231. Revolutionize Direct-to-Consumer Communication with Pocial: Insights from Entrepreneur Clifton Cooper

00:00:10
This is happiness solved with America's happiness. Coach Sandee Sgarlata.

00:00:21
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy you're here. I'm Sandee Sgarlata. I was born in Virginia Beach and raised in the Baltimore Annapolis area and had very humble and tragic beginnings. And as a result, my life was a hot mess.

00:00:36
Thankfully, 33 years ago, I got my act together, and since that time, I have dedicated my life to serving others and raising awareness that no matter what you've been through, you can choose happiness and live the life of your dreams. Happiness Solved is dedicated to giving you content that is empowering, motivational, inspirational, and, of course, a dose of happiness. It's my way to give back to the world and share other people's stories. This thing called life can be challenging, and my guests share their amazing stories, wisdom, and life lessons that demonstrate anyone can choose happiness. You see, happiness is a choice, and the choice is yours.

00:01:16
Today's episode is amazing, and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for listening and don't forget to leave a review and follow me on social media at coach. Sandee Sgarlata. Enjoy the show.

00:01:32
Clifton Cooper, how are you today? It's such a joy to see you, and I'm so excited for this conversation. How's everything going? It's going great. I'm excited to be with you, to talk with you, to tell you more about our company.

00:01:45
Yeah. So it's interesting. You are the co founder of Postial. I love that. Yeah.

00:01:52
Technology and ad firm. Absolutely. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that and how you got into that line of work. So I've personally been in the digital the web space for about 15 years.

00:02:07
Okay. So my background is in web project management, whether it's developing apps, architecting, that kind of thing. I've done that now for almost a decade and a half. And so as an entrepreneur, you're doing it for other companies, and you realize you see some gaps in the marketplace and you're like, okay, I think there's an opportunity here that I can tap into. And that's what happened with Postial.

00:02:32
We saw an opportunity where the data that small to medium sized businesses have their access to on a regular basis with their direct to consumer relationships was either not being captured was being captured, but under leveraged, wasn't being captured and stored in the proper way, wasn't being structured. Right. And so we sought out to provide small to medium sized businesses, particularly with a system and solutions that can help them do a better job of communicating with their customers on a regular basis. Nice. Very nice.

00:03:10
So why, like, where did that come from? Great question. Okay, I know. So Postial is essentially a portmanteau of the words poll and social, right? So our company, from a platform perspective, we combine the power of polls with a socially responsible approach to data collection, if that makes sense.

00:03:31
Right. So if you look at it from the perspective of cookie tracking and where it is today, it started out everybody was just allowing everybody to track them across the Internet and their behaviors, what they were browsing and things. And then obviously now we're in a position where there's a lot more privacy laws that are in place and getting stronger, where Google is going to phase out cookies. But we saw that a long time ago and we realized that there was an opportunity there to do it, but do it the right way. We understand businesses, they need to collect data from their consumers in order to then tailor their needs, their products and their services to meet the needs of the consumer.

00:04:12
But there's a respectable and an ethical way of going about that. It's almost like stalking versus talking, right? So if you're looking at it from a cooking tracking perspective, okay, all of the different things you do on the Internet, the things you browse, the websites you're visiting, you're finding out information about that individual and then you can retarget them based off of their history or you can just ask them. You can find compelling, creative and enticing ways to communicate directly with the consumer to where they want to willingly provide you that information. That's then going to help you as a business tailor your products, your services, your experiences to offer to the individual content and things that they're interested in.

00:04:56
So that's what Post is all about. Nice. And I'm kind of a serial entrepreneur. I've owned multiple businesses and even now I've got I don't even know how many revenue streams that I have going on because I think that's the way to do it, right? You just have multiple ways to earn a living.

00:05:15
And I know for me, content is a headache sometimes. Yeah, right. It is. When you're talking with a potential customer, how can you help them to take one more thing off of the table and their plate? Because as an entrepreneur, you've got so much stress and we're all about happiness here, right?

00:05:46
No, you're on top of it. I mean, especially today. Content is king has been a phrase that's been around for as long as I can remember. But if you think about today with the microwave mentality that we have, where everybody needs the next thing, you need more content, more content, more information. As a business, it gets tough.

00:06:07
It's challenging to say, okay, how do I continue to stay at top of mind with my consumers when after 5 seconds, they're scrolling on to the next thing? And they're scrolling to the next thing? So we have in place social media management team that manages social media. So we create the content, we capture the content. We have videographers, we have photographers, so we do a lot of the content creation for our clients and then we have streamlined ways for them to also, in the moment, provide content to us because we can't always be on site.

