A Conversation With Tali Hasanov of WSI Digital Path

Digital marketing expert Tali Hasanov dropped in to talk about the complexity and challenges of marketing strategy. Tali helps clients 'across the spectrum' with email, Web/SEO and personalization. She's got a very keen and experienced perspective, focused on getting long-term results.

Tali is also a classically-trained pianist. We delved into what she learned in the world of music, and how it's helped her grapple with complexity in the digital world.

Strategic Email and Digital Marketing | Google Top 1% Premier Partner | Speaker | Artist & Designer | Pianist

TRANSCRIPT

A Conversation With

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[00:00:09] Matthew Dunn: Good morning. This is Dr. Matthew Dunn, host of the Future of email. My guest today, my my conference buddy Tally Hassana from WSI Digital Tally. I'm so glad you made the time. Thanks for, thanks for attending and stuff.

[00:00:23] Tali Hasanov: Oh, thank you very much for the invitation and good morning everyone. Good morning material.

Glad to be

[00:00:29] Matthew Dunn: here. Your Toronto area, if I recall right. That's correct. Yeah. Nice, nice. So, high, high, high level what you do for clients. What's the, what's the elevator pitch for you? ?

[00:00:43] Tali Hasanov: Oh, elevator pitch. Yeah. It depends how long for short we going . So basically it is how PM clients to build online presence, competition and to be recognizable and as a brand, right?

Cause those days it's [00:01:00] really, really important to. So reputation, so people can trust you. It's extreme. I would say it's all top, you know, top of the list. So we doing everything from strategy, which is the crucial part to implementation from website to organic email, obviously my favorite one, right? So yeah,

[00:01:20] Matthew Dunn: that one of the, one of the reasons I was really intrigued to have you on the show is because you, you carve out a bigger slice of, of the, the digital ecosystem.

I mean, obviously. A big piece of it, but you also help clients with things like seo. So you's right. The whiteboard over your, over your shoulder there. .

[00:01:41] Tali Hasanov: You're right. Yeah. I saw email, correct. So, and I just, we were just discussing couple of days ago during the I had presentation about holistic approach to marketing.

To digital marketing. Right. We can't afford any more looking at each channel separately. Right. If you're doing [00:02:00] ACO for someone, we can't afford looking just for aco, but because at the end ok, you might. Know a lot of traffic to your website, but then what? Guess what? Yeah. Maybe this traffic is not actually who you're looking for.

It's not your ideal personas or something, and they don't convert and we, they land on your website or London page or wherever you want to bring them. What happens after how, how you you know, nurture them, what you do with them and everything else, right? So an email, in my opinion, it's actually.

Time point that it ties all together, all other channels. Right? Because it's still the main communication channel, right? I

[00:02:41] Matthew Dunn: mean, Right. Once, especially once someone stuck up their hand and said, I, I wanna have some sort of relationship, call it prospect, call it customer. Mm-hmm. call it interested party. Yeah.

That's the, that's the de fact. Back and forth. Most, most common channel at, at least in the market [00:03:00] markets and countries that we're talk, we're talking about that job that you've touched on of tying all of the digital pieces together strategically. That's a big job. , that's a really big job.

How do you help someone even start to make sense of all of their touchpoints and records and channels and so,

[00:03:23] Tali Hasanov: Great question. And this is really why it's important initially to actually have a discussion with the business to understand what do they do, what's their goals? Cause you will be surprised sometimes I'm talking to businesses and they, I'm asking some questions they have no answer to.

Right? So how can you invest to do any kinda marketing or attract any customers or. If you as a business leader or owner, not a hundred percent sure what, how it looks like, Right? So this is a challenge. So first I would say solid [00:04:00] foundation is to really understand the goals, to understand what was done previously, if anything, and where you wanna be, right?

And then obviously to understand and build this strategy kind of blueprint and decide what tactics, what digital channel. Would help to get to the, to, to the desire result. Right. Otherwise, it, it's waste of time, budget, and energy. Right, right. Right. If you don't, if you don't know the destination where you wanna go.

