Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to On Purpose with Paul Peters. Today we're uncovering the passions, principles and divine guidance that leads to a meaningful life. You're watching now, media.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Welcome to On Purpose. I am Paul Peters, your host. We are here today to interview Scott Shuford. I want to start off first by saying purpose isn't just what we believe. It's how we show up, communicate and connect. Today, on Purpose, we're talking about faith influence, reaching people in ways that actually make matter. And we're going to start off with the first section is purpose before platform. Scott, welcome to the show.
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Hey, thank you so much for having me.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: I so appreciate. We talked briefly before the show started about the importance of purpose. Tell our audience a little bit one about who you are and the company that you have and why purpose is so important for you.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So my company, Frontgate Media, is a specialized agency that focuses on delivering the Christian audience to for profit and nonprofit organizations.
And so we're very much tied in with purpose.
It's critical part of what we do.
When I was forming the company, now It'll be, it's 25 years this year.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Congratulations.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: I was trying to figure out how to put together something that could serve the wider audience that I had worked with when I started out in the music world.
And I ended up adopting the ethnic agency model. And in that model, even though the Christian world and the family community is not an ethnicity, it is a group.
So we figured out, you know, early on that we had the idea that we could potentially treat it the same way, use the ethnic model where we would specialize in the audience instead of specializing in serving particular industries, which is the way most agencies work.
And you know, here we are 25 years later and that idea didn't suck.
We're still here serving you on a mission to help these Christian and family friendly companies to connect to the many different parts of the Christian audience that is available.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to ask you some questions. I was thinking about this as I'm getting ready, especially in light of, and I know like you, many of us, the whole super bowl and the importance of what was portrayed in that. And it's interesting. I want to kind of talk about the importance of faith one in your life and how you then incorporated that into your business and why faith is so important, especially as in from my viewpoint, right. We're in a cultural war right now. And so how, why does faith and what impact has it made on you in regards to what you're trying to do with your business and helping other people
[00:02:54] Speaker C: yeah, so, so my, my faith integrated very early. I was trying to think back to when I first started. You know, from seventh grade on, I was a straight A student in school. And so I went all the way through your seventh grade, eighth grade, high school, college.
Graduated college as the outstanding male graduate of the school of Business at San Jose State in 1989.
And in my last half of my college career, you know, I finally had to pick where I wanted to go work. I was a business major. And you know, unlike a lot of other majors, you don't get out and just go do business. You have to pick an area to do it in.
And so I had worked long and hard at mastering the school environment, the school career, if you will.
And so I really started looking at, well, where am I going to employ all this? And I was, you know, a combination of lucky and blessed that I realized, well, I, I've got to pursue my passion, not just my talent.
And you know, there's a lot of people that are good at things and, and, and most of the time their relatives, their school counselors, whatever kind of point them toward what they're good at and don't really ask them what they're passionate about.
But I had the, the blessing of being able to kind of walk into it thinking, well, now that I've worked so hard, I've earned the right to do something I want to do, not just something I'm good at.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:31] Speaker C: And so as I came out of college, I knew very clearly that I where I wanted to go. And I felt also called to go to work in what I call the three M's. At that time, it was music industry marketing, which was my major, and then some form of ministry.
So I pursued the 3Ms. Kind of straight out of college, and it took me about a year after I graduated to land a job at a Christian music label in Southern California. And I loaded up the truck and, and drove the 300 miles from the San Francisco area down to the Orange county area. And I've been here almost the entire time since.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: That's amazing. So talk about it. You, you linked onto something that I talk about in my books about passion as it relates to purpose there. Like you said, a lot of people will go to school, they're, they'll get involved in a career or get a degree in something, but they're not necessarily passionate because something else may be driving them. Mom or dad said, go do this, or it's a family business. Why is passion so important to the element of career purpose in Regards to fulfillment.
[00:05:48] Speaker C: Well, yeah, passion makes work, not work.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:05:52] Speaker C: Right. It's, it becomes your life. It's part of your life. It's integrated into your life. It's not something you're drudging your way through.
It's something that you enjoy, that you want to be involved with. You know, there's a lot of unhappy doctors and lawyers out there, right. They've been very successful, but you really didn't, you know, light their fire.
