.jpg)
Melanie
Good morning and welcome to the Monday morning marketing podcast. My name is Melanie, and today I'm here with Shaun Cassidy, the chief creative officer of the Virtual League. Hello, Shaun.
Shaun
Good morning.
Melanie
Thank you for joining us. Now let us know where you are.
Shaun
I am actually in San Diego, California.
Melanie
Fabulous, and it's quite early in the morning, at what time is it, Shaun?
Shaun
It's about 10 a.m. right now, not too bad.
Melanie
Well, it's six o'clock here already and, can you hear me?
Shaun
Yeah.
Melanie
Cool, I thought we lost signal, so it's six o'clock here and we just sort of winding down for the day here, so at least one of us is actually having a morning, so I just wanted to ask you this way, we wanted to talk about virtual networking, and you seem to be the guy to talk about it, tell us about the Virtual League.
Shaun
Yeah, well, I've been doing virtual networking now for, I guess, 15 years, building virtual networks online, business networks online, and when the pandemic hit, I thought, wow, there's going to be so much more people online than normal, so I thought about creating a virtual networking league on a large level for twenty-one U.S. cities and eight international locations, and we named it the Virtual League as digital superheroes from Marvel, so Save the World, we have the digital superhero saving the world.
Melanie
Brilliant. So how do these superheroes save people who want to learn more about virtual networking?
Shaun
Well, we started in LinkedIn and I've been working in LinkedIn for 17 years now because I was a beta tester in that software and that social media or the business B2B business networking space, and so we're starting in the groups and LinkedIn, so the official group for the Virtual League, you'll see virtually official networking group and the networks for LinkedIn right now and you can join it.
Melanie
And is there anything you need to be do you need to be a sort of higher up person or can anybody join?
Shaun
You don't necessarily need to be a higher up person, I mean, we're dealing with a lot of different industries, we think that are going to actually do well because of this pandemic, but we want to help people in general, so if people need help with virtual networking, they should join the group.
Melanie
So I guess it's really difficult now we can't attend conferences or go to trade shows or have stands, it must be immensely difficult for businesses to not connect with people, how are you guiding people through the process, Shaun?
Shaun
Well, I'm working, I have management coming in like you're actually one of my managers in Ireland and I'm working with those managers to get them very heavily into virtual networking as well, so I'm kind of duplicating myself through them and then I work heavily with people to get them virtually online on LinkedIn and other spaces to discuss how they do business there, not just how they might do social interactions, but how they can do business yeah.
Melanie
And at the end of the day, especially through areas like, say, or WhatsApp or Microsoft teams, you can do all of this visually still, can't you? But it's still virtual.
Shaun
Yeah, it's still virtual, I mean, I think before the pandemic, the tools were there, they just weren't being utilised so heavily and now they're so necessary. I mean, it's like it's our lifeline for business and for interaction with our families and friends.
Melanie
Yeah, it certainly is the way I keep in touch with my family over in the UK because I'm based here in the Republic of Ireland. So Shaun, let's say that maybe you were running an event that was going to be on location, how hard is it to transfer that event onto an online area now? Is it relatively easy or does it take an awful lot of steps?
Shaun
I think it's really about creating the initial traction, I think the marketing of an event is similar to when it was before because we used to market events online, like have a Facebook event or Facebook group, and then you take that into a live event, so now it's really about the use of the tools and technologies to make it efficient for the event. I think that's the difference right now, and so many of the tools right now are upgrading or their ability to do virtual workshops or virtual conferences or virtual training, but virtual training has been around quite a long time, but now they're getting a lot more attention. So I think the steps you have to do are similar to a live event, except you have to really work with the technology of getting people interconnected to activate themselves virtually.
Melanie
I think you're right, I think it's convenience, isn't it? And previously, it was just easy to dress up and walk up to an event and put yourself across, but now there's so much more involved, and I think people are afraid of technology to a certain extent, is that something you've come across?
Shaun
Well. I'm in my 50s, so I am pre, you know, when I was going to school, we had typewriters, we didn't have computers, and so the generation right now grew up with computers right? They even had computers in school, I think they trained in computers. So a lot of people in different generations have Techno-fear, I think if you're over 40, you might have some techno fears, you might have like anxieties, I think people that are in their twenties and thirties right now, it's become so much part of their lives that they have less anxiety about technology but I think that technology is getting overcome because people really want to communicate with each other and they feel the need so this is the tool to do it, we have to use the tools to communicate.
