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We're chatting about the people, places, events, and flavors that make Johnson City, Tennessee a lovely place to live. An interview show hosted by Colin Johnson.
Proud member of the Maypop Media family of podcasts.
[TRANSCRIPT]
0:00:00 - (Colin Johnson): It's a beautiful day here in Johnson City, Tennessee. It's a May day. It is May 14. The sun is out finally. It's been raining multiple weeks, and the flowers are blooming, the pollen's rocking. But I'm more excited to hang out with Jonathan Fields, a marketing strategist, creative advocate, jack of all trades, master of all of them. I'm excited for you guys to get to know this guy. We've been laughing a lot before this thing started, so I'm sure we're going to laugh a lot on the podcast. So welcome to the podcast, Jonathan.
0:00:30 - (Jonathan Fields): Well, thank you for having me.
0:00:31 - (Colin Johnson): And so you don't work anywhere. It sounds like you don't have, like, a real job. What. What do you do for a living? I mean. Cause lots of people are marketing strategists slash creative advocates and some other cool stuff.
0:00:44 - (Jonathan Fields): Yeah.
0:00:44 - (Colin Johnson): No.
0:00:45 - (Jonathan Fields): So, for me, the important thing is to be able to meet small businesses, nonprofits, anything around the area that has a story to tell, and to be able to help kind of guide them in the different avenues that maybe they knew existed. Maybe they don't know existed. Gotcha.
0:01:04 - (Colin Johnson): So we're kind of in the same business. Like, I meet small people, small businesses, small things, like we're doing right now, and put them on a podcast, and they get to talk about it. So I'm kind of marketing their business a little bit. But you're doing it on a higher level.
0:01:17 - (Jonathan Fields): It's. It's very much something that we do every day, just in general conversations with other professionals. But it's kind of like the. If you want someone to work on your car, you go to a mechanic. You don't necessarily just go to the guy next door that kind of knows how to replace a tire.
0:01:35 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:01:36 - (Jonathan Fields): So I sort of do that.
0:01:38 - (Colin Johnson): I mean, and half the time, I've done a lot of lapse of drink.
0:01:41 - (Jonathan Fields): It ends up working out a lot occasionally.
0:01:43 - (Colin Johnson): But then I'm, like, having to fix the tire and the transmission because he wrecked, you know, I did it.
0:01:49 - (Jonathan Fields): I was about to say the once or twice that I've worked on my car definitely made me realize that I'm perfectly fine with paying a professional to do some things.
0:01:57 - (Colin Johnson): I think mechanics are. Yeah, they're godsends.
0:02:00 - (Jonathan Fields): They're where mechanics, you're valuable.
0:02:03 - (Colin Johnson): Very much. Very much so. Okay, so we kind of got out of order a little bit. It's the Johnson City living podcast. You live in Johnson City?
0:02:11 - (Jonathan Fields): I do.
0:02:12 - (Colin Johnson): What is your favorite thing about Johnson City?
0:02:14 - (Jonathan Fields): So we moved from Kingsport to Johnson City about seven years ago, and the reason we moved here was there. It seems to be just a vibrant, active community. There's something going on about every weekend. And, of course, when we moved here, our son was in fourth grade, but we had realized that he didn't necessarily need, like, a full backyard. He was very much an indoor type kid.
0:02:42 - (Colin Johnson): Gotcha.
0:02:43 - (Jonathan Fields): But we liked to hear live music. We liked to be able to have, you know, tons of options, to be able to eat out and everything, and also just professionally. Like, there's a ton of things that are going on with small businesses and entrepreneurs here in Johnson City. Yeah, that's exciting. It's like a city of ideas.
0:03:04 - (Colin Johnson): So kind of like a melting pot, because we've got all kinds of people moving from all over the place. We've helped tons of people move here, and they bring all kinds of cool new ideas and new things. And so we just kind of blend it all together and put our appalachian feel on it a little bit.
