In this episode of the B2B Brand180 podcast, Linda speaks with Mike Thorne, Author and Growth Mentor who specializes in transformational leadership, about building your leadership brand.
They discuss the impact of trusted communities and cultures of inclusion, how to connect a personal mission to an organizational mission, the importance of developing trust and the value of asking for help. They also talk about Mike’s book, Hustle with Heart, unlocking Self-Worth Through Personal Trust Communities.
You can learn more about Mike at the following links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelbthorne/
https://mikethorne.co
https://www.amazon.com/Hustle-Heart-Unlocking-Self-Worth-Communities/dp/1958729698
Thanks for listening to the B2B BRAND180 Strategy podcast with Linda Fanaras, CEO/Strategist at Millennium Agency.
Linda Fanaras:
If you want to transform your B2B marketing into a powerhouse brand, then you may want to listen in. And if you like what you heard today, click like, share, or subscribe. Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, CEO of Millennium Agency, and I’m your host today and excited to bring Mike Thorne, who specializes in facilitating transformations in leaders, and he accomplishes this by helping them create trusted communities and cultures of inclusion. And these communities and cultures help people feel inspired, increase their engagement, and improve their actual organizational performance on every level. And to add to it, Mike released a book called “Hustle With Heart: Unlocking Self-Worth Through Personal Trust Communities,” which we will also talk about today. So, let’s get to it. Hi Mike, welcome to the B2B Brand 180 podcast. Thanks for joining me today.
Mike Thorne:
Oh, thank you for having me, Linda. I’m excited to have some time to talk to you and your audience.
Linda Fanaras:
So, I’m looking forward to hearing a little bit about your business, some marketing insights and knowledge and how you actually do transform leaders. Why don’t I have you do a quick introduction, Mike. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Mike Thorne:
Sure. When I was nine years old, we lived in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, about an hour west of Boston, and my parents took me downstairs to our family room – the typical New England family room with the wood panels, the wood stove, the TV that doesn’t work very well, that has the tin foil to make sure you get channel 38 to watch the sports teams – and they sat me down and they looked at each other first, looked at me, and said, “Michael, we wanted you to know that you’re adopted and we love you very much.” And from that moment forward, it just shook my view of self-worth, and my view of what a family was, and it really catapulted me through my life, both personally and professionally in terms of always worrying about being abandoned and not trusting easily. And I think that has informed me in my business career in many ways. On the personal side, my wife and I have been married over 32 years. She’s my best friend. We’ve got three daughters, 31, 29, and 27. And as I went through my career, I started business and sales – business development sales – but it moved into the next phase, which was running businesses and the majority of them, if not all of them, were businesses that were mature, sort of stagnated business or looking for reimagination, some sort of transformation. So, I was brought in as the person to help rethink them. And the thing that I uncovered early on in my career, and I think it’s because of my own lived experience, is that the P&L that everybody worries about, the “profit and loss,” as critical as that is, the P&L that really matters is “people and listening.” And that was the gift that I had, the gift that I brought, and I’ve been learning that over the last 20 years of how to do it well, because that elevates the business and that’s where the work I do – transforming human beings and leaders.
Linda Fanaras:
Thank you for being so open about your story. I think that probably resonates with much of the audience. So, you had created a – wrote a book, basically, “Hustle With Heart: Unlocking Self-Worth Through Personal Trust Communities.” Taking a look at the books that you’ve written, maybe one over the other, “Hustle With Heart,” can you tell us a little bit about that book and how, how maybe the audience can find value with that particular story that you have?
Mike Thorne:
Yeah, first and foremost, it was expensive therapy. I’ll just leave… no I- the feedback I’ve gotten so far, the book’s only about three or four months, is that people assume because of looking, you could look at LinkedIn, just like people look at social media and you say, wow, this person’s just really successful. I could never do that. What they uncovered in reading it was that everybody’s challenged and has ups and downs in their life. And I have a process I put in the beginning, because I really believe everyone goes through this “Belonging, Building and Believing” phase and every transformation they make in life from elementary school, middle school, high school, college- I mean, you think about your own life. Every time you go into these new environments, you always ask yourself, “Do I belong?” And you have to build confidence. Then you have to believe you actually can be successful. I’ve even seen it within the Vistage work I do with CEOs who have run companies. They still, for the first time come into the environment and ask themselves, “Do I belong?” So, for anybody who’s out there thinking that it’s all these successful people have a straight line, and you think there’s no way I can do that. If you read the book, I think you’ll uncover many areas of my life where I fell down off the horse and had to get back up and reimagine how to go forward. So, I think those are the kind of people that might get value out of the book.
Linda Fanaras:
Okay. No, that sounds great. And I think, being an entrepreneur, you do, you have your successes and your failures, and I’m a firm believer that if you really do want to be an entrepreneur and a successful one, you have to be very persistent and determined and focused on your end goal. And I think, the title, “Hustle with Heart” really makes it seem like it’s, it’s about really following your heart, following what you believe in, and doing it with maybe a kind soul and some, or some, you know, or in some orderly fashion. What are some of the tips that are in that book that you think would help our audience today?