00:06:40
But we have tools that are customized solutions that we've developed that allow them to then instantly provide it to us so we can brand it properly and get that out there for them. So we leverage our internal team, but also give the consumer it's not just that the business doesn't have the ability to capture content. It's like, what do we do with it now when we have it? How is this good content? So we kind of sort through all that for you?

00:07:02
Well, yeah, because I know for me personally, I don't have a marketing degree. That's not my specialty. Right. I have no clue what's the best way to market this or that. What types of things do you do to help them?

00:07:20
Say, you've been doing it this way, this way is going to help you. Get and that's a great question. People think of marketing as just like, hey, we're just going to roll up this campaign and get it out there. But we really roll up our sleeves and deep dive with our clients. So we sit down, meet with the executives, the stakeholders, and we look at the operations as a whole.

00:07:43
I think it's important from a marketing perspective to understand from a sales perspective, what do they need from an internal side of things, what do they need, how can we help make things easier and simpler from an overall process perspective? And so we really start deep dive internally with our clients, and we look at everything from a ground floor, what is the executive need, all the way down to the very lowest man on the totem pole. And then that's where we start to work through our solutions. So one of the core differentiators about us from a lot of other firms is we like to provide our clients and our customers with customized solutions that give them independence from some of those big box plugins. Right?

00:08:30
So as a new business, you're starting out. You're like, hey, I need MailChimp, I need HubSpot, I need salesforce, all the different tools that have been developed to make business easier. But one size doesn't really always fit all right? So it's like, okay, there's other ways to skin the cat. We don't need all these cookie cutter solutions.

00:08:51
So business may say, hey, I want to do it this way, but this tool only allows me to do XYZ. So if they call us, we can help customize the solutions for them, whether it's from scratch, from the ground up, whether it's leveraging the APIs of those tools that already exist. But we want to give businesses long term sustainability so that if that system or that tool were no longer to be around, for some reason or another, their business can still go on. Nice. I just thought of this as you were talking, and I'm sure there's just been so much hype lately about AI.

00:09:25
I know where you're going. Yes. AI. Yes. And all of a sudden, everybody's an expert on Chat GPT.

00:09:32
I can't tell you how many emails I get weekly on different courses because everybody's next new thing. Oh. Okay. Now, I'm a chat GPT expert. And I was like, okay, I'm not sure I'm going to pay for that because it's really not that complicated.

00:09:47
Right. You're just asking questions. It's like an advanced Google, right? Right, it is.

00:09:58
And do you leverage some of the AI technology out there to help you with some of that? So we've been developing some AI tools ourselves that will be rolling out here probably fourth quarter of this year. As a company, we're not opposed to leveraging the systems and the tools that exist to be more efficient. Things like Chat GBT, things to help expedite fulfillment for clients. We don't rely on it, though.

00:10:31
I think that we're not dependent upon it if it were to go. Our goal is always internal, is for sustainability, for ourselves as well as for our clients, making sure they're not solely dependent upon anything. Out of nowhere, regulation could come down and say, hey, you can't use AI for XYZ or you never know what it'll be. And I think sometimes it's easy to jump on that next trendy thing and then your business is built upon it, and then you're kind of beholden to it. So we're not hiring people at the moment that are prompt engineers.

00:11:10
Even though I think that's going to be a big thing, I do believe that AI is not just a fad. I don't think it's going to disappear anytime soon. I think it's a huge shift. IBM just came out and said that they think that they can replace somewhere right around 7500 jobs. I know.

00:11:27
And that's the difficulty, right? Yeah. So there's a lot of movement in the AI space, and it's almost like you just kind of flipped a switch overnight. Right. It's been in motion like we've been in development for a while, but blockchain and crypto kind of just got quiet, took a backseat, and then AI just said, okay, here we go.

00:11:53
So it's interesting. It'll be intriguing to see where it goes. We have a lot of familiarity with it, and we'll see how things shape up. Nice. Okay.

00:12:04
So as an entrepreneur yourself, I always like to make sure I give tips to my listeners. Okay, so as an entrepreneur, what do you do to help stay grounded? Because it can get cray. Cray. Lots of times.

00:12:22
It gets very stressful. It's a roller coaster, right? It's totally a roller coaster. I think for me, balance comes from family time when I'm not working, whenever that is. I don't know.

00:12:37
But I coach basketball. I coach youth basketball. Oh, nice. Yeah. So I coach youth basketball, coaching a couple basketball teams now.

00:12:46
Currently started a nonprofit that is centered around mentorship through the sport of basketball, prayer, whatever it takes to just make sure that I have peace of mind and there's got to be balance. And I didn't learn that. I didn't start off that way. Right. It took a while to realize that, like, man, you've got to balance things out.

