I'll start with the organizational side. So from an organizational side. I Think that one of the really interesting things about the evolution of certainly social media Across across different sectors, but personal and professional But we'll stay focused on the nonprofit sector is now we're getting to Hear about different voices of what people are experiencing what people are learning be on the traditional institutional channels so for instance if we were to rewind 20 years ago You know, there were a couple main publications in the nonprofit sector like, you know the chronicle and then you know The concept of an influencer would oftentimes be someone who worked at a large nonprofit Maybe maybe one of the biggest if you're in education Maybe one of the largest state universities or an Ivy League or with some of the the cause-based organizations Just some of the larger organizations out there and they would speak at conferences And I think that that still exists today, but for a lot of nonprofits They're not really hearing from someone who represents them So if you're not working at one of the largest biggest most well-funded complex nonprofit Organizations the challenges that you face on a daily basis are different than someone might face if they were working for a st. Jude's or working for University of Georgia. So one of the nice things about the proliferation of different quote-unquote influencers for individual nonprofits Is I think there are far more voices of people who can represent different perspectives both from organization size from organization cause But also from what does the individual sound like? So are there people who come from different walks of life from different backgrounds who are experiencing a different perception of the Non-profit sector or different challenges or different wins in the sector that now other people can go to to get advice from and to learn from So I think on an organization-wide level finding people whose advice you really like and Tuning in to what they're saying can be just a helpful point of learning that you can use both for yourself if you're in a position Of leadership at the organization, but also if you're a leader across your organization So maybe you have your whole organization tune into a specific influencer because you really like their content As far as on an individual basis for being an influencer I think that it it varies a little bit on what you're looking for for me You know when I think about influences it relates to nexus My hope is to help benefit the organization help to grow nexus by being a speaker on different topics related to Mission-driven digital marketing and I think for some individuals based on where they are in the organization It's very a very organization-wide goal that they're trying to achieve But for others, I think it's a really interesting professional development tool for you to build your own audience That is separate from maybe the organization that you're working for that you can take with you as a professional asset across your career Right, and you know, that's very controversial. We every Friday we do an ask-and-answer episode where people you know Write-in they call text email, whatever Stop us, you know, we're out and about and that's a big thing asking about where is that balance between Becoming an expert for my nonprofit Versus my industry or my sector right 1.8 million nonprofits registered in the US and nine major Sectors, you know, there's a lot of movement there and sometimes that can kind of Cause some jealousy. It can cause some problems And it's it's a it's a really interesting thing that we need to probably drill down in another episode But I want to ask you this question because if you are part of our audience It's like, yeah, I'm going to get out there and I want to advocate for my sector or myself or you know Professional development, which I loved that you brought that up Where are influencers showing up and what are these platforms? I mean, we saw this tremendous disruption for speaking public speaking and public gathering During the pandemic which pushed us into, you know, the digital sphere even faster Now that we're kind of moving through this. What are you seeing and what can we expect? That's a great question. So I Think you still have your classic channels So as you think about people who are going to who are going to provide information to you that is interesting or Places you might want to speak if you want to be an influencer I think there's the classic channels of in traditional press and for conferences. I think especially for The nonprofit sector and in the subsectors as well within that I think there's for each subsector There's there's a string of different conferences that's relevant to that sector that that realistically if you if you're trying to Look for people to get advice from or to give advice to those people Showing up in those sector specific areas. I think it's still very relevant Beyond that, I think as you mentioned, there's been a proliferation of new channels to get out there So I'll split them into two categories I think there are the channels that you can own yourself and then there are the channels that you still need to get on to So for the channels where you need to get on to the interesting thing that I've seen is a rise in New media for lack of a better word related to the sector So think about all of the different podcasts that have launched out there and all of the different The types of webinar series podcasts shows that are out there that are specific to the nonprofit sector And I think that a show like this for instance where you guys are hosting people every single week That's to talk about different topics is a great place to find different folks with interesting perspectives or to share your perspective If you've got something unique to say The other area that I would say is is worth people thinking about is linkedin and their own website So when when you're looking for different pieces of advice I find a lot of the advice that we see come through related to the nonprofit sector Is now being shared via linkedin on an ongoing basis because even if you're Prolific and a great speaker There are only so many shows there are only so many places that you can be on and they're and they're happening sporadically And they're scheduled out months in advance But linkedin is a channel