0:03:18 - (Jonathan Fields): And that is very much, yeah, very much true. I talked to so many people and let them know that for your business, what you've done for maybe, like, the past 20 to 30 years was not the wrong thing. But you have to stay in the know that the audience is forever changing things. Like Covid things, like the past several years of people just wanting to move here because it's a whole lot cheaper for them to buy a track of land and be able to build on it than it is for them to live in a much smaller space and maybe an area that they don't feel a lot of freedom to be able to kind of express themselves.
0:04:00 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. Like, if you're coming out of a New York or Chicago or somewhere, it's. It's cheaper to build, but compared to everything else around here, it's cheaper to build. It's like $300 a foot. Oh, yeah. To build a house, it's crazy. Materials costs have gone through the roof and. Okay, so tell us a little bit about what you do and how you do it and how you engage with people and take us through the.
0:04:21 - (Colin Johnson): Your creative, I guess, story.
0:04:23 - (Jonathan Fields): Yeah. So anytime I meet with someone, I don't try to, like, I believe in, what's a thing called relational selling, which, yes, I'm going to use the dirty word of sales, but I think we're.
0:04:38 - (Colin Johnson): All salespeople on some level.
0:04:39 - (Jonathan Fields): Yes.
0:04:40 - (Colin Johnson): Selling ourselves to somebody at some point.
0:04:42 - (Jonathan Fields): And somehow, at some point, someone has actually, like, made that such a dirty word to be able to use.
0:04:48 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:04:49 - (Jonathan Fields): But in reality, like, that's what my clients, that's what all of us do, is we look to find answers for our problems, right?
0:04:59 - (Colin Johnson): We're just problem solvers. And.
0:05:00 - (Jonathan Fields): And so that's literally step one is I want to sit down and have, I call it a discovery meeting. But it's like, learn about them, learn about their business, be able to see what they gauge as success. And then from there, that kind of determines what's needed. A lot of new businesses are, like, just independent. You know, I've worked with realtors, for instance, in the past, and they were like, man, all I just need right now is a good business card.
0:05:30 - (Jonathan Fields): And I'm like, I can hook you up. I've got you. We can take care of that and stuff. But, like, beyond that, you know, you start getting into targeted advertising, billboard, media placement. There's so many options out there to be able to, like in, avenues for you to be able to put your story out in. But not all of them are useful for your specific situation.
0:05:54 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:05:55 - (Jonathan Fields): And the only way you get to know that is to relationally, you get to know the client, you know, what's important to them, and then gauge off of that.
0:06:04 - (Colin Johnson): So how did you. Where'd you grow up?
0:06:07 - (Jonathan Fields): So, born and raised in Kingsport.
0:06:08 - (Colin Johnson): Nice.
0:06:09 - (Jonathan Fields): One of the.
0:06:11 - (Colin Johnson): Good job getting out of town, moving to Johnson City.
0:06:14 - (Jonathan Fields): Listen, I absolutely love. I still love Kingsport. Every time I end up going back there for some kind of an event or.
0:06:22 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, Kingsport's awesome. I love Kingsport.
0:06:24 - (Jonathan Fields): One of the chamber ambassadors down there and stuff. So it's like, I love Kingsport. This area, just in general. I loved when they started looking at it and not saying, oh, it's the tri cities, but saying, we're trying to make it a bigger region, like the appalachian islands.
0:06:40 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:06:40 - (Jonathan Fields): Cause I'm like, yeah, so many things. You just say, I'm. Well, I moved to Johnson City because it's close to this. Right, or close to this.
0:06:49 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. And all three, five. I mean, depends on how many cities you want to pick. Abingdon's got its own flavor.
0:06:54 - (Jonathan Fields): Bristol.
0:06:55 - (Colin Johnson): I'm just coming down the road, has a different flavor than. Different than Bristol. Then Johnson City, you know? Sorry. Kingsport and Johnson City. And each one has their own flair. And then Jonesboro and get down to Greenville, and they all feel a little different and have just wonderful things about them all. Yeah.
0:07:11 - (Jonathan Fields): But born and raised in this area, one of the few that didn't decide to fly the coop.
0:07:20 - (Colin Johnson): Yep.
0:07:21 - (Jonathan Fields): Right after high school, I didn't either. I'm here, and I'm thankful for that. It's like, part of me does wonder what, you know, outside of this region would look like, where would you move.