Right. And, and I'm surprised sometimes people have no answers to certain questions they should have. Right. So,

[00:04:38] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Interesting. It to, to be fair to businesses, I mean, we both work in this digital space day to. But if you do something that's not, that if you make, you know, if you make widgets or cars or something like that it's a little overwhelming.

Mm-hmm. to, to, to, to jump into the digital [00:05:00] marketing side of the pond. It's, it's still ridiculously technical. It's still incredibly detailed. Vendor world, . Those of us in vendor world are probably guilty of saying that it's easy, it's not. Or that one system will solve all your problems. It won't. And I get this sense of sort of deer in the headlights reaction when I talk with friends and colleagues who are in, in a business, but don't do this marketing stick all day long.

They're like, Oh my God, why is it so hard? I'm like cuz it is . I don't know. Cuz it is, it just is. Reactions. Mm-hmm. .

[00:05:33] Tali Hasanov: Yeah. So it's again, good point. Everyone supposed to do what they supposed to do. So let's say if you are in a business, you are in construction space, right? Or you in any manufacturing or you, you know, insurance brokerage, you are not supposed to know how to do marketing or how to set up, you know, email, spf because this is what we as a marketers do.[00:06:00]

So we take care of that. So I think people sometimes you know, try to cover and to do everything. And then this enterprise, the results are not there. But really it should be everyone's supposed to do what they know the best how to do, right? Then when business owners trying to. Do markets and obvious it's overwhelming because every day something new comes if you are not constantly in this kind of space, Yeah.

And you in those updates and speak to the, you know, professionals and, and, and people that, that around and you miss it. And obviously it would be overwhelming even for us. Sometimes, you know, new, new technologies come in it sometimes it takes time to understand how it works. Right. Based on experience and knowledge, obviously it's easier for us for, for someone who is running construction company, why would you like to do marketing?

It's the same as I would go and do your [00:07:00] job and, and pretend I can do this. I probably could. The question is how the quality, right, So this is a

[00:07:07] Matthew Dunn: right, right. Yeah. The, the specializations of foundation of civilization in a way. Construction's an interesting example because, you know, will I hang a picture on the wall?

Sure. Should I add a wall to the house? That's probably a bad idea. I'd probably better served to call someone and say, Hi, you know how to do this. I'll go do the things I do. You do the things you do we'll, we'll exchange money or whatever, and, and get it done. I think with, with the digital domain, As I mentioned earlier, I think, I think vendors are a little guilty of saying that it's easier than it is one and two, the things that are tough and complicated are, are frequently very invisible.

I mean, you mentioned SPF records, DKM records, stuff like that. Like [00:08:00] most people probably hit sand on an email, but knowing that there's a whole bunch of plumbing that actually makes it work as a marketing. It's invisible to them. Right? Why should they know it? Arguably, and, yeah. I'm curious, I'm curious if you've got any sort of comparison about the, the challenges that you hope customers face in the world of web and SEO versus email.

How are those the same? How are they different?

[00:08:29] Tali Hasanov: Yeah. And those are ch the challenges are still a challenge, right? If we speak about email, then oh, that we don't have good engagement and probably we send them not, you know, notions the list not sending all the, all the right. For right people and eventually the emails get, get into the spa box and there is no engagement.

And you, the story is long. So the same relates to AEO world of [00:09:00] website. So as I mentioned, okay, we can redo an aeo, you get in a lot of traffic. But if to look at this channel alone, You might get, you know, five, 10, 20,000 visits per month. The question is, what are those people doing the desired action you want them to do?

And again, this is about segmentation, personalization, and based on HubSpot and not just HubSpot, personalization is actually the top priority for businesses and marketers to implement because it's, it's now. Across the channels, right? More than 90% of consumers expect consistent interaction from a brand to receive consistent interaction across channels.

So if you send me, if I signed up, I went on a website and I signed for a newsletter, for example, right? To receive a newsletter, I'm receiving email communication from you, and then I'm going on your social media profiles. And then it could be, I'm searching on a Google. [00:10:00] So organic results. So the expectancy that it's, it would be same voice consistent interaction from the brand, right?

It's not mis or he something. And it's still, it's still not not, you know, for many businesses not relevant. And the big part also in personalization on the. A lot of a lot of companies implemented personal content based on your user journey. Why you, why you actually got on this website to begin with?