where you can share your perspective at any time you'd like and it is ready for immediate consumption by The people who are who are choosing to follow you So linkedin is a really interesting space to look for different ideas or to share your own ideas And see what people are engaging with and and what finds an audience and then beyond that I would also say Either if you're finding influencers on linkedin or you're trying to become an influencer yourself having a personal website where you're sharing some of these thoughts via your website and then starting to build your own channels, whether that's email or Uh blogs on certain topics I think that having a source of truth that you fully control when it comes to Your perspectives or when you're looking for perspectives having a source of truth You can go to beyond just what someone is going to share in a podcast is really really helpful because then what you can start to see Is the perspectives not on just a single topic that that person happens to be talking about or the single post that they shared But the whole body of their work which may cover many more topics than you get to in a single show Yeah, and I love I mean, of course, you know from my vantage point in my daily world The control issue control of content Hello, that's huge That's absolutely huge and I love that you addressed that because um, yeah, controlling that message and being able to move with that message Um messaging I think is really powerful. So I love that you put that spin on that And I also think that it it's really um portable so that if you do leave a particular organization Or you you know, you make a different choice in your your career You still have that content and you still have that connectivity. I think that's really wise Let me ask about this and this is one of those big time questions. It's like super hard and Super difficult we talk about this all the time But how and can we should or should we Measure influence. I mean, this is like one of those grand mysteries to me raffi Yeah, it's a great question. And I think it's tough to answer because it varies As we think about influence related to the nonprofit sector I think ultimately it comes down to what are the goals that you're trying to to drive forward I think for The clients where that we work with where we're trying to connect them with influencers ultimately what's driving Their perspectives is is revenue generation that can either be measured directly or indirectly and then on an individual basis I think you need to decide what your goals are. I think that uh for For most individuals who are trying to become an influencer in the nonprofit profit sector If you don't know what you're trying to measure on whether that's number of followers number of newsletter subscribers Number of donors to your organization Then you're going to find it very difficult to prioritize the activities that you're going to want to work on You're not going to stick with it quite frankly because you won't be able to say see incremental improvements into what you're doing So I think finding a point of measurement is incredibly incredibly important Beyond having just a single point of measurement though I do think one of the nice parts about like quote unquote influence is that it cannot perfectly be measured a lot of our work happens to Center around search engine optimization So how people are finding your website via google? And that actually is quite measurable of people like hitting your website But even thinking about seo in the grander scheme of someone getting introduced to a brand and interacting with that brand It's rarely very rarely someone searches something on google They go to a website and then they decide to take an action whether that's donate or you know I get a software demo or something. There are eight touches that that person interacts with so I think if you're going to decide to dedicate some time to being an influencer or connecting with influencers You have to have a core metric that you're going to say This is how i'm going to judge success here in order for any investment of time to make sense whatsoever But beyond that understand that no single metric is perfect So just like you were talking about julia right before we jumped on this idea of like someone recognized you in an airplane And it was a little disconcerting. That's something that can't be measured. But to me is a leading indicator of Engagement with the influence that you're having and I feel the same way about what we're doing where Sometimes we're on a podcast and we won't know if anything comes from that But then two months later someone will say hey, I heard this thing that you were on. Isn't that great? That's very cool. So I think you've got it You've got to take measurements with a grain of salt and just understand that not everything is going to be perfectly perfectly measured if you're going to embark on one of these campaigns but The reason I do think you need some metric underlining Underlining what you're trying to do is that any individual channel when it comes to influence whether that's linkedin posting Writing blog posts sending out emails. They're all gigantic investment in time and thought and and reputational risk quite frankly so If you don't have an end goal in mind of what you're trying to do then Then then it's not going to be a great use of your time. So for me personally, I'll give you an example for my own life I think there's inherent value In uh nexus as a brand getting in front of different people and talking about digital marketing within the mission driven sector I don't think there's a ton of people talking about that And what's the metric that we're measuring up of this year? It's the number of opportunities that we get to talk about different things related to our sector and our expertise So we're not measuring like an end stage outcome if that makes sense We're measuring the uh the just a an outcome of the number of events we get to participate in and that's an Okay metric to measure too because then we know what we're going for is we're trying to speak more places We're trying to share more thought leadership and then we're going to reassess at the end of the year and say Here's what came from that. Did we think it was useful? Did we see anything so it doesn't have to be like number of donations or number of People subscribing