0:07:32 - (Colin Johnson): To if you had flown the coop?
0:07:35 - (Jonathan Fields): So pre Covid. And when I say pre Covid, literally the December before 2020, I had a job offer that was going to make us move to Sedona, Arizona, and that was so polar opposite to this area. But we started researching apartments. We started researching all the, you know, things that you could do in that area, and we kind of fell in love with it. So the plan is post retirement, buy an rv, and hit the. Hit the road and maybe spend a little bit of time in Arizona.
0:08:10 - (Colin Johnson): Nice. That's cool. Did you have dreams of, like, when you got out of high school, going somewhere?
0:08:18 - (Jonathan Fields): Honestly, like, I was probably one of the few that didn't really have necessarily a set plan. Coming straight out of high school and even going into college and kind of going into the radio television route for my degree. Even by the end of that, it wasn't really ever something that I would say, yeah, I would 100% move away from this area just cause there's something about this area that is home. It is.
0:08:49 - (Jonathan Fields): My wife, literally, when we come back home from our last trip, said, I don't, I couldn't see myself moving anywhere that I didn't see those mountains.
0:08:58 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. So they're just beautiful, aren't they?
0:09:00 - (Jonathan Fields): Yeah.
0:09:01 - (Colin Johnson): Did you go to Etsu here in town?
0:09:03 - (Jonathan Fields): Went to. Went to northeast state Etsu. So did that whole thing.
0:09:07 - (Colin Johnson): Got your degree in communications?
0:09:10 - (Jonathan Fields): Went for communications and everything. And then what was funny was post that realized that intro level for television, that going back to that conversation, oh, you need to move actually somewhere else and get a job at that time.
0:09:25 - (Colin Johnson): Gotcha.
0:09:27 - (Jonathan Fields): But then that brought me into the marketing realm because video production's still very much a need for small businesses, filming commercials, YouTube, everything. So. And then from there, just kind of grew. A lot of the stuff that I learned after college ended up being through working in agency work, that it was like, hey, do you, have you ever done anything with social media? I mean, I've got a Facebook account.
0:09:55 - (Colin Johnson): Cool.
0:09:55 - (Jonathan Fields): You're over social media now. And it kind of went from there. It's like, learn as continued education. So that's cool.
0:10:03 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. Okay, so fast forward, how did you get into where you're sitting now as a marketing guru?
0:10:13 - (Jonathan Fields): Yeah, so guru. So I worked in the automotive aftermarket with a place called the AAM group for around ten years. Okay. They have a program that they're basically involved all the way through the selling process from the warehouses to the manufacturers to the individuals. Worked there for ten years. Funny enough, it operates as a nonprofit marketing agency because of all of those entities. So we came into Covid.
0:10:54 - (Jonathan Fields): Covid definitely set a lot of people back. And due to budget cuts due from all the paying entities, that ended. The good thing that happened there was. It was the first time that I'd lived in this area that I had worked in a marketing position that actually, after leaving, there was a marketing position that focused on the needs of small businesses and entities around this area.
0:11:22 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:11:23 - (Jonathan Fields): Vastly different than the automotive aftermarket in certain cases. So it was. I just loved being able to hear out realistically, hey, I want to be able to. I know what I need to be able to do, but I don't have the budget for it, what's available, and being able to just kind of be an advocate for them, kind of a.
0:11:46 - (Colin Johnson): La carte, and then help them tell their story. Yeah, yeah. You had mentioned earlier about telling your story. What's so powerful about that?
0:11:56 - (Jonathan Fields): So, as you could probably realize, there's a ton of realtors.
0:12:03 - (Colin Johnson): There are a lot of us.
0:12:04 - (Jonathan Fields): There's a lot of, I think, 1800. Justin Johnson, 43. Not that I'm counting or anything, just on the street.