So, you know, without the passion component, you know, it really can become a drudgery, you know, to go through your work life. Right. If you, if you're not passionate about what you're doing, you're just showing up every day.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:06:30] Speaker C: it does, it know, even when you show up every day and you have passion, it, it can be a drudgery sometimes.
So
[00:06:36] Speaker B: yeah,
[00:06:37] Speaker C: you know how much better quality of life is there when you can merge together your passion with your talents and skills.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: So let me ask you this because you also brought up an interesting element and I think about what Christ said, that when he washed the disciples feet. It all comes down to service.
Help the help my audience understand you are good at this and you're passionate about it, but then you tie it to service. Why is service or ministry so important to a career and finding your purpose?
[00:07:13] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, I got, you know, when you come out of college with a marketing degree, the first place you go is sales.
Every company doesn't matter who they are, they're going to put you in sales as a way to learn their business. And so in the sales environment, you, you tend to kind of go one of two ways. You either become a selfish manipulator, right? You can do sales and manipulate people into closing deals or you become about service and finding out what that client needs, what they're trying to achieve, and then helping them to move forward in that, you know, learning curve, that life cycle for whatever it is that they're trying to do, whether it's a non profit charity that's got a mission or it's a for profit company that's, you know, promoting a product, you know, whatever, you know, so, so I of course ended up, because of my background, I ended up adopting that service mentality and really, you know, service becomes a lifestyle.
Right. It's a way you approach life, not just business. But if that's your foundational direction, if you're not doing it purely selfishly, then your service integrates into your entire life and of course it should spill into your business.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Correct. I was thinking About a quote. I'm not sure if you've ever seen the movie Chariots of Fire. I would imagine you have. It was an Academy Award winning.
[00:08:42] Speaker C: Absolutely. A long time ago. I saw it. But yes, and
[00:08:45] Speaker B: I was thinking about it year this. This morning, the runner, Eric Little, if you know the story, basically, he was supposed to run his main event and they moved it to a Sunday because of his Christian principles. He said, I can't do that. So he ended up running a different race and. Which was not his specialty, and he ended up winning that race. And he had a famous quote that says, I know God created me for a purpose, but he always also created me to run fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure. And there's such a direct link not only to that quote, but I think the missing element for people, and I think you are living it in regards to, you found something you're passionate about. You also found something that you're good at and you're connecting it to service. So talk to the audience about what the fit, what that brought for you, because, yeah, I'm sure it brought you some money, but there's so much more that you get from what you get to do every day.
[00:09:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it really. It really makes me more of a partner with our clients than a vendor, if you will.
So, you know, part of my gifting, part of my talent, you know, that. That I was born with, is I'm a dot connector. And I've always connected the dots between people and people and between people and ideas.
So.
So for me, you know, I get to come alongside my clients, and you really get in their head, equip them to do the things that they're feeling called to do. You know, it kind of makes me like, I always felt like I'm a great advisor to kings.
I'm the guy that stands behind the throne and whispers in somebody's ear.
I'm not the guy sitting in the throne. So, you know, that, that has always kind of been the case for me. I never felt like I'm that charismatic leader that's supposed to be in front of everybody and blah, blah, blah.
I've always been a solid, you know, dependable advisor, if you will. And so that being able to come alongside.
Well, and this is kind of a funny story. So when I first started this business, I had a partner and I. I had already understood this model in my mind that, yeah, I'm not really. I'm the magnifier, I'm the advisor. I'm not the. The Charismatic leader. And so I originally viewed it as I was the advisor to a king.
And eventually my partner's life situation changed and he decided to leave. And I had to decide am I going to continue with the business? Because I was really magnifying the business for him. He was the charismatic leader.
And so I had an epiphany as I was really kind of thinking and praying through what to do with the business. And I realized that I was an advisor to kings, not to one king.
And so the clients became that role.
I re understood my purpose, that I was to advise the clients and that it wasn't about my partner. And so I ended up, of course keeping the business. And we've molded and morphed over the, you know, now 25 years that this business has existed.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:08] Speaker C: So we're not doing exactly the same thing I did when I started, although some of it we are.
So, so, but that was a big epiphany for me. It was realizing that, you know, my clients are my kings and that's who I'm serving. So
[00:12:21] Speaker B: that
[00:12:22] Speaker C: that sense of servanthood or, or I really.