Melanie
So what would be your favourite tool for virtual networking?
Shaun
Wow, there's so many tools out there for virtual networking, that's a really big question because there's so many tools. You know, I focus a lot on LinkedIn because I deal with business areas in the corporate spaces, so I get access to people, vice presidents or CEOs or directors or marketing in the corporate space on LinkedIn faster than I can a lot of other spaces, and then I convert that into a live virtual meeting from LinkedIn, so you can do the meeting, you shifted over to Zoom or one of the other spaces that you can use it, Skype, Zoom, any of those other areas where you can begin to have a live virtual meeting.
Melanie
Can you network on other platforms like Facebook lives or Periscope or is that not seen as professional?
Shaun
No, I think it's just a different tool. I mean, after Zoom got so popular right when this came in and then Facebook said, oh, we'll make an app so that you can do unlimited fifty people, unlimited amount of time, so I think it's just about the tools. The LinkedIn area is different because it's about the data of business data and Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all those areas it's harder for me to get access to like, say, a vice president of a corporation or a company through Instagram or Facebook but LinkedIn is that's what they really do and they think about the thinking that way and LinkedIn, but in Twitter, they're also, you know, you could probably get in Twitter as well, you could get them, but LinkedIn specifically about that, you know, it's about corporate business networking. So that's why I kind of focus in that in that arena a lot for that initial area. But I don't think of any of the actual formats as anything but data, I think they're brands because, well, Facebook has a they have a bunch of brands, they have, you know, Instagram and WhatsApp and they have a bunch of different brands are all under Facebook, and so I don't get caught up in the formats, I get caught up in how the data formats work, you know, what has different value to me, right? Different value to use.
Melanie
That's a good question, actually, the value of virtual networking. Is it only a valuable tool when you've actually converted or is it brand awareness or person awareness? I mean, how do you measure that virtual networking?
Shaun
I think you measure it by the interconnectivity of how you help other people, and I think we're in a sharing economy. Prior to the pandemic that was that was like a keyword "sharing economy", it means that you you help a lot of people and they help you, right? And so strategic alignments in the digital space are really, really important now. They're really important to make business, I mean, you have to make synergies with people and and make a podcast with them, right? Or make a workshop with them, right? You have to do that now I mean, it's really necessary for work and for awareness, for your business and what you do, so. But it's also kind of a great creative opportunity if you're a creative person, I mean, you can really go to really do a lot of creative things with it. Then the virtual networking site is still similar to what you were doing in life, you have to build relationships with people, it's all about the relationship before you work with people, you have to build trust, you have to know that you have value for them and they have value for you and that was true not just virtual, but in life, in real life, in real life, it was true, so we're an extension of it right now, the virtual life and the real life are starting to merge.
Melanie
Did you ever see this happening? Obviously not covid, but did you see that people would be adopting a virtual networking persona on a greater level?
Shaun
Well, I've been talking for seven years about a digital business and keynotes here in California and some internationally as well in Europe as well, and when I was talking about it, people were talking that was a futuristic idea, I was talking about a futuristic idea. But now post covid-19, post pandemic, everybody sees that as kind of normal, I mean, we're in that norm instead of it being futuristic, it's normal. And so I was stating two things about it: that we would be a global virtual commerce society, we would still have the live world, but it would be more experiential. I mean, we would go to a mall for an experience or go see a drive in movie for an experience because people can't see the movie theatres, but when a drive in movie like that's the fifties and sixties again, so I think that's where we're headed back to experiential experiences in the live world, and that gets into all these areas of live entertainment, sporting events, all of these kinds of things are experiential, but everything's going in the digital realm, even Esports. Even everything we can talk about is some way going digital right now, and there's a lot of money putting in that digital I mean, Netflix became the richest company in the world in the middle of this pandemic.
Melanie
No shock really, is it?