0:12:12 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:12:13 - (Jonathan Fields): But there is always someone that does the same thing. I've worked with agencies. A lot of us do the exact same services. At the end of the day, the most useful way to use any of those avenues is to be able to tell what is unique to you. I worked with a buddy of mine in the wedding industry, helping him do videography. And for seven years, I was surrounded by photographers. And one of the common themes was, it'd be like, oh, so you're a photographer. Well, tell me, like, what do you love being able to do?
0:12:52 - (Jonathan Fields): And it would seem like they would just go off on this laundry list of why I shoot weddings. I shoot, you know, senior pictures. I shoot this, and I'm still laughing. I didn't ask what you do, right? I said, what do you love doing?
0:13:04 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:13:05 - (Jonathan Fields): And then you would actually hear them come out with, well, I absolutely love portrait photography. And it's like, why do you love portrait photography? That's the beginning for you to be able to tell your story and set yourself apart from everybody else, because ultimately, whoever your client is, the ideal client, is looking for those characteristics. So why not tell that part of you instead of just say, here's all the things I could do.
0:13:35 - (Colin Johnson): Right? Yeah. In our team, we do it all, but I don't do it all. You know, I do what I love to do, and let's meet with people and figure out how they. Their plans and what their goals are, and then we make a plan, and whether it's selling a house or buying a house, and then if it's, you know, if I'm not the right fit, I've got people on my team that are, and then we go after it and help them achieve their goal.
0:14:04 - (Jonathan Fields): And that's kind of been my, like, I can do graphic design, sure. But I can go ahead and I can introduce you to two or three people that I would 100% say, this is the person that can put that together. I know enough to be dangerous, but I'm not going to do it for you. I'm going to give you somebody that actually helps.
0:14:23 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. Yeah. We've got a pretty big property management business, and Millard is fantastic at it. And I can do it all. I can write up the lease. I can schedule a guy to come fix your wall and do all that. But you don't want me fixing your wall. Yeah. And smoothing out, you know, the sheet rod. Yeah, yeah. So it's better to be highly specialized, is what I hear you saying, in the niche that you love.
0:14:44 - (Jonathan Fields): Well, and that's the other thing, is I summit leadership foundation. I was a part of a team for a little bit that did a workshop there, and they did the five voices training. So that was the first time I went through that training where I heard that I was a connector. And literally, as he was reading the description of what that voice is, I said, yeah, that's me. I love being able to, like, offer up a connector. Yeah, I love being able to offer up.
0:15:12 - (Jonathan Fields): Here's the knowledge that I know. Here's what I've seen.
0:15:14 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:15:15 - (Jonathan Fields): But the person that's gonna definitely make your vision come true is right over here. I want you to meet them.
0:15:21 - (Colin Johnson): And it gives me so much joy, like, to say, oh, Mitch at Maypot Media, here's Jonathan. He's going to help you market your. Your podcast company and grow it to a whole other level, you know, and then I, you know, you come back and Mitch is killing it because you're. You've helped him and you gain some, you know, wealth out of that deal a little bit, maybe. And it just is fun to just encourage and help connect people, and it just brings me so much joy.
0:15:48 - (Jonathan Fields): My favorite example of that was, I have a friend that I went to school with that owns a fitness company, and she was looking for someone to be able to help her with her website, she was in dire need. Like, she knew fitness. She didn't know web design.
0:16:05 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:16:06 - (Jonathan Fields): And I just so happened to have worked with this other girl, Taylor, that doesn't live in this area anymore. She lives up in, like, the DC area.
0:16:15 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:16:16 - (Jonathan Fields): But she was looking for some side work, and I literally introduced the two of them. Taylor also was into fitness as well, and so they spoke each other's language. They knew what needed to be done. And to this day, I believe last time I talked to them, they're still working with each other.
0:16:33 - (Colin Johnson): Isn't that fun?
0:16:34 - (Jonathan Fields): So I love being able to be.
0:16:36 - (Colin Johnson): Like, setting people up to get married.
0:16:37 - (Jonathan Fields): Yeah, I don't do that, though. I don't do that. I stay out of that.
0:16:41 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, you just. That could go wrong. And then it's. It's all bad.
0:16:44 - (Jonathan Fields): It's all bad.
0:16:45 - (Colin Johnson): Well, in that vein, what are you best at?