per se it could just be for the first year you're doing it number of blog posts written or number of linkedin posts shared and then you refine your measurement the next year But at least if you have some type of thing that you're going off of you have a way to evaluate Did we take a step forward in this direction or did we not this year? Right, you know, I think it's really profound what i'm learning from you first and foremost Which I think is the way to a successful life personally and professionally is defining your your goal, right? I don't mean to go out tony robbins on everybody, but you got to set you got to define your goal number one But I love that you said, you know, look at the action of what's going to take you to your goal So I have a follow-up question to that and that is Do you pick one thing like your number of engagements for nexus marketing, which I love What that looks like, but do you have other subsets or are you just focusing in on one thing? That's a great question. So for us this year the things that we're starting with is We want to do one linkedin post a week on a topic that we believe can get some engagement And we want to try to Get on more speaking opportunities than last year and last year. I think it was like two or three So so it's a pretty low bar to to increase and those are the two things, right? We're picking linkedin and then we're picking some of these other channels where you can go and talk to people and For the influencers, I've seen be the most successful I think they are quite focused in what they choose to to to really drill in on as a channel that they're working towards So for instance, just to give you an example if one of your goals is to become A speaker at conferences what I will see people do is they will Really go out of their way to try and create a great relationship with the professional associations or the conference planners that are putting on that conference So what does it look like for me to have a really great interaction with afp this year? And they're going to be the one organization that i'm going to work with I'm going to figure out something and i'm going to do something at afp. I'm not concerned with doing something at afp and bridge and ahp and you know a se i'm just going to focus on the single show and really knock it out of the park Or alternatively on linkedin my big goal is to become an expert at linkedin and really be someone when I post People are engaged with the content that i'm sharing and really drill Down into that as a medium because each of these mediums is hard That's why there are so few influencers that crush all of them So it's better to crush a single channel than it is to be mediocre at all of them And I think a lot of people when they're saying I've got a perspective. I want to share it Are trying to do everything all at once and it's too hard. It's too hard as an individual It's too hard as an organization to do everything really well. So I would I would recommend focused For a really long time until you feel like you've mastered that specific channel Okay, so two things rafi We take our show The non-profit show to afp and we broadcast live. We've done it two years in a row Mike Geiger the CEO of afp Generally comes on and kicks off things And so I'm just giving you an open invitation Next year show up and we will put you on generally. We're there for two or three days And we get different people in and so yeah, so Put me down as one of your you know placeholders for your public engagement pieces And yes, okay It might only be five minutes, but you will be on the non-profit show Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for that invitation Well, I love what you're saying because to me rafi. Um, sometimes we have guests on We talk about this internally within my own company Um, and it it's just so overwhelming and then I think what happens when things become just Too overwhelming. You're like screw it. I'll come back to that and so versus defining your goal really having that You know time to figure out what that goal is And then moving forward in a in a really profound and deliberate way It's much easier much much easier to I think achieve it, right? So I love what you're saying I want to jump into this other question and discussion and we don't have a lot of time, but What are the requirements to becoming an influencer? Um, because I think a lot of times we feel like oh I need to spend more time doing this or oh, I'm not a ceo. I'm I'm just a this or a that I've only worked for one organization. I haven't founded an organization I'm giving you all these excuses that so many of our viewers and listeners are probably running through their own heads right now But what should we look for when we are looking to to really move into this this this opportunity Yeah, so this is a great question And it's some a controversial question too around what are what are the things that would qualify you to basically give advice to other people on a given topic? I I think A requirement that is not so much a professional requirement, but I think an important self requirement is No, no, know what you're trying to achieve by doing this and and Believe it's your heart that it's it's worth the time to go out and put the effort in To go and do this versus the other places that your time can go because I think one of the things that people see is they see People who already have large audiences or they see some engagement with the audience But what they don't see is the dozens or hundreds of thousands of hours of work It took to get there and it's a brutal slog to build an audience And the most successful influencers we've seen have been doing it for years And sometimes they are totally crazy with what they're willing to do One of our clients who who I would consider an influencer They they wanted to be a speaker at AFP or they wanted to to do some, you know AFP related content and AFP didn't want to sponsor them So what they did is they actually paid for a video crew to come to AFP and for them to Do their own set of interviews which then they gave to AFP to just use And that was how they became part of the AFP ecosystem But it was thousands of dollars more than that in time out of their own pocket to do it But that's commitment So I think that that is kind of a prerequisite of becoming an influencers to say What am I trying to achieve and am I