In this episode of B2B Brand180, Linda is joined by Joelly Goodson, a branding expert and podcaster. They explore the critical role of sustainability in driving B2B brand growth, offering practical strategies for integrating eco-conscious practices into branding and marketing efforts. Joelly shares her journey and experiences, highlighting how brands can leverage sustainability not only as a corporate responsibility but as a powerful tool for differentiation and engagement in the competitive B2B landscape.
Tune in to gain valuable insights into building a brand that stands out by standing up for the planet.
More about Joelly: https://www.brandingmatters.ca/
You can follow Linda at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
and visit Millennium Agency at https://www.linkedin.com/company/millagency/
Linda Fanaras:
Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of the B2B Brand 180 podcast and CEO of Millennium Agency, where today we’re going to talk about branding strategy and lead generation plans. But before I start, I just want to take a moment and thank the audience for listening in. And if you like what you heard today, please. Like share or subscribe to help our channel grow Today i’m super excited to bring in Joelly Goodson from badass You can probably see from her shirt because she is a badass for sure She has more than 20 years of experience and she’s been helping companies build their brand and grow with what i’ll call badass Merchandise. So, she launched also Branding Matters, which is a podcast that’s fantastic and continues to grow rapidly, which is something I’m sure she’ll chat about a little bit more, but I would love for you to tell the audience a little bit about yourself and what we’re going to cover today.
Joelly Goodson:
A little bit about myself. Well, how much time do we have?
Linda Fanaras:
You can
Joelly Goodson:
talk as long as you want. I know it’s funny whenever anyone asks that question, I’m always curious. Like, well, I can really go anywhere, but I’ll stick to the topic at hand, which is obviously something we’re both passionate about, which is branding. So just as far as my career goes, I have been in the marketing and advertising industry for. Gosh, almost 25 years started when I was 10 and I come from an agency background. You know, I used to work at a bunch of different agencies. The last one being Ogilvy where I was a copywriter. And then after doing that for several years, I decided that I wanted to be more. Facing front with the client. So I got into sales, but still doing marketing. So the merch industry was a natural progression for me because I was able to still use my creativity and strategy and all my branding and marketing background, but working more with clients one on one and coming up with great campaigns and ideas to help them build a brand. So that’s my sort of background and then my podcast I launched, that’s my new baby that I launched January 1st, 2021. And I really started that because basically COVID was the inspiration. A lot of people were laid off from their jobs, forced entrepreneurship was a global thing. And I just noticed that there was a lot of people on social media specifically. So, Basically going out there and saying, buy my product, buy my service, starting their own businesses and not really taking the time to figure out who they are, what their brand is, what their brand voice was. And so I thought, okay, well, I’ll start this podcast and bring on people from all over the world, from all different industries to share their stories and badass branding tips to help entrepreneurs and business owners build really strong brands that people care about.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s awesome. And I think I should just mention too, that you were listed as one of the top five best branding podcast. So that’s pretty exciting as well. So, go
Joelly Goodson:
ahead for one second, cause this is just very recent. I was just, you know, I get these emails all the time with these lists and it’s, it’s really exciting. So the most recent one was on CMO club the top 17. Branding podcast to follow in 2024, which is globally. And then for Canada, I was on Feedspots top branding podcast and I’m actually number one. So those are two, thank you. Those are two of the most recent lists that I came on and I was pretty excited
Linda Fanaras:
about that. So that’s great. Yeah. Congratulations on that. But before we get started, you know what I’d love. for you to just chat a little bit about Gems4Gems. It’s Gems4Gems. It’s a special nonprofit. It seems like it’s special to you. So I would love to hear a little bit about that and, you know, why. Yeah,
Joelly Goodson:
absolutely. Well, I’m very, I’m very, very proud of Gems4Gems. to be a part of it. It was started by an incredible woman. Her name is Jordan Guilford, and she’s actually from Calgary, where I live right now, and it’s a nonprofit to help victims of domestic abuse get back on their feet. And if you can imagine COVID, domestic abuse went through the roof, and it really was more. Prevalent than ever. And so I’ve been doing their branding for a couple of years. To be honest, I had to step back recently just because I’ve had some personal things happen in my life and I need to take some time off. But I’m still an ambassador for them. So I help them when they have events. We have a jewelry drive every year. It’s an amazing actually, this is really great. They have this jewelry drive where they bring, they get people to donate from all over the world and mostly, I guess, all over North America, use jewelry. It doesn’t have to be, you know, precious stones. It could be anything that’s gently used. And we, and we just did this this past Christmas and we put together these little bags of jewelry. It’s usually like a necklace earrings and a bracelet with a little note. of encouragement and we go around to all the shelters across Canada and we donate to the women there just to make their holidays a little brighter. That’s awesome. So yeah, and they have all these initiatives and things really just to help women empower themselves and get back on their feet after they’ve left this horrible situation, you know,
Linda Fanaras:
so yeah. That’s a nice gesture. I think it’s a nice way to I got goosebumps I know, I did too. It’s important, right? I could see how it could make a woman feel really good. I mean, jewelry, there’s not much they’d like other than flowers, so that’s great. Just a little something, right? A little something. That’s awesome. Well, Okay, so we’ll get started. We’re going to be talking about social impact and Really how social responsibility is so important for companies today. And it’s nothing that we’ve actually covered quite yet. So I would love to chat a little bit about this. It’s an important topic. It continues to grow. It comes into the forefront and I think it’s really important for brands to really understand the value of it. So I would love to hear from your perspective, I think where marketers really struggle is, okay, how do we sell our brand? And how do we also cover this sustainability component that we need to be talking about? That is so important to consumers. And how do we balance all that to make sure that number one, it’s credible, it’s coming across as a credible, real, real, you know, important part of their business. And also being able to market and drive leads and drive sales.
Joelly Goodson:
For sure. Well, I mean, I come from the merch world, right? So coming from the merch perspective, I just came back. I was at a conference in Vegas and sustainability was all the rage and everybody was talking about it. And I’m very proud to say, so the company that I’ve been with for the last 22 years, if you can believe it, it’s called GenuMark and we’re in Canada and the U S and we actually recently got B Corp certified, which is a huge thing. I mean, we’re one of the only companies in our industry that. has that. So the reason it’s so important is because everything is scrutinized and everything we do, we put our money where our mouth is. As far as you know, there’s a lot of greenwashing going out there right now, virtual signaling and people are talking about sustainability, but they’re not really, they’re not really walking the walk. They’re just talking the talk. So I think you have to back that up with things like getting certified. And so people know that when they’re doing business with you, be core certified when they’re doing business with you, that every aspect of your organization has really. Come up against these standards were also ISO certified, which is just another certification. And then so from a business perspective, you want to do everything you can to get these certifications because it just shows that you are actually standing behind what you say. And then as far as merch goes, where I come in is when I work with my clients, you know, and I have more and more. It’s. sort of funny because I, I live in an oil town, right? I live in Calgary. It’s oil and gas town and there’s lots of critics out there, but I tell you some of these oil companies have some of the strictest HSE departments and we do so much as far as sustainability goes and eco friendly and, and recycled materials. And gone are the days of wastefulness, people buying trinkets and trash as they used to call it. Now, when I work with my corporate clients and I work with some pretty. Big corporate clients, it’s they use their merch as a way to tell their brand story and build connections with their communities and people that they give them out to and employees, so when they bring on new employees, merch is a great way to help these employees feel a part of the community. And then if they have these values, we’ll put the values onto the merch that’s been recycled. And then a lot of companies are now giving back to, you know, these things where you, every, every item that you buy a certain percentage is going to build water wells or different things like that. So I hope that answers your question. No, that’s
Linda Fanaras:
great. No, that’s, that’s fantastic. And I don’t know if our market has also struggled with this as well, but sometimes I feel like. The biggest disconnect with social responsibility is the education. People don’t really get it. So from a marketer’s perspective, like, okay, what does that mean? What do we, how do, how do we go about all of this? What are the steps that we should take? Can you speak a little bit about. Maybe how to educate and then also how to build some awareness around it. Either it could be also internally within the organization and externally with that, whoever their prospects and customers
Joelly Goodson:
are. Oh, I think education is huge because there’s so much information. We’re bombarded with information right now. And the internet every, you just go and you Google something. So I absolutely think. that you have to bring experts. If you’re starting internally, I mean, again, if we’re talking about branding, branding is starts internally with your employees, right? And so they need to buy into whatever it is that you’re selling. And I mean that not just physically, but also what are your standards? What do you believe in? And if you’re a B Corp company, you make sure all your employees understand what that actually means. Right. And you have. Different courses that you do. You can do them online. And then, you know, there’s I have some clients that do these courses for their employees. And then every time I’m an employee finishes a module, they get a gift and they get a prize. So you incentivize them. People like to be incentivized, right? So they’ll just be incentivized. You finish this, or you finish these five modules where you’re now learning and then you’re going to get incentivized with some kind of gift. So education is huge. And then I think, you know, Oh, I don’t think I really am a strong believer in, what you learn, you teach. And so I, you know, it’s funny. I go around and I do these presentations about branding, and I have this acronym and it’s I L T E E. And I learned it from this gentleman, Ray Higdon, and now I’m using it and it stands for invest, learn, Teach, execute and edify. And so invest your time or invest your money, get your employees, learn as much as you can, and then go out there and teach other people what you’ve just learned because you’re spreading the word. And it’s great for another reason, because then you’ve become the expert. People look to you because now you’ve learned, you’ve taught them something that’s going to help them with their business by saying, you know, who you got it from and what they brought to the table.
Linda Fanaras:
I love that. That’s a great, that’s a great way. That’s just a great way to. Yeah. Yeah. So I do want to ask you a question about ROI, like really getting the return on investment. And I think how do, how do businesses build out metrics to prove the ROI? Not just saying that they do it, but really. What would be some good examples of, of that?
Joelly Goodson:
Are you talking, again, are we talking about merch specifically or?
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah, we’re talking on sustainability initiatives. So if we were referring to certain sustainability initiatives, how does a company determine what the ROI is? Let’s say they’re doing something that improves wastefulness or they’re doing others. They’re, they’re coming up with other ways to improve. sustainability. How can they measure? Okay, that has helped us as a company from a holistic
Joelly Goodson:
perspective. Okay, well, I mean, full disclosure, I’m not necessarily an expert when it comes to that. But I will say again, from the branding perspective, if you’re trying to build your brand and building a big part of building your brand is building trust with the people you’re trying to serve is that if you are being consistent in what you’re saying and what you’re doing and all your branding is consistent with this message that we we care about the planet we are sustainable then it’s only going to strengthen your relationships and you’re going to build your you’re not going to You’re not going to, you’re not only going to solidify your current relationships with your current clients, but you’re also going to attract new clients, people who have the same values as you, right? Because branding is about doing business with people that have the same values as you. And now more than ever, because the consumer is so savvy, they want to know, what you think, and how you do your work, and where you put your money. So, maybe it’s not, you know, as far as metrics go and KPIs, I can’t answer to that. Right. Branding is more of the general value system, I guess, and how you Yeah.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. that’s great. And I think what we find too is from a when we do brand strategy work with our clients, what we find is when they’re developing their core values, as an example, sustainability might be a piece of that. So ensuring that that component is integrated within their core values and how they live or work is also also becomes an important part of their business, which means they can use that as part of their messaging and part of their positioning to your point, which I think also can help
Joelly Goodson:
them. Yeah, I agree with that. But I just want to say to that point, I talked earlier about virtual signaling and greenwashing, and I think everybody’s jumping on that bandwagon, right? Everybody is talking about eco friendly and sustainability. But how many people are really doing it? Like I said, we are B Corp certified and we’re one of the leading companies in our industry. So how many people are actually doing what they say they’re doing and not just saying what the cause de jure and move on to the next one. And so I think if you’re going to incorporate sustainability, for example, into your values, which I think is amazing, then you need to back that up, and you need to back that up with your actions, not just your words and show people by different things that you’re doing within the community, within your organization, externally with your clients. So I’m really passionate about that because I, I, I’m a straight shooter and I just see, like I said, a lot of people that are just saying stuff, but then they’re not actually following through with what they’re saying.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah. Can you give for the audience? some examples of maybe different initiatives and sustainability initiatives that you think have been valuable that you’ve been able to really back up and to your point, it’s not greenwashing. It’s real, it’s the real stuff. So I would love for you to maybe share some good examples on. Yeah, they’ve, what the initiatives and then how you speak about it. Yeah.
Joelly Goodson:
Yeah. Well, again, I mean, I can just, I’ll speak to my industry as far as when we are talking to clients. So I was just in Vegas, like I said, I was at a conference Mm-Hmm. where I got to see a bunch of our suppliers. And the companies that really stood out to me were the ones that not only were sustainable, but there’s one in part a company. I can think of particular work. their package. So, you know, packaging is so wasteful, right? We write things, everything in packages and we throw it out all the time. Well, this company was brilliant and they’re brand new and they’re disrupting our industry because not only is the product that you’re getting made of recycled material, but the packaging can be reused. For example, one of their products was this really cool. water bottle that was made out of, sustainable material, but then the packaging turned into a bird feeder that you could actually use. Right. And it was super cool. And so it’s just taking things a little bit further to put your money where and being transparent is another letting you see everything. Where’s everything made because What is the point of buying something that is made from recycled material then, but it has to fly in from China or India and your private footprint is being completely, you know, it’s, so it’s contradicting. So locally made, we have suppliers that, made in Canada or made in the U S you know, treating their employees fairly and all those things fall under that umbrella. So all those things are important.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s fantastic. So before we go to our next question I just want to thank the audience for listening in and don’t forget to listen to Jolie’s podcast branding matters. Definitely. Take a listen to that. It’s fantastic. But, and if you like what you hear today, also like share or subscribe, or definitely provide a review. let’s go to our next question. Cause I’m, I’m really interested in that is. That we have a multitude of generations that are out there today. We’ve got the baby boomers, the Z, we’ve got, we’ve got everything. So right. And everybody has a different perspective on sustainability and whether that’s important or not. You got some people that don’t care. And then you have some groups that think it’s like the most important. How do you deal with that when it comes to marketing the, to these different audiences and their different perspectives?
Joelly Goodson:
Well, I think you know this as well as I do that the Gen Z’s are the most passionate about it right now, They’re the ones that are pushing this and they’re the ones that are saying we’re not going to do business with your business or with your brand unless you are, eco friendly, unless you’re sustainable, unless you have diversity. And, they are the ones that are really pushing this forward and demanding that from businesses. So that’s the first thing. The other thing is. Whoever you are as a business, whatever industry you’re in, you, who is your market? Who are you trying to serve? Because you have to talk to them in their language and solve their problems. Ultimately, we’re all problem solvers, right? So whoever it is you’re serving, if you’re serving, it’s the Gen Z is that generation. Cause they’re, you know, like, think about it. Well, they generation sorry, now I’ve, I got, there’s so many generations the millennials. are turning 40. So the millenials are not those young 30 year olds right now. The Gen Z’s are coming into the workplace and those are the largest growing consumers are them. So if that’s your market, then you’ve got to make sure you’re going to appeal to them or you’re not going to, survive. If your market is an older generation, baby boomers or whoever, not that they don’t care, but you have to figure out what their value system is all about. And what problems can you solve for them? And then you lean into that.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s, that’s, that’s fantastic. And I also wanted to ask you about brand loyalty and customer retention, because I’m wondering how marketers can really add those the sustainability initiatives into that.
Joelly Goodson:
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. Brand loyalty is. Tough, right? It’s one of the hardest things to we all we all strive for. We all want it. People are so fickle. They’ll buy one brand the other day. But when you look at a brand that has really well, not a brand, when you look at a few brands, which have really, really strong loyalty the one that just comes to mind off the top of my head is Apple because I have two teenagers. I don’t know if you do And they won’t even, don’t even show them anything else, right? They will snuff their nose. If you know my son, it’s so funny. The other day he was telling me, he’s like, I need a new iPad, a new iPhone, and a new watch. not, not a need, a new watch or a new computer or new, right? New, new cell phone. They are just that. They are loyal to a T. So that’s a brand. Business and a brand that is super strong for all the reasons that we’ve talked about and right, we can talk about, but I think for most businesses, it’s not as easy to get that loyalty. And so again, really, I think the more you niche down to the people that you’re trying to serve and really connect with them. Branding is about connections. I talk about that all the time on my presentations, when you can connect with your audience and the people you’re serving on a really intimate level and being completely transparent. All right. The stronger that relationship is I think the harder it is to break that loyalty and the stronger the loyalty is going to be What do you think about that?