Stewardship is one of our core values. You don't hear the word steward stewardship very often.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:32] Speaker C: In American culture. But I feel this obligation to, of ownership to help these clients move forward that goes beyond just, you know, checking a box on providing a service.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: I love it. We're going to talk more after these breaks.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Right back with more stories and insights to help you discover your calling and live with purpose. This is On Purpose with Paul Peters on NOW Media Television.
Paul Peters and you're watching On Purpose with Paul Peters on NOW Media Television. Let's continue the journey towards your best life.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Welcome back to On Purpose. I'm Paul Peters, your host. We are here with Scott Shupert and talking about what he does career working with Frontgate Media and how he basically focuses on the faith market and working with companies that are faith based. So let's kind of talk about that.
I know from your upbringing, things you shared on the last episode, tell us a little bit more about how you got involved in really that being your target market and why.
[00:13:35] Speaker C: Yeah. So you know, I think I mentioned earlier that I as I came out of college I felt that there was a calling in addition to just the purpose to serve in a ministry way, in a ministry capacity. So coming out of college I worked in the Christian music industry and after about 10 years or so in that world, I did everything you could do. I started out in sales. I, I did marketing. We did distribution.
And then I ran one of the very first Christian music Internet sites. And about a year and a half later, that was merged into a NASDAQ company. And I started a secular marketing agency in that agency. Three years into that, I ended up seeing that my Christian market friends really needed a lot of help in this area of advertising and marketing, especially with integrating in this kind of new thing called the Internet that was, you know, brand spanking new.
And what are they supposed to do with these text emails they're getting now? And how are they supposed to have a website?
And. And so, you know, I ended up forming the, the company around how to serve that audience as we were adopting this new technology. So we did everything. We did radio and print and event advertising and marketing, sponsorships, but we also did the Internet. And we were one of the few companies out there at the time that had any background or experience in how to use, utilize the Internet in a marketing way.
And so when we dove in, we dove all the way in. And we've just been adding and adding as new things develop. So part of the paradigm of the ethnic agency model, where you're focusing on a group instead of on serving just a few key industries, is that you have to own your audience. Yeah. So when people want to reach the Christian market or the broader, you know, Christian and family friendly market, or they want to go narrower to just Catholics or just Protestants or just the military world or the conservative political audience, whatever, depending on where they want to go, you know, we tailor everything for that specific situation. And we have to be able to handle pr, we have to have to be able to handle advertising and marketing, we have to be able to handle social.
You know, nobody's going to want to hire us to do as a specialist in that market space and then go hire a different firm from PR or a different firm for social marketing. So we really do have to own our audience. And as a result, we do everything you have to do to reach our crowd. And as technology keeps innovating, we keep doing more things.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Gotcha. So let me ask you, so why do so many messages fail to connect even when intentions are good? Because your focus is on the, typically the, the, the Christ message, the church message. And so going back to my original question, we were talking about the Super Bowl. Very interesting from a standpoint, is the halftime show is probably one of the most watched shows. And it's very specific because it's focused on the family and with your message in, you know, multimedia and marketing.
And there is such a divide right now how do you get the message? Like, for example, if I was going to work with you, and my message is pretty much very Christ centered, but I'm also very open because I, I run with the philosophy we are to be disciples and disciple other people and, and you've got to be able to share that message. What message? And I'm going a little bit off the question, but what message would you give? Knowing we're heading into a political season, we've got a cultural divide going on, how do you communicate the message? And I want you to really to kind of promote what you do because people are watching the show, they're like, well, why should I, why should I reach out to Scott? And because ultimately they want to make sure you're giving them the best message so that they, people will turn to them for their products or services. So I don't know if I need to rephrase the question, but you're.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: No, I totally understand. That's great. Yeah, it's. This is actually a very common question we get, especially because we work in a world that wants to take its message beyond the gates of the existing community. Right.
So, you know, it's an unusual situation because, you know, only in faith environments do you, you really want your message to reach people that don't agree with you. Right. Or that don't know you or don't know what you're talking about. In most advertising and marketing, you're going to reach out to an audience that is predisposed to be interested in you. Right. They have that need already.