00:13:06
I have two young boys, eight and eleven, time with them playing Mario Kart, just time getting away and just saying, okay, let me put the phone down for a minute and just decompress for a moment. I think it's important to have balance. Well, yeah. Because I think as entrepreneurs, because you're developing something, it's your baby. Right.

00:13:30
It's just you have to keep everything in perspective and understand that if you're not taking care of yourself, your business is going to suffer at some point. Great way to put it. Very great. For me, I've been fortunate enough and blessed to have the business partner of all business partners. So I think that also helps.

00:13:54
He's got the same mindset. He's got a family, young kids. So we take turns giving each other mental breaks and saying, hey, you need to go take some time, take some time. And it allows us to still run the company, but also because we're putting in 15 hours, days on a regular basis. And that's not sustainable.

00:14:15
It's not like you said, the company suffers if you don't take care of yourself. Well, yeah, I believe in balance. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, success is 80% mindset and 20% tactic. I love that.

00:14:31
I will keep that. I will probably have that in my office. Okay.

00:14:37
When I'm not podcasting, I am a high performance results coach, and I work with elite athletes. Okay. And so as you're mentoring your teams, that's a really great thing to make sure that they because children because I work with a lot of kids as well. Okay. I'm a retired US national and international figure skating coach, and I have a gold medal and ice dancing.

00:14:58
So that's where that's amazing. And now I'm an obsessed tennis player. Oh, yeah. I compete in leagues and all that stuff. But anyway but the thing is with kids, what's really great about them is they're like sponges.

00:15:14
Yes, they are. And when you let them know that the way things are today doesn't always have to be like that. You have a choice. And they're like, really? Yeah.

00:15:28
And it's hard for them to grasp that until you tell them that. Right. There's some things that you just need to tell them. What appears obvious to us, it's not to them. Right.

00:15:39
So that's where the whole portion of the basketball side of things is. We want to leverage something that they love and that we share a love for as trainers and coaches, but also then use that as an opportunity to mentor them and give them guidance, help them let them feel like they have another person that they can speak to, that they can call upon.

00:16:02
We're also going to expose them to other business industries. When I grew up, my dad was a construction guy, stucco man. My mom worked in the bank. But I never learned about things like stocks and investments and things that just weren't in our purview as a family. Right.

00:16:21
So I want to expose these kids. Our goal is to expose them to other industries and other business practices that they may not be aware of, that they don't know about, and that we want them to hear about it early on so that way they can decide if that's the path they want to take. So it's really just making sure that they realize there's a lot of opportunities in life. They're really looking at it that way. So what's the name of your nonprofit?

00:16:47
It's called champ. Champ. I love that. Yeah, absolutely. We are new.

00:16:55
Just started off this in December 2022, and the goal is kind of centered around kids nowadays. There's a lot of travel. Basketball still the YMCA. I still coach at the YMCA and volunteer time there as well. But I think the kids need the ability to just play open gym basketball, have time, just go in and just play without getting criticized and critiqued by a coach.

00:17:19
Failure is okay. It's okay to make mistakes. Just go develop your own creativity, your own instincts about the game, and then build a relationship and camaraderie. The people that I'm closest to are the people that I played basketball with growing up. Like, we're in our 40s now, and we were all in each other's weddings.

00:17:37
Right. You can build long term relationships when you share a love or passion for a sport, so that's where that derived from. And then it's like, okay, now we want to really mentor them and give them an educational side of things. I love that, and I hope people that are listening are really getting the fact that you're a successful entrepreneur and yet you still have other passions, and that's what's helping you to keep that balance, to be successful. Absolutely.

00:18:05
That's what allows me to continue to drive, to push forward, because I need to diversify. Kind of like you, I like to have my hands on a lot of different things. I like to be involved. I like to help. So that's where that comes from.

00:18:20
That's awesome. So before we finish up, Clifton, is there anything else that you'd like to share with the audience and where can they find you? And I'll make sure it's in the show notes as well, but if you could just give out your website. Yeah, absolutely. It's postial.com.

00:18:33
That's p as in Paul Ocial.com. Check back. Come visit anytime, but also find us on Instagram at, you know, get in touch if you have any questions, anything you want to talk about, we're open. We love to communicate with people. If there's anything you need, just reach out.

00:18:54
We'd love to help. If there's any businesses that are interested, reach out to us. We'll go from there. All right, Clifton, thank you so much. This has been such a great conversation, and you really are such a great example of what all entrepreneurs ought to be doing.

00:19:10
I appreciate that. That is great. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

00:19:23
I certainly hope that you enjoyed today's interview. Thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe and that your lives are filled world with peace, joy, and happiness. Take care, everyone.