Linda Fanaras:
That’s great. And there’s you know, there’s so many companies out there that have hung their hat on certain things Like you have like starbucks. You have patagonia, you know, they have some very specific initiatives and I And I think it’s helped them grow their brand and build that brand loyalty. And, and if they can just continue to share that story and not keep changing the story, then people can really connect with that. And it builds sort of what I’ll call a unique selling proposition. So end of consumers know, okay, Patagonia is focused on X, Y, Z, or Starbucks is focused on X, Y, Z. And those are the types of things that can make people, you know, emotionally byproducts of services. Go ahead. Yeah, a
Joelly Goodson:
hundred percent. And can I just touch on that? Go ahead. Because, you talked about Starbucks. A thing also about brand consistency and brand loyalty is you need to follow through on your brand promise, right? Because A strong brand develops really strong trust. Like my kids know they, whatever time, any Apple product they get, they trust that it’s going to do everything it says it’s going to do and beyond. Right. So you have to follow through in your brand promise, be consistent, and that’s how you build trust. And then, you said Starbucks and it reminded me of a really funny story. Recently, again, I was in Vegas and in the mornings, we have to go to the conference and the Starbucks, you know, there’s a million coffee places. The lineup was, Like around down the street or down the hallway and everything, but people were still in line because they were not going to go and get the coffee next door where there was no lineup. We will do whatever it takes to get what we want. That’s brand loyalty,
Linda Fanaras:
right? Exactly. Starbucks is a great example because every time I go in, I’m like, okay, I’m spending 10 for a coffee. I know. Okay. Yeah. Quick math. I’m like, okay, that’s like almost 4, 000 a year.
Joelly Goodson:
But that’s the ultimate, you know, that I love that you said that because that is the ultimate branding. Success story. When you, if you want to build a strong brand, and I talk about this in my podcast, as far as I help businesses build brand equity, if you can have such a strong brand that you can take pricing out of the equation, right? People are going to have that coffee. Maybe it started off at 2. Now it’s probably, I don’t even know, it’s probably 10 for a double cappuccino. But I still need my double cappuccino, right? And so, that is the ultimate branding success story. Pricing is taken out of the equation. And that’s what I’m trying to help businesses do and understand is that you don’t want to compete on price because if you compete on price, you’re not going to win the game.
Linda Fanaras:
Absolutely. And that’s, that’s what I like about some of these initiatives that we’ve talked about today, because they can use it as part of their positioning and messaging that can really help differentiate them. And especially when it comes to branding, that’s a big component. And and if it becomes more and more meaningful in the market, why not? You know, why not take advantage of, why not leverage that? Well, you have to. Because
Joelly Goodson:
more people are in competition now than ever. You know, you’re not just competing, you’re not just competing with your, the guy down the street who sells what you sell. You’re competing with the world. Everybody’s online. I’m looking to buy a new car right now. I just go online and there’s a million options. It’s not like I have to go to the dealers, right? So there’s a lot of things to consider whenever you’re, when someone’s looking to make a decision on, you know, giving you their money, there has to be a lot more that they’re going to get than just the
Linda Fanaras:
best price. So I’m going to ask you one final question and then we’ll wrap up, but I would love to hear from your perspective as far as building. Partnerships around sustainability initiatives. How can marketers better collaborate with NGOs and suppliers and maybe other stakeholders to create that sustainable value chain and how would it help them with their brand strategy?
Joelly Goodson:
Well, again, from my industry, we have partners, we partner with like minded businesses, So I think it’s being choosy who you partner with you know, I had a guest on a while ago and she said, you need to know who you’re getting into bed with and you need to make sure that, you’re aligned with certain things that are, what’s important to you is important to them and you work as a team. Right. You work as a team to solve your customers problems. And so the supply chain, whoever your, your suppliers are. I know for me, when I’m working with a client, I use suppliers when I know that client demands sustainability and locally made and, or woman don’t, you know, we have a lot of now that are women, everything else. Those are the suppliers that I will partner with to come up with the suggestions for my client because I know their value it and I know that my supplier can I keep pointing back but you know so you have so that’s really important is you have to make sure that whoever you’re partnering with has the same values not just as you but as Your clients and as your clients you’re only as good as your supply chain and your team, The best compliment I ever get from a client wasn’t when they say to me, thank you for making me look so good to my boss. And then I say, well, I couldn’t do it without my people that I work with. Right.
Linda Fanaras:
Right. Does that answer your question? Yeah. No, that’s great. No, that does answer the question. No, I think that’s awesome. I think that’s awesome. Excellent. So thank you so much, Jolie. It was great to have you here today. Yeah, I know it’s quick. I would love for you to share how people can get in touch with you, maybe touch on the the podcast again. So I’ll turn it over to
Joelly Goodson:
you. Oh, well, thank you so much on that. Well, first of all, I want to say thank you so much for having me on here. It’s been so nice to talk to you. We’re obviously both very passionate about this and if people want to learn more about my podcast and they want to hear I have like I bring on guests from all over the world, like I said, and I have some really exciting ones coming up for 2024. It’s called Branding Matters and you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want to find me, I’m the branding badass. I’m the only one out there. So just google branding badass and I’ll come up. And then if you’re looking for any sort of merch to help build your own brand, I’m at Genu. Mark is the name of the company. You can Google that. G-E-N-U-M-A-R-K and you can email me at Jaylee [email protected]. So Awesome.
Linda Fanaras:
Thank you so much. I’m everywhere. You’re everywhere. It’s just type in badass and your first name and they’ll find you. Okay. Awesome. Alright,
Joelly Goodson:
well, oh, and if you want one of my T-shirts, you can get it on my website too. Oh
Linda Fanaras:
good. Okay. So there you go. Okay. What’s the,
Joelly Goodson:
what’s the website URL? It’s brandingmatters. ca.
Linda Fanaras:
Okay. Fantastic. All right. So I just want to take a moment, thank our audience today for listening into the B2B Brand 180 podcast. We hope you found the insights and strategies shared today by Joelly valuable. I’m sure you did. I thought there was some great insights on sustainability and ways to tie that into marketing that will really help companies grow. So again, I’m Linda Fanaras and I am the host of the B2B Brand, 180 podcast and CEO of Millennium Agency. You can visit us at Mill, MILL dot agency or just connect with me on LinkedIn and again, to help our channel grow, just hit like, share or subscribe. Thanks again for listening and until next time, happy marketing
.
In this episode of B2B Brand180, Linda Fanaras interviews Ben Reinberg, CEO of Alliance Consolidated Group of Companies. They explore the impact of personal branding in the B2B space and how it aligns with value-based leadership. Ben shares his journey as a serial entrepreneur and commercial real estate investor offering practical insights on building a strong personal brand and leading with core values.
More about Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/codyxschneider/https://benreinberg.com/
You can follow Linda at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
and visit Millennium Agency at https://www.linkedin.com/company/millagency/
Linda Fanaras:
Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of the B2B Brand 180 Podcast and CEO of Millennium Agency. And this is where we talk all things related to branding and business. I’m excited to bring in today, Ben Reinberg. He’s the CEO, chief executive officer of Alliance Consolidated of companies and they provide strategic and investment direction and leadership. Ben knows all about growth strategies. He has billions in commercial real estate, his portfolio, the portfolio is worth billions of dollars. We’re going to talk a little bit about how he has gotten to that place. We’re going to talk a little bit about his own podcast and some personal branding tips that I think you as a. Either an entrepreneur, or a professional, we’ll get plenty of tips out of. So let’s get started. Welcome Ben. Thanks for coming here today. I’d love to learn a little bit about you and we can share that with the audience.
Ben Reinberg:
Thanks, Linda, for having me. I really appreciate it. It’s a pleasure to be here. And I know I’ll be able to add a lot of value and content that your listeners can take away and see how we can enhance their lives as well.
Linda Fanaras:
Excellent. So can you tell me a little bit about your business alliance and maybe where it started and how you were able to grow it to such a large portfolio?
Ben Reinberg:
Well, Linda I, when I was a young man, I started, I wanted to build wealth. And by doing that, I did that through commercial real estate investing. And so we did our first deal. I’m from Chicago. That’s where our headquarters are. That’s you probably hear it in my accent. And I now live in Southern California. And so in Chicago, we started, it was a local and regional business. it started off where you really had to focus on your region, which was the Midwest for us. And then we grew and then we started expanding more to become a national company. And what we do, Linda is we’re office industrial and retail experts. We own and manage commercial real estate throughout the United States. So with that being said, What is important to note is what we are is a fiduciary of capital, and as a fiduciary of capital, what that means is we bring in high net worth of credit investors, family offices from around the world that want to produce wealth with us. We’re in a wealth building business. It’s a marathon business. It’s not a get rich quick type industry. Right now I’m in the prime my career. It takes that long to get to that point. To become a seasoned veteran icon in commercial real estate. You have to do a lot of deals. You have to look at a lot of leases, go through a lot of different economic cycles, which is one we’re going through right now. And so experience matters in our business. And my company, AllianceCGC. com, which stands for Alliance Consolidated Group of Companies, we own, whether it’s retail, office, industrial, and medical office for the past 20 years of our 30 years of existence, Linda, has become something that we’ve doubled down on. We decided years ago that it was important for us. To get involved in a, an asset that’s recession and pandemic resilient real estate. Nothing has been more true than the pandemic that we just went through. Our tenants pay rent. The human body never goes out of style. That’s something I say consistently, whether I’m a guest on a podcast, my own show to my staff is the human body will never go out of style. So what does that mean? That means that everyone needs to show up to medical services. I’m sure Linda, you and your family, your colleagues, friends, employees, all of us use medical services in some rationale. I was just at the doctor an hour ago. And there is no way I could have had that appointment on telehealth. I had to go in person. And the real estate is really important in medical office. And what’s important about that, Linda, is that is a revenue generating facility that has, it’s an asset that helps assist in producing the revenue for that physician group or practice. Right. So real estate has become prevalent in the medical office space. We’re the leaders in investing in medical office. We also six years ago got involved in veterinary office because the veterinary and office billet business. It has exploded. There’s a lot of public companies as well as great companies that have invested billions of dollars into the veterinarian space. So we’ve got involved in clinics and surgery centers for horses and cattle and any type of animals, lizards and reptiles have become big in the United States. And so we’ve kind of touched them all and see all that as well. We have a brand new fund that we launched called the Alliance Medical Property Fund, which investors from all over the world can invest in and build wealth with us by investing in the number one asset class in the United States, which is medical office. So. That’s what I do for a living. And then I got this side gig called The Personal Brand, which we’ve been working on. And we have some exciting stuff. So I’m on all the social media platforms, Linda, and we do a lot of marketing. I mean, I’ve been writing a newsletter. I know you’re a marketing expert. So I’ve been writing a newsletter for over two decades. And for some reason, Linda, a handful of years ago, they decided to rename it to a blog. So, I guess now, instead of a newsletter, we call these newsletters a blog. That’s what we call them today. Right. So now it’s a blog, and it goes out to hundreds of thousands of people on a weekly basis. We write to different segments. Mm hmm. Whether it be a investor based sphere of influence base. You know, it just depends who’s in our business and our sphere of influence. It goes out to different segments. And then we do a lot of other marketing. I’m doing Facebook ads and meta ads for our new fund. We’re out there marketing. My personal brand. And so the personal brand is a really interesting story to me. It’s really become something I’ve really enjoyed. I didn’t really understand it years ago. So I saw my kids were on Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat and all these. And I thought it was more of a young man and woman’s game. And I realized it’s a way to really share with the world your knowledge, but also drive business to your company. So what we did is a couple of years ago, Linda, one of my friends, employees came to me and said, I really think you should build a personal brand. I said, what does that mean? They said, well, you got to tell everyone who you are, what you’ve done and expose yourself to the world. I said, why the hell would I do that? And they said, well, that’s what’s going to help our leadership team and grow this company to where you want to be. Develop the legacy that you want. But also we feel that with your knowledge, you have a responsibility to share it with the world and your experience. And I kind of sat back for a week and I thought about it and I said, she’s right. And so what we did was to said, well, what, how do, how do we get started on this? I said, well, let’s launch it. Let’s launch a podcast. Let’s first get you on social media. I was already on LinkedIn because Jeff Weiner is from Chicago. So I’m following on LinkedIn and I’ve been on it for however long ago he started that company. I love LinkedIn. But I realized that all these other social media platforms, it was important to be on Instagram and TikTok, and I thought TikTok was just a dancing video, like I did with my daughter when I first started, and that’s what TikTok was, but it’s more than that. It’s to share knowledge and show that you’re a thought leader and expertise. Really help your brand, our company alliance, as well as my personal brand. So we got involved and it started growing and we’ve been doing it for a year and a half and we have a lot of followers and we’re offering a lot of value and a lot of content, whether it be through the company or my personal brand, it’s been very rewarding and the podcast has been tremendous because we’ve brought on some extremely talented celebrities and ultra high net worth individuals that have really created success to significance. And it’s been a way to interact with other thought leaders to provide great knowledge to our audience, whether it’s being and everyone’s in sales, how to improve your sales ability, health. I’m into health and wellness. Everyone that knows me knows I train five days a week and I eat healthy. Health is very important to me and biohacking and all that stuff. And so we offer a well rounded experience. with our brand. So you can look at that. Ben Reinberg lives what he tells people he does. You know, he’s into helping fitness. He tries to get eight hours of sleep as best he can. He’s working on himself. He’s into personal development. So this allows the young entrepreneur that and that inspiration you need to say, Hey, you can do it. Cause a lot of people go and I see, I’m in Newport Beach where I sit in my West Coast office and I see people out there and they’re dressed in suits and skirts and dresses and, and they come up to me and they ask me, I say, how do you do it? How do you, how do you start a business? How do you come from nothing? How do you make it work and happen? And the goal of the personal brand is to help that person inspire them to show them that you can do it. Don’t listen to the naysayers. Don’t listen to people that. are going to bring you down and tell you can’t do it. Find something that you love, not that you’re passionate about Linda, that you love and run forward with it. And these are all the things that I’m sharing on my personal brand. I’m giving people an inside look at my life and our company and what that does. It’s been incredible from a business aspect. Well, what it does is attracts investors into our universe. People want to invest with us. They said, well, how, how do I get involved with Alliance? You know, how do I get involved with Ben and his leadership team and staff? Cause our leadership team has 200 plus years of experience, the great experience to come into our universe as an investor, and then, you know, people that want to sell us properties, people that want to buy properties from us in our portfolio, or whether it could be, I have people that call me just for business advice. I’ll be on a podcast like this and we’ll end up. One of the most rewarding experiences I get is I’ve had young men and women reach out to me on social media and I respond to people. I’m very responsive and they say, Hey, can I have 10 minutes of your time? I know it’s extremely valuable. I spoke to a young man the other day. And I changed his life. He’s trying to start a SAS software company. And he’s like, I have no money. What do you suggest I do? And I gave him three things to do and he’s starting to do it. And he said, he called me and said, this was exactly the game changer I need and the inspiration. Those are the things I enjoy, Linda. You know, it’s great. It’s, it’s wonderful to have success in business and to be a leader in what you do. But it’s also how you really make money. If people are looking of how to build a business and grow is serve as many people as you can because the universe will come back and reward you in so many different ways. And I’ve seen that in spades. My career is when you when you help people and you give first, you get so much more. And and that’s really what gratitude is about is being grateful for where you’re at and the ability you have to share with others. And it’s great. It influences people. And you know what? That’s a good example for my leadership team, my employees to see me out there now. I promote helping people, inspires them to follow that lead. And you know what? That’s what that’s when a legacy carries itself. When I step away from this company, I make sure that the foundation of these people that work here understand how we should be moving forward.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah, no, that’s fantastic. That’s a great way to look at thing. And there’s always so much reward in helping others. And I agree with you. 100 percent is, start with somebody else first. And it does come back to, it comes back to benefit you. But I do want to backtrack a little bit and talk about your portfolio. A little bit in your investment strategy around that. I’m just curious what do you do with these investors who are, who aren’t that patient, who get very concerned with the cyclical, changes of the market, whether it’s a pandemic that’s impacting the commercial real estate, segment, or whether it’s something else that’s happening in the world. It’s kind of like what you said. It’s a, it’s a long game, right? It’s not a short game and it takes time and it takes dedication. It takes effort, takes, a real belief in it. How do you communicate that to potential either investors or Whomever else you may be