So what I tell clients who ask me this type of thing because we work with a lot of different types of companies. There's actually eight different industries we work with and in particularly in the product industries, like, let's look at books, for example, because everybody deals with books. We got physical books, we got Kindle books, but audiobooks, books are around. Right. Everybody knows about book marketing and a lot of books are written so that you can. They want to put forth a position for other people to look at if it's a nonfiction book.
So, so what I tell you know, our clients is you can have a goal to, to reach really broadly, but you need to do different campaigns to reach different audiences within that broad reach.
So you can't use the same message for a diverse audience. You really have to target. So if you want to appeal to people who are maybe faith friendly but aren't, you know, in, in the community yet, then you have to have message A. But if you want to appeal to People who are already, you know, active Christian lifestyle leaders.
Then you need a completely different message because you can't go to the, to the non believer or to the faith friendly person and pitch them the same way you would pitch somebody who goes to church every Sunday, goes to midweek on Wednesday, you know, is maybe volunteering in their community for community service opportunities.
You can't really appeal to the, to them, to both of those buyers, those consumers at the same time with the same message.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:33] Speaker C: So it's really about dividing it up. You have to decide what are your target audiences that you want to convert and then you need to design a specific outreach and message to each of those audiences.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: Well, it's interesting is when you look at what happened at the super bowl, you had a alternate halftime show primarily because they were marketing towards an audience like you that they knew that they would get people to, to turn to over 6 million, if not more as an alternate. So it's very interesting from a standpoint of a marketing perspective, I don't really know where it's going to go, but from a standpoint of decision making and when I think about like the Christian message in the Christian faith, when you're marketing, it's not necessarily for sales or service because the call call to be a Christ follower is a call of sacrifice. But, and it's interesting, the field I'm in is mental health. It's the alternate way that truly brings joy and happiness to a life. And so what is the greatest thrill you have in regards to sharing a message or helping people share their message that ultimately, yes, it will build sales, yes, it will build services, but it really has everything to do with transforming lives. So talk about what that brings to you from a standpoint of what you do. Serving the kings, as you said.
[00:21:50] Speaker C: Yeah. And so there's, boy, there's so many different stories that are coming to mind for that.
Because, you know, let me give one example. That's maybe not the example you would think I would give.
For me, probably my greatest Joy in the 25 years I've been doing this comes from being able to be hands and feet on the ground serving versus more of an evangelistic, or at least a philosophically evangelistic presentation. We do a lot of that. But you know, one of the things I've, I really felt satisfied to be able to serve in.
We do a fair amount of work with non profits. And in particular, for a number of years we were World Vision's number one E media partner.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:47] Speaker C: And so, you know, World Vision, of course Compassion International, Advancing Native Missions. There's a lot of different organizations that are kind of world relief type organizations. And so with World Vision, there was a particular season where we worked very closely for several years developing an entire marketing system to help them. And our primary work for them was on child sponsorship. But when there was a worldwide disaster incident, we also were very, very involved. So you might remember that one Christmas, I don't remember the year anymore, but there was a tsunami that hit in, you know, the Asian part of the world.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:23:37] Speaker C: India and Asia. And so I was on, you know, Christmas vacation and I saw on the news that the tsunami had hit. And I, I thought to myself, I'm going to get a call from John at World Vision anytime now. And sure enough, you know, within a few hours, I got a call from John and he said, I realize it's Christmas, but we're mobilizing the whole team. You know, we will be in the office within 24 hours and we want to execute a campaign within 48 hours.
So whoever you can muster, you know, bring them to the table, whatever it is, you know, we're going to do it. We will have messaging ready in 48 hours. And so, you know, I popped up the laptop, started reaching out to our community that we had developed around serving World Vision.
And, you know, within 48 hours, we were driving donations for tangible relief for the tsunami victims.
And I reflected on that afterwards and I thought, that's probably one of the most valuable things I'm ever going to do in my life.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that
[00:24:52] Speaker C: that we were able to contribute help within 48 hours for a massive disaster, you know, that was affecting the world.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna talk a little bit more about this after the break. We'll be right back.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Right back with more stories and insights to help you discover your calling and live with purpose. This is On Purpose with Paul Peters on NOW Media Television.