Mike Thorne:
Well, I think the first one is that we spend time, whether you’re an entrepreneur running a business or running a division of a company, or you have a group of people that work for you, I think the first thing is you have to really understand yourself. And so, the biggest message I would have out of this for the book and for the audience here, is just ask yourself, “Do I really know myself? Do I understand myself?” Too many times we’re building a business as an entrepreneur and we start getting two-thirds up the mountain, and then we try, run into all this, you know, whether it’s, whether it’s, uh, turbulence is probably the best word for whether it’s personal or professional turbulence. And when you’re ever that far up and you’re trying to resolve everything, there’s too much going on. You can’t think clearly. And so, I think you had to go back down the mountain and, and spend some time saying, “Who am I? What am I all about?” And some of you may say, “Oh, that’s the soft side of stuff. I don’t have time for all that stuff.” I’m telling you, the soft stuff is the hard stuff, and it’s going to help you grow through the things you’re going through when you do that. So, I just say, get back down the mountain and reconcile for who you are. And that’s what I had to go do. I was 40 years old. I was president of Russ Athletic, the pinnacle of my career as an athlete while I’m running the sports company. I was fired 15 months into the job and I thought, “Wow, what did I do wrong? I had all this great success.” Everything went really well, and I couldn’t accept the fact that I played a role in that. And so, for me, I had to go back down that mountain myself and start over again. And what I uncovered was a lot of painful truths. But from that point, now I’m 58. It really helped me understand how to go forward, leading people and leading a business and also a purposeful life going forward. And so, I think if you read this you’ll start to see elements of yourself, is what people have told me in there. And then it’s the question, “What are you gonna do about it?”
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah. And I think, um, what you’re saying makes complete sense when you run into struggles, you do have to look in the mirror sometimes and say, okay, like, “Where did I go wrong in this?” Or, you know, “What exactly happened and how can I change this next time for the better?” How do you expect somebody to go about that process? I mean, I think it, for a person, it requires a mature person to be able to take on that perspective and do some self-evaluation and determine what areas they should change. So how do you have a process that you would recommend?
Mike Thorne:
Yeah, there’s a workbook on my website that takes people through it, although I would say 80% of the people still want you to help them through it. But yes, there is. So, first and foremost is you’re spending time just assessing where you are personally, professionally, and health-wise, just doing a real assessment. For some people that’s taken a walk, taking notes, get a napkin out, whatever it is, take a rest. Everybody has their own way of sort of pausing. And I think once you sort of get, where am I personally, professionally and health-wise, on one side of the piece of paper, and then you go to the other side of the piece of paper and you just draw a box and say, “What is my North Star?” Like, what is it you really want to be? What are you trying to create for yourself? And I always say to people, you know you’re there when it is extremely exciting, but it scares the bejesus out of you, but it’s not, it’s not, uh, dangerous. You get that feeling in your stomach and say that’s what it is, but you’re so afraid to say it out loud. That’s the scary thing, but that’s where you really want to get to. When you create those two, where you are and where you want to get to, the concept of this personal trust community is there’s going to have to be people to help you get there. And I liken it to your wellbeing. And so, it’s, you know, who’s going to help you physically, because everyone knows the importance of being physically active. Intellectually, who are those people in your life or podcasts or books to keep you intellectually stimulated, emotionally, spiritually and socially? So, for example, I have someone who, Tim Dixon is a mental skills coach. He also played baseball at a high level. And Tim and I, whenever I’m having a rough go of it, I know emotionally, Tim’s the one person I can reach out to, and these people in this trust community are not people that judge you, so they may not be the people you might think of at first. These are the people that I would describe, they drop everything for you, even though you don’t see them doing it. They’re physically on the other end, dropping and saying, “Thorne needs help. Let me look at my calendar. When can we get together?” And you have these conversations with these people, and they’re there to support you, not judge you. And so, think of it like a trampoline, and these people are holding up the trampoline. You’re in the middle and you’re having a bad day. You’re heading off the edge and it can get dangerous. They just shift, and I know you can’t see this cause it’s just a verbal conversation, but the trampoline is moving, and these people move it all the time to keep you centered and support you, but they hold you accountable. It’s not just cheering you on. They hold you accountable. They’re moving with you, and that workbook will take you through that process of how to go do that with questions, to ask yourself to help navigate it. And clearly if you don’t feel comforting yourself, I’m happy to help people through it.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s, that’s fantastic. I know they say that it’s important to surround yourself with the people that you aspire to be like, at least the top five people you know, who do you look up to? You know, who brings positivity in your life, who supports you, and who makes you a better person and helps elevate you as an individual and a professional. So, that’s a great point. So, you call on him for guidance, it sounds like. Critical conversations, how do individuals determine who they should go to, who they should have those critical conversations with, and the process that may bring?
