This episode of "Glass in the Class" features Mark Traphagen discussing the evolution and power of verbal communication, particularly in the context of online marketing and personal branding, emphasizing its role in building trust and fostering relationships.
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good morning everybody this is John
Ellis and I'm with Alex Ricky Gonzalez
and Mark Traphagen this is the third
episode of glass in the class from Kent
State University and today's episode is
on verbal communication we are joined by
Alex and her classroom should be seen
that right now say hello Alex hello
everybody out there really stoked to
have mark Traphagen here I know he's a
busy man so pretty stoked to get him to
come in and mark Traphagen you should be
seeing right now say a little mark hello
everyone very glad to be here this
morning and how cool is this that an old
ex teacher like me gets to address a
classroom at Kent State Ohio sitting
here in my dining room in Durham North
Carolina I love this and we'll get right
down to it mark traphagen is the senior
director of online marketing for stone
temple consulting and Alex Rick and
Gonzalez is a teacher at kent state
university teaching intro to human
communications and we are going to have
it a classroom discussion talking about
verbal communication Alex I will let you
take it away okay thanks John um I just
want to have mark start out and my my
class is relatively unfamiliar with the
online world aside from using social
media I think pretty recreationally so
mark if you can just kind of tell them
what you do and a little bit about your
past because I think you have a really
you made some really interesting
transitions in your work life so just
kind of tell them a little bit about
yourself all right I'll try to condense
that down to just just a few minutes but
as I mentioned earlier for a number of
years almost 20 years I was a teacher
mostly at the middle school level which
right there tells you how crazy I am and
some high school level teaching mostly
in the humanities in English language
arts a little bit of history
social studies and it enjoyed that
immensely well I'm a ham I love being in
front of people and you know classroom
is everyday a performance and it's an
interactive performance which is
something i also love and enjoy and why
i love these hangouts but moving that
along eventually you know long story
short ended up in graduate school and
working for the bookstore at the
graduate school which was dying because
of amazon the students everybody were
buying their books from amazon so much
cheaper the campus bookstore couldn't
compete and it was on its way out of
business and that the manager there
challenged me to try to save it by
taking it online seeing if I could build
an online clientele and online national
clientele for the little niche of books
that we had and without going into all
the details of that it was like being
thrown into the deep end of a pool but
in two years we pulled it off we built
an online store but maybe more
importantly learn how to we do outreach
and communication and build really build
social networks before there was social
networking we were doing it back then
all through bloggers and built an
audience built a champ of direct
communication with readers out there who
loved what we sold and that built a
business for us and that also put a bug
in me that you know I could do this so i
loved it i enjoyed it the idea of
marketing in this new online world and
the skills that I've learned from
teaching I think you know we're coming
into play and so I knew this is what I
wanted to do next and went on to get a
job with a marketing agency here in the
raleigh-durham area of North Carolina
where my wife and I wanted to move to be
closer to our grandkids and started out
there you know very junior but moved up
quickly through the ranks and just
mostly what hooked for me was that
agency realizing that they had an asset
in me as being the face of their
business meaning that as social the
social web was becoming more and more of
a reality mean going out there creating
content creating engagement engaging
with people who were interested in what
our business did and topics related to
it build Authority and Trust and
relevancy around me as a person which
then reflected on our business our brand
and after a while continually doing and
building that that in by the way real
world communications involved met to
going out and speaking at conferences
and two groups like this and that began
to actually build business for our
agency and then the you know the end of
that story sort of is that that parlayed
for me into building enough of a
reputation online that a much larger
agency Stone Temple consulting based out
of boston which is national clients and
a lot of clients in fortune 50 fortune
100 level reached out and said we want
you to be you for us we want to actually
hire you to just do what you do to be
marked rapping online but associated
with stone temple they realize the value
of that and and brought me in to do that
so that's what i'm doing today you know
i'm doing things like this i'm building
content blog posts videos speaking at
conferences writing books all these
things that that communicate in this new
way what we in our business call content
marketing where you are instead of
saying you know the old ad model you
know we build a better widget buy from
us we're going out and saying here's
here's what we know here's how we can
help here's we're sharing knowledge
freely out there and communicating and
helping people and that builds as i said
those things that trust that authority
that relevance around us that when when
someone comes along who needs our
services they're going to think of us
first because we've built that
reputation out there first that's that's
what i'm doing today thank you so much
you said so many things that really
highlight why I wanted to bring you in
today because a lot of what you talked
about revolves around verbal
communication I mean it you're creating