What are your challenges or what solutions you looking for? For, and then we just play to you something. So if I'm looking to, you know, repair my roof since we speaking about construction, right? And I'm coming to your website, there is no point to show me, you know, Pav dry driveway or something else, right?

Because I have certain, certain problem now. So yeah. It's it's, it's, it's. The process is ongoing, but I think personalization is a big, big part [00:11:00] of and it's email, the beauty of female. It helps us to understand what to understand better, and I would say faster than other channels. What is user preferences, right?

What users are looking for because even when, when we send, you know, email communications, if it's ongoing, kinda could be weekly newsletter, this is the easiest to pick. You know, these different topics, it's pretty quick to run the report on any platform for the last few months. To understand if some email communications are not performing well from engagement clicks opens and such, to those that are top three maybe, right?

You can understand what are the subscribers. Looking for if they, the click through and, and it's great example, one of the clients we actually do in emails. We run this report last week and last six [00:12:00] months, we understand top three concerns. So users looking for reviews, business behind the scenes, and the third one.

So, It's pretty quick to manipulate and pull the data to understand what is engagement and what is what, what people are are concerned, and they are reasonable. So, It's, it's I think the fastest way to understand, right, Because a, it's try and run the content, first of all, it takes much longer to run.

Yeah. Right. Until you realize, oh, maybe it's not the right audience that come in. Right. They not convert in the right way. Or paid search. Yeah. Paid search could be. Oh, fast enough to understand as well, but all the algorithms, and ever since still it takes about three months to adjust and then you say, Oh, okay.

It's, it's still not the, the audience you are looking for, right? Yeah. While in email you can run some numbers report and understand, oh, people actually want to read about review. So they want to [00:13:00] understand how the business works behind the scene. And this will help with what you see behind me, right?

With a how the time. You know, next content for maybe next two, three months.

[00:13:14] Matthew Dunn: So and you, you said something really important near the end there, a number of important things, but one of the ones I wanna pull out about the experiment value of email. SEO changes take a lot of time to see because it's it, it's a big ecosystem and frankly, it's under the control of a handful of vendors and it's a black box.

And paid, paid ads. You get a, you, as you said, you get feedback, feedback loop faster, but you pay for that. And I think one of the reasons for the continued utility value of email is it, it doesn't cost nearly as much to. Right. Like, okay, I sent this to a thousand people. What are they clicking [00:14:00] on as you said?

Oh, look, that's actually what people are really interested in. And, and it wasn't it, it wasn't a long time or a high budget for that discovery. And that's pretty remarkable thing. It's like bit of a, it's a, it's a bit of a built in survey mechanism or feedback mechanism as you, well, if you will.

Not, not always easy to gather the data. You've got a plan right, to get it, but at least it's possible without without breaking the bank, so to speak. Where, where what involvement do you have in the world of marketing via text? I'm just curious.

[00:14:36] Tali Hasanov: So text, sometimes it's annoying and it, it depends on the, I would say business and the relationship with the customer.

Yeah. When it makes sense and when it doesn't make sense. So let's say if you order online furniture, For example, and you want to get reminder about your delivery, probably [00:15:00] text would probably useful. Yeah. Cause you know, sometimes Siemens might be not accessible. You have to, you know, you notify the next 15 minutes, the delivery is here.

So you probably text would be good, good fit in combination with email. But sometimes when you get those text, you have no clue who is sending this. No. Any kinda. You know, author some numbers sending you text. Oh, join us for this event. We are happy to see you there. Who are you? Yeah, who

[00:15:33] Matthew Dunn: are you? I,

[00:15:36] Tali Hasanov: so I think businesses have to really be careful with this, what they do around female and text because it's really easy to burn.

Trust and being annoying. Yeah. And they basically burn the bridges for the future. Right. For future, to build this, trust, these customers and establish a relationship because [00:16:00] it's all about relationship and trust those days. Right. So I would recommend not to, you know, if you have your platform can send text messages and you have the budget, but you have no really.

Value to provide or sold behind? Don't do that. Yeah.