Mike Thorne:
So first and foremost, I did a Ted talk on this, and it was amazing to me what I learned, and that is the three most powerful words in life, besides I love you, are: “I need help.” And the majority of people are afraid to ask for help. And so, the first step is once you’ve identified, you know, kind of where you’re at and where you’re sitting, and then where you want to get to, you got to be clear because there’s nothing more frustrating than calling people and asking for help, and you’re all over the place. If you’ve ever experienced that, you can relate to it. So, get real clear, which means you got to wrestle that to the ground and get clarity with it. And then the first step is to think about people in your life that either you have a very close relationship with or someone you would like to. So, I’ll give an example. I have a, one of my, a CEO of mine, we were having this exact conversation. He was having a big issue in his business on something he wanted to launch, and he was not taking action on it. So, I went to this exercise with him and he said, “I know exactly who I should be calling. He’s my best friend from college. I’ve known him 40 years. We go out to dinner, we have drinks together, we laugh, share family stories, but I never ask him for help.” And I said, “Why is that?” And he said, “I’m afraid if I do, he is going to think less of me.” So again, people struggle with this self-worth. Despite all this success, this guy’s running a very successful company for many years. But he said, he’s the guy that could help me very much. He said, “How do I do it?” And I said, “Look, all you do is you pick up the phone, say, you know, ‘Bill, I could use some help. I need some help.'” And just walk them through what you’re trying to do. And the statistics will tell you that it’s a very, very high likelihood, almost 70% of the people are more than likely to help you because it energizes and lifts them up because they’re helping others. Where the majority of people think just the opposite, they’re gonna get ridiculed, they’re not going to have time for them. And so, they have this fearful perception of what’s really going to happen when in reality the opposite happens. And once you unlock that, that person’s there for you forever and you’re there for them. And that goes across all those, I call them pies, your physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual connections.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s great. Today there are so many emerging leaders coming up the ranks, young professionals, and there’s a mix of baby boomers and everybody in between. And I think it creates a generational gap between senior leaders and the organization. So how do you envision, individuals actually addressing the culture, making sure that it’s an open and transparent and communicative culture that actually moves the ball forward.
Mike Thorne:
Now that’s a great question. It’s a wrestling match. You look at all the efforts, especially coming through COVID, it was all around “We gotta build trust. We need diversity, inclusion and equity work.” And all- and then nothing transpires. And I believe it’s because the people are asking to go do that, the people in leadership positions, young, middle-aged or mature, I’ll call them, they have not wrestled themselves to the ground, so they’re typically going to go just gravitate to what they know versus actually implementing something. So, I go back, it’s just going back to- I’m making sure you’re clear with who you are and what values you have and what matters to you. If you, if you’re comfortable with that and you can be genuine about it, people will pick up on that and the way you go about building trust, this is my experience and I struggle with it because of my own abandonment issues, until I finally realized if you just meet people where they are and ask these things like, “Tell me your story.” If you don’t know these people very well, “Just tell me your story.” Because I believe the better you understand people, the more apt you will be able to work with them and help them. And we don’t spend time as leaders doing that. So, if you’re a young leader and you’re thinking about growing your business and you’re worried about all the profit loss, which is very important, making payroll and all that, you should. But if you want to be an outstanding leader and you want to lead, lead from a way of helping others and in support of others, you gotta really start to ask yourself, how well do I know the people that are working for me and how well do I understand what they’re going through? Because people are going through an awful lot. The second thing, people spend time at work today, besides doing their job, is hiding. A statistic. They’re hiding. And they’re hiding because they don’t believe they belong. They don’t know if they can do the work you’re asking them to go do. They’re not clear on what exactly they’re supposed to do. And just think about the lack of, uh, capacity you’re losing by not understanding that. So, I would go spend a lot of time just getting to know your people at a deeper level, but you gotta get yourself straightened out first. Otherwise, it’ll be disingenuous when you do.
Linda Fanaras:
Right, and I think leaders who are going to sort of engage in this, especially with the hybrid workforce today, it’s important that leaders do develop some sort of persona around them so they can brand themselves as a leader. So, whether it’s an empathetic leader or a diplomatic leader or whatever the case may be or what, what do they like? And I think it’s important to take a look at that in order to have some sort of a personal brand around someone’s leadership skills. Would you, do you have any comments on that?
Mike Thorne:
Yeah. Do you think about, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the saying, “The cobbler’s children have no shoes?” But- so you think about marketing, which is what you do all this work around, and we spend a lot of time, “Who’s your consumer? What’s the avatar? What’s the sales journey your consumer takes?” All this work we’re doing on behalf of who our, you know, outwardly consumer is, which obviously drives our business. It’s the same kind of dialogue you need to have with yourself and your employees that people just don’t do. We spend time trying to hire new people, which is a big- it’s a difficult challenge that I just ask people: “How much are you spending time ensuring you’re getting full capacity with people that work for you?”