Shaun
No shock. Right? Think it's more valuable than oil companies now, so it's like it's kind of crazy in that way, how fast things shifted to our lives. But I have been in digital for working virtual for ten years before the pandemic, so it really didn't change the way I did things a lot, but it did change the fact that I used to make virtual business networks and have live events. So now I'm looking to do virtual events solely right, not live events, but do virtual events out of virtual networks. So I was really converting virtual networks into the live space now for you, and that would allow all kinds of crazy interactions internationally or nationally to come together, but you would have to travel for that right? For the meeting, you know, like I have to travel for conferences, but now you really don't have to travel. You could do that from the comfort of your home and be talking to anybody in the world.
Melanie
There are some downsides to this, though, isn't there? The connectivity is there because you can still speak to people and be a person and be visual and personality, but there's really nothing quite like meeting people offline. And there's hospitality businesses and airports and airlines that are going to rapidly run out of custom because people aren't flying their speakers over, they're not touring. We may progress in one way, but other industries will suffer, can you see that happening?
Shaun
Yeah, but unfortunately, prior to the pandemic, those industries were in disruption, you know. The ones we discussed were in disruption prior to the pandemic, the online selling space was so heavy that it was making so much money, especially here in the States, I mean, Alibaba in China, Amazon in the states, Amazon everywhere in the world and Alibaba everywhere in the world, which is the Amazon of China right? It makes more money than Amazon, they're just doing a huge amount of money selling online and so disruption was already there where the mom and pop the restaurant areas, they weren't converting generally to have takeout apps. I mean, a lot of the small businesses here in the US that were restaurant, they were getting about maybe 10 or 20 percent of their business from takeout applications, you know, like UberEats or something like that, you know, we requested it and it delivered to our house, it was starting the pandemic. But now the pandemic has created an innovation we call a paradigm shift and then a collapse and that's what we're in. So we have industry collapsing because of the pandemic, but at the same time, we have innovation coming out of it and that's where we're at right now, we're in innovation, period. Heavy innovation all over the world.
Melanie
And that's where I want to talk about now the innovation and the progress, do you have any particular key takeaways that people who are either adopting a new way of life when it comes to virtual networking or upping their game? Because let's face it, most people who've been in business a couple of years would have probably dabbled in virtual networking at some stage. But as you say, it's essentially a part of life now. What key takeaways could you give people from today's talk?
Shaun
Hmm. I think the first one is to build a team. So if you had a business right now, you're building the virtual team from home, right? So you had you had employees. So you really have to get them synergised. If you didn't have employees, you still got to build a team because you need virtual network team. You need support, you need support emotionally. You need support with your business. So you need to build a team of consultants around you, you know, maybe the local SBA or business organisation. You have them virtually in your Rolodex, right? Your virtual Rolodex. You have all these kind of assistance, people that can assist your tax accountant or attorney or whatever. Everything is virtually connected to you right that you can solve a problem for you. That's the first thing you have to do right away. And then to to piggyback on that, you need to be looking at strategic partnerships at all times in the virtual space. At all times you're looking to find a win-win strategic partners in your local market and your regional market or globally, because that's how things are going to get done. Strategic alignments are how things are going to get done, virtually because there's so much opportunity, actually. The opportunity is so huge. And now you can be working with somebody in Japan right now. You could be working with somebody in Italy right now. You could be working with somebody in Australia right now. So it's it's a global virtual space. And so that really, you know, geographically it changes everything. But also in the local space. When I go back to that, that's the third thing, is you should begin to interconnect yourself into all the local community area, virtually, you know. Be interconnected to local government, interconnected to the local business organisations, interconnected with the other business owners. So that way you create a circle of support and you can see how you can help each other and buy each other's products and services, which is kind of going back to that idea of community. We're like going back to the idea of community, but a virtual community.
Melanie
I couldn't agree with you more, actually. Well, thank you so much for joining us this morning mmm, this afternoon. Sorry, confusing. Shaun, I'm really, really appreciate you taking the time to speak to us today and to any of our listeners, if you've got any questions for sure. And I'm more than happy to send them to Shaun, he can answer us and I can let you know. If you've got any other questions or queries, do find us on social media and on our website, the Monday morning marketing podcast, dot com. And if you need anything else, you can also send us a voice message through Anchor or Apple podcasts. So that's us signing off for now. Thanks so much, Shaun, and I'll speak to you another time.
Shaun
Wonderful.