And Paul Peters. And you're watching On Purpose with Paul Peters on NOW Media Television. Let's continue the journey towards your best life.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Welcome back to On Purpose. I'm your host, Paul Peters. We are here with Scott Shford with Frontgate Media. So, Scott, as we left off last week, you were telling a pretty compelling story and I do remember that I believe it was in Thailand where that tsunami hit. And you were able to work with the, the organizers of World Vision to get that message out, to be able to make a difference. And before we started this segment, we were talking about back in 2000 plus years ago when the whole whole message of Christ came about. They didn't have multimedia, they didn't have Internet, they didn't have phones, they didn't have any of that. And here we are 2000 years later, and the message of Christ, the impact of morality and the life transformation that has occurred for those. I myself have a testimony. I know that you do. You work with organizations that really want to express their message. So talk about the impact of a message. And in 20, 2500 years ago, when Christ was around, it was shared person to person through relationship, through connection. And that's really your giftedness. Because I want people to walk away from this to understand I may not have the message or know how to communicate that message, but Scott is my man and he's going to help me craft that message to make an impact in world vision case globally in a very quick time. Because the people who are working with you want to get the results because they have a powerful message, but they don't have the skills or the giftedness to be able to communicate that effectively. Talk about what you bring to the table. And I'm going back to what you said, and I love that you work for Kings. You're not the necessarily the front person on there. You're just using what they give you and creating it and crafting in a way that would help benefit and communicate their message.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, with each client, it's a completely unique situation. Even though there's similarities between clients, every client situation is very unique in their, their product or their service or their cause is unique. Their budget is unique, their giftings are unique. So, you know, our first step in talking to a client is trying to figure out first, what is their end game, what are they, what's their end goal they want to achieve. And then second, you know, what tools are in the tool shed for them that we can use to craft the right delivery, the right messaging that's going to create conversions for them. Whether that's a, you know, faith conversion or a sales conversion or whatever it is, a donation conversion or if we're just trying to get, you know, develop an audience for them to do lead generation so they can follow up and, and have somebody get to know them. So it's the first step is really trying to decide what is the end of the game and, and then what messaging do we need to appeal to the different audiences, or maybe it's just one audience.
And so then we'll, we'll typically, once we have that, we'll move into a kind of a testing phase to make sure. That what we all agreed seems like a good pathway forward is actually an effective pathway forward, which isn't always the case. We have to, we may all think we've got it right and then we have to refine it.
And once we, we, we unlock that door of what works, then we, you know, pour fuel on the fire. So really it's all about figuring out where we're going to start from, where we want to end at. And then once we have determined the roadway, you know, we'll, we'll bounce down the road initially, but once we've got it smoothed out, then we want to light the fire and really, you know, burn up the road and it really becomes kind of a long tail situation. You want, we want to look at the long haul. And, and what, how can we help that client move forward in their life cycle or in their learning curve over the long period of time? Rather than just doing a, you know, one in, one out, we came in, we did something, we were done, you know, which we talked about. Super bowl, as we've been having this conversation, you know, and a lot of companies, obviously super bowl ads are a big deal and there's a lot of companies that like the, probably the best example are the beer companies.
They're, they've been at the super bowl longer than I can remember. But there's also a lot of companies that dip in, do one spot and dip right back out. And I'm not a, I'm not a giant believer in the one in, one out. We really try to look at it for the long haul and how can we continue to build something for that client over time rather than just do a, you know, throw this again against the wall and see what happens and then dip back out.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm old enough to remember. I don't know if they still do use as a role that ads, but GoDaddy was a huge hit. They primarily use some other marketing ploys to get people, but a lot of people, because of that use that. So it's very effective. I would like you to, for those people that are considering you and reaching out to your company, can you walk through one or two stories of what that look like? Somebody makes that initial call, you can use the, you can use a, a multimedia company. I'm not real sure all the companies you work for. I did see that you had IHOP and some other organizations. So what would somebody need to do in regards to utilizing your services and what successes have you had to communicate that message?
[00:31:13] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, I'll Give you a couple. So one, one that was in the last or relatively recently, you know, we got a call kind of out of the blue from Simon and Schuster Publishing. And we do a lot of book publishing marketing. There's a lot of book marketing going on because there's a whole subsection of the book world that writes nonfiction, you know, faith based Christian books, and then there's a lot of fiction as well. So.