this authority in this trust through the
things that you say
a right so um how how powerful is verbal
communication and what you do well think
it's very powerful and the medium that
were being given the way back up for
just a moment and highlight something
there's a guy named Brian Clark who runs
a very successful online marketing
business called Copyblogger and Brian's
a genius I read and listened to
everything that he does he has podcasts
and what he's talking about now like the
thing that he's talking about is that we
in my business you know marketing that
we we really are no longer marketers or
marketing is not what we should be
thinking about ourselves as we're
thinking yourselves as as media and
media makers that we are going out and
using we now have access like never
before in history everybody does to
media and what we're doing right now
would have not all that many years ago
would have cost tens or hundreds of
thousands of dollars to pull off to do
what what Eric might my partner and I do
every week we put out regular shows via
these hangouts that you know that
thousands of people watch and share and
distribute the shows are interactive
because we have a live audience who are
watching Eric and me talk to each other
but we can see their comments we can we
can chat with them we can answer
questions live interact with them say hi
to them when we see them come into the
Hangout so all of that is not only doing
the things i said before building that
you know trust Authority and relevance
but also humanizes and personalizes our
business and what could be colder and
deader than a you know a marketing
agency but by being involved in these
things by writing content by making
videos and through via things like these
hangouts and then going out there still
if we think it's worthwhile to still
spend the time to go out to meet ups and
conferences networking events doing
those things humanizes and personalizes
your business it makes it more
transparent it makes people more willing
you know it's a truck when people want
to give you busy
it's a it's a trust relationship and
that personalization helps build that
trust that is uh just the idea of verbal
communication and Trust I mean a lot of
this class we talked about the trust
that nonverbals build but i think that
verbal communication is important in
that trust to especially with the
transition to online communication I
mean you made that transition relatively
early did you see a power shift in your
verbal communication did you have to
change the way that you communicated
that's an interesting question i
probably have but I don't think it's
been a conscious thing I think you learn
if you're a good communicator you um you
have to be somewhat consciously aware of
feedback but it needs to become part of
your natural skill set as well that you
just train yourself that you get
feedback I can maybe make an analogy to
something another quirky side thing that
I have obvious one of things I like to
do is I engage in competitive
storytelling here in Durham we have this
thing called the monte or people may
have heard of the moth which is much
larger nationwide they do splitter
called story slams so at a story slam
they announced the theme ahead of time
if you want to compete you come up with
a story you work it up it has to be five
minutes it has to be true and something
out of your real life and you put your
name and a half literally if they draw
your name you go up on stage and you
have five minutes to tell your story and
the audience members judge you and so
it's competitive but it's fun but what
I've learned through that that's and by
the way if I give a tip here to the
class if you have any opportunity to get
into an improv class to do that kind of
thing to do stand-up to do story slams
to do poetry slams to do anything where
you get in front of an of an interactive
audience that is extremely valuable
experience because there is nothing like
it in the world where as you're you know
there's one thing like you know for the
week ahead I'm telling the story 100
times in the mirror but when I get up
and fight of that audio
it all changes because the audience
interacts with the story they give
reactions to it you can kind of tell
what's working what's not working and
you find yourself adapting even as you
go so bringing that back to the bigger
picture I think you have to learn and
train yourself we think communicator we
too often think broadcaster big speaker
I've got my prepared thing I'm going to
give it out but the real world of
communication is always two ways and
again you know make reference to these
hangouts that we're doing right now
great great training tool for that
because it is interactive because you do
get response real-time and that can
train you to learn to listen to that
valuable feedback and adapt to it
absolutely absolutely oh yeah they they
just recently finished their informative
speeches so i think i think we recently
learned the difference between
practicing in our rooms and doing it in
front of it in front of an audience yeah
yeah luckily luckily it's a smaller
class so it makes a little bit easier
for them um okay at least if you do you
want to ask your question oh I'm Mickey
commands in my classroom my last the
difference okay um so I know how is ok
you said you started like with this
really early and obviously Internet has
and whatever has changed from them to
now how has that made you change the
sides communication because I know you
just said you kind of just have to work
with it your communication skills but
how else is that changing made you
change that make sense hmm that's
interesting question Lisa how's it made
how's it made me change I suppose it has
because when you're thinking about this
when this is your job as it is for me
where you have to communicate as part of
your work and you have to do it every
day and regularly you begin to I think
see that in all of your life and you
begin to think about it and be more
conscious and aware of being a better communicator