0:16:49 - (Jonathan Fields): For me, I love being able to produce videos. I love to be able to. And by produce, I mean, like, be the one that kind of comes up with the concepts, the ideas, kind of.
0:17:04 - (Colin Johnson): Like, direct it a little bit.
0:17:06 - (Jonathan Fields): Like, to be able to handle directing creative writing. I always ended up and shout out to my wife for me, helping proofread all of her papers in college, too. But, like, I loved being able to say, hey, I read this. It doesn't completely communicate the idea. I rewrote it. What do you think about this? Being able to kind of best find, hey, I know you talked to me and you said these things are important. I know your voice.
0:17:37 - (Jonathan Fields): This is not how you would say this. So being able to kind of come in, um, anytime we do social media ads or, you know, anything like that, I still involve myself in the writing of the creative because I want it to set apart. I want it to still. Words matter 100%.
0:17:56 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. So, Carly, my wife's really good. She's a, she's very high verbal. She's just short.
0:18:01 - (Jonathan Fields): And so. Yeah, well, and it. And it's important, too, because it's, like, in the. In the marketing realm, like, you're not just writing for someone to sound impressive. You're also writing for things like search engines, to be able to let them know what you do and what you're in authority over. So being able to keep all those things in mind, to be able to just write out the ad content of a social media ad, is important because you realize kind of what the end goal is.
0:18:31 - (Jonathan Fields): Instead of just saying, click here, buy this now. It's like, that's. That's not the meaning of what you're putting this out for, right?
0:18:38 - (Colin Johnson): So we want you to connect with this person because of XYZ. And it's going to benefit you because XYZ. Not just because you push a button and you get a latte or whatever.
0:18:47 - (Jonathan Fields): Well, and one of the other. The stories that I love kind of going back to the Johnson city area as a whole, there are businesses that have set their roots here for 20, 30, 40 years. And every time you see an ad from them, there may not be that much of a difference between, well, if I moved here from Chicago, why would I go to you instead of going to this big box store over here? Being able to say, hey, I've been in business for 30 years, and this is what sets me apart.
0:19:21 - (Jonathan Fields): Like, people come to me because I'm an expert in whatever field it is, is a story that translates to those out of towners. They come in and they say, where's a good place to go get mexican food?
0:19:37 - (Colin Johnson): Yep.
0:19:37 - (Jonathan Fields): And it's like they've got a bunch of options. But, hey, this one's been here for 1520 years.
0:19:43 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, right.
0:19:44 - (Jonathan Fields): So.
0:19:45 - (Colin Johnson): Or where are we going to get a couch? Because we can go to Ashley, but Zack's is a local place that's been in business for like 30 years. I'm just throwing them out there. And I remember going as a kid, and I still like to go there, you know?
0:19:54 - (Jonathan Fields): So, yeah, it's just like, they're the ones with the coke and everything, right?
0:19:59 - (Colin Johnson): No, that's grand.
0:20:00 - (Jonathan Fields): That's grand.
0:20:00 - (Colin Johnson): But they got rid of that, I think, during COVID and haven't brought it back. So no free cokes. Sorry, Jonathan. Breaking your heart right there.
0:20:07 - (Jonathan Fields): Got coffee, so I'm fine.
0:20:09 - (Colin Johnson): There you go.
0:20:11 - (Jonathan Fields): I love it.
0:20:13 - (Colin Johnson): So what some. Let's go. What are some tips to maybe some small business owners that are listening to the podcast now that you would say, hey, these are some things you should focus on and maybe even connect with you to help them do those things. Yeah.
0:20:27 - (Jonathan Fields): So one of the. I guess the lowest thresholds that people miss out on is what I call brand awareness. The thought process is anytime you have a business, whether you offer a product or you offer a service, the bottom line is always, man, I just need to sell more. And I need to sell more in the world. Like social media ads. There are actually a couple of different paths that you can take. You could take one that is conversion driven, which means I want to book an appointment. I want to buy this. Now, on the other side, there's awareness where if you are, say, a nonprofit, and you can't assume that people know what your mission is or what your core tenants are.