Ben Reinberg:
speaking to. I love this question. It’s a great question. And the reason why I like it is because you have to educate your investors. So to take a step back years ago, we were one of the first commercial real estate firms to set up a investor portal. Communication to me is everything. And so, we did a webinar last night. We do webinars once a month, me and Dr. Adam Gower do one together. He’s one of the guys in our marketing department. And, it’s all about educating. What’s going on in the market? How does commercial real estate work? You might be an investor and we sell a property within a year or two, and that’s wonderful. But generally speaking, if you look at our new fund and our deals, generally speaking, it’s a five year cycle. You’re in for five years, you get in cash flow. We tell people up front, it’s a diversification play, it’s an alternative investment. So, for example, if you want to be liquid people do buy membership units in our deals. They’ll exchange back and forth, they buy them at discounts, which doesn’t help an existing investor. Right. However, if you’re investing in real estate, you know that you take the good and the bad. Well, the great is you get tax benefits, you’ll get cash flow, you’ll get upside when you invest in an alliance investment where we sell a property for a profit and you get a piece of it. So what I tell investors is it’s a diversification play. So if you invest, say, a million dollars with us and it’s allocated over a lot of properties and get tax benefits, it’s, to me, it’s the best investment in the world, commercial real estate and investing is you have to have patience and I understand people invest in hedge funds, they invest in, I invest in companies as well and software companies and concepts and I invest in different consultants of ours that come in, they have wonderful companies that are growing and they want me to sit on their board and I do so. And so I understand, Hey, I want a certain multiple for risk. I’m not investing in a tangible asset. You can, we’re investing in hard assets. You can go kick the bricks and mortar of every property. That’s in the new alliance medical property fund or any investment. If it’s a syndication, transparency is tremendous. And what I love, what I love about what we do is the transparency. So the core values, Linda of my company’s transparency, integrity, consistency and expertise. Okay. That’s what comes with the alliance package. And so if those are your values, Okay. You’ll align with us. Right? And so we qualify all our investors that come in. We just don’t let every investor invest with us. We want to make sure that we’re aligned with their needs and our needs. So when we speak with investors, our investor relations department, nice to raise equity for years is we ask them, we qualify them. Why are you interested investing, say, medical office in the new Alliance Medical Private Fund? What are you looking to achieve? Well, I want cash flow. I want tax benefits. I want diversification. Everything that we do. Perfect. Great. And they understand. Okay. How long? So well, it could be five years, but if it’s longer, if we extend a fund or extend the investment, we do that to protect our capital, our investors, capital investors always come first. They always work. And what’s really important in our business. I’ll share this with people in your audience, which I think is important. If you are fiduciary of capital, you’re raising money, whether it’s for real estate, residential, commercial, you know, A business, whatever in my company, how we operate, and I could pass this along to you if you don’t value every single penny that everyone made to invest in your business, your company, and your real estate, you should not be a fiduciary capital. That’s a really important concept, Linda, because I think about it coming from Chicago. We have a lot of investors from the Midwest in Chicago, because that’s where we’re headquarters and that’s where we started. And I look at the, I look at the man or woman that would take the train downtown Chicago to go to work in the ice and snow, and you know, this being in Boston, you got to commute and you go to work and it’s cold. And it’s dark and it’s gray in Chicago. You wake up, it’s dark, you go home. And especially at this time of year, in the fall, in Chicago, in the winter, it gets dark at like 4 o’clock, 4. 30. Okay? So you’re living in darkness. You got a family. You’re grinding to make money. Right. And then all of a sudden someone raises their hand and says, you know what, Ben Reinberg, I want to invest 100, 000, a million dollars with you and your company. If you don’t have gratitude for that moment, And that history with your investors. I can’t even fathom why you would be a fiduciary of capital. So that’s, that’s, it’s all communication. So to get back to the foundation of your question is communication is so important. You tell investors the good, the bad. That’s how you last for three decades. Right.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s great insight that you’re sharing before we go to our next question. I just want to take a moment and thank the audience for listening in today. If you like what you’re listening to, please feel free to like share a subscribe to the B to B brand 1 80 podcast with any of your colleagues. So, I want to also go back to the personal branding component that we spoke a little bit about. What would you say, aside from, building your, your personal brand, what are some of the strategies that you’ve actually taken advantage of that you think has helped you grow? It’d be great to share some of that with our audience today.
Ben Reinberg:
A lot of the strategies that we’ve seen is just doing videos and sending it to, I have a whole social media team, Linda, that works with me. I have a team for Alliance Consolidated Group of Companies, my companies, and I have a team with Ben Reinberg. It’s amazing how many people we have involved in this whole marketing campaign for our personal brand, our company brand. It’s incredible. And, so there’s a lot of things we do. We do videos and reels of looking for what is the information that people want to know. Whether it be in business, commercial real estate, health and fitness meditation, personal development your mind and body connection. We’ll touch it all. And we’ll look at it from a holistic point. So, it’s providing great content on a consistent basis on all the social media platforms we look at. We started a podcast, Ben Reinberg, I Own It, to add value as well and give the consumer as well as our listener an experience to say, oh, I never thought about that that way. Or, oh, that’s a good idea. Or, wow, what a great way to sell. Or, what a great way to market, etc. And so, and what’s great, I love about the podcast is I’m learning, you know, I learn from different people and we’ve had 20 year old girl on to, you know, an 85 year old man who just dropping knowledge from different experiences. I’m taking notes during my podcast and I’ll reflect back and say, wow, that was a great show because. Here are some of the takeaways we got from the show. And so, also, I’m a guest on podcasts like your great podcast, Linda, you know, B2B branding. And it allows me to be able to share my knowledge and experience with as many people as possible. And so, we have so many different routes with the personal brand, and a lot of it is just getting out there and producing great content and knowledge and helping people and serving people. And when the foundation is serving people, Everything else is easy for me. It’s real simple. And so, it’s just, to me, it’s finding out what is the community, what are people that follow me, what are people that want to be engaged with me, or you, Linda. What do people want to consume? What type of knowledge? Because all I care about with my podcast, all I care about is being on a guest on your show or anyone’s show. I’m usually on a show two, three times a week, minimum, is I want one person. One man or woman to walk away when I’m talking and saying, thank you, you know, and, and serving that person that, because when I was a kid and you know, this as well is like when we had to go look something up, you go to the library, you have encyclopedias, there’s no internet, how great is it for the younger generation to have this internet and podcasts and personal brands where you can follow a Ben Reinberg or someone else out there. Yeah. Of a, of a path that you want to see fit in your career. Exactly. You can pivot. It’s incredible. And so for me, I take on the responsibility saying, well, if I’m going to influence people and be an expert in commercial real estate and finance, how do I enhance these people’s lives to shorten their learning curve? Because I don’t want them to go through what I had to go through to start my business and the ups and downs. And so, and I do the same thing with my kids. And so I share all these nuggets of knowledge that I have. And hopefully there’s something that someone can take away and say, Hey, I want to use that or I want to use that experience. And so for me, the personal brand has been very rewarding. It’s been a short path, but I’m enjoying it. And I look forward to many years of adding knowledge to people. That’s awesome.
Linda Fanaras:
I think it’s great insight that you shared today. Is there anything else you think that would be valuable to the audience as far as some of the expertise and knowledge that you’ve learned along the way that might help them as
Ben Reinberg:
leaders? Yeah, being a leader is, is something you really have to develop over time. It’s something I continue to work with, especially with technology, Linda, that’s changing constantly. And the way we do business is, is so, is changed drastically. I mean, we have so many people working remote and hybrid right now. I can’t, I couldn’t even give you the number, okay? And when we hire people, that’s what they’re asking for too. It seems like a growing trend. I like an office. That’s Ben Reinberg. And I like to have some of my staff here, which we have in our West Coast office in Chicago. But it’s interesting because when I was first starting off, everyone was in an office and now they’re not. And so leadership skills have changed. And so the best way I think is establish your mission with your staff, your leadership team and with anyone, whether it be a significant other, your spouse, kids. Friends, colleagues, establish your standards, right? Great standards and live by them. And that’s what a good leader does is here are my standards. Here are the company core values. Here’s our mission. This is what we’re going to. And either you’re on board or you’re not. And that’s what a leader does. A leader leads by example. I show up to work every day. People like, why are you showing up to work? You don’t need to. But I do because that’s my habit. So I live by a routine. I meditate in the morning. I go work out with my trainer. I’m in the office right after it. I got my cup of tea with me. I’m rolling and I’m humping and I’m grinding and I’m that same guy who started when he was 23, Linda. And so I look at all these factors and people say, How do you, how do you create leadership skills? How you become a great leader, consistency, developing your expertise, high integrity, doing what you say you’re going to do. A leader always keeps his word. You can keep your word to yourself. You’ll keep your word to the others. It’s the biggest. Issue I see with people. And so what I see with a lot of colleagues and and employees is they can’t be honest with themselves, right? They’re not fit in our company because they won’t be honest with other people. And so being true to yourself when you say, Hey, I’m gonna do something, and it’s for yourself, you do it. That’s what self-love is. And so it’s a misnomer. It’s something that. People have to develop, but I feel to be a good leader out there is you got to be honest with yourself, you got to be good to yourself, you can’t beat yourself up, you got to take a step back and say, man, I screwed that one up. That’s okay. You just keep moving forward. And, and you got to be resilient. And when I was younger, I didn’t really know these things. I didn’t, I had to bring in mentors and coaches from all over the world. Linda had to kind of groom me to become the man I am today. But I didn’t get her overnight. I had to put in the work. I continue to put in the work. I work on myself on a consistent basis. And those are the things that change. They change you. Because what I realized of a leader and also of a, of a man. Is that when I can be the best version of myself, then I can impact people in a positive way. And so, when I’m happy and I create this environment in myself and in our game, everything else externally takes place. I’m more attractive, I attract people, we attract investors, employing opportunities, properties to buy, different methodologies, different resources, different technology, the list goes on and on. Why? Because when Ben Reinberg is the best version of himself, he can, everyone around him improves. That’s what a good leader does. Yeah,
Linda Fanaras:
I love that. You know, the two pieces I want to take away, and I agree with you wholeheartedly, it’s like, be the best version of yourself. So once you kind of determine what that is, and that, to your point, takes constant work, because we’re always, faced with challenges or things that we may, have difficulty dealing with. But it’s always trying to overcome that in the best possible way and with the best intention. So I think That’s a great piece of advice. The other one, I just, I do want to backtrack because I think this is really important for businesses is as you determine what your core values are as a corporation, whether it’s integrity, innovation, being authentic, it’s, that’s what really makes up your company. And that’s what honestly often makes up the CEO or the group of leaders that are part of that. And if you bring in those types of people, those types of staff and you attract those staff. You do turn around and also attract those type of clients and customers. And that’s what builds this sort of, I don’t know. It’s like a greased wheel versus trying to find just any client that will, that may want to do business, but maybe they’re not the right fit because that one client. can turn your business upside down. Oh, there’s no doubt. Yeah, and I think companies maybe underestimate that, because when they’re starting out, you know, they’ll just take whatever they can get. But in a lot of cases, you know, that should not be the case.
Ben Reinberg:
Well, Linda, I’ll give you an example. So, we had years ago, we had an investor, and this is why we’re sensitive to who we bring in that invest with us. And I have a lot of women that work for us. I have a lot of women that are on my leadership team. And a big advocate for, for great women coming in. Okay. I look at the best candidates and we’ve had tremendous women work at Alliance over the years. And we had an investor who was abusive to a couple of women in our investor relations department. And we just kind of booted him out, we booted him out of our universe. Because I called him and I said, I just can’t, I can’t have you investing in our company. I said, either you got two options, when we sell these properties, we’re done. Which we did, we had a couple on the market he was part of, we sold. And that was it. And we never invited him back. And there was a message sent to my staff and to my investors that we won’t tolerate this. You have to align with our values. I don’t care how much money we make, I don’t care what we do, but I’m not going to allow the people that are working so hard and so much time away from their families to generate wealth for our investors, and they’re not going to be treated with the utmost respect and love that they deserve. It’s just not allowed. And so I took that to heart. That was a great lesson that happened when I was a lot younger. I’m 53 that I think that happened in my thirties, low thirties, but it was a great lesson for me because I realized that it’s a privilege to invest in Alliance Investments and it’s a privilege when you have this great, talented group of people that are working so hard to produce wealth and a legacy for our investors and to be mistreated and not show them that love that they deserve. I said, we’re never gonna do this again. And so we qualify people because just like you say, with a bad client, there’s no question is that the energy that people will put off and the negativity it creates toxicity. It does your universe. And so we look at the same thing with employees. We’ve had employees where they become toxic or, or it creates a work environment and I don’t care how skilled they are. I don’t care how much value is. It’s, it will just kill your company. And especially for all the people out there, you’re working remotely is, you know, a lot of people, 75 percent there’s a stat, 75 percent Linda of people leave companies because of a bad manager. Right. A lot of it is just not knowing boundaries and understanding, okay, what are my boundaries established? Okay. Well. If someone’s on vacation, let them go on vacation, don’t bother them. So, different things we do within the company to establish that, and part of it is just having expectations. And so, the world’s changed, everyone’s become a widget now. You want to work remotely? You’re not going to get that osmosis of being in an office, but guess what? You’re going to be accountable with your KPIs and your, growth. And so, it’s just a different world we live in right
Linda Fanaras:
now. Well, that’s great, Ben. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’d love for you to share how businesses can get in touch with you, either via email or linked in or through your website. So I’ll turn that over to you for a moment.
Ben Reinberg:
Well, if you want to engage with me personally go to Ben Reinberg. com. You can follow me on all the different social media platforms from Instagram, Tik TOK, YouTube, name it. Feel free to listen to my show. It’s Ben Reinberg hyphen. I own it. It, we drop two episodes on one on Tuesday, one on Thursday at 5 a. m. Pacific. And if you want to, if you’re a high net, if you’re a credit investor, okay, and you’re looking to develop wealth and you’re interested in investing in commercial real estate passively. Look no further. Go to my company, AllianceCGC. com. We’ll educate you. We’ll show you how to invest in commercial real estate. We’ll show you how to get involved with us. How to achieve tax benefits on your investment capital. And so that’s a great way to kind of enter our universe. Just go to AllianceCGC. com. You can fill out a form, invest now. It’s painless. We’ll get on the phone with you. We’ll, we’ll understand. We’ll qualify. You will see if we’re a good fit for you. You’re a good fit for us. It’s not really a sales call. It’s more of an education because that’s what we do. We educate our investors. And so those are the best practices, the way to get ahold of me. And then you know, like I said, feel free to engage with me on LinkedIn or all the social media platforms.
Linda Fanaras:
Great. Okay. Excellent. So I just want to take a moment and thank our audience today for listening in on behalf of the B2B Brand 180 podcast. I am Linda Fanaras, CEO of Millennium Agency. You can reach us at www. mill. agency or feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. And just to help our channel grow today, if you like what you heard, please share, like or subscribe. And thank you again for listening until next time. Happy marketing.
In this episode of B2B Brand180, Linda interviews Cody Schneider, Co-founder of Swell AI. Cody discusses the transformative power of AI in B2B marketing, focusing on its impact on marketing efficiency, customer engagement, and scaling businesses. Tune in for practical tips and insights for marketers and entrepreneurs looking to leverage AI for their business growth.