Linda Fanaras:
Yep. No, that’s fantastic. Now, one of the points I wanted to make is when you’re building out these personal trust communities, you know, you talk about how life is a team sport, and I do like the concept, obviously you hear that every single day, but I do know that people, many people like to work solely alone, and they’re not that interested in a team sport. You always have those people who want to play individual sports versus team sports. How do you address that? How does, how does everybody actually achieve that?
Mike Thorne:
Yeah. So that statement of life as a team sport may not mean you’re actually on a team. So, for example, I was training for a half Ironman, which I thought, “My God, how am I gonna do this?” And I found a lady in New Hampshire, and she is highly skilled at this, and she became, so I’m training on my own. I was living by myself. I didn’t wanna be on a team. There were certainly teams I could have joined that do this stuff, like triathlon groups and all that. I wanna do it myself. So, to answer your question, there are times you’re gonna do that, but I still need somebody who has the expertise to make sure I’m doing all the right things and growing as I go through this journey. So, I think that’s another way to think about this idea of life as a team sport. And that is, if you’re working on your own or whatever, there’s still people in your life that need to keep you elevated. I, I don’t know how anybody can humanly go through their life by themselves and maximize their life experience and get joy out of it.
Linda Fanaras:
And I think every opportunity is a learning opportunity, so I think if people can look at, whether professionally or personally to, you know, take advantage of that thought process. So, are there any other key points you’d like to talk about regarding your books, either “Hustle with Heart” or “Unlocking Self-Worth?”
Mike Thorne:
I think the only thing, just to connect the dots, because I know the audience in here is, you know, small business and entrepreneurs and we’re trying to help them. This is the connection of this North Star, your personal North Star. For those of you that may be wrestling, it’s no different than in your organization. Because you’re an organization, you’re trying to find what is, what is your differentiating point? I’ve listened to some of the podcasts on here, and you talk a lot about how companies have to really understand who they are, what the white space is, how they differentiate themselves. It’s no different from us as humans. And I had somebody years ago say to me, “Mike, you need to stop trying to boil the ocean.” And I was trying to do so many things just like a business is. And I’ve heard you talk about this. You know, you try to be everything to everybody because we can do it all. And his point to me was, “No, find your white space, find your niche and just swim in it.” And when you do that, I think, I believe once you declare where you’re going in life, people just start showing up. And we’re also afraid. So, I would say if you’re connecting your personal trust community and your North Star with your business, it’s the same journey, it’s just that it’s you versus your company. But they’re interconnected. I think this idea of, uh, there’s a work and life balance, I think is BS. I think it’s about harmony. So, I would just have spent people spend a lot of time connecting what they do in their business with their own personal- and they probably will understand how to go at this very well. But again, the workbook is there if they need it as a support system.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah, I, no, no. And I do, I really like that a lot because if you think about as a leader, you have, frankly, a reputation and you have a persona and you want to leverage that, but it needs to be authentic. So, the more authentic it is, the more effective you will be as a leader and that completely makes sense to me. So that’s fantastic. Well, I do, I appreciate everything that you provided today. It was great insight. So let me take a minute right now and thank Mike Thorne, author of “Hustle With Heart: Unlocking Self-Worth Through Personal Trust Communities,” for all your insights on leadership and building communities and having those real conversations. I think it’s really important to have real conversations that are authentic and true and thank you so much for joining us today on Brand 180 podcast. And if you like what you heard, press like, share, or subscribe today.
Mike Thorne:
Thank you very much for having me.
Linda Fanaras, CEO/Strategist of Millennium Agency interviews Beverly Macy, the strategic advisor and bestselling author at UCLA Anderson School of Management, speaking on branding in transformational times, NFTs, and much more! Tune in to hear these industry leaders’ thoughts on maintaining and adjusting your strategies in these changing economies.
Linda Fanaras:
My name is Linda Fanaras and I am the CEO of Millennium Agency. We are a branding, messaging and marketing strategy firm. And we’re here today to talk to Beverly Macy. She is a strategic advisor, bestselling author at UCLA Anderson and Extension, and also a pro in the NFT and Web3 world. So today I, first of all, I want to thank Beverly for coming here today, appreciate your time. And if you want to take a minute and introduce yourself, we can get right into it.
Beverly Macy:
Thank you so much, Linda. It’s great to be here and I’m really looking forward to our conversation and yes, I teach brand management at UCLA, and I work with clients and I’m really looking forward to getting into our conversation.
Linda Fanaras:
Fantastic. All right. Well, Beverly, why don’t we just get started with a really key question that I think marketers are really thinking about and businesses are as well. So, we know because of COVID, there’s been a lot of changes. And from those changes, a lot of companies took a pause back. They just wanted to see what was going to happen and they seized a lot of their marketing efforts and strategy. Then we did some additional changes and, and things started to escalate and then they were increasing their budget. Now we’re seeing additional changes in the market and unsure about the economy. And I guess my question to you is how do you feel about that? Do you think that it could negatively or positively impact their business?