0:21:13 - (Jonathan Fields): That's something that should be going honestly year round, whether you're trying to really hone in on this one sale or this one thing.
0:21:23 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:21:24 - (Jonathan Fields): Letting people know, not letting things go silent. Um, you know, biggest thing about social media, I heard a long time ago is it's like a cocktail party. You tend to avoid the guy that shows up and says, hey, you should buy my stuff.
0:21:38 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:21:38 - (Jonathan Fields): You should pay me money, work with me.
0:21:40 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:21:41 - (Jonathan Fields): But if the person just says, hey, let me tell you a little bit about me and what's important to me, they can decide after the fact.
0:21:50 - (Colin Johnson): Sure.
0:21:50 - (Jonathan Fields): And then if you've got something important going on, like, I've got this event coming up, and you say, hey, by the way, we know each other, I've got this big thing coming up, and I think it would be very beneficial to you. You're going to trust that more because you've grown familiar. So having some kind of an awareness campaign going on, having the ability to incorporate video, whether it's anything from having a full out production or just recording yourself, talking about what's important, when would.
0:22:27 - (Colin Johnson): You do the different things? Like, just like a professional ad for, like, full out video? And then, yeah.
0:22:33 - (Jonathan Fields): So, like, if it's. If it's gonna go on broadcast or if it's going to be the branding video that tells the whole story of your business, I wouldn't necessarily skimp on that. I would want to present myself in the best life.
0:22:47 - (Colin Johnson): How long should that be?
0:22:49 - (Jonathan Fields): Average attention span varies, but if you're telling a full story, I wouldn't necessarily go past three to five minutes. Okay. If you're telling one aspect of your story, you can do that in 30 seconds. You can give it to elevator picture.
0:23:06 - (Colin Johnson): Oh, yeah.
0:23:08 - (Jonathan Fields): And then going back, being able to have your face present humanizes whatever your brand or business is. So if all they see is just graphic posts of your logo and, hey, we do this. Hey, we do this. Hey, we do this again, you're the selling guy at the cocktail party, showing your face, showing some personality, being able to let them learn what's important to you is honestly what convinces some people to do business with you over those big stores, because it literally says that is the person that handles this, not whoever happens to be working the shift.
0:23:50 - (Colin Johnson): Right, right. And the money is going to stay local, maybe, and help other people, because I know where it's going. Because they've told us a story about how they help these other people over here and. Yeah. And going back to summit, we're big summit fans then.
0:24:04 - (Jonathan Fields): Yeah. Love those guys. Love everything. They're great over there.
0:24:10 - (Colin Johnson): What have been some challenging things you've had to deal with in the marketing realm?
0:24:17 - (Jonathan Fields): I always go back to the story in the midst of COVID I was working for a startup and we did websites. And so one of the things was, I would call it business. And you would think, businesses are shut down. They don't have a website. That should be a relatively easy conversation to have. Hey, you want to do business? We can set up a website. I will leave names out. But going back to our automotive shop thing, it was an automotive shop that I talked with.
0:24:52 - (Jonathan Fields): I do not believe they're in business anymore, which unfortunate, but their vision was, I'm busy all the time, I'm booked all the time. I don't really need to do marketing through a website. We're one of the businesses that are not necessarily affected by, like, all these shutdowns. And I said, well, why don't you do marketing? And he said, well, word of mouth, I don't have to do anything else. And I said, so tell me who's talking about you? And we kept going down this pathway.
0:25:28 - (Jonathan Fields): Turns out that his big thing was, he said, well, my customers tell their kids to come to me. The kids tell their. And I said, this is going to sound really morbid, but can I be blunt with you? I already knew that this wasn't going to pan out.
0:25:42 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:25:43 - (Jonathan Fields): So I was like, I'm going to hopefully leave him with something. I said, your clientele's dying.
0:25:49 - (Colin Johnson): Mm hmm.
0:25:50 - (Jonathan Fields): Literally. Because there are. At that point, I went to, like, a state of the city address in Kingsport, and they were saying, we're getting ready to build 500 new homes. This is before everything went absolutely crazy.