Follow Cody: https://www.linkedin.com/in/codyxschneider/
You can follow Linda at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
and visit Millennium Agency at https://www.linkedin.com/company/millagency/
Linda Fanaras:
Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of B2B Brand CEO of Millennium Agency. And we’re here to talk about branding, marketing, and lead generation strategies. But before I start, I just want to thank our listeners today. And if you like what you hear, please like share or subscribe to help our channel grow. I’m super excited to bring in Cody Schneider from Draft Horse ai, and he’s scaled companies from 20 million to 120 million in valuation in six months, and now he’s really focused in on ai. Now, we have been talking about AI a lot lately, but what we’re going to discuss today is how marketing teams can use AI to scale. their workload and scale their business. So welcome, Cody. Thanks for coming to the Yeah, it’s great to have you today. So no, I’m excited to, I’m excited to see how we can all implement this into our business. So let’s just start with a quick introduction. Cody, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?
Cody Schneider:
Yeah, I’ll just high level worked in B2B marketing agencies for forever. Then somehow ended up in Silicon Valley. Working at an early stage startup they’re one of the Things that I really like piloted and kind of brought to life was our content marketing engine. So what we were focused on was how do we build some basically a owned media that we could have for distribution and then use that as leverage within negotiations. We were a three sided marketplace. So we had customers. And then we also had people that were selling a platform. And so we needed a way to basically create distribution. And so that’s what I did there. We took that company from a 20 million valuation to about 110 120 and about six months. It was honestly crazy. It was one of those, one of those curves you live for, right. Where it’s just like exponential up into the right. And yeah, so, we scaled headcount. I was hired as like employee six there. We scaled headcount too. I think when I left, it was like about a year later and we were at 70. So it was one of those things like zero to one, which is wild. And then, so I left that company. And then did some consulting and then really quickly, we saw this was in July of this last year that AI was finally getting to the point where it was actually usable as a marketer. And so everybody I knew that was in early stage startups was like, okay, how do we basically start to employ this technology to scale out our content production process? And so. That’s really what I’ve been building for the last year and a half is, is these types of tools that help marketing teams really like scale out their, their content marketing production.
Linda Fanaras:
So let me ask you a couple questions just on your background, and then we’ll touch into the ice stuff. So to help these teams grow as quickly as possible. But it sounds like you’ve had some multiple startups. I mean, do you have some tips that you would give entrepreneurs who are just starting out and in their industry and in their market who really want to
Cody Schneider:
scale? So kind of two things. First I would, it depends on if you’re self funding or if you’re going, you know, the traditional VC back route. So if you’re self funding build some type of engine that spits off cashflow. So you have that free cashflow to basically parlay it into like whatever that product is that you’re creating. What I see a lot of people do is building a digital agency. They scale it to, you know, 20 ish people. And then at that point you typically have enough where it’s like, okay, I can go hire an offshore team and create some type of software that serves this customer that I’m also serving. So that’s a lot of the times the playbook and the self funded route, if you’re VC backed, it’s basically find product market, get fit as fast as possible and grow as quickly as you can and deploy that capital as quickly as you can. What I see work most often is four companies. And this is for both of those, whether it’s self funded or VC backed and you’re in like software as a service. Is focusing on one to two channels that’ll get you to like that first million ARR like yearly reoccurring revenue. A lot of the times it’s some type of display ad and cold email. Like I’ve seen, you know, five companies in the last two years do it with just that. At that point, then you can start thinking about, okay, what are these other marketing strategies and tactics that I can layer on, on top of that. But really those, I like to talk about it this way. It’s transactional marketing and that first, you know, 1, 000, 000 like you’re trying to do something where it’s like I do an action and immediately there’s a response, right? And then after that, that’s when I start to invest in that long, you know, there’s more longer term payoff strategies whether that’s SEO or I build, you know, organic social accounts or I build a newsletter, et cetera. So,
Linda Fanaras:
That’s great insight for, our audience today. Are there certain Marketing strategies that you think work better in companies. I know it’s going to depend on the audience, the target target. But I think for somebody that’s starting out, if you do keep that target audience in mind, are the key tactics that they should be really employing that will be as successful as possible. I mean, you just talked about cold calling and email marketing. I mean, that’s very doable. Direct mail is even doable. So just curious
Cody Schneider:
than ever before. Also, yeah, we sent like, I think it was a hundred thousand flyers through an API, there’s direct mail APIs now, and you have access to like that, the actually like the zip code data is actually really, really rich now. Okay, cool. We can hit this whole area. I did this for a. A company that was in the real estate space. They were based out of Houston. And it was honestly, I was shocked how cheap it was. It was cheaper than Facebook ads. I’m like, where did we end up here? But yeah, to, to answer that question, I think the biggest mistake I see founders make most often is they don’t identify where their customer is spending time online or offline. From the beginning, right? They think they need to be everywhere. And in reality, there’s probably like one or two places where the majority of information and people are So as an example, you don’t need to be on twitter if your audience isn’t on twitter, so if you’re like in the women’s health space, that’s probably not where your audience is most likely. They’re probably more on Instagram or Facebook. So investing in those places where your target customer is most likely. And then I think the other thing tactically, it’s just do things that are repeatable. You’re trying to build processes that I can do over and over and over again. Focusing on those two things, I feel like often just create way more impact for early stage companies rather than trying to do a ton of things. It’s like, again, focusing on those one or two channels and just hitting the pavement. Really? It sounds so simple, but in reality, it’s just that, right? If I send a hundred thousand cold emails to my target audience, probably going to get customers out of that. So it’s figuring out, how do I do that? Right. So,
Linda Fanaras:
That’s great. Because I think what happens is a lot of marketers will try a different meet several, all kinds of different mediums. And then they realize like, okay, how do we track all this? So the tracking gets lost and they’re not able to actually scale based on what they’re doing, because what’s happening is they’re doing too much, it’s too fragmented and they’re not able to focus on anything that’s actually successful So I think I love that tactic that you’re talking about. How do we focus and how do we build out processes that actually work? So maybe you’re focused in on an industry or two, and then maybe you just focused in on a marketing medium and, or two, and then, okay, how does that look when we’re done? Totally. How does that actually work?
Cody Schneider:
Go ahead. Totally. An example of that is like, okay, say I’m trying to sell software to funeral homes. Right. I go find every person that works at a funeral homes email. I use a tool like Apollo dot IO. They basically scrape LinkedIn and then they find all these emails and validate them for you. I take those emails. I cold email them that same email list. I can upload that into Facebook and LinkedIn and Google, and it does a customer match list, and then I do display ads to that same audience. So what. From a user like what they experience is they get a cold email from you and then they’re seeing you everywhere on social so really quickly you can start to own that mental real estate with just those actions rather than, okay, we’re going to spin up a YouTube channel and a podcast and now we’re going to do Twitter and we’re going to do Instagram real. So it’s like, no, like that those two actions together, that sounds super complicated. But that can get that business, off the ground again, that zero to one. And that’s, that’s where I’ve spent a lot of my time. So I’ll probably talk about that more. Getting to scale is a whole other thing, right? Where it’s like, how do I manage a hundred person marketing team? And like be effective there. Right. But so anyway. Yeah,
Linda Fanaras:
and that’s also you brought up a great point because I think what happens is when you’re identifying a list or you’re identifying your perfect or your ideal customer. Okay. Who are they? Where are they located? You know, what type of industries are they in? What are all those questions? And then you are pulling that list. And then you’re repeating some different tactics and strategies within that targeted list. So you’re not just hitting them once and forgetting about it because I think that’s another thing that happens with a lot of marketers. Like, like we talked about earlier, it’s fragmented. Let’s try this. Let’s try that. Nothing seems to be working. This worked okay. Well, it doesn’t work that way. It’s really identifying who your ideal customer is and then building out. A model or a list that you can just target in multiple different mediums. It could be Google, it could be Facebook, it could be other, it could be direct mail, email marketing, and that’s that 360 approach that really can make a difference.. It’s great. So tell me, so you’re the founder of Draft Horse. So how has AI actually transformed your ability to generate content at scale? I
Cody Schneider:
mean, it’s, it’s crazy. I don’t like we, so. Just for context we built an a company originally that was like content repurposing. So you give it like a video, say like a, you give it a webinar and it’s like, I can make clips and I can make articles and make tweets and make LinkedIn posts. It just takes it basically transcribes it and transforms it into like whatever that media is that you’re trying to publish. We built an internal tool to do SEO at scale. So write SEO articles at scale. I was talking about it in public on Twitter. People were like, Hey, I want that tool. So we ended up spinning it out of this other company and it went viral. And that’s what became draft horse. But basically what, what we’ve seen and what it, how I’m thinking about it more and more is I’m looking at the processes that my marketing team that we’re doing previously in the content production, space. So like how, what are those, what, which of those pieces can I abstract? And like have AI augment. So as an example, which just to use draft horse as that example like if I wanted to write content previously, I go and I would do keyword research, I would then build out a template for the article that I want written, I would then hand it off to my article writer, and then that article writer would write it, a copy editor would edit it. They would then publish it and then it’s live on the website of me to try to get that index basically so that we can get organic traffic. So what we found is that AI is really good at building out the article template and writing the articles, and then we can just build an integration that publishes. you know, directly to our WordPress site as an example. And so traditionally, like if I wanted to write a thousand articles and they like, and I hired article writers, that would cost me a hundred dollars per article. So that’s a hundred grand that I would spend, spend as a company. And that’s you know, traditionally when I would go to an SEO agency, like that’s a huge part of their cost structure, like what they’re upcharging us. So now, you know, with AI, I can take that same thousand articles. I can write it for like 500. So that’s the arbitrage that exists here. And so this is what we did. We just like, we’re like, let’s just publish, you know, like 25, 000 articles to a website and see what happens. Right. And so we did this in the health space, as an example. And it, like it now gets over 1, 500 clicks per day. It drives like hundreds of eBooks downloads. And then that’s just like lead gen into a telehealth company. So this was like a partnership that we did, but we’re seeing this, like, it can be applied in every space. And then the example of this is I’m looking for these keywords that are very transactional and related to my business. For example, I have like a software that’s, sMS marketing, right? So it’s like SMS marketing for hotels, SMS marketing for doctors, SMS marketing for, you know, X, Y, Z. Okay. I find all of those keywords. I write all of this content, I publish it. And I’m like, it just increases the volume and reduces those costs. And so I’m just creating like a wider net than I used to be able to previously. And then again, we’re seeing this both like that’s, I call that commodity content. So it’s like using the, the general knowledge of the AI to write. But there’s even like a layer down from that where I can go and I can interview industry experts. So like, say I go talk to five cybersecurity people about, you know, say like identity verification. Right. And I can then record those conversations and I can use that transcript as source material and say, okay, now we want to write about keyword X, you know, keyword one, keyword two, keyword three. It, you, we basically can limit the AI. To say, this is that source document that I want you to pull the knowledge from use your general, writing capabilities, but use this as like where you’re going to, you know, source that information. And that’s how we can create this like branded content that nobody else has that’s based off of industry expert knowledge and like insider information. So there’s kind of these two different ways to do this. Well, we’re seeing companies employ this like in both ways. Cause they’re, they’re trying to be everywhere, right? Like I’m trying to be a thought, I’m trying to create thought leadership content. And I’m trying to create that commodity content. So let’s do both of those things. And these are these different ways that we can use AI to employ that. So. Yeah,
Linda Fanaras:
That’s a good point because obviously Google loves relevant content. So if you’re busting out a lot of content for a website and it’s relevant, then obviously they like that. So that makes sense on how that all works together. So before we get To our next question, I just wanna take a minute and thank our audience today for listening in. And if you like what you heard, please hit like, share or subscribe and also provide a review to B2B brand 180. Podcast. So Cody, what trends do you actually see that are maybe emerging that, you know, industries could take a look at in the coming years because everything is changing so rapidly, I think right now. And we’ve seen huge changes over the last 10 years. Are there anything that, is there anything that you could see as far as disruptive tech, you know, industries and technologies that are coming around the corner?
Cody Schneider:
Yeah. I think search is so screwed. And just to like, be blunt I just saw data that was showing that Gen Z trust, TikTok search more than it trusts Google. And they’re going there for all of their basically like discovery, right. And education and all of this. And it kind of makes sense when you think about it. If I have an AI now. That can just bulk generate content. Right. And I’m trying to sell this product. Right. There’s less trust that’s baked into that with like a random website than there is. If like, okay, I’m a content creator and it’s my face. And I’m telling you that this is a solution to the problem that you just searched on, you know, TikTok, Instagram, Reels. So that’s a huge trend that I’m seeing change. I think the other thing that we’ve been seeing just in the data from like all of our clients, like we work with a bunch of media producers, right. That are you know, like some of them have, you know, 400 shows. Right. And so it’s the publishing, like it’s like 1500 different pieces of content, you know, like long, like hour long pieces of content each each month. But the thing we’re seeing with them and hearing from them is that. Content that is less refined is doing better. So like when it’s overproduced or it feels like it doesn’t feel like it’s social native. So people are wanting things that feel like they’re coming from their social media applications, right? Like something that you would make an Instagram or something that you would make in TikTok using their, you know, basically editing tools. We’re seeing both that content get more reach. Like provide more business value because it doesn’t feel like I’m being sold in a way. And that’s like really what we’ve kind of come to the conclusion. It’s more raw and providing me value rather than trying to convince me of this thing. And we’re seeing this more and more, especially in early stage companies where they’re just hire a content creator. And this is probably the third trend. That’s like the big thing is like, we’re starting to see people on salary their title is YouTuber, right. Or like a TikToker, their whole job is you just make content on that platform and your measurement of success is how much did the platform, what is our follower growth? What’s our monthly impression growth and how much inbound traffic did you provide to the website? And then how they measure the value of that. They were focused on tick tock as an example, if they ran ads on tick tock and we saw that the CPC for this audience was a doll. But this person is producing CPCs you know, based on their salary and like how much time they’re spending. The CPC that they’re producing is 10 cents. That’s the arbitrage. Their salary is, is, is all I’m paying for that organic free. But I, I think that this is Every company is starting to think about this more and more is how do I become a media company? And like, how do I enable my team to do that? And you’re seeing these again, a lot of early stage companies and kind of these middle, just cause they can move faster. I think this will naturally bubble up into like, the fortune 500, et cetera. But they’re publishing like a team of three people is obviously more content than a fortune 500, like what’s happening, you know, that change is crazy. Right. And so that’s how we’re seeing these companies, especially these AI companies, they’re, they’re going from zero to 10 million ARR, you know, 24 months. And the reason they can do that is because they’re, you know, again, like just producing so much of this content and tapping into the natural reach that’s happening on these platforms. So, Final thing again, this is all related. So, all algorithms are moved, like social algorithms are moving for what’s called like for you page content before you page content is when. The it’s when the social platform is just showing you the thing that it thinks you’re going to have the most like likeliness to like interact with and watch. So TikTok origin, they, they basically started this where it’s like, okay, we’re just going to show you random stuff from accounts of people you don’t know. And then whatever keeps you on the platform as much as possible. That’s why people were like, Oh, I’m addicted to TikTok. Right. Instagram reels is that version of that YouTube shorts is the version of that. Like LinkedIn, is it starting to do the same thing where it’s just like, it just shows you random people that are not even in your network, but it’s going viral. So that’s right. So that’s kind of all these things combined together. That’s where we see like the opportunity for businesses. It’s figuring out that now, like, okay, how do I actually, you know, build a process around this, which is the hardest part, right? Like, do I go hire a 21 year old that’s fresh out of college to run our TikTok They have no business context. So like, how do I train them so that they don’t say something like absolutely rogue and that absolutely, you know, it decimates our stock price or whatever. No,
Linda Fanaras:
that’s great. Do you envision any risk using AI and encountering duplicate content. Yeah,
Cody Schneider:
that’s a great question. So what we saw, so like Google released their policy that in on AI in particular in February of 2023, they basically said, we don’t care how content is generated as long as it provides value. I think that set a precedent for the whole, space, if it provides value to the audience, like we don’t care where it really comes from. And we’re seeing that on TikTok as well, right? Like we’re, we’re seeing and YouTube shorts in particular, these like history, YouTube shorts. You can tell it’s a hundred percent AI generated, but it’s, you know, this thing’s about Napoleon and it’s talking about like, you know, here’s his tactical battle strategies and that gets 10 million views. So I think on the duplicate content side, the thing that we keep telling like all of our clients and, and customers is, Hey, like, think about like, what is my unique voice style and tone? Right. How can I get the AI to basically write in that and provide a unique perspective? And again, going back to that idea of like, I’m going to go interview industry experts and then take that knowledge and then turn that into a piece of content. That’s the way that, that’s the only way that you’re going to be able to differentiate in this future, right? It’s. And it’s what we were doing previously. Like journalism is just that, right, exactly. It’s interview people or the story like marketing is, AI is, this tool is the same thing. Interview people tell a story. That’s the problem. So, yeah,
Linda Fanaras:
like you said, it has to be in the voice because otherwise, if we both ask, you know, AI, the same question, are we going to get the exact same answer? You know, I don’t know the
Cody Schneider:
answer to that. Totally. Totally. Something. I just like a quick hack for people. If you’re like, how do I get AI to right? Like me record a video of you talking for 5 minutes about a topic, take that transcript, drop it in and define the tone, style and voice of this transcript. And two minutes later, you have a style guide. That’s a mirror. It’s going to be super close, like mirroring what you are, like who you are and who the company is, and then just use that within your prompt chain. Every time that you’re, you know, making any type of content. Right. And so super quick and easy way, you don’t have to go hire some agency that you’re going to spend, you know, 20 grand to figure out like, what’s my AI style guide. So
Linda Fanaras:
no, that’s great. That’s great feedback for our audience today. What advice would you give to others looking to leverage their brands for growth? I mean, are there opportunities there that you think might be valuable?