Beverly Macy:
It’s a great question. And I think it’s so timely. It’s what everybody is thinking about right now and scanning the landscape to try to see what the best things to do are. I focus a lot, for instance, on the entertainment space. And, obviously during the pandemic, everybody was on Netflix and on their streaming and it was hog wild. It was, it was great for a lot of certain brands because people were a captive audience. Now people are getting back out into “real life” and traveling and business, and so there’s a change in how to reach consumers, how to reach customers and what the messaging is. So, your question of, is it a negative or a positive? I think it kind of depends on the industry. You know, some industries are doing really, really well. Travel’s having a bounce back, they couldn’t be happier. People are moving around traveling on air and trains and cars and, the hospitality industry is up. Some other industries might not be faring as well. So I think it’s really a wait and see. We hear from some economists we’re in a recession, then we hear from other economists, well, this is temporary, it’s not like any other recession. So there’s a lot of uncertainty, which is not new. Obviously, we went through the pandemic years with a lot of uncertainty. And I think we’re kind of in a wait and see, as I said, that’s, that’s what I’m feeling and seeing mostly. Now, in terms of planning for 2023, obviously companies are putting budgets together now and you know, really thinking about what is coming and I think one of the encouraging things I think that’s happening is there’s a lot of dialogue with their consumers, with their target markets, really trying to understand what the consumer wants, what do they want, what do they want to hear from their favorite brands, from their trusted brands? You know? And I think that’s a positive. We talk a lot about listen to the customer. Sometimes we don’t really do that. And right now, I think we’re back to that, back to listen to the customer, what do they want to hear? Customers don’t want to be interrupted in their- with ads. That’s a given, but how do we reach them with messaging that resonates? So, I think it’s a great question.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s a great point because I do completely agree that I feel like individuals within the marketplace are taking in information differently than they used to take in the data before. And, I hate to say it this way, but sometimes people at this point want to be behind their computer and decide whether they want to read that email or look at that email marketing or check out some ads or do their research. So, it’s a little bit of a different strategy. We see a lot of companies going back to conferences and trade shows and trying to really interact with people one-on-one, which I think is vital to the long-term marketing strategy, especially in this day and age. You really can’t get rid of that one-to-one personalization and relationship that companies have. I think my one interesting observation over the years that you know, I’ve been doing this a while, is during any downtime the first knee-jerk reaction is for companies to really cut back on their marketing and time and time again, we find that that does not work. And I just wanted to get your thoughts and feedback on that.
Beverly Macy:
It’s so great. I should invite you to speak at my class at UCLA sometime because I say those exact words to my students. I say you ask almost any CEO on the planet. What’s one of the most important things in their overall picture, and they will say amongst a number of other things, branding and the importance of communicating with their consumer. And yet, what’s one of the first things that gets cut when there’s a upheaval or disruption? Branding and marketing. It’s just, it’s almost schizophrenic, you know? So it’s really interesting that that happens. But, really good strong brands and brands that are in development and to be strong brands, can stay the course. And that’s really, really important in terms of longevity and really maintaining brand loyalty and things like that. Talking about the travel industry, the airlines are really in a terrible branding situation. At least in the U.S., almost every U.S. airline has had some kind of negativity around the customer experience, the long lines, the, the experience on the plane itself. And, and yet, if you were advising, or if I were advising Delta or United or American, we would say stay the course. Make some adjustments, et cetera, but you’ve got to stay the course. So, it’s really a great question and a good observation.
Linda Fanaras:
It’s so interesting because I do know that cutting marketing budgets initially will benefit companies. They’ll give them that short term profit that they’re looking for, that feeling, “Oh, okay. Yes, we are saving money.” But in the long term, when they did the studies, they found that those who seized marketing and those who continued eventually would see like a 25% gap in sales. And you really don’t want to lose that. And during COVID we really, and I hate to use the word lectured, but we really did lecture our clients to keep the marketing going, keep the communication. Don’t go silent because you start to lose brand awareness and recognition, and then it takes a lot longer to come back in and really get a name for yourself. So, I love talking about that subject because I think it’s such an important subject and companies should definitely keep that in mind. Do you feel like this is a good time for companies to take a look at their, as the markets are transforming, how are they positioning themselves in the market? What’s their unique selling proposition, are they really differentiating themselves because there is a lot of clutter today. You’re looking at, oh, TikTok, or you’re looking at Instagram and you’re looking at email. There are so many vehicles where there never used to be so many vehicles. So, I’m just curious your thoughts on brand positioning and how serious should companies really take that?