[00:16:18] Matthew Dunn: I had a, because that's annoying. I I had a, I had a podcast conversation with Scott Cohen, who I think, you know a couple of weeks ago well, well respected email marketer and he was sharing that he's, he's starting to learn the, the world of text and his new job, but he said he was a little shocked at the cost difference.

And at how carefully you have to manage that. And then two, three days later, after I talked with Scott, I got a text on my phone from this is, we're having this conversation mid mid-October 2022. I got a political solicitation text on my phone for a Senate [00:17:00] candidate in a state where I don't. And I counted up the characters, like 800 characters plus a picture

And I sent a snapshot to Scott and I said, What do you think it cost this guy, this guy's campaign to interrupt me, text me and ask me for five bucks? And he said that was probably like a 1215. Cost for every single person. He sent that long message in picture too. I'm thinking, Wow. I don't know if that's gonna, I mean, it must pencil out.

He's doing it, but Ouch. The math seems a little bit tough to me.

[00:17:36] Tali Hasanov: That's right. So, and we need to look again about strategic thinking behind, So clearly nobody was thinking behind why to send to certain people, maybe at least to, you know, do some kind of geofencing if you already doing some kind of campaign.

Right. So and we speak about, this is similar to segmentation in [00:18:00] email or personalization on the website or anything else we do, right? So this is again, why personalization is so important. It's on top of the list because for you, like to, you, even if you probably move to the state, I dunno if you would remember the name of this person, maybe not, but it's lessen the possibility.

In the future for you to even thinking positively about this person, and this is what I mean, like to bronze, the bridges, it's really easy. It's really takes one to text, right? You already annoy it and, and you know, outta but. To build trust and relationship. It takes time and fashion. So what I see businesses looking for shortcuts and there is really no shortcut that's important to understand.

So in text, I find it's also more personal compared to email. Yeah. If email, it's easy. You know, you just click spa, you [00:19:00] delete or whatever on text, oh, they got my personal phone number,

[00:19:05] Matthew Dunn: right? And they got my attention. They

[00:19:08] Tali Hasanov: interrupted me right. They interacted me and say, Oh, how did they get my phone number?

Yeah. And so it's, it's, it's annoying. Unless there is a need and all value to provide, you have delivery or you maybe have, you know, flights that you booked and you have, you know, checked in online then. If light is delayed. Yeah, it makes sense to get text notification, right? Yeah. But, but for something like you brought an example.

Obviously it's, it's not just annoying, it's, it's

[00:19:40] Matthew Dunn: just more than, it's destructive, I think is what you're saying. And it, you know, if I were, if I were talking to the campaign manager for that candidate, I think I'd. You, You know, and I, and I know geofencing of things like texting is actually tricky. Or because phones move and phone numbers and area [00:20:00] codes move with people now.

Okay, fine. Leave that one aside. If, if he'd had asked me for some sort of interest and support before asking for dollars, I might not have been as ticked about the interruption, but the, the cold. From another state. I'm never moving to Wisconsin. Sorry, fact, like cold text from candidate in Wisconsin. I'm like, what

I mean, it was professionally interesting cuz he spent 15 cents trying to get five bucks. But he did burn that bridge. I'm like, eh, yeah. I'm not gonna donate to that. Just not, this is not gonna happen.

[00:20:36] Tali Hasanov: It is the same, you know, like sometimes organizations think, Oh, if you send more emails, volume, Right, Right.

It's better. It's just sound school to say, Oh, we sent 5 million emails per month. Oh no, we sent 20 million. In months, the results, it's secondary here, right? Which should be the actually the the first, right? Yeah. And [00:21:00] what value you provide, What I users actually do. And what you wanted them to do, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So this is another part. Same. This text that you received, nobody buy her to. Think or a segment, they just send whatever they have budget and they, they bought some budget to burn and that's

[00:21:18] Matthew Dunn: what they're doing. And I suspect in that case, in fact, I know in that case there must have been a purchased.

List of contact numbers because I, I certainly didn't explicitly opt in and based on the area, my, you know, my area code had the same nu, same phone number for a long time, is nowhere near Wisconsin. So they, you know, they had to have done, and maybe it's one of the dirty little secrets of digital marketing channels, the sort of commoditization.