Cody Schneider:
I think it depends on where you are in the stage of the company. Early stage, it’s just survival, right? How do I get to a place where I’m sustainable as fast as possible? I like to describe it as it’s just like a financial portfolio. When I’m young, I like, you know, whatever, 80 percent of all the money I make goes into me surviving. Housing, healthcare, food, et cetera, as I, as I age, like that portfolio adjusts, just like our financial portfolio. And I just using that as an analogy for companies and they’re kind of their lifespans as well. When you’re an early stage company, it’s just get customers at all costs for, you know, in whatever way you can. But as you start to mature, you know, maybe it’s year three, year five, et cetera. That’s when you can start thinking about and it really just depends on like where you are in that. It can be earlier too, depending on how fast you grow, but that’s when you can start thinking about, okay, now how do I build own media? Cause the brand and a really easy way to measure brand is just like how many organic searches are happening for your company’s brand name? Like on right. And so that’s something that we track What’s the month over month growth of our brand name searches and the impressions that we get for our brand name. And that’s just a measurement of what is the brand value, right? So, okay. We did these activities that add to the brand value.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s great. So Cody, is there anything else that you’d like to share with our audience today before we wrap up?
Cody Schneider:
tHere’s, there’s 2 things for companies. We’re, we’re in a transitional moment. Like this is a base technology change. It’s just like mobile, and what that did to the entire internet. This is every company is going to be an AI company, right? Like just like every company has to be a mobile company. Like they have to even if you’re a restaurant, you have a mobile menu now, It’s the same, it’s the same idea. So I think. The, the slower or the more pushback company, and I’m seeing this in marketing organizations where they’re like, Hey, I can’t do this. Like what we do. Right. And then it’s like, my friend runs this agency where all he does is he like goes in over the top. He looks at the processes of companies and we can automate all of these things. He automates it all. And then he’s like, sweet. Like we just automated 60 percent of your processes. And it’s like, it’s now more consistent with less errors and costs you, you know, 90 percent less than what it did previously. Adopting this is going to be super necessary. The other piece is there’s a long time horizon for that adoption, right? People are like, Oh, you have to do this in the next 12 months. I don’t think that’s it at all. you have three to five years to figure out how this fits in. There’s no need for panic, but this is going to change everything, especially on the marketing side, because it makes people superhuman. If I have a team of three people that are 10 X players. Right. It makes them hundred X players, right? Well, we have the same staff, but now we can do five X, what we were previously with the same amount of salaries. And it’s less work for our team, right? Cause it’s like less of the deleterious mind numbing work and they get to focus on the creative pieces. And so suddenly a great example of this is a company called boring marketing. They’re an SEO, AI SEO agency. And they basically what used to cost you 30 grams through a traditional SEO agency, they can do for three grand because like all their processes are like augmented by AI. And that’s a great example where I talked to their founder a couple of months ago and they were nine months old and already doing like. Three quarters of a million or something that’s an example of how these tools can be employed. It’s, it’s just, again, looking at what you’re doing, what can I automate, what can I ask for? And then the rest of it is like, that’s where I like have my team focused on those high touch, that’s where the smart people are focused. So yeah,
Linda Fanaras:
it’d be strategy or some high level. That’s great. Awesome. I loved having you on today, Cody. That was great. I got some great. Insight from what you have to
Cody Schneider:
share. I appreciate it. Thank you for hosting me. It’s always fun to come and, you know, talk to the industry. So yeah,
Linda Fanaras:
definitely. So I would love for you to tell the audience how they can get in touch with you. Yeah.
Cody Schneider:
So you can find me on Twitter. If you, if you just Google Cody Schneider, it’ll probably come up. And then I’m on LinkedIn as well. Those are kind of the two places that I’m talking about all this. And then the websites, the companies are drafthorseai. com and swellai. com. And those are the two projects that we’re working on that are focused on AI driven content marketing. So
Linda Fanaras:
Awesome. thanks for tuning into our B2B Brand 180 podcast today. And we hope we found the insights and strategies shared to be valuable and actionable. Again, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of the B2B Brand 180 and CEO of Millennium Agency. And you can visit us online at mill. agency, or feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. And just to help our channel grow, please like, share, or subscribe. And thanks again for listening. And until next time, happy marketing. Thank you.
In this episode of B2B Brand180, Linda interviews Zach Montroy from Intention Collective. Zach discusses strategic planning, execution for business growth, and the essentials of healthy leadership. Gain insights on aligning company vision with team efforts and the role of emotional intelligence in effective leadership. Zach also outlines his approach to helping businesses set and achieve their goals.
Thank you for listening and please like, share and subscribe to support our channel.
Visit Intention Collective: intentioncollective.co
You can follow Linda at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
and visit Millennium Agency at https://www.linkedin.com/company/millagency/
Linda Fanaras:
Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of B2B Brand 180 podcast and CEO of Millennium Agency. And this is where we’re going to talk about all branding and marketing strategy. And today I have with me Zach Montroy from Intention. And he works with businesses to help them grow on a strategic level on planning and execution. And we’ll get into some details because this is a perfect time right now to start talking about this before we hit 2024. So, welcome, Zach. It’s great to have you here on our podcast today.
Zach Montroy:
Awesome. Thanks so much, Linda. It’s great to be with you today. I Zach, we, my wife and I live in Nashville, Tennessee. We have three young boys, three boys under the age of 10. So. Life is always fun and interesting for us, but I had founded the intention collective and the intention collective really helps businesses grow and scale. And we have a focus on doing that in a healthy way, making sure that we are leading purposeful, meaningful companies. We’re building healthy teams. And from a leadership perspective, we are healthy leaders. We’re inwardly sound in our work where others focused and really believe that you can have. growth as a company and scale as well as health all at the same time. So we do a lot of work in the coaching, strategic planning you know, team development space.
Linda Fanaras:
Awesome. So can you speak a little bit more about the health? I think our audience can take that a couple ways. It could either be be healthy, stay healthy, eat well, exercise, or maybe it’s just using right communication skills in a healthy way. to motivate and move your goals and objectives forward. So how would you define health to the audience today?
Zach Montroy:
Yeah. When we talk about health, obviously, yeah, we, I believe holistically healthy includes kind of all of who we are, but when we’re talking about health, we really are talking about the health of the team. We’re talking about a environment of psychological safety and environment. Where we can be courageous and wholehearted in our work and environment where, you know, everyone understands what their contribution is and should be. And, you know, really understands with great clarity where we’re going as a team and we’re treating each other well along the way you’re cared for. You’re engaged in your work and from, you know, a leadership perspective that we’re, we’re taking care of who you are and letting you bring your whole self to work every day. So the, the health perspective is really health of the team, health of the company, from the environment that we create to the contribution that you are contributing in on a daily basis.
Linda Fanaras:
So when you talk about that, when we’re relating to like mindfulness and intentionality, I know that’s sort of the core of your leadership style. So how do these actually influence the decision making process and the interactions with others?
Zach Montroy:
Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting in our study of leadership and you know, I really wholeheartedly believe that leadership is a lifelong journey. It’s, you know, not something that you just arrive as a healthy leader. One day it takes continual work. I was listening to a video by Simon Sinek the other day and he said, you know, it would be like if you could just go to the gym and work out for nine hours and be healthy. Well, you can’t do that, right? It has to be a regular habit in your, your life. If that’s something that you want for, for your life, for those around you. And I think leadership is the same way, right? We, we have to practice healthy leadership. We have to practice you know, for us being inwardly sound, making sure that we are, you know, self-aware that we’re holistically healthy, that we’re. Purposeful were principled in our work and two that were focused on the wellbeing of other people and in really utilizing their gifts and abilities. And so I think that there has to be deep understanding of who I am, what my best contribution is and how do I get that out of my team at the same time and creating a place where they can use their unique ability, their unique genius for the good of the team, the health of the company.
Linda Fanaras:
So How do you actually define leadership, Zach, and when you speak about leadership, maybe you can share an example with the audience today where you had to actually lead by example
Zach Montroy:
yeah, absolutely. I love Brene Brown’s definition of leadership. She says in Dare to Lead that a leader is anyone who sees potential in people, in processes and ideas and has the courage to develop that potential. And what I love about that definition is it’s not about your title. It’s not about your position on the team. It’s not about how much money you’re paid or not paid. It really is, you know, how do you view yourself? And are you seeing potential in people, processes, ideas, and taking that, you know, upon yourself to develop those things, which I think sounds a lot like growth mindset. It doesn’t matter. You know, in, in, in work that we’ve done, doesn’t matter if you have a C in your title or not, you’re the CEO or CFO that has nothing to do with whether you’re a leader or, you know, say a healthy leader, we’ve worked on warehouse floors and been surrounded by leaders and have looked under desks and C suites and not seen leaders anywhere. So, you know, healthy leadership. Transformational leadership, I think, really starts there. It starts with seeing that potential, developing that potential. And as a leader, and I love your question there. You know, how, how do you model that? Right. How do you live that out? It isn’t just, you know, I’m going to sit in my desk and command and control people or tell people what to do or just delegate work. It really is. I am here. In service of others. I am here in service of the work that we are doing in service of the clients that have been entrusted to my care as well. And so that that’s where the work starts, right? That’s where we get to, you know, communicate vision. That’s where we have to have hard conversations. That’s where we have to be about developing people and Giving them the opportunity to shine, giving them the opportunity to use their skills and abilities to, to transform whatever it is that we are working on together. But that to me, leadership and service to others really is fundamentally the core piece of leadership that I think is so important when you are, when you’re in that position of authority, when you’re in that position of leadership with other people.
Linda Fanaras:
So basically, are you saying that when you speak about that style, are you talking about like a servant leadership style? Can you articulate a little bit more on that?
Zach Montroy:
Yeah, I, you know, that that term I mean, I think it’s a good term. I think that there’s, you know, it’s been widely used. I mean, I think that it really comes down to is Is my leadership in service of others, meaning you know who I am is healthy. I’m working to be self-aware. I’m working to be emotionally intelligent, but I’m, I’m focused on making sure that other people, the people that have been entrusted to my care. Are well cared for. They understand and I’m helping them develop their skills and their gifts. I’m giving them the resources they need. I’m communicating. Well, I’m helping them understand their contribution to the vision. I’m having conversations about what’s not going well. Like, I’m treating them with respect and care. I think those are the attributes of servant leadership. So yes, yes. But, you know, I don’t want to just use that term as a blanket term, because I think that there’s ways that we have to operationalize that. It’s not just a, you know, I’m going to be a servant leader. Well, what does that actually mean? I think that those are the practices and habits of servant leadership, certainly. Yeah, that’s
Linda Fanaras:
great. So when when companies have goals and objectives that they’re trying to meet, you’re working with the staff and the leadership team to try to get them to understand what these goals and objectives are and move them through the process. So they’re all focused in the same direction. Is that accurate?
Zach Montroy:
It is, you know, I think it’s really important for an owner, founder, whoever is in that, you know, sort of most senior position and in the leadership team to really have a good understanding of what, what’s the destination, right? Where, where are we going? Why are we going there? What’s in it for everyone who’s on this team? And that sounds like a really simple question, right? But many business owners, many leaders haven’t done the work of figuring out where we’re going and why we’re going there. And, once we do that, then we can reverse engineer a plan, right? We have to have a destination first and yes, ultimately the power of what we do, the power of a strategic plan is, number one, the data that it comes from, but number two, our ability to execute that and our ability to execute that is we have a destination. We start painting a clear picture and direction of where we’re going. And then we start making bets. If we do this as a company, if we make these investments, if we set these goals, we’re going to hit the mile markers of getting to that destination. But then ultimately, every team, every department is running in a 90 day sprint contributing towards that. But. That is what’s creating the traction that we need to actually hit the mile markers that we’ve set along the way and in really ultimate service of that destination. So it is getting really clear on where we’re going and then reverse engineering a plan down to every team, every person on every team, understanding What’s most important right now in order to help us continue traveling down that path to accomplishing that, that vision, that direction.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah. Do you run into challenges with employees or staff because they’re overburdened with their current workload and then they’re feeling like, okay, this is just a, another initiative that has to sort of layer on top of what’s existing. How do you, how do you tackle scenarios and
Zach Montroy:
conflict like that? I mean, I think that that’s, that’s a great. example of healthy leadership, right? If we’re saying yes to something, if we’re saying yes to these things being most important for our team this quarter, you, you have to say no to something else, right? We can’t just keep saying yes and yes and yes. Something has to get put on the back burner. Something has to get said no to, but I think that’s where it comes down. That’s where this idea of trust, vulnerability, courage. Come out because we have to be able to have those conversations, right? If you know, you as my CEO, Linda are saying this initiative is really important and I need you to lead this, we should also be able to have the conversation of, Hey, I actually have all this stuff on my plate right now. What can I, or what should I deprioritize or delegate off so that I can do this? But right. We don’t often have that conversation. And as leaders, we don’t even often prompt that conversation. But if we’re prompting it and we’re creating an environment of safety to actually have the conversation like that’s how things get done. We don’t just want to be surrounded by yes, people. We actually need to have the conversation of for saying yes here. What are we saying? No to so that we can prioritize And resource, whatever that is in a healthy way.
Linda Fanaras:
So before we go to our next question, I want to just take a moment and thank the audience for listening in today. And if you could just help grow our channel by liking, subscribing and sharing the B2B Brand 180 podcast with your colleagues, that would be fantastic. So Zach, I’ll ask you some more questions. I’d love to learn. Like, what key components of exception, you know, what are the sort of the key components of like exceptional leadership? If you were to just create this like ideal scene of this perfect leader, what, what do they look like? What do they sound like? You know, can you articulate that to our audience today?
Zach Montroy:
Yeah, I don’t know that I’ve met the perfect leader. But I would say the healthy leader. Let’s start. Let’s say that I think the healthy leader recognizes like we said before, this is a journey of, intentionality and consistency and creating healthy habits. And continuing to lean into the hard work of leadership, right? It’s, it’s not fun. It’s not fast. It’s not easy oftentimes. And so doing the work of self development I think is you know, exhibiting humility, exhibiting courage in our work. There’s actually a, an amazing book that was written a few years ago, go called the only leaders worth following. And in the book they found in their research and really what they did was they went and asked people, who are the most exceptional leaders you have ever worked for and what was true of those leaders? And they had this list of basically everything sort of boiled into these 10 attributes. And what they found was there are 2 attributes that accounted for over 75 percent of a leader’s effectiveness. And those attributes were being inwardly sound. In others focused and really what that meant was the leader who does the work of being inwardly sound means their principle. They’re self aware. They’re holistically healthy. They’re steadfast. They’re emotionally intelligent. And then others focus. They’re focused on the well being of others, making sure that they’re developing resourcing. communicating with clarity and intention. And they’re emotionally mature. I think that that is the work of exceptional leadership.