0:26:03 - (Colin Johnson): Now they're building like 5000 new homes.
0:26:05 - (Jonathan Fields): Right.
0:26:06 - (Colin Johnson): We need to build.
0:26:07 - (Jonathan Fields): They thought it was a big deal for 500.
0:26:09 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:26:09 - (Jonathan Fields): It's like, we didn't, we had no idea.
0:26:10 - (Colin Johnson): We still are way back. Exactly.
0:26:13 - (Jonathan Fields): But they said that we know all these people are moving from all around the country. I said, what mouth is telling them? Nobody.
0:26:23 - (Colin Johnson): Correct.
0:26:24 - (Jonathan Fields): And I said, so why would you not have something up online to be able to tell who you are and at least be able to just give you a call to schedule an appointment? He didn't like that. And so I guess the most difficult thing is when you kind of are able to assess it and you can't really necessarily get past that level of, I've done this for a long time. You're trying to tell me how to do my business, and you're not in my field. And it's like, I'm not trying to tell you how to do your business. I'm trying to tell you here is what the modern day consumer is looking.
0:27:05 - (Colin Johnson): This could be coming down the line. Yeah, I'm trying to help you. Exactly. Yeah, I think. Yeah. You think it was because you probably called him, he couldn't sit down, look at you, or like, I am feel that you are a genuine person that really cares about him and his business.
0:27:21 - (Jonathan Fields): And there's a lack of trust there.
0:27:22 - (Colin Johnson): Maybe on some level I think there.
0:27:23 - (Jonathan Fields): Might have been a little bit of that. I will say that now, 2024, being able to actually be in person for the majority of the meetings, it tends to help.
0:27:37 - (Colin Johnson): Oh, 100%.
0:27:38 - (Jonathan Fields): But there's always the situation where the reason you've been looking for help with your marketing is because you realize there's something lacking, but then suddenly they want to pull back. They want to pull back and they want to like, say, I'm not going to spend this. It's like, are you wanting to change? Are you wanting to improve?
0:28:05 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, it's, um. It's. We've got another person coming in. Yeah, I think it's. It's hard to gain trust quickly. And so I think where if you've got on your website or you've told stories through video, you can gain that trust. And so you provide a medium to do that, I would think. And then. So how do, let's say some of our listeners want to connect with you to do that? How do they reach you?
0:28:31 - (Jonathan Fields): Yeah, so they can reach me through LinkedIn. I'm also on Instagram. Jonathan Fields official. And either way, there is a direct contact with me.
0:28:44 - (Colin Johnson): Okay, so Jonathan Fields on LinkedIn, we can find you. Jonathan Fields from Johnson City.
0:28:49 - (Jonathan Fields): Jonathan Fields from Johnson City.
0:28:50 - (Colin Johnson): Yep. I love it. I love it. What are you working on right now that's super exciting for you?
0:28:56 - (Jonathan Fields): So we're recording this in May. And so next month, June 11, I am actually going to be one of the TEDx Johnson City speakers.
0:29:08 - (Colin Johnson): We had one TEDx last year. Right? That was the first one. And then you're the Tedx two.
0:29:13 - (Jonathan Fields): Yeah. Last year was kind of the pilot here. Mackenzie Templeton was able to kind of bring that here. Actually, funny story, background to that. That program started because of young professionals of Johnson City. One of the members of young professionals came to McKinsey, said, hey, we've got this TEDx thing at ETSU. I would like to be able to do it for Johnson City.
0:29:39 - (Colin Johnson): That's cool.
0:29:40 - (Jonathan Fields): And so McKenzie made the connections, reached out. TEDx makes you do a pilot year. And that, of course, tickets sold out in less than a day. That's great. The official full blown out at the Martin center full big theater is this year.
0:29:59 - (Colin Johnson): That's awesome.
0:30:00 - (Jonathan Fields): And so really excited to be able to kind of. The docket of speakers is just insane.
0:30:07 - (Colin Johnson): That's cool. So we'll look forward to seeing it probably on some reels somewhere. Different things. Because we can't get in because the tickets are sold out.