Of, of that initial contact. Those of us in the legit side say Don't buy lists, but I'm guessing you run into clients all the time who say, I bought this list. What do I do with it? Ouch. [00:22:00] Don't use it, is the answer.

[00:22:02] Tali Hasanov: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see also people trying to depend if it's B2B space, b2c, it's I mean completely B2B as well.

Even, even those days. We just I just mentioned to you before we started the call that the inbox email inbox is polluted with different every day probably 2030 spa. We will do your best website. We are based in contact, create to back, and they're getting to the inbox. Many of. Yeah. Not to the spa folder.

That's also interesting, right? Yeah. How the landscape changes, right? So it's just getting too noisy and too much spa around. It's same truthful text as well,

[00:22:47] Matthew Dunn: right? Yeah. Yeah. And that it's, it's a, the, the check and balance of cost in the case of email and obviously in text, in the case of my political example it, it hasn't [00:23:00] really caught up with itself.

If. . If, if it's one in a thousand makes it worth sending the spam, then the guy will send a million. That's a problem because 999,000 of us are in the, Why are you bothering me? Category, I've noticed the same thing. I, I've been a long time LinkedIn member, and I'm on the fence these days. About LinkedIn because I feel like I'm getting pecked to death by ducks when I log in on LinkedIn.

And 99% of it seems like it's irrelevant crap too. Hey, we'd love to do your mobile app development. Like, who said I have a mobile app? Leave me alone. Right. And, and it's, it's 60 seconds of your time to try to be polite, to say, Just shut up and don't bother me. Thanks. And it gets old. It gets t.

[00:23:49] Tali Hasanov: Yeah, I agree about, about LinkedIn.

It's, it gets you know, a little bit noisy as well. Noisy and noisy. Yeah. I, I want to be, you [00:24:00] know, in a software noisy, right , and it gets there as well and in mail message. Sometimes related, all like we have a program, BA program or master program. Come learn that and like maybe take a look at the profile first to understand if people looking to learn or something and recruiters, oh my God, I love it.

It's just, you know what they send from left to right emails and LinkedIn messages. They don't even bother to look at the you know, they don't, They're doing some search. Doing some search. Yeah. They don't even bother if the person, Actually, a couple of times I took my time to reply because I was so mad for a recruiter offering me, you know, something and I'm like, Maybe you will get better results if you take a look at actual person, what

[00:24:58] Matthew Dunn: they doing.

Right. I got [00:25:00] one of those. It was like, would you, you know, we, you looked like a great candidate for our, Yeah, our help desk. . I'm thinking maybe 30 years ago, but maybe not now. Like,

[00:25:12] Tali Hasanov: yeah, it's horrible, Horrible. One time also, I actually replied email to one recruiter because he actually did take time. It was once.

In all the years that I got all this spa. And he actually took took his time and effort to check and I replied to him thank you for doing that, and good luck, and I appreciate that. It wasn't, I'm just not looking for Right, right. Job opportunities. But I replied because he spent time, I, so he spent time to check and, and you know, check different channels, but most of them, no, it's the same.

We, we speaking about. Right. So they do some, some kind of search and maybe out of 5,000 messages they sent, maybe one or two will reply and then you both have there. [00:26:00] Right. So it's the same

[00:26:01] Matthew Dunn: issue. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't, I dunno how we put the breaks. On that, on, on that stuff. It, it, it, Bill, Bill Gates said many years ago, like nineties, he said that one of his, and he said, I know, I know he can't change, I'm paraphrasing, but he said, If, if we'd have built in a fraction of ascent cost for every email sent, it might have changed how the, how, how it evolved.

Because when it, when it's effectively free or close to free or feels close to. You know, it's not really a, a, a big cost to, you know, 1,010 thousand's about the same thing. We get this channel overload, and I've watched LinkedIn try and put some friction in place. You know, it's actually, it's hard to mass message people.