Linda Fanaras:
And I think, that’s a great point is making sure that emotional component is up to par because otherwise it can create a very toxic culture very quickly.
Zach Montroy:
Absolutely.
Linda Fanaras:
I’m assuming you’ve probably seen that in your examples. Let me ask you a question. So can you talk to us a little bit about like how you work with companies when you go in? Do you do an assessment? Do you speak to the leadership team? Then do you build a plan? What is sort of your systematic approach on uncovering what needs to get uncovered, setting goals, and then getting individuals engaged in that process?
Zach Montroy:
Yeah, thanks for asking that. The first step that we always start with is we do a, we call it our intentional insights 360, which is basically a business 360. And if you’re in leadership, you’ve likely done a 360 assessment on yourself at some point. And that’s really where you ask. Everyone around you, how are you doing as a leader and you self assess as well. And so we do that for a company and for a leadership team to really say from an operational maturity perspective, from an identity perspective, who are we as a company? How is it that we work? How is it that we deliver? And from a change capacity standpoint, what is our tendency and capacity for change? So that’s where we start. And really what that helps us do is just say, okay, here’s reality. Here’s what you say is true about your company. Here’s what we’re, what we, here’s where we’re at sort of as a baseline. And then we use that data to say, okay, what, where do we want to go? What’s the destination? How is it that we’re going to get there? So we really start with. who are we where are we at from an operational maturity standpoint and then start developing that vision with the leadership team and figuring out then the strategic plan to get them there. So really reverse engineering that plan, activating the leadership team to start leading and accomplishing that in a systematic way. Running those 90 day sprints. And what we do then is teach an operating system. So how, how is it that you’re going to function and operate from an internal perspective to get this strategy implemented and accomplished. And then we meet with you every quarter to run that plan, talk about what happened last quarter and then. Iterate on the plan, making sure that we have sort of our charging orders for this next quarter. And then every year we really look at the overarching destination where we’re going and make sure that we’re aligning ourselves to that and accomplishing that plan. And in, I for example, we just saw a company. Double their revenue in a year. And, they started with no leadership team. We’re doing 2 million a year in sales, went to almost 4 million in sales in a year in revenue have, has a fully functioning leadership team and it’s still very profitable and has an incredibly engaged staff because they’ve been so intentional with communication, their planning. Their execution and really has created this, these habits and discipline that are keeping them aligned to what they want to be true for their company.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s fantastic. And I think leaders lose sight of how important that is, because especially small businesses, because they’re busy running their small businesses from day to day and just handling the operations and. financial aspects and then the employment issues and so on and so forth. So to take a big step back and say, okay, let’s take a look at our overall goals and objectives, where are we headed to and how are we going to get there and working with a firm like that would like yours seems like it would be a huge benefit to really get them there instead of it continuously being on the, on the
Zach Montroy:
back burner. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s what you want as a business owner, right? And I mean, every business owner I’ve met is one that wants to grow and scale their company and not feel like they’re carrying the entire weight on their own shoulders alone.
Linda Fanaras:
So how do you stay updated on the latest trends and best practices around small business growth and transformation to just make sure that your strategies that you’re implementing are totally up
Zach Montroy:
to speed. Yeah, that’s a great question. We do. We so we have a team of nine people at intention collective and we really do practice what we preach. We spend a lot of time in developing our own skills and, you know, as facilitators and also just doing a lot of research. The different clients that we have, making sure that we’re talking together about trends that we’re seeing, we’re staying up to date on, what are the, what are companies struggling with? And then, looking to the Harvards and MITs and universities around the world that are doing the research on what’s happening in small businesses, but then we’re, we’re a part of a number of entrepreneurial. Communities where we are both participating, learning and facilitating, because like most of our clients, we too are small business and we too are experiencing a lot of what everyone else is experiencing in the marketplace. And so there, for us, what we’re learning, we’re also implementing. And for us as facilitators, we’re challenging ourselves. We’re constantly learning. Thank you. constantly growing in our skills, abilities and the data that we’re functioning from to bring that best approach to our clients.
Linda Fanaras:
Thank you, Zach. I really appreciate hearing your insights on, regarding intention, collective and how you’re handling and working with clients. Is there anything else you’d like to share with the audience today?
Zach Montroy:
as a small business owner and to all the small business owners that are out there, I think for for all of us, it’s it’s hard. It’s challenging. I don’t think any of us got into this thinking. It was just going to be an easy path. I think my encouragement would be care for yourself care for your team. The reason we call ourselves the intention collective is because I really don’t believe. Any good thing comes without intention and intentionality. And so I think as we’re approaching this time of year where there’s a lot of reflection and thought and planning going into next year, really to think about who, what do you want to be? As a company, as a team, as a leader, a year from now, and start putting those habits and practices into place today. Don’t make them the new year’s resolution. That’s like done by January 5th, but put those into place today so that you can, be at that point a year from now. I think that would be my encouragement as, as we leave people today.
Linda Fanaras:
So just for our audience, if you are interested in strategic planning and successful execution, Zach and his team is your go to place. So Zach, I’d love for you to share today how businesses can get in touch with you, either via email, LinkedIn, or any other way through your website. So I’ll turn it over to you.
Zach Montroy:
Sure. Our website is intention collective. co. So we’d love for you to visit us there intention collective. co. And then we’re on LinkedIn and you can find us intention collective just by the search there or Zachary Montroy on LinkedIn as well. We share a lot of resources on those pages.
Linda Fanaras:
Awesome. So again, thank you for listening in today. And on behalf of B2B Brand 180 Podcast, I just wanted to thank Zach for all of your executive insights. And again, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of the B2B Brand 180 of Millennium Agency. We’d love for you to visit mill, M I L L dot agency or feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. And just to help our channel grow today and educate more B2B leaders on brand strategy and leadership, feel free to click share or subscribe. And thanks again for listening. And until next time, happy marketing.
In this episode of B2B Brand180, Linda interviews Paul Pritchard, CEO of Overdose Digital. They discuss the company’s growth, digital transformation, AI’s role in e-commerce, and innovation strategies. Paul provides forward-thinking ideas and insights for businesses navigating the rapidly evolving B2B marketing landscape.
Follow Paul at LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulpritchardnz/
You can follow Linda at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
and visit Millennium Agency at https://www.linkedin.com/company/millagency/.
Linda Fanaras:
Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of the B2B Brand 180 podcast and CEO of Millennium Agency, where we talk about all things branding and growth strategy. And before I start today, I just want to thank our listeners if you are listening in today, we’d love you to like, share, or subscribe to just help our channel grow. So today I’m really excited to bring in Paul Pritchard. He’s a from Overdose Digital. They are a digital commerce consultancy firm. They primarily design, build and trade digital commerce stores. So I want to take a moment and turn it over to Paul and have him tell us a little bit about himself and his company.
Paul Pritchard:
Well, firstly, thanks Linda for having me on this. I’ve listened to a number of your episodes and. I’ve been really impressed by the conversations and the caliber of your guests. So I feel very fortunate to be amongst this. As you said, my name’s Paul. I’m the group CEO of Overdose. Overdose is a seven year old business that was founded down at the bottom of the world in New Zealand. And in that seven years we’ve managed to grow to 400 plus people with offices throughout APAC and into North America and during that time we’ve managed to work alongside a huge number of merchants who have I’ve been navigating the, the digital commerce craze you know, particularly fueled by the pandemic. That was definitely boom time if you were a merchant who had stores and it was the only way you could trade typically. But I guess, you know, if you, if I look at my background I’m an, I’m an ad guy. Historically, so I spent nearly 18 years working in networks and making digital advertising and kind of having a lot of fun. But, when we started Overdose, it was really a chance for us to build a business that we wanted to be a part of and that we believed would be in hot demand in an industry that was really going through a massive amount of change. And I guess looking back now on that seven years, I can honestly say I’ve. Never experienced more excitement, more growth and more, I guess, you know, the chaos of technology than I have. over this last seven years. So thanks for having me.
Linda Fanaras:
Absolutely. Thank you. I’m excited to learn more about overdose digital. I think it’s, it’ll be great to have our listeners learn some more about what you are offering and how you’re going about it. So let’s get started. I’m just wondering, how do you balance consumer empathy component and then tech? You know, technology in that sort of technology, agnostic mindset in your company’s approach to digital transformation, because today I think it’s getting more and more difficult. It’s like they’re separating every single day. We’re getting further and further apart from technology and the empathy component. And so how are you bridging that gap?
Paul Pritchard:
It’s an interesting question, and I think the key word in there is that agnostic word. So technology typically is an enabler. And it enables an interaction between people and between businesses as well. And I think ultimately, if you focus on the technology, you lose the understanding of what it’s there for. And so our business really started off and in effect, the technology aspect was, was the result of a lot of work that we did with businesses to truly understand how to engage with their, with their customer bases and consumers as a whole through digital channels. So, you know, whether it’s your website, whether it’s your marketing whether it’s your email, whether it’s. You know, any form that you, you have that connection. And I guess if you look at it, if, if technology is the answer to a problem, you have to understand what that challenge is up front. And really, that is what we’ve always faced. So the empathy really comes back to truly just understanding who your customer is. And we do a lot of work with our merchants through data layers, particularly, right. And there’s lots and lots of conversations going on at the moment around disparate data sources and, you know, understanding the insights that you can pull out of it. And technology plays a really strong part to do that. But really, you know, we’re a human business, you know, we employ lots of human beings to do lots of great intelligent work to really connect our merchants with their customers and build long term relationships that sustain growth for them as well.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah, and I think people are losing sight of some of these more basic aspects of empathy and connecting with the audience and doing it in an effective way. And we always say when we’re messaging and we’re positioning, we’re not talking about features or benefits. We’re talking about an emotional connection. And if you don’t keep that in mind, especially as a marketer or as a business owner, you missed the point because that’s why we make purchases, you know, unless somebody wants a vacuum cleaner that, does its own thing versus Maybe there’s a reason why you want that vacuum cleaner, you know, it’s going to make your life easier. So how do you make those connections? And I think being able to do that in an effective way can be extremely valuable. So the digital landscape is changing, especially when it comes to commerce. What do you see as like emerging trends or technologies that you think might be most impactful in the near future? And I know there’s so many different things out there, from AI to other things, but I’d love to hear your take on that.
Paul Pritchard:
Well, I mean, Linda, I don’t think you can go anywhere or have any conversation around technology without mentioning AI these days, right? I mean, it just feels like it’s the number one topic that’s on, on everyone’s lips at the moment. You know, I do think AI is really important. It’s something that has been baked into what we do from a technology point of view and from an engagement point of view that decisioning process. You know, through the ad channels like Google and Meta and the like even down to that kind of more granular personalization layer, right? AI has been with us for quite a while. I think it’s had such a boom right now because of the accessibility of it. You know, the, the, the ability to use it in smarter ways to, to I guess shortcut some of the, the kind of longer challenges that we face, things like copywriting and, and asset generation and stuff like that is, it’s a really powerful tool. Now, I think one of the things that it will do in the short term is bring everything to the middle, right? It’s kind of a standardization process. That’s what machines do, right? They create this this regular kind of normalized approach to doing things. And so AI for us is an ability to help our people stretch their talent. So they become, wider in their talent set. You know, they’ve got new ways of doing things like creating content, like writing code, like, optimizing ad campaigns and the like. And I think that’s a really wonderful thing because it, it takes some of that hard Graphed work and it makes it a lot easier to do what it doesn’t do is add that kind of real human intelligence the ability To spot something that doesn’t feel right and that feeling is as the important part and that’s where our our people Particularly, you know, I’m thinking about User experience designers, I’m thinking about our marketers I’m thinking about, you know, even our developers who are, building and writing code and, and that reusability aspect. It’s a really powerful tool to help that and become more efficient, but what it doesn’t do is, and what it will never replace for us anyway, is that human insight, that feeling when something was working well. And to really double down on it or something’s not looking or not feeling right and to act on it and Really really quickly and the other thing that we’re seeing a lot of in the technology landscape is this concept of micro services or using the best in breed api applications to do specific things so Where we used to do a lot of monolithic builds right where you choose a sales force or similar and you’d kind of build just big monolithic e commerce store. Now we’re seeing a lot more businesses and a lot more of our tech partners really focusing on the nuances of things like search and personalization and merchandising and really just do that exceptionally well. And with that comes the ability to plug all of these things together in a composable way. To allow our merchants to be able to kind of pick and choose the best in breed, right? That’s their business, not something where they have to fit their business into a, into a monolithic technology landscape.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s great. It’s great insight. So I do have another question around that. So what philosophy do you hope to impart sort of to others that, aspiring to make sort of an impact in the digital commerce space? Do you have any, you have any message or philosophy around that, that you could share with the audience today?
Paul Pritchard:
Well, I guess I can only go by experience, but the last seven years that we’ve been in business, one thing that’s really certain is that things change. Quickly. And so I guess the philosophy that we have is it’s built on our own core behaviors or values. And that is being courageous being curious. So really looking at what’s in front of us and really leaning into it. Right. It’s really easy for businesses, I think, to take a step back and go, you know, we’re going to be fast followers, or we’re going to be, we’re going to wait until this matures into a space. And the reality is, is by the time that’s matured, something new’s coming. So that courage to kind of take a step forward. You don’t have to be, you know, bleeding edge when it comes to technology, but being courageous enough and curious enough to figure out how you might Kind of make something work for you. Really focusing on that, that concept of together. So, you know, we’re a business of 400 people that are spread around the globe. And the ability for our people to connect closely in real time and to work on solving problems with the intelligence and talent that they have and the technology that’s at our fingertips. You know, if we’re not collaborating, right, we’re stronger together than we are apart and we’re more alike than we are different. And so looking at those commonalities and really leaning into what makes us connected is going to be more powerful as well. And then I guess. You know, lastly in that word empathy, I think keeps coming back, right? What is it? You know that that commonality that what the things that make us connected are also the things that make us human and so using that, that ability to empathize with the environments that we’re in with the The customers that we have the the relationships that we have in business. Really allows us to Adopt a a viewpoint that is someone else’s and, and respect it first and foremost, doesn’t mean that you have to, you know, fully dive into it, but it does mean that we’re flexible enough to, to change over time, depending on the kind of human environment that we’re in as well. So I guess my philosophy for anyone trying to step into this is really embrace it, right? Say yes a lot and definitely just continually try things nothing ventured, nothing gained. Yeah, no, that’s
Linda Fanaras:
true. So what would be an example of a solution where you’ve done some consultancy work? How could you share some of that with the audience? Maybe an example or two of what you brought on what you’ve done and what you’ve created just to give maybe some real life examples.