0:30:15 - (Jonathan Fields): No, no, tickets are still available as of now.
0:30:17 - (Colin Johnson): For sure.
0:30:18 - (Jonathan Fields): Because they did move to the bigger theater.
0:30:20 - (Colin Johnson): Theaters.
0:30:21 - (Jonathan Fields): Yeah.
0:30:22 - (Colin Johnson): So we can still get in. All right. Tedx, Johnson City.
0:30:25 - (Jonathan Fields): Yeah. I was going to say you can look up. You look up Tedx, Johnson City. Also the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce website. That'd be cool.
0:30:32 - (Colin Johnson): Maybe we should go. All right. I like it. I'd love to go watch you on stage talking about something cool. Okay. What gets you just fired up?
0:30:40 - (Jonathan Fields): Like, let's go. Oh, my lord. Well, coffee helps. So. Honestly, what gets me fired up is when someone comes to me and asks the question, I know I have a need, but I don't really know what to do or how to fulfill it.
0:31:00 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:31:01 - (Jonathan Fields): And that ranges. That ranges from being able to say, like, is this a marketing thing or is this a connector thing? I love keeping that relational side to me, because when you're out doing these networking things, one of the beneficial things that you can provide to the professional community is being able to offer up a good referral.
0:31:25 - (Colin Johnson): Oh, yeah.
0:31:26 - (Jonathan Fields): Because everybody knows somebody that does what you're wanting done. But someone that's actually out there is seeing this person, seeing them work, seeing clienteles that they worked with and everything. So it's a little bit more of a weighted referral.
0:31:43 - (Colin Johnson): Sure.
0:31:43 - (Jonathan Fields): In those situations.
0:31:44 - (Colin Johnson): So connection with trust.
0:31:46 - (Jonathan Fields): Honestly, anytime I'm able to set that kind of thing up is. Is great.
0:31:50 - (Colin Johnson): It is. That's very rewarding. Well, I wish you the best. Thanks for being a Johnson. Tony and city. Tony and Cityonian city.
0:31:57 - (Jonathan Fields): I was close.
0:31:58 - (Colin Johnson): Jensen Chomp. Yeah. From moving from Kingsport down here. I'm just kidding. But yeah, I've enjoyed our conversation. I think it's cool what you do. It's much needed. I think if you're thinking about marketing and you need some help, reach out to Jonathan. He's going to take great care of you. It's a good, warm referral. I trust him. I think you should, too.
0:32:17 - (Jonathan Fields): So, yeah, you're welcome.
0:32:19 - (Colin Johnson): I look forward to. Hopefully TeDx goes great. We'll pray that just you kill it and look forward to having you back on the podcast. You can tell us all the cool stories that you've been able to help other businesses.
0:32:30 - (Jonathan Fields): I was about to say, can I give a little hint as to what the. So the main theme for TEDx Johnson City is raising our appalachian voices.
0:32:38 - (Colin Johnson): Ooh.
0:32:39 - (Jonathan Fields): And my talk is on the importance of relationships and community.
0:32:44 - (Colin Johnson): Nice.
0:32:47 - (Jonathan Fields): It's going to be really?
0:32:47 - (Colin Johnson): That's what makes Johnson look appalachian. So awesome. Is this because we love each other and love connecting with each other, so.
0:32:54 - (Jonathan Fields): Exactly.
0:32:55 - (Colin Johnson): You're. You're doing great. You're doing great. So thank you so much for listening. Until next time, I'm Colin Johnson with the Colin and Carly group and Keller Williams realty. If you want to move here, hang out with Jonathan. Get him to help you grow your business and let it just explode. That'd be great. Or come watch him on a TEDx talk. That'd be fun, too. So reach out. We'd love to help you move here. We'd love to help you sell your home here if you want to invest in real estate. We love to help people do that, and we do property management, too, so we do a lot, like we said earlier in the show.
0:33:22 - (Jonathan Fields): So I'm passionate about it. And I'm very passionate about it.
0:33:24 - (Colin Johnson): I love helping people buy and sell houses. So, anyway, thanks so much. Talk to you soon.