But in this case we got a call from Simon and Schuster proper, not a faith based sub imprint of the, of the publisher. And in speaking with their VP of marketing, he said, well, we've got this autobiography of the former Vice president Mike Pence.
And so we know that with his faith background, it's an important area for us. That's one of the audiences we want to reach out to.
And so of course I was excited to have that opportunity.
I really enjoyed the work that Vice President Pence did while he was in office.
And so having the opportunity to serve him, you know, through the publisher, I thought I was super, super excited about.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: That's
[00:32:32] Speaker C: awesome.
And so when they came in, you know, we were able to put together a really innovative campaign through social media.
Initially we had planned to do Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, but you know, at that period of time, Facebook was still under the direction of instructions from the Biden administration to dampen anything that was conservative. So Facebook played around with us for a month before they approved the ad.
And meanwhile on Twitter, we didn't have any of that kind of impediment. So we shifted our budget largely away from Facebook's world, the metal world, and put it into Twitter. And, and we also went to our standard, if you will, Christian market outlets. We have a ton of direct email, online websites, mobile apps, et cetera, et cetera. So we were able to put together a really comprehensive campaign within what's considered the niche that we're in.
And it was able to go not just to the, the core faith based audience, Christian consumer audience, but also to the broader conservative audience.
And we, we were kind of the ace in the hole for him because they were already doing what they would do for a Norman Normal Simon and Schuster major release.
But a lot of the, the major publishers, they don't realize that if you could combine someone's faith with their purchasing decision, faith is a very strong emotional selling proposition.
And so if you can connect that passion of their faith with your product or your cause, in this case, you had passion from faith standpoint because of Mike's background. You had passion from a political Standpoint and then you just have people that were interested in, you know, in the, the former Vice president. So it was, it was a great, you know, tag team approach, I think. And we were able to do so well that you know, we were brought in on several other titles later that are. You would be considered secular market titles in that they're not written specifically for the Christian world.
And you know, we, we're happy to serve. It was great. Really, really, really enjoyed that opportunity.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Do you see and I almost want to call it the Charlie Kirk effect.
Do you see and also kind of the wave of the, the oppression or where you were shutting down large audiences on a regards to majority who are moral voters for the previous administration.
Do you see that slingshot? And I, I would say yes, because of the current president that's in, in position.
Do you see that continuing in that direction? I mean I'm, as we go into the election season, I know that there's, right now there's a struggle and I talked about a cultural divide, but do you see that the more people are more open about talking about faith and promoting that.
[00:35:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it's, you know, the, the, we're technically from where we're where I sit. We're an apolitical organization, although we do work a lot in the conservative world because it overlaps so dramatically with a lot of the Christian world. But it's not exclusive by any means. And really what happens is the political pendulum swings back and forth and the companies, the causes, the product folks, they don't really swing back and forth with the pendulum. There's times that, you know, things are more open and there's times that things are more close but you know, their mission stays the same and it doesn't matter what, what four year or eight year period we're in politically.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:46] Speaker C: So, you know, with regard to the Charlie Kirk moment. Yes, that was a galvanizing moment. It was, you know, there was a lot of, of feeling in the faith community that that was a, a Martin Luther King moment.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:04] Speaker C: Or a, you know, a President Kennedy moment. It was a moment and that, you know, that there was a lot of rejection by the non faith community that. Well, you, you can't say that, you know. Yeah, but it is, it's very clear that, you know, that that was a, a moment that we're going to look back and see. That was a catalytic moment.
[00:37:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:27] Speaker C: You know, in a series of catalytic moments. So you know, right now, yes, there is, we are polarized, but there is a youth culture coming up that is Rejecting the polarization.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm going to talk about that in the next segment. We'll be right back.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Right back with more stories and insights to help you discover your calling and live with purpose. This is On Purpose with Paul Peters on NOW Media Television.