Paul Pritchard:
Yeah, so like our business works with merchants that we would consider in the mid to enterprise market. So, you know, they might be local high street brands that are doing fashion and footwear and, and jewelry. Or they might be more B2B businesses that are manufacturing truck parts or trading securities or, you know, doing, you know, a multitude of things. And that’s the, the benefit of our business and being really agnostic in the space we’re in. A couple of examples, you know, we work with household brand names like Patagonia and DKNY and and still uh, you know, the, the, the outdoor tool company. And these businesses all, fundamentally have the same challenge, which is how do we create a relationship with our consumers? That stands the test of time that that translates a purchase and goes into something that’s a lot more loyal and a lot more I guess brand relatable, right? What do we stand for and what do people buy into? It’s not just the vacuum cleaner, it’s the my house is clean and it’s easy to do something so some of the examples where you know, we’ve created relationships that transcend, product and move more into, you know, what is the relationship? What is the what is the new spaces that we’re working with? So we work with a company that is a, I guess they’re a procurement business for governments. And so what they do is they respond to government RFPs that are looking for products for, you know, for areas and it doesn’t matter what area they’re in. An example being is we stood up a prototype for a marketplace for feminine hygiene products for schools, right? So this is the government looking at providing feminine hygiene products across all schools and so they needed to procure that product and so we worked with this company to stand up. A prototype for a marketplace For schools to be able to access this product So they’d source it, you know internationally they’d bring it in and then schools would be able to make their orders through this This marketplace product now that product in and of itself wasn’t related to the end, you know user or the end product was actually transferable and so this product then translated into an auction site for excess minerals that were not being traded on the the minerals market And so you’re talking about smaller, businesses who might need minerals for, for building kind of, you know, data cards or maybe it’s like byproduct of mining that is then used in other industries. And this business, this marketplace is really for smaller international companies who need smaller lots of this, right? So they’re not. Trading in thousands of tons, you know, they’re trading in tens of tons of this material. And so this was an auction place that was built on top of a marketplace that was originally designed for, schools. So that translatable, technology layer that is a proof of concept for something over here that can then move into this really crazy new space over here Right. We don’t know anything about minerals. We don’t know anything about schools What we do know is how human beings need to interact in these spaces to be able to get what they need quickly As well, right? And so you think about that space and then you go, actually, we have Patagonia kind of service a big region and it’s this kind of crazy environment where, we’re stuck in the middle from a, how do you use technology to solve these problems and these businesses are coming at it from very, very different points of view and they’ve got hugely different customer bases as well.
Linda Fanaras:
Well, before we go to our next question, I just want to take a moment and thank the audience today for listening in and we would love you to like, share, subscribe, or provide a review to the B2B Brand 180 podcast. So Paul, I was interested to just find out what inspired you to challenge that. Typical agency model and establish overdose digital because it’s a different model. So it’s easier to just do, you know, what’s common. And I’m just wondering, why did you choose to do it that way?
Paul Pritchard:
I think there’s two things when you go through a career where it’s about climbing a ladder getting recognition and the salary that goes with it and all sorts of stuff at the end of it, you know, you’re racing to a really thin point of the pyramid. And during that you lose touch with what it is that makes your career personal and special and you lose touch with the people around you. And what we wanted to do with overdose is build an environment where people want it to be. First and foremost and recognize people individually through that process to go, you know what, this is a stepping stone in your career, but it should be something that is truly memorable because it’s an environment where you feel safe and supported, where you can do great work, and you can work with great companies, and you can work with a bunch of people around you locally and internationally. That all want to do the same thing, right? They want to bring the best of their talent every single day, deliver work that people see and and value over time, and they want to be recognized for it. And so we built a company that is incredibly flat. So, you know, from myself and from our other founders down to the, you know, the grads that come into the business, everyone has access to everyone in the business. They’re really respected for what they do. And for who they are individually. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what your beliefs are, you know, how you identify, there’s a home for you to be able to turn up and just do great work, right? And that’s what people want first and foremost. And then they want to be recognized for it. So that’s, you know, that’s the foundation of our people strategy is really value our people, be really respectful and provide that safe and supportive environment. And the results of that are value based relationships with our, with our merchants, with our clients. And once you have that, you have this architecture of a business that is really oriented towards that value exchange, you know, that kind of Collaborative, equity based value exchange where what we give to our merchants they give back to us. We’re true partners, we lean in really, really hard to what it is they are trying to achieve. It’s about that growth conversation. What is it going to take you to get to that next layer? You know, one to two, two to four, four to eight, and so on and so on. That’s our mentality. And so we have this really fortunate environment. We’ve got people who have worked for us from You know, almost day one who have accelerated their careers beyond belief, right? There’s been no barriers, no ceilings, right? And so I guess, overdose has been incredibly successful because we believe in being different and that’s better than just being better, right? So we’re not competing against everyone else trying to just be the next best. Version of that. We’re fighting our own fight where you know, we’re peddling her own canoe, so to speak Because we believe in what we’re doing and we believe that through doing the work that we do and providing the environment We provide we can’t help but be successful
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah, and that culture of innovation Sustains itself. Would you say yes? I mean, how do you sustain that innovation? Because that’s really being innovative, keeping people motivated, keeping them engaged, having them be part of the conversation. How do you make sure that happens?
Paul Pritchard:
That spark comes from almost anywhere. And so you have to create an environment where anyone can put their hand up with an idea or with a problem that they think that they can solve or a challenge that they’re really interested in and getting themselves involved in. And the business will support them to go through that process. And I guess, you know, innovation’s a really interesting term, right? Because I think if you look back ten years ago, innovation was about startups and kind of cutting edge stuff. And all that I think innovation is just in how we sometimes just maintain relationships and connections as well as embracing these new technology environments and you know, the advent of AI and all that sort of stuff. So innovation can come from anywhere and the excitement to be a part of it, I think is what really makes us tick.
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah, a simple conversation can turn into innovation. I’ve seen that time and time again. No, that’s great. Well, thank you, Paul. That was great. It was great for you to share some of the insight on digital overdose and how you grown the firm. I would love our audience to be able to get in touch with you. So if you could share that, I’ll turn it over to you.
Paul Pritchard:
Sure. So you can hit our website. It’s overdose. digital. Just that. It’s pretty simple. Check us out. Otherwise connect with us on LinkedIn. We share a lot of content, a lot of updates. We run our own podcast as well. Overdose and Chill. And so look, we’d, we’d love to connect. We’d love to see you. We’d love to have a conversation.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s great. Well, thanks for tuning in today to our B2B. Brand 180 podcast. And we hope that you found the insights and strategies helpful to your business. And again, I am Linda Fanaras, host of the B2B Brand 180 podcast and CEO of Millennium Agency. Feel free to visit us at mill. agency or connect with me on LinkedIn. And again, to help our channel grow, please hit like, share, or subscribe. And thanks again for listening. And until next time, happy marketing.
In this episode of the B2B Brand180 Podcast, Linda interviews Dan Melnick of Southlake Consulting. Dan introduces his company’s new AI chatbot product tailored for e-commerce and they discuss the broader landscape of AI technologies. From real-time customer interactions to integrated social media features, join in to learn about the future of AI in e-commerce.
Follow Dan on LinkedIn
You can follow Linda at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
and Millennium Agency at https://www.linkedin.com/company/millagency/.
Linda Fanaras: 0:00
Welcome to the B2B Brand 180 Podcast. Thanks for joining me today. We’re going to talk about everything related to all new things in marketing. And today we’re going to touch on some. AI technology is a hot new topic I brought in Dan Melnick. He owns South Lake Consulting. And he focuses primarily on the e comm space on the B2C side, but obviously they sell on the B2B side. He’s from Dallas, Texas, which is exciting. He can tell us a little bit about that and can share a little bit of his expertise on his personal and professional expertise, as well as his New product. So welcome, Dan. Thanks for joining
Dan Melnick: 0:35
me today. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, great.
Linda Fanaras: 0:40
I’d love to hear a little bit about you and your company and maybe a quick snapshot of your
Dan Melnick: 0:45
product. Sure. Yeah. So, I’m Dan Melnick, I guess you mentioned I live in Dallas, Texas. I’ve been here for about three years. I’m originally from the Chicago area, but essentially my company was sort of more out of need. I had a different startup, which was a fitness app. I didn’t really know how to find. Good software developers. So I met my co founder Kassim Masoud and you know, a couple of years later, this is in 2019, in 2021, that we started this company together. We’ve, we’re coming out with this new product as an AI chatbot, really focused on the e commerce space, and we’re really excited for this product. Well, that’s
Linda Fanaras: 1:19
awesome, Dan. It’s great to hear. You know, there’s so many different products coming out on the AI space as you’re well aware. I they’re integrating it with medical devices. They’re integrating it with marketing and content marketing. They’re integrating it with design. There’s so many different strategies around that. So I’d love to learn, a little bit more about how you guys differentiate yourself in the AI space with a product like yours.
Dan Melnick: 1:41
Sure. Yeah. So our vision at Southlake is to really make AI more affordable. Many of our competitors are focused primarily on enterprise. We’re focused on small to medium sized businesses. So our product only starts at 199 a month. And so essentially how it works is from day one, we sit with our clients and have conversations, which we’re doing that right now. Even though the bot is live, we have some clients that are have already bought it and that we’re training them as we’re building it for ourselves. So having conversations of their data. So for example, one client runs an e commerce marketplace, so understanding their products, what they’re selling, if people are asking questions, so from the marketing side, as you probably know, like the reason why most people don’t buy is because they don’t have enough information. So giving people information saying, Hey, if somebody asks you real time, what Why should I buy these jeans? Well, these jeans are high quality that they’re made in this country. You know, all these questions and handling objections on the spot and having live conversations. Also, we have clients that sell internationally, right? So if somebody’s reaching you from halfway across the world, they want answers, right then and there. So I was able to answer those questions in real time and also upsell so if you’re selling jeans, they might say, okay, well, if you bought these jeans, what do you think of buying this shirt? So it’s upselling is increasing the average order value and really just providing as much information as possible. So there’s a lot of sales components, you know, marketing aspects of this tool and the cost only starts at 199 per month for 500 conversations or less. I think it depends on how many conversations you have integrates with Instagram, Facebook, other social media platforms and CRMs like HubSpot. So.
Linda Fanaras: 3:21
When you say it integrates, is it tying it in from the perspective of actually being able to do the chat, or is it tying it in from being able to gain the data that you’re posting as a repository to be able to spit out the accurate information if somebody is using your tool?
Dan Melnick: 3:36
The data is tied back to a database. But it’s, you know, so for HubSpot or for CRMs, it’s tying it into feeding the data to HubSpot, for example, if people are trying to gather customer information, like when it comes to social media platforms, they can chat on those platforms. So if somebody reaches you like an Instagram or Facebook messenger, they can have a live conversation at that time on that platform. And so from that standpoint. You know, it’s definitely a tool that can be a kind of website, but it’s also a tool that can integrate with these different social media platforms,
Linda Fanaras: 4:11
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been frustrated by using some of the virtual chats where you know that the answers are just generic and there’s no value to it. So to be able to have a tool that actually Is able to analyze your products and your services and some of the interactions and use that to to your point to either provide additional product information or upsell is a huge value proposition for I would assume any e commerce even even a b2b company that’s interested in, using it as part of their day to day work life to decrease the amount of interactions that there are. So I think that that’s a, that’s a great tool. Are there any other tools out there that do that type of work?
Dan Melnick: 4:52
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So we definitely have competitors, um, you know, so there’s one competitor that’s charging, you know, a bit more. We have some competitors that are charging over 60, 000 a year, 25, 000 a year for similar types of tools. So, yeah, it’s definitely a competitive space. And we’re well aware of our competition. I think for us, it’s understanding our customers, having these conversations with them and being available in real time. So if they have questions, we can answer them straight away, get them resolved. And that way we can retrain the bot too. So, for example, some people might have new products coming out or different Yeah. features and saying, Hey, listen, like I need this retrained every month or every few weeks. And we can work with that as well as really understanding what they need. It’s really, they can be able to market their products and sell their products in the most efficient way.
Linda Fanaras: 5:42
It sounds like there’s opportunity to use your product and. A multitude of different ways. How would you, as far as use case scenarios are concerned, what is the ideal scenario to use your product? would it be an e com site that, is selling some series or some product line and, and they want to Cross sell more effectively, or, or is it something that maybe they like to integrate with other parts of their company? What would you say, is an ideal use case for your product?
Dan Melnick: 6:10
I would say it’s probably more like on a website. I mean like in terms of e-comm specifically, it’s kind of the niche that we focus on. But I’ve had people reach out to me in different sectors, right? So I have friends of mine, I like, I live in Dallas Texas. You know, and Dallas is a big hub for real estate. I have many friends in the industry and they’re like, I need this product for my property management. So we’re definitely looking at different use cases in different sectors, or for example, pest control. I think it’s more of just a tool that can have like the best use case of a customer facing tool, even if it is B2B, if we have some clients that are B2B, so it’s just really. Making things as streamlined as possible. And they come, when I say B2B, it can definitely be a small business that can be a medium size, but like even large companies, because also many companies today are outsourcing their customer service teams in a sense of. You know, you’re talking to people overseas or they’re only like, you know, available to chat at certain times. This really, minimize like this friction. So if it’s three in the morning, you can have a conversation right then and there, and you can serve people, no matter where they’re located. Right,
Linda Fanaras: 7:14
right. And it seems like that’s just a huge opportunity for that. And especially it sounds like the price point is actually at a really good spot where even a smaller size company can take advantage of something like that and actually grow their business and, and see an ROI if there is, like I said, opportunity to upsell automatically without having to, get a person involved. So I’d love to, when I talk to AI experts, I’d love to get your insight on if we were to fast forward another five years, What do you see in the AI space? how do you see that being used in different applications? Can you give some or illustrate some examples of how you may share that information with, with the audience today?
Dan Melnick: 7:51
Yeah, I think one thing for sure is the humanization of AI. I think that it’s pretty good and it’s pretty humanized, but I’ve seen, for example, of AI tools being able to call people and say, Hey, listen, you know, I’m just following up. I wanted to reach out or. You know, or things like that. And so I think the customer service role for sure is changing. I don’t believe it’s going to be quote unquote taking jobs away, but it’s changing because, you have certain things like cold calling or following up with people that many people just don’t want to do. And you like have it on your account. Like I have to follow up with this person. I just don’t want to do it. But A. I can help solve that problem. You can delegate it to an A. I tool and it can really call. And I’ve seen clips of Of some tools actually being able to sell on the spot. We would go, I’m with an AI call, but I think one of the biggest challenges right now is, is essentially adding this human aspect of it, because if somebody is calling you and they sound like a robot, you can tell. I think it’s exactly so. I think it’s just making it more humanized for sure. I think it’s also, making it more high level. So, for example, it can different applications. So if you’re scanning things, or maybe there’s there’s more applications for robots. But I think once again, certain jobs. are not going away. And we’re still very far away from, you know, robots or A. I. Replacing a lot of these jobs because there’s still a human element and you still have to prompt it correctly. If it’s not being prompted correctly, it’s not going to give the right answer. So it’s important to prompt it correctly and have that human aspect of
Linda Fanaras: 9:23
it. Right. Yeah. No, I noticed that. Yeah. I would definitely chat in some of the other tools. I mean, I think you have to give it proper amount of, you have to give it, it’s always like, you know, it depends what, what information you feed in is really the information that comes out. Right. So if that information that you feed in is validated and accurate, of course, the information that comes out will be. you know, equally as validated and accurate. And I think with some of these tools that we’re talking about, it’s important to keep that in mind because otherwise you’re just, you’re just guessing through this process. No, it sounds like it’s a great tool for frankly, like many different types of businesses. Are there other parts of an organization that could use that? I see it as a marketing and sales tool. Is it something that ops could use or could be used on the finance side? Or is it mostly marketing? Just outreach to current customers or prospects to try to, help with the sales process. Yeah, I
Dan Melnick: 10:14
mean, I think this tool in particular is more focused on that. I think AI has use cases, for example like when it comes to finance, it’s streamlining the finance process. I think really taking some of these manual things and operations or finance of SOPs or typing up documents or things that we’re spending a lot of time on. You know, especially when you’re an entrepreneur or a small business owner, there’s all these tasks. You have so many things it was never ending to do was, but it’s taking those things and automating it, doing it for you because they’re going to good manner. So I think it’s time goes on. Those things are going to be much more streamlined and. Way easier. But I think as of right now, it’s like it’s still not there yet. And it’s machine learning, right? Learning, improving it to be better. All these different. I’ve seen so many different use case. But one thing I always tell people that everybody has to be aware because there are many companies saying their A. I are using A. I. Become this kind of buzzword. But not like I’ve met with people who have AI in their company, but there’s no AI application. There’s very minimal AI involved. So it’s really important for people to understand also, like, just cause somebody saying AI, their company is not AI doesn’t actually mean that they’re using AI, so just everybody, should be cautioned. About that as well.
Linda Fanaras: 11:28
What do you see as far as a I consideration and potential risks for using the product in the future, especially when it comes to, you know, legal issues or policymakers and other things? Because. You know, it’s kind of relatively new, right? We’re just kind of getting going and figuring this out. And, you know, the more something grows, the more people they want to get their hands in it. So I guess I’m just wondering, how would you envision some of that playing out in the future on the, on the, maybe the government side or the legal side or the policy maker side?