That's friction. It takes time to, you can get, can't get more than 50 people in a, in a single message or something like that. Mm, [00:27:00] that's friction. They've kept some breaks on there, but obviously not complet. Successfully, and I bet you, I'll bet you some of the newer channels I'm thinking of TikTok, which I've never used, , are, are going to be facing the same thing.

You know, you start getting some critical mass and reach and, and unfortunately it's likely to get abused if there's not cost friction in other obstacles in place to try and balance the value of a message and, and the value of the interruption. Certainly happening. Yeah.

[00:27:32] Tali Hasanov: And that's right. And I think every, whatever is popular is getting abuse, right.

Everything new and, and LinkedIn people use it more for professional network and updates and everything else. Right? Yeah. So obviously it getting abuse as well. Some people put, you know, some emoji icon in their name and they know if. If they get message, including this emoji means automation is running even though that [00:28:00] LinkedIn are Yeah.

Are not allowing any automations, but you know

[00:28:04] Matthew Dunn: they, But people work around it. Yeah. Actually I changed my LinkedIn profile and I put the doctor Matthew in the first name field in intentionally. because it's, it's a surefire flag that someone's not not paying. Oh, hey. Hi, Dr. Matthew. Yeah. You screens scraped.

We're done with this conversation, right? Automatic, automatic, delete a human being clearly did not do this with any thought, with any intention or something like that. Hey, let's switch, Let's switch gears. I've got a completely lateral question to ask you. I happen to know, having had an opportunity to listen to you, that you're an amazing pianist.

You don't necessarily make your living playing piano now, but let me throw out a question for you. I'm a musician as well, not in, not in your class, but I'm a musician as well, and I've got a sneaking hunch that music is, is an incredibly good background [00:29:00] to have to deal with the complexity of, of digital domains.

Any reaction to. .

[00:29:08] Tali Hasanov: Yeah. And thank you for, for compliment. I don't think I'm amazing anymore. It was, you know, years ago. . I still have piano. I still play sometimes, but it's far from amazing. So, yeah. I actually. There is a very interesting research was done as well as there is a say that music, this is the only thing that basically involve all brain sales to work, right?

And students at school that. If they learn music, any instrument doesn't really matter which one they are more successful than kids that don't. So that this is referring to music and I sh I have to agree with you because music, it's. Creative, at least in my opinion, right? It's, it's certain creativity.

It's not [00:30:00] just you play whatever, it's, it's a creative part, part of the words, right? So in digital, we have to be creative as well. And one dimension, it doesn't work, right. It's not some disciplines that you know, being one dimension, nothing wrong, but it might work In digital, it's simply one because so many parts and, you know, ingredients involved.

You have to be flexible. You have to think fast, and you have to see big picture. Come up with creative solutions. So I think it's, it's important.

[00:30:38] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Let me, let me, let me take it a step further. Cause I know I, as I said, you're, you're, you're pianist learning to read piano notation is very difficult, Right?

You've got multiple, multiple staffs saying different things. It's, it's brilliant. It's a brilliant it's a brilliant form of capture because you really can get. The entirety of a piece in the [00:31:00] squiggles on the staff line. But learning to read it is really tricky. And, and I agree about the creative side of music, but there's also a unavoidable rigor and structure involved in, in getting to the point of being creative.

Like kid, I, I know you wanna be a great rock guitarist or concert pianist or something like that, but you're gonna have to drill. And you're gonna have to invest some blood and sweat and tears and the rigor side of it first to get, you know, good or competent or something like that. And when it intrigues me about piano notation in the domain of the digital is that it, it's a, it's a, it's an amazing sequence and structure at the same.

right? You, you scan across, you scan across the staff on on a piano pace, in a pianist of your caliber, like you're seeing the harmonic structure in this second, and also where it's headed in the course of multiple measures [00:32:00] or recurrent themes going way ahead in the piece. You have to think of the whole learn to think of the whole and the.

at the same time. You have to go, Oh, wait a minute. I'm in this case. So we're not like, that's not gonna be flat, That's not gonna be sharp in this case. It's like it's, it's a bit like knowing what SPF and D chem are. Right? Right.

[00:32:20] Tali Hasanov: Right, And it's good point. It sometimes and it's true for younger kids, but I find it sometimes true for adults as well, that everyone who needs needs to understand that it takes work, right?