Beverly Macy:
Again, such a great question. The brand positioning with all of the clutter. We’ve been talking about this for quite a while, but it’s never been more strident than it is right now and confusing to the consumer. And, you were mention- I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier about one-on-one conference going and event attendance. That’s all very true, but we are going see a hybrid model going forward of digital- people are still going to be on Zoom, they’re still going to be attending conferences via virtual means, and I think we’ll be seeing both, we’re seeing it in the work from home phenomenon right now that companies are really struggling to get people back in place. Even though we all said, oh, I can’t wait to be back with my peers. And now that the reality is here, so marketers have to tune into this. They have to tune into the fact that their digital presence is going to be as meaningful or as important as the other kinds of presence that they might have. And so, what does that mean? What, where is their consumer? We always say, go where the consumer is, right? Is the consumer on TikTok all the time? Well, in some industries, they are. Is the consumer still reading emails? Well, it depends on what industry you’re in, right? And who you’re trying to reach in that industry. Are they in Snapchat or TikTok or LinkedIn? Are they consuming news? How are they doing all of these different things? And then when they come home, do they turn all of it off and go straight to streaming or what? So what are the technographics? And if we understand that, then we can start to see from a branding standpoint where we need to be and with what messaging and what our position is in that space. So for instance, there’s a lot of social justice questions that are up for brands and some brands like Nike have taken the position of, we’re going to take a position. We’re going to have a position in social justice questions, on all, in all of our communication. Other brands are, are more neutral and step back and their position is different. So again, who are we speaking to? How are we speaking to them? And then what is the messaging and what is our position?
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah. And I do think as these markets continue to get cluttered, it is important for companies to really just put a stake in the ground and say, this is my position, this is who we are. And then you can connect your audience with that position because otherwise, to be everything to everyone can be very difficult to navigate in this type of market. So I think that’s an, that’s an interesting point. So thank you on that. You know, there’s, again, there’s so many changes. There’s a lot of new audiences out there and I always say, okay, what’s the “white space” in the market. And I know that you are working on a book right now called “From PCs to NFTs,” which I think is a fantastic title, because from my perspective, it used to be like from mainframes to PCs. So now we’re going from PCs to NFTs. So, can you talk a little bit about your book? And also, I, I had some questions around how that might be able to be utilized in the marketing space and really educate our audience today.
Beverly Macy:
Oh, certainly thank you so much for asking about that. And yes, I am working on a book “From PCs to NFTs,” which is really chronicling my own career and all the different things that I’ve seen in technology throughout the years. And starting with the advent, obviously mainframes, and then into PCs, and then we went to the dot com era, then we went to the social media era, and emerging technology is a passion for me, in addition to marketing and et cetera. In 2011, I wrote a book called “The Power of Real-Time Social Media Marketing,” and it was used as a textbook and also a book to educate primarily executives about what in the world was happening with social media. And this book is really along the same vein, it’s here is something new on the horizon, it’s far off in the horizon for many of us. A lot of people are like, “Please, I don’t want to think about any more, you know, any more new things it’s too much,” but NFTs, the metaverse, Web3 – these are bubbling up in conversation in different kinds of areas. And so, I really wanted to take the education stance, which is part of my own personal brand, and really get out there and start talking to businesses about what is NFT, what is Web3, and why should anybody pay attention to it from a business standpoint? And if you are paying attention to it, what does that mean for your brand? How do you enter into something new? Very much like early social media, should I be on Facebook? You know, I’m Toyota, should we be on Facebook? I mean, those were questions that were being asked. Now it seems like, well, duh, you know, all these years later, but at the time it was very, very dicey. Twitter seems scary. “Why should we be there?” type of thing. So, I’m working on that and really putting it out there and starting the dialogue, having conversation with brands that have been clients of mine and getting a feel for where they are. Also talking to, I have the pleasure of speaking with a lot of young people because I’m in the university environment. So, I get to hear from a lot of students about what they’re thinking, what they’re paying attention to, which is clearly, helpful to know what’s coming down the pipe. So yeah, that’s where we are. And right now, I’m in the research mode. The NFT space is confounding and also very exciting. You know, so.
Linda Fanaras:
So there’s, still an audience out there that doesn’t really understand NFTs. Do you mind just touching on, what is it exactly and how would you use that in marketing?
