The Iferia Techcast
00:27:18 · Ezekiel Iferia
[00:27:18] S0: So, Gary, you know, you you you you build the Dead Pixels Society, but, you know, still on that, I I like to... You know you know, what lessons from that, you know, rather Sure. You know, what what what does it actually take, you know, to build a community from scratch? You know, what's one thing that makes it or breaks?
00:27:45 · Gary Pageau
[00:27:45] S1: Well, again, going back to what I was saying earlier, I I wish I would've committed to doing it far earlier, full bore, like going from day one and sprinting as opposed to kinda jogging into it. You know? When I launched, probably... Newsletter was maybe once a week. The website wasn't much of anything. And then, you know, it took a while just to build up. I didn't even have a media kit for years because I wasn't serious about sponsorships. And I've learned if you're gonna do it, do it. There's no halfway. I much would farther along on the business side of the journey if I would have launched not only with the newsletter, but with a podcast and all the other stuff, and planned to have events, because I was always like, I don't want to do events. Events are a pain in the butt. But the reality is the audience wanted events. And the podcast was the same thing. I didn't wanna do the podcast when I started because back in the PMA days, we had a podcast and I knew how much work it was and I didn't wanna work that hard. And the reality was is the audience was ready for it. And I found a way to make it, you know, so it wasn't so time consuming. I found some workflow tools to do that. So, you know, the number one advice is if you're going to do it, do it. There's no really halfway to do it. I was kind of started with the idea that it was more of a promotional tool for the consulting business, right? That if I could get in people's mailboxes once a week, somebody out there was going to want to hire me to run their marketing communications or something like that. And that wrong. That didn't work. So it actually turned out that the business was actually the newsletter itself, which really kick started the community. So, you know, I really thought it was going be more of a, if somebody sees... You know, if enough of these companies see me in their inbox, they're going want to hire me to do their whatever. And, you know, it really turned out that, no, if you build enough of an audience, there's enough people out there who want to, from a sponsorship standpoint, want to get in front of these people. Then also the other lesson was I learned really early is don't undercharge. When I came up with my rates for my sponsorships, they're not cheap. I don't want to dork around with 25 sponsors who are sponsoring at $100 or something. That's just...
00:30:27 · Gary Pageau, Ezekiel Iferia
It's too much work. I'd rather have fewer sponsors who understand the audience, are paying more, and are getting more because it's relatively exclusive. So the lesson I learned early on was don't undervalue what you do. There's always this belief, Oh, I gotta be cheap to get onto the marketplace and get attention, and then I can raise prices later. You almost never can do that. I haven't raised my rates in years for sponsorships, but I've set them at a rate where they're pretty comfortable, right? Where people are like, yeah, I see what he's doing. I appreciate the audience. I wanna be in that thing, but it's not cheap. You know? It is a commitment. So that would be the two things, as I would say, is one, you know, don't take a half step, do it. And two, value what you do and charge you as much as you can. Even if it means you're going to say no to some people, right? That some people are going say, Well, that's too much. You just say, Okay, that's fine. I still like you. And the other thing I do that I think helps a lot is I have a very, very open policy about who's [00:31:41] S0: a
00:31:41 · Ezekiel Iferia, Gary Pageau
[00:31:41] S0: a [00:31:41] S1: sponsor and who's editorial. I'll write about you if you're not a sponsor. There's no pay to play thing. Whereas on a lot of industry newsletters, especially looking some of the industries I cover printing, there's a lot of pay to play type stuff. They'll... You know, if... Which means if you write about something, you're expected that the vendor or somebody's gonna pay for that. Right? It's gonna be sponsored content or something. I don't do a lot of that, and I definitely don't mix in an editorial. I just keep... And everyone knows that. Right? So if I do an article about somebody, it's because I think it's cool and interesting, not because they paid to be there. And I just think having that kind of reputation, those kind of ethics in an industry, can't mess that up Because once you screw that up, you're cooked, I think. [00:32:35] S0: Okay. All right. So, Gary, to wrap things up here, for the listeners who actually want to go follow your work, they want to go learn more about the Dead Pixels Society or maybe just connect with your perspective on marketing and reinvention. So, you know, where is the best place for them to go?
00:32:35 · Ezekiel Iferia, Gary Pageau
[00:32:35] S0: Okay. All right. So, Gary, to wrap things up here, for the listeners who actually want to go follow your work, they want to go learn more about the Dead Pixels Society or maybe just connect with your perspective on marketing and reinvention. So, you know, where is the best place for them to go? [00:32:56] S1: Well, of course, I'm active on LinkedIn. I got all the LinkedIn places. None of my stuff is auto posted there. Of course, the website itself is the deadpixelssociety.com. And then then the web... The podcast is the deadpixelssocietypodcast.com, but you can find it on, you know, all of the the, you know, Apple, Spotify, all those places. You know, I'm I'm on all the directories for that. And then of course... And then our our events are called Photo Imaging Connect. So photoimagingconnect.com is where the events are. So I'm usually hanging out in one of those three places. That's the... That's where if you wanna find out what we do and and and also just reach out on LinkedIn, it's probably on a personal level. [00:33:42] S0: Alright, Gary. And for the listeners, I'll also have these links in the show notes. So scroll down to, you know, find everything listed there. So, Gary, it has been a really interesting and insightful conversation with you here today, sir. And I thank you, you know, for taking the time to join us on the show today. [00:34:02] S1: Alright. Well, thank you. Take care. Have a have a great day.