It takes work. There is certain efforts. I remember five, six hours a day. Can you imagine life? Kids outside going, playing and you're sitting and practices, Yeah. Five, six hours. Right. So it's, it, it does, it does require certain discipline. It's, it requires certainly a lot of, you know, efforts and desire to, to achieve something, [00:33:00] right?

Yeah. And similar with digital and technology nowadays. It's after. And you know that, right? You've been, you've been in the space for so many years, so, and when you speak about notes and everything, so this experience, you can take a look at couple of things and say, Okay, the problem is there maybe, right?

We need to find solution. Maybe. How about we tried this? Right? So you are able immediately, Probably this, I would say 99% AC accuracy to say, Okay, I most likely the problem is here, right? Mm-hmm. , we need to, to do certain things in order to solve it. Right? So it didn't come in the first day you started.

Right? Right. So it takes experience you know, practice trial and error practice. Exactly. So it takes, it takes efforts and time and Yeah,

[00:33:55] Matthew Dunn: for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Just like. Back to our earlier conversation, [00:34:00] construction guy would walk in and look at the wall I built and go, No , no. Right. You don't, you don't know what you're doing because this is crooked.

These are too far apart, yada, yada, yada, yada. And I'm sure he or she would've had practice to do that. And I know you've got a, you've got a thing for remodeling, so you probably know a lot more about construction than I do. It's just it, it's it. Because this is still a fairly fresh field this. The digital domain and the marketing use of the digital domain because it's new, because we're still inventing and changing a lot of things on the fly.

Mm-hmm. , I, I don't see shortcuts for grinding away and learning how these things work so that you know what to do with them next, or so that you can look and say your problem's. Actually, probably this. Why? Because they spend hundreds of hours. Learning how the, how the stuff's put together in functions so that I can go, you know, that's actually, that's actually the problem set right there.

And the, that's the expertise [00:35:00] that I'm sure your clients are, are paying you for. SEO must have some of that. That same if you've done it enough, you know, which basics to go through and check for, like right out of the gate so that you can work. The more strategic stuff afterwards.

[00:35:17] Tali Hasanov: Yeah, that's right. So yeah, it's absolutely a hundred percent right.

So we, we, we, this experience, we know what to check first and then if it's, you know, fixed, then we going farther with strategy and everything else. But for sure I don't see any kind of lack of opportunities to learn digital world those days, even though that. This space gets noisy because sometimes, you know, it's, you know, you face, you face it as well.

Right. What people say they can do and difference between the, the reality it's not always the same. Yeah. And, and she need to be a little bit careful. And I actually meet clients that [00:36:00] sometimes they. Burned previously, right? From, from different previous digital agencies or consultants or, you know mm-hmm.

because it was something was promised. People disappear and, and things fall and apart. But it's like with any, any other industry construction, right? The innovation, Some people postpone like years, 10 years renovation because they just don't want to go into this. Right? Again, those guys, construction guys don't have good reput.

That's the reality. Taking money disappear, not finishing job and quality and blah, blah, blah. So,

[00:36:35] Matthew Dunn: yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then I think a solid a solid professional in any field you'll end up coming back to because they did what they said they were gonna do. And hopefully, hopefully more than that.

Your clients you know, in your, in your consulting and advisory stuff US, Canada, broader, broader markets. Yeah,

[00:36:55] Tali Hasanov: we work US Canada. We have some actually a couple of clients in [00:37:00] Caribbean and in Israel as well.

[00:37:02] Matthew Dunn: Oh, in Israel as well. Interesting. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. We've got a, a mutual friend in Israel.

It's been interesting talking with him and, and learning what's the same and what's different in that market. He said he said it's, it's so Android, gmail centric. In Israel, in contrast with the us and I'm speaking specifically about email here. That, that the assumption is you're sending to a Gmail inbox and, and you can try to do different things then you might do in a US or Canadian market where it's a little more split between between platforms and, Yeah.

If it's spilled.