willing to put time into this versus the other things in order to make progress in this specific area The other thing I think is worthwhile is really Getting a good handle on what is the perspective that you're looking to share with others and and where where are you really a specialist and qualified to give advice So for instance as it relates to let's let's take someone in the in the nonprofit sector who is a major gift fundraiser at a Animal welfare organization I think a good place to start is to say what have I learned that is specific to people in this role at these types of organizations Or things that I'm thinking about Or ideas that are interesting that I that have helped me a lot related to my specific role of my specific type of organization And even though that audience is relatively micro like how many major gift officers are there at Animal welfare organizations. I don't know are there are there a hundred are there a thousand Maybe somewhere between those numbers But that is a place to get started where someone someone's advice would be really be really well heated Especially if that is an area that's underserved with good advice related to how do you make progress in it? So I think people You know you look at like your your biggest podcasters out there and you say Well, how do I get an audience of a million people or 10,000 people? But you can't start there You just need to start with an audience of 100 people who are interested in what you're saying or a thousand people And I think the best way to do that is to pick something you actually know really well And are qualified to share a perspective on and I don't think it needs to be like advice per se I think it can just be Sharing your perspective on something or things you're thinking about in relation to a very specific subsector You know rafi, I'll tell you when we started The weekend that the pandemic occurred and there was the federal closed down That really came on a thursday Jared and I had both lost all of our speaking contracts which take years and years to get Um, I came up with the idea to put on a show That we would do from she had a home studio. I had an office studio And on our first broadcast we had four people and two of them were each of our moms, right? Okay And now we get 2000 people a day coming to us through all of our channels that we've We've created and cultivated That's taken a long time and it's still growing. It's still an evolution. So you are right It doesn't happen overnight and a lot of people will be like, well, you're such a success overnight, you know It's like, yeah, no every day It's a slog every day and now we're in it in our fourth year, right? Yeah. Yeah Love what you've said is that you have to look at this as a journey because the arc You know, it really bends and you have to be willing to Make that investment that sacrifice and be confident that you are on the right You know the right path. I mean, I know that that's what we've done and I know that there are days when I think What the hell, you know, what why am I doing this? Because it is a slog To every day do a show and get it going get it getting it up there and on all that but I love that you caution us about that overnight success because It's not necessarily there and it's if it is it's not consistent I think that's the other thing, you know, when you when you invest and you build that reputation It it lasts longer. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah, absolutely. I think It takes a long time to build great things and it takes a long time for things to slowly degrade if Work still isn't going into them. So I think for for people who are Looking for influencers to follow or trying to become on themselves I think people who have been out there for a while sharing their perspective It it shows a certain degree of consistency with a willingness to be there Over the course of a long period of time And if you like getting advice from someone and you like the perspective of someone's sharing for them to be there Not just today, but a year from now sharing their advice on different topics I think is really helpful if you're going to choose to spend your time following someone. Yeah, absolutely well I've already got a million questions in And more reasons to have you back on raffi because there's some other things that you said that I really think we need to explore And so to our viewers and our listeners. I think we're going to Make raffi norberg one of our new best friends president of nexus marketing nexus marketing dot com Check them out the the website is really interesting because his team is is quite immense and if you look at what they're doing and What they're in charge of and and what that workflow is it's absolutely fascinating And very achievable. I think you know, I mean there's a there are a lot of great minds behind these These concepts and these actions, but some of the gems I took away today was you know setting a goal Defining what that is you can narrow that down and then to really Look at that goal. What is it? It's going to help you navigate towards that and kind Cut out the rest of that noise, which sometimes is really hard to do So I loved raffi that you said that again raffi norberg president of nexus marketing It's been just a wonderful thing to have you with us again I'm julia patrick cio of the american nonprofit academy Jared ransom the nonprofit nerd herself will be back with us on monday Again our thanks to our amazing sponsors and friends at bloomering american nonprofit academy your part-time controller nonprofit thought leader fundraising academy at national university staffing boutique nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk These are the folks that join us day in and day out. We're at about 830 plus episodes and Most of these folks have been with us from the beginning When I thought maybe this would be a two-week gig and now we're We're in year four So just having to say that is the slog that raffi has been talking about With us today raffi. I love love love your energy and your comments. This has been a lot of fun for me. Thank you Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me. It's been a lot of fun Hey everybody as we like to end every episode we want to remind ourselves our viewers our listeners our sponsors our guests today To stay well So you can do well. See you back here tomorrow