I'm Paul Peters and you're watching On Purpose with Paul Peters on NOW Media Television. Let's continue the journey towards your best life.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: Welcome back to On Purpose. I am Paul Peters, your host. I'm here with Scott Shuford with Frontgate Media. We are talking about what he does in regards to promoting primarily organizations that are promoting a Christian message. And one of the things we've been talking about is you've got a change in the youth right now. Call them Gen Z. I've got three myself. I think you might have one as well, Scott. And they're deciding for themselves. They're no longer accepting what's been promoted. And off air we were talking about how the media, really conservative and liberal, have really kind of crafted their message in order to reinforce. One of the things I was talking with the cab driver on the way up here is social media has algorithms that will basically monitor your social media and feed you what you want to hear, which is okay and not okay, but you are the crafter of a message. And one of the things that we talked about is people are looking for truth. They don't want to be told what to do because they, they no longer are we robots or zombies because they have consequences. And I think people are seeing the natural consequences of some of the lies that have been portrayed by the media and ultimately the impact is going to have on our society and culture. We talked about at the close, the last segment about Charlie Kirk, we have people openly assassinating or feeling like that's okay because I disagree with you and I'm going to shut you down. That is not okay. And that's when a society has to make some key changes. So talk to the audience about how you and I know you're contracted by, by organizations to craft that mess message, but you as a believer, you also have to be a man of integrity. And we've talked about integrity and the importance of that in regards to alignment, in regards to making sure you're being consistent with your message. How do you balance what is being asked of you to make sure the message that you're crafting for them because your name's on it is something of truth, something of integrity. So you could, can you talk about that?
[00:40:06] Speaker C: Yeah. So you know, in our current age where traditional Media is really entertainment and not media. We don't have news anymore. We have what would be news entertainment. And it's designed to provoke a reaction, not to give you information.
And so, you know, with that, that has, and the social algorithms have contributed to just creating this massive polarization that we're seeing today.
And so, you know, the, we have an entire youth culture who is rejecting all of that. They're not interested. They don't tune into any media and they're pursuing particular, maybe non biased influencers or non biased news sources.
And with our clients, what we're trying to help them realize is you are your own media outlet, so you need to develop your own audience.
And we spend a lot of time and effort for our clients building their own followings so that there isn't a filter in between.
You know, we want them to be able to take their message direct to their audience and we'll equip them with the infrastructure to do that through their social pages, through their email newsletter, through their, through their text systems so that they control their message entirely. And they're not dependent on how, you know, how msnbc, CNBC or FOX are going to report on them. Not that, you know, getting reporting help isn't good. I, you know, I'm, I'm happy, I'm happy when our clients are picked up for any of the big, you know, traditional media outlets. But at the end of the day they're going to filter that message for their purpose. And we want our clients to have a big enough audience that, that they can control their own message.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's interesting, I can't remember his last name, but he is one of the contributors on CNN on those panels and he's like the lone conservative. And it's interesting because we were talking about, you know, previous administrations have suppressed, suppressed the voice of the alternate voice, which is very dangerous because it, it very similar to what happened in Nazi Germany. And what you do is you provide. And same thing with the studio here. I love what Jeff does here because he gives the opportunity for people to share. For me, it's about helping people find their purpose and you give that opportunity for a lot of folks to communicate their message. And now we have more messages going out specific to what's important to you or important to me. So talk about what you offer for people because it's no longer CBS or NBC. I mean, you have outlets that are now communicating their message. Interesting. Newsmax and some others that were more conservative came out of the suppression of some of these other medias and that was Facebook was doing and some of the other social media. So talk about what you provide for folks that gives them that voice.
[00:43:15] Speaker C: Yeah, well, and you know, the challenge if you're in the marketing world is that marketing and technology keep evolving, but nothing really goes away. So, you know, we don't, we don't see a lot of magazines anymore, but there still are magazines.
In fact, our friends at LA Style were doing a special the new Jesus Revolution issue for a print magazine and again, a secular magazine. And these are younger. This is a younger couple that runs that publication. Yeah.
So there's, you know, when we come alongside of a client, we really try to examine are the, are they going to be a good fit for our influencers? You know, we work with a list, celebrity influencers, we work with, you know, smaller, what I would call middle tier influencers. Are they going to be good for that? Are they going to be good for direct email ads? You know, we have 30 million plus emails that we can reach out to through multiple different media outlets and what have you. Some of those are probably going to be good.
You know, do they need PR work? You know, do we pitch them as a guest?
Are they good for general pr? Do they have, you know, potential to be interviewed on, on radio, Christian radio or on Christian television, in digital publications, etc? Or maybe they just are going to be a great potential podcast guest and we should do a podcast tour.