[00:37:36] Tali Hasanov: G Jim still dominates in the market here in North America, right? It's

[00:37:40] Matthew Dunn: about 17, the inbox, but not the. . And that's a very important difference, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. I'll have, I'll have another argument with my buddy Nick Einstein about AMP for email. We'll see where that one lands.

What do you see what do you see next for you, yourself and your company, like the next couple of years? What's got [00:38:00] you excited?

[00:38:01] Tali Hasanov: From which perspective?

[00:38:03] Matthew Dunn: Just professional, like professional trajectory. Where do you wanna take your. Where

[00:38:08] Tali Hasanov: I wanna take my business or I, I have a vision board here. I'm not sure you, not telling you , the numbers and everything, visuals that I see mm-hmm.

but big picture. It's you know, as I mentioned, we, we work quite high construction in the manufacturing industries and I find it's a great feed because those industries, they a little bit, you know, behind digital. Right. Yeah. They sometimes you speak to people, they don't even barely can connect to Zoom or, or technology or something like that, right?

Yeah. So it's great to be able to help them to be, you know, to up top their presence and digital. Because if, you know some, someone innovative just to to help them. Getting a little bit better. It's not as powerful [00:39:00] as those people that, you know, used to be old school and they really you really need to be online those days.

You, you can't afford not to be presentable, professional appearance and as I mentioned in the beginning, across all the channel. Yes. Right. So weigh your potential clients or prospects leave, right? So you have to be presentable as a brand. And this is really, really important those days because imagine if you're looking for a company those days on, on Google or any other store changing and.

The company doesn't have a website, like what impression you would have, What would you think? Or the website maybe 15 years old. And it looks, it's basic things. So it's really, really important. You can, and I know those industries, sometimes they more own relationship based. It's true. But still those days everyone is checking everyone online.

Right. Well,

[00:39:59] Matthew Dunn: [00:40:00] especially, especially. Post pandemic. Right. We all, we all got shoved a decade ahead and, and we're not going back. Yeah. And I, you know, it's funny back to music for, for a second. My older son's music teacher started his own studio and he's got the digital side really dialed in and it's already bringing in business because most of his, you know, competitors in the space.

Maybe they're old school, maybe this is too new for 'em or too hard from whatever else. But it's like you don't even have a website. How do you expect to get, how do you expect to get business now? Mm-hmm. , you know, I can't even email you. What the heck? No. Right. So yeah, it's, it's, it's become basics. It's become blocking and tackling and of course you've gotta do it.

Mm-hmm. . And there are certainly industries, sounds like you're working in some of them that are still playing some. Yeah,

[00:40:50] Tali Hasanov: they, they play in some catchups and they, I think it's also, you know, psychologically they a little bit, they think that whatever they used to do, it's the [00:41:00] way, the way it works, right?

Yeah. But, and you are absolutely right. The things that happened with the pandemic, it's just pushed everything sooner, quicker. eCommerce grew, the growth of eCommerce was going, but now in, in last two, three years, it's just jumped. You know, But with that comes also amount of fraud and, and spa and everything else.

Right, Right. Yeah. So everything comes with the price. , whatever, whatever is hot and popular gets in a

[00:41:29] Matthew Dunn: bit of. Sometimes. Yeah. And, and cybersecurity is gonna be a growth field for a very, very, very long time. I appreciate mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. Well, I knew you would be an awesome guest. What a, what a pleasure for us to actually get to chat one to one instead of waving as we go.

Zooming past it at the odd

[00:41:47] Tali Hasanov: conference. Yeah, it was great. Thank you. Thank you very much for advice. It was fun checking this area.

[00:41:53] Matthew Dunn: When someone's listening to listen to say, Man, I need her help. Where do you, where do you, where do you send them? Where does someone go to, to hunt you down and [00:42:00] say, T I need your help?

[00:42:03] Tali Hasanov: So I'm available on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn. I do have, LinkedIn is quite easy to contact me. I have a website obviously, and I have a little

[00:42:14] Matthew Dunn: me, w wsi digital path.com. Right. That's right. That's it. Well, let's wrap. Great memory. Yeah, that's it. Well tally wonderful ta. Thank you for making the time and being a guest today.

Thank you

[00:42:29] Tali Hasanov: Ma. It was pleasure.