Beverly Macy:
Yeah, it’s, it’s such a great question. And the funny thing is hardly anybody can really define this. So here we go. Right? So “NFT” stands for “non-fungible token,” which right away turns everybody off because what in the world is “fungible?” Who cares? So this is already a problem, but basically what it is, is it’s a digital receipt for a digital asset. Now, what is a digital asset? A digital asset can be art- it can be digital art. It can be music. It can be all kinds of different things that are in the digital environment, in the virtual environment. And the NFT is a receipt that I own that digital asset. And that receipt is then logged into the blockchain. And all of this gets a little bit complicated, but just know that because it’s in the blockchain, there is a permanent record of that transaction. So that ensures provenance. One of the interesting things in the NFT space is luxury brands have jumped into NFTs. Everybody from Dolce & Gabbana to Gucci to everybody you can- Tiffany, everybody you can think of. Why? Because the provenance, the fraud and all of the fake items that are out there are a huge problem for these brands, and NFTs will enable the owner to prove ownership and prove authenticity. Now that’s the hope and the prayer of what’s going to happen. So how is that working practically for brands? Well, right now it’s very experimental. Everybody is experimenting. And I’m happy to talk more about some of the things that I’m seeing. Before I do that, I’ll just finish with one final thing about zooming out and the big picture of NFTs. We talk about Web3 and what in the world is Web3? So in this vernacular, Web1 was very, very early internet. It was basically what we called the “information economy.” It was Yahoo and AOL, if you remember the old dialup days, and it was basically newspapers and magazines digitized. That’s basically what we had. We didn’t even have search yet. You know, it was, and then search comes in. Then we move to Web2, which we call the “platform economy.” And the platform economy is Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. What’s the problem with platform economy? The emerging perception is that all of this wonderful stuff I’m creating, these beautiful pictures, these, this, all this photography, et cetera, is owned by the platform. It’s not owned by me. I don’t own my own IP, my own intellectual property. And then Web3, we call the “ownership economy,” which is this idea that not only my personal IP, but IP from the brand can be owned and transferred by me, by the individual, by the brand, versus by the giant corporation that owns all of your data. So, hope that helps.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s interesting. I find NFTs so intriguing because I do feel like a lot of people, even businesses, don’t exactly know what that means. So do you feel like the- how do you feel about the larger brands during this point in time in our economy? Do you think they’ll try to reduce the risk during this time because it’s such an emerging market or do you see them taking more advantage of it during this time?
Beverly Macy:
So that’s a really interesting question and there’s more to the NFT space than what I just talked about in that once I own my own IP, I can now sell and transfer that IP. So brands like Adidas, Adidas launched a digital shoe in December as an NFT. They made $24 million in 48 hours on that launch. This is not for anything physical. This is a digital shoe that you, what are you going to do with it? This is unbelievable when you think about it. Think about that, people paid money to buy digital products that don’t have a real-world representation. Now in the world of gaming, that’s not new; virtual goods have been sold- bought and sold forever. But here’s the thing. If I’m an owner of one of those NFTs, I can sell that for more than I paid for it. Kind of like the sneaker market, you know? There’s a big, giant sneaker market. The other thing that some brands are, are gearing up for is the inevitability, they think, of this blended universe we’re all going to all live in, which is part real life and part metaverse / Web3 / whatever that looks like. And I’m going to want to have really cool shoes when I go there. I’m going to want to have really cool sunglasses and outfits and avatars. So, in that sense, some brands are taking a risk and looking at it that way. For other brands, it’s still a head scratcher. What is in it for me really? And what’s in it for the consumer? Doesn’t this just confuse the consumer? So, we’re seeing- so I’ll, mention one more thing and then we can continue on- in the customer loyalty area, we’re also seeing a very interesting play in NFTs. Why? Because in addition to ownership, the NFT has something called a “smart contract” associated with it, and that smart contract and can enable the holder to have certain permissions. So if I buy a ticket to a soccer game and that ticket is an NFT, that NFT might allow me to get merchandise at a, at a discount. It might allow me to have a free drink. It might allow me to meet a player and get an autograph. It might allow for a number of different things. So this- and it also proves that I was there, there’s a whole bunch of people in my generation who say, “I was at Woodstock,” and nobody can really prove it or not, right? So this is the idea, “I was really at the World Cup in Barcelona,” or wherever and you would have the ability to prove that. So there are companies that are starting to experiment with the customer loyalty idea and it’s a digital receipt that has permissions associated with it.
Linda Fanaras:
It’s so interesting. And it’s such an emerging market and there is quite a bit of confusion and unknowingness around it, and it will be interesting as things start to really escalate in this space to see how companies take advantage of it and look at it. I think I’d like to go back to the messaging and the positioning and the reason I, I want to bring that up again is that we’re adding another element to technology, we’re talking about the metaverse, and a lot of people don’t even know what that is. And we have large companies that are buying real estate in the metaverse. So, it seems to me that it’s going to be more and more important for companies to really take a deep dive into their brand and assess their identity, assess their positioning, to see if it really still aligns with the market audiences that are out there for them.
Beverly Macy:
I couldn’t agree more Linda. And I think that from what I know, companies like yours are helping customers do that because it is true. If we are on this verge of something changing, even if you don’t join the change right away and- but will your competitors be there? Will your customers want to be there? Are they expecting you as a brand to have a first mover position? Or are you more of a fast follower brand that waits and sees and then moves in and your customers appreciate that because they don’t want to be led into somewhere crazy right away. So yes, who are we as a brand? It comes back to that idea of core values. What are our brand’s core values? What do we stand for? And what do our customers expect from us? And then, if we take them into the metaverse, you know, will it make sense? And Adidas taking their consumers into the metaverse makes sense for their brand. Does it make sense for, you know, everybody? Maybe yes, maybe no. But even if you’re not considering going in the metaverse, even if it’s more just about this kind of blended reality, people are going to be in, in terms of where they’re getting their news, their information, spending time for education or work is partially on the Zoom environment and partially in real life, let’s say, how do we position ourselves in that? And I think that really going back to that core value their extended values, what charities are we associated with, what foundations are we supporting, what matters to us and what matters to our customer? I think it’s absolutely critical right now, because so much is changing. The consumer’s changing, the landscape out there is changing, and the brand itself is having to go through changes. So yes, it’s perfect. And it’s, right now really makes sense, because you want to be ready for 2023. Where are we going?