So there's, there are so many different things we do. I would say there's probably more than 150 different marketing tactics that we employ.
And the key for us is to understand that customer, that client and then fit them to the right tactics based on what they're trying to achieve.
And it's, you know, it takes a lot of work because there's so many choices that, you know, if we were to put all 150 choices in front of a client, they'd be overwhelmed and they get paralyzed. They wouldn't know where to go.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: Yeah, so you've been doing this for 25 years and I just want to tell the audience I'm going to be contacting you because I'm not only an author, I'm a speaker. I have my own TV show. I have a nonprofit foundation. And the first thing I'm thinking, I have a message. Just like, you know, the people that work with you have a message. How do I get that message out? And so I would just really encourage the audience. We're going to give Scott an opportunity to provide his website and information.
You know, it's very exciting what you're doing. And I. I'm so excited because you're allowing people an opportunity to put their message out. And I want to go back to something you said, I think, in the first segment, because, and I don't know if you've heard of the book who, not how. It's. It's book written by a gentleman, basically talks about focus on what you're gifted at and the things that you are not gifted at. Hire that person and they will make you bigger, better, and faster. And so one of the interesting things is, and I want to go back because I want to make sure in the last couple minutes is you meet with an organization and then kind of walk through in the next couple of minutes how you are able to identify their mission and then take them to the next level by them focusing on, you're a writer. Be a writer, don't try to be an electrician. Can you kind of talk about that in the last few minutes?
[00:46:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, after 25 years, it's become very simple for me.
I literally just ask, who do you want to reach and when do you want to reach them?
[00:46:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:46:43] Speaker C: And then I let them talk about their thing, whatever that is. Right.
And that will give me all the information that I need.
You know, it's. It really boils down to who is. Who am I going to go after for the target audience.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:58] Speaker C: And you know, what time of year is it?
Because that has an effect on which, you know, what media we're going to bring to the table. So from there, once I know who they want to reach and when they want to reach them, we kind of go hide in our little man cave. Right. And we put together a marketing menu for them that has more things than they would want to do. Right. It's like walking into Del Taco. If you walk into Del Taco, you don't order the whole menu, but it's nice to see all your choices.
So we create a very targeted, tailored, customized marketing menu that could have PR opportunities, could have social media marketing opportunities, could have, you know, traditional advertising opportunities across radio and digital and print and television. And out of home, we do billboard advertising. So, I mean, there's everything. We will narrow it down to maybe the five to 10 key things that we think would be most effective for that client.
Then we send it out to them, let them get an initial look at it, then we'll answer all their questions. Kind of walk through, know you're looking at the menu now, what are you interested in eating right. What are, which of these things are you most interested in? And a lot of times, you know, they are interested in our podcast tour service or they, they want to develop their. Their own following. So we're going to do harvesting out of the different social platforms, whether it's the big ones, like you know, the meta world with Facebook and Instagram, or. Or maybe we're harvesting people out of LinkedIn from our B2B client. Or maybe we're harvesting people off a rumble and Truth Social because it's a conservative client.
So we, we get very specific, but we start with those kind of two simple questions and from there we're able to lay out a roadmap that the client can understand and pick the things they're most passionate about.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: I love that. In the last closing minute, I want you to go ahead and share a little bit information about your website so how people can reach you. I know that I will be reaching out because the more we focus on that, which we're not good at, the more it complicates things and let Scott do what he's good at.
He's been very successful with a lot of organizations. I would encourage you to reach out to him, but if you could give that information to the audience.
[00:49:21] Speaker C: Yeah. So our website is a great place to start. It's frontgate media.com we have a. I'd say about 70% of what we do is at least listed there.
But if you fill out the contact form on that site, it gets you set up for a phone call. And that's really where we dig in deep with you to understand your situation. So the website is really the best opportunity.
But we are also available on all of the social platforms. If you look up Frontgate Media, you'll find us on. And also on YouTube, which technically is a video sharing platform, not a social platform, but same idea. So, yeah, really, the website is the best doorway to walk in.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: Okay. Scott, it's truly been a pleasure. Thank you so much. And thank you for joining us on. On purpose.
[00:50:13] Speaker C: Thank you for having me. Super good conversation.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Appreciate.