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah. And I always like to encourage, companies to what I call look at the “white space” in the market. What is the space out there that really hasn’t tap- you haven’t tapped into? And how can we leverage that or capitalize on that and really do a deep dive into the company and find out, who are their audiences? How are they marketing? We all know what personas are, who are the personas and how are we positioning our products and services to really connect with these audiences? But on top of that, what haven’t we really considered? What else should we be considering? Are there any verticals out there that we should be considering? Are there product extensions that we should be considering? This is a good time to do it because as things change as we get into 2023, you really want to have a clear understanding of your brand, your positioning, and if there are additional untapped markets, “white space” markets that companies should be taking advantage of, what do you think about that then? What are your thoughts?
Beverly Macy:
I really like that. I like, I like the term “white space” too. The idea of where is there a place that we could plant the stake and say, here’s a new area for us. And it takes work to get there. You can’t just close your eyes and point it’s really, you have to really work at who are we speaking to and what matters to them, and then looking at the landscape to see opportunities and find those opportunities. And then how do we enter? You know, the market entry matters. You know, do we go in with a bang? Do we go in slowly? Do we, you know, try to get our feet wet first? What’s our, what’s our stance there? If you’re a brand like Nike, it’s expected that you’re going to do something big and bold. That’s kind of the way the brand is. Other brands, if I’m a banking brand or a, an insurance company, I might tiptoe a little bit into new areas. I may not want to make that big splash. I might want to gradually move into something because the consumer would be, you know, shocked at a great big move. So, all of those things can matter.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah. That’s a great point. I’m always intrigued by Trader Joe’s and the reason I like to bring them up is they really spend a little money on marketing, not compared to a lot of the other grocery stores, and the way that they’ve achieved that is really by building a community of loyal, loyal customers, who live and die by that brand. So, they give you a little newsletter when you walk into the grocery store, or there’s an app that you can check out. But other than that, it’s really about customer service. It’s really about building a community and they do really target and appeal to that younger demo. And, what do you think about taking that sort of totally different strategy on just building those relationships?
Beverly Macy:
Great example, another one out here in California is In-N-Out Burger. The same kind of idea that there’s this, this wild following and strident defense of the brand. “No, Five Guys,” “No, In-N-Out,” you know, so it’s really a big deal. I think it’s fascinating. And it brings me also in mind of something that’s happening in the NFT universe. Interestingly enough, is this concept of community. I think one of the outcomes of the pandemic years is community, the desire for community more than the desire to necessarily physically be in the same space. The idea that I have an affinity with others, what we used to call in marketing, “just like me,” you know? The “just like me” group, which is, they think like me, they like, they love this brand for the reasons I love this brand, and therefore we’re connected. You know, in sports there’s a lot of that, you wear your Boston Red Sox hat in Boston, where you are, and automatically you, if you see somebody across the room with that, a t-shirt on, you’re connected, there’s a sense, you know? So sports really knows how to capture that and really build it, so I think it’s fascinating to think about how we do that.
Linda Fanaras:
Well, I just want to take a minute and wrap it up. Beverly, thank you so much for speaking with me today. It was fantastic to have you, you provided a substantial amount of great insights, and I think anybody that is interested in learning about NFTs should definitely check out her book when it’s released, “From PCs to NFTs.” We covered a couple quick things: Make sure you don’t cut back on your marketing during times like this, always take a look at your positioning and your unique selling propositions to make sure that your company is still aligning, and also start to think about the white space in the market and how to capitalize on that and I think that you would be ready to move into 2023. So, thank you again. This is Linda Fanaras, the B2B Brand strategy podcast.
This week we are going to look at how the pandemic could kill the Charmin brand, as well as others that have boomed during the pandemic. We all want people to want our products, but soaring demand may be a curse… learn why:
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If you like this episode, check out our other podcasts here.
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Linda’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mill.agency/
Linda’s Books:
Claim Your White Space
https://www.amazon.com/CLAIM-YOUR-WHITE-SPACE-CRITICAL-ebook/dp/B0CLK8VLYV
Passion + Profits: Fueling Business And Brand Success
https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Profits-Fueling-Business-Success-ebook/dp/B0CLLDDSNX/
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We sit down with Millennium Agency’s Creative Director to discuss the importance of design in marketing and dissect a few infamous design fumbles, including the 2009 Tropicana redesign disaster.