Dan Melnick: 11:59
For sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that we’ve seen this already. I mean, there are certain companies like, you know, I’ve seen, I’ve heard stories of, you know, companies like Meta and Amazon firing people for coding and can chat GPT because chat GPT people have to say is open AI, right? It’s not like an LLM. It’s very similar, but you need to have your own LLM in order to not expose your data. So if you’re going to use chat GPT, something is confidential information. If you have an NDA, they should not be used. They can chat GPT. So I think from that standpoint, for a government or a legal perspective, if you have confidential information, you have to understand that chat GPT, you know, the current version as it is, is an open source platform and you’re Basically putting all your information out in the open. Now, if you’re using, like, there’s, I think GPT 4 or different models, like if you’re paying extra, you can keep that data enclosed. But still, there’s concerns of how secure is that really? I mean, where’s the server being hosted? So that’s something that you’re really concerned about. You should have your own LLM and not worry about those things. So I think that’s a concern. I think one concern for sure is, I think people still need to be involved in it. So as human beings, we have to be thoughtful and use AI as a resource, not as a crutch doing things for us.
Linda Fanaras: 13:10
No, that’s a great point. I mean, sometimes, you know, we utilize it, the tool and. I think it helps build the foundation of what the final end product will be, but not necessarily be the exact end product. So I just want to take a moment and thank our audience today for listening in. If you like what you hear today with Dan, please like, share, subscribe. We want to increase our followers and we would love to have you help with that process as well. I also, I’d love to Dan learn, ask you a question just for the audience that maybe doesn’t really understand AI. If you were to simplify it how would you explain AI to somebody that’s like, I don’t know what chat is. I’ve never used it. I have no idea what AI is. Can you illustrate how you would communicate that in layman terms? Yeah,
Dan Melnick: 13:52
sure. I would say it’s just having human conversations in real time. Using technology, right? So I guess, you know, just to simplify it even more. It’s like if you’re the same way that you’re texting, you’re able to do that with a machine, but it’s very high level and it can, you know, actually answer your questions in real time as opposed to These chatbots I got in the past where, you know, when you’re calling customer service and you’re like, just keep pressing zero. And by the time that you actually reach somebody, you’re just so annoyed. So it’s really just changing that narrative and improving the customer service and also sales and marketing experience.
Linda Fanaras: 14:28
Yeah, it’s such a amazing space and it continues to grow and change, which is super exciting. You know, I love to learn about, I love to learn from AI experts and the perspective that you have on that. Do you want to tell the audience a little bit about your business, Southlake?
Dan Melnick: 14:44
Sure. Yeah. So I’m Southlake consulting. We do software development and our focus right now is helping e commerce companies. So we do and work in high level technologies like blockchain, AI, machine learning, we build out custom products as well really helping our clients scale in different ways. So we are working. with marketing as well, you know, running Google ads and running Facebook ads and helping our clients scale in whatever way possible,
Linda Fanaras: 15:10
right? So you’re definitely focused on the growth aspect of your clients as well. Are you a national or are you more regional or statewide company? So,
Dan Melnick: 15:19
so we work with people mostly in the U S my co-founders in Pakistan, but we really do focus on the U S market. We’re a U. S. Company that were based in Dallas, Texas.
Linda Fanaras: 15:29
That’s great. So do you mind sharing? We’ll probably just wrap up here shortly. Maybe share with the audience where they can get in touch with you. Maybe, I don’t know if you’re going to be having this product on your Southlake website, maybe the URL around that and how they can connect with you on LinkedIn, Dan.
Dan Melnick: 15:44
Sure. Yeah. So it’s going to be live on our website, southlakeconsulting.com and on LinkedIn, I’m just Dan Melnick and also like on Instagram and Twitter at Dan P Melnick. I’m pretty active on both those platforms. So just reach out to me. More than happy to chat more about our services and our products.
Linda Fanaras: 16:00
Well, thank you for joining me today. It was great to have you. It’s exciting to learn about your new product. I think that’s going to be a huge development to help with those customer service process, help with the sales process, help to cross sell. I mean, it sounds like a dream come true to me. Thank you for joining me. And just a shout out to the audience. If you liked what you heard today, please like, share, subscribe. And thank you so much for joining me on the B2B Brand 180 podcast. Thank you. Thank you.
In the latest episode of B2B Brand180, Linda Fanaras talks to Jared Reimer, CTO & Founder of Cascadeo.
Reimer offers practical insights on how businesses can stay ahead, adapt, and thrive amidst rapid technological shifts. Linda and Jared also explore the influence of artificial intelligence on B2B Marketing. And, get a peek into Reimer’s unique experience consulting for the hit show ‘Silicon Valley.’
Follow Jared on LinkedIn
You can follow Linda at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
and Millennium Agency at https://www.linkedin.com/company/millagency/.
Linda Fanaras: 0:00
Hello, everyone. And welcome to the B2B Brand 180 podcast. Today we’re going to talk about branding, messaging and some lead generation strategies primarily for B2B companies. My name is Linda Fanaras, and I am the CEO and strategist of a Millennium Agency. And today I’m super excited to bring in Jared Reimer. He is the co-founder and president of Cascadio, which is an Amazing top tier strategic partner with AWS, Microsoft, and many other companies. And they were recently bought out by a global organization. So they’re now publicly traded. They’ve been rolled into this publicly traded company. And he was also the tech advisor for this TV show that you, many of me, many of you have may have heard of called Silicon Valley. And he said it would spend one of the coolest things he’s done. So we’ll probably ask him a couple of questions on that as well. And he started a nonprofit in Seattle and they provide free Wi Fi throughout the area, which I think is just fantastic. And a little personal tip about Jared, he’s a world class scuba diver and he’s traveled around the world. So again, just a quick synopsis on Cascadio. They work with companies of all sizes. Including fortune 100 companies. And we’ll, we’ll chat a little bit about that. And he’s a thought leader when it comes to AI and a host of other things. So welcome, Jared. It’s great to have you here today. Yeah. Thank you for having me on the show. Right. So do you want to take a couple of minutes and tell us a little bit about yourself and your come, why you started
Jared Reimer: 1:36
Cascadio? Yeah, absolutely. So I was raised in Washington state outside of Seattle. I moved to the city when I was 17. attended University of Washington undergraduate and graduate computer science. Yeah, I used to be really into diving. I have three kids now, so. Maybe a little bit less than I used to. I still love skiing. I always make a point of getting in as much skiing as I can in the winter. I think it’s good exercise. I like the clean air. I think it’s a good way to kind of clear your mind and do something other than think about work all day. It requires a degree of. Concentration and a style of concentration that I really like. So, I typically try to ski 20 to 30 days a winter which is hard because I have a family and I have a business and there’s travel and there’s all these competing priorities, but it’s one of those things that I always try to make time for. So, so I sold the ISP to another ISP rollup. I went on to run that. We sold that off. I started a company, Cascadio, 17 years ago. We did a data center and virtualization. When AWS first came out, we were one of the very earliest partners and adopters of cloud computing. We were their very first managed services partner, globally, I believe, certified. So we’ve been there since the beginning. We’re all in on cloud, so we no longer do any physical data center network server infrastructure. It’s all cloud computing. And then, as you mentioned even during the first year of the pandemic, we were fortunate enough to join forces with Globe Telecom. Globe is the largest telecoms company in the Philippines, and they are publicly traded. We are a subsidiary of theirs. I guess the other two things I would mention is we have been building Over the last few years, a software product that I’m particularly proud of and which leverages generative AI. And that’s an area that we believe is going to be the most important in the future. So it’s our big bet for 2024 and beyond. Awesome.
Linda Fanaras: 3:36
Well, we’ll get into some questions around that. I want, I do want to make a couple of points. I do agree with you on skiing 100%. I think it helps clear the mind and the elements dealing with the elements definitely helps with the process, especially if you’re running a business or you have a high pressure job. I think it’s always important to take time for yourself and just. Disconnect and rejuvenate yourself. So thanks for that tip. And I also agree with you, like certain things we all can do relatively well. And there’s just certain things that just don’t make sense. So, so as far as Cascadio is concerned, how do you market to potential B2B customers and are there certain strategies that you use to cut through the noise? You know, It’s keeps getting more and more cluttered in the marketplace. How do you tackle that and go about some of those tactics with your product?
Jared Reimer: 4:22
Yeah, that’s a great question. So clearly we’re not going to outspend, you know, Accenture and Deloitte and Capgemini and these massive consulting companies, right? There’s no way we can do that. So we have to outsmart them and the way that we do that is by being the thought leader. So we are always first to market with the latest technology. We are always willing to go be a launch partner for new AWS services. We want to be the evangelist of the most important technologies and innovations. We want to be the ones that not only talk about them, but bring them to customers. And we do that by leading by example and by building it for ourselves. So we don’t evangelize technologies that we ourselves are not using. Okay. And our software product is an example. We’ve learned a lot about how to deploy generative AI. In applications and in enterprise because we’ve been doing it and so one of our big things is no vaporware, right? We don’t sell things that we don’t really know inside and out and we always build some kind of a product or proof point that shows that we’re the real deal And we’re not just talking about it we would rather focus on engineering elegance and platform adoption and building things the right way, even if that’s a limiting factor in terms of growth, because we think in the end quality matters. We end to stand out by being the thought leader and outsmarting and outpacing the larger companies. They always are going to follow. But we have the luxury of being able to go first and there is always a market for people that want to be on the leading edge.
Linda Fanaras: 5:55
And I think it’s important to realize that if companies can employ a strategy where they’re actually building product or services that they can use as a model internally with its product focus, maybe they’re running the alpha and betas internally to make sure that everything is functioning and working properly before they release it into the market, I think is an important step. Companies can. Take advantage of in order to make sure they’ve worked out all the bugs and any issues that could be coming up during that entire development and, testing and launch process. So I think that’s a great strategy that you have into place. A lot of companies should consider tactics like that. When you’re marketing to the fortune 100 companies, we see this every day in our in our space. They’re much different than those smaller companies. They have limited budgets. every little thing is, you know, concern. How do you make sure you target in a very specific way to get the best results. Bang for your buck. I’m wondering how you tackle, how you tackle that piece.
Jared Reimer: 6:55
Yeah, that’s a great question. So to be clear, we do not explicitly try to market or sell to you know, fortune 100 companies. We do work for them when they come to us because they’re referred in. By a cloud provider or by someone else in the industry that knows us It turns out it’s very very hard to sell into those companies and it’s very hard to even get approved as a new vendor Typically, they like to buy from their existing set of vendors And while we’re happy to do it and we’ve done it, we’ve done airlines, we’ve done one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies in the U. S. We’ve done work for one of the largest cloud providers. I mean, we happily will take the work, but we do not actively try to sell into that space. Where we try to sell is the mid market. And the reason for this is they typically have the right mix of business need. Headspace, leadership, vision, budget, and then the most important thing is they typically have a strategic need, like we’re going to build some new product or service, or we’re going to take our existing software product and we’re going to deliver it as software as a service, or we realize that if we don’t modernize, we’re going to lose our customers because our competition is doing it. So companies that have a revenue side or a customer side need, And that have the budget to really do this right? That’s our sweet spot, right? Those are the people that we’re trying to speak to when we happen to pick up fortune 100 business. It’s almost like luck and it’s well, what do they say luck is when preparation meets opportunity. So we’re we’re positioned correctly Occasionally those opportunities appear and if it’s a good fit we take them sometimes it’s not because they’re you know, they can be very difficult to deal with they want everything on their paper They want everything done a certain way But yeah, we, we certainly don’t turn them away. We just don’t try directly to market to them.
Linda Fanaras: 8:50
So on the AI side, and I think I’d like to definitely dig into that a little bit. I think our audience would appreciate getting some insight on AI. It’s starting to become, a little more cluttered. There are all kinds of different tools that are coming up relating to AI. Some people haven’t even experienced it yet, but some people have, especially marketers have really dug deep into the AI space and they use it in their day to day, work environment. And I’m wondering. As it becomes more crowded, first of all, I want to get your take on What do you think about the space and the new implementation of, you know, AI tools that are coming into the market? And then how do you think that that could impact businesses, whether they’re B2B companies or companies that are selling products or services to the market?
Jared Reimer: 9:31
First, I’m going to preface this by saying that there are very smart people who are going to disagree with what I’m about to say, okay? So, admittedly, I am on the end of the spectrum that believes that generative artificial intelligence and large language models are probably the most important invention of our lifetimes. In my mind, This is more important than the internet or the iPhone. It’s more like the invention of electricity. Thomas Edison could not have conceived of the iPhone when he got the light bulb to work. It’s taken a hundred years or so for us to get this far and we keep finding new and interesting use cases for electricity. AI is the same thing. This is the very, very beginning of something much bigger. And so I believe passionately that this is the most important invention in our lifetimes and that every professional class job will be touched by it. Now it’s not going to replace the barbershop or the dentist because those are things that currently require manual dexterity. But, you know, every knowledge work job from stock photographer to medical transcriptionist to journalist, software developer paralegal, junior contract attorney, all of those jobs are going to be impacted. So, there is a legitimate reason for… Some fear that this is going to be disruptive because it is, and it’s going to happen very, very quickly. A lot of people do not seem to understand, the earthquake has already happened, the tsunami has already formed, it’s racing towards shore, and you know, you either ride the wave or you’re going to get flattened by it. There’s not really a middle ground. And so we are strongly of the opinion that there’s going to be a lot of job loss. There’s going to be a lot of disruption, but there’s also going to be huge opportunity. Right. And we would rather help customers seize the moment than watch them get obliterated by a giant wave that in some cases they don’t see coming because they don’t think it’s relevant to their industry or their job. So here’s the other thing I’ll say. The fear, if you look at this through the lens of opportunity is unfounded. It’s also irrelevant. Okay. And it’s irrelevant because there’s no way to slow down or stop or pause this technology now that it’s out in the open. The, the, the hardware is readily available. The software is open source. It’s available to every single person on the planet. You can’t stop it. So the best you can do is be aware of it and try to accept that the technology exists, what is the best path forward given that it happened, right? Given that this is where we’re at and where we’re going, how do you seize it? How do you leverage it to your advantage instead of being obliterated by it?
Linda Fanaras: 12:12
Right. Well, that’s a great answer. I want to just backtrack because, you know, especially if you’re a marketer and you’re in, it doesn’t even matter if you’re just a marketer, the world is constantly changing. And if you don’t embrace the changes. Then you fall behind and then life gets much more complicated than it needs to be. So, and I even look at our space as an example, because when I started, we’d be waxing the paper for the printer to print out like a direct mailer to get it to them. And then we moved into the digital space where we’re doing everything with, software. platforms that allowed us to build out very extensive design files that we could just send to the printer. And then we used to go from traditional media and then we went to digital advertising. It’s like, okay, what is this? And we’re all learning that process. And then we’re all learning social media. So. These types of tools are constantly changing the way that we think and that we act and that we live. And I think it’s important for the audience to, you know, as marketers, we have to constantly be embracing and embrace change, whether it’s here to stay or not, it doesn’t matter. We need to embrace it while it’s here. If you were to fast forward on ai less some of the sort of negative things but more on the positive side of Ways that you envision that tool being used in the future. So we know how it’s being used today. It’s getting implemented in many different types of businesses and many different types of ways from manufacturing to marketing to operations and to legal and so on and so forth. If do you see that? AI will be something like you see it as being something bigger. And if you do, what would that be in your
Jared Reimer: 13:48
mind? Well, so there’s, how does it go to market? And the answer is it’s going to be embedded into everything, just like microchips and transistors are today. So everything you touch, whether you know it or not, has a microchip in it. Even the lightbulb at this point, okay? AI will be embedded into every appliance, every job function, every software application. You won’t have to ask for it, it will just appear. It’s already happening, right? Like, there was early things like, if you shop on Amazon, here’s other products you might like. If you go to Netflix, here’s some movies you might like that was kind of a precursor to it. But in the future you can imagine a scenario where i’ll make it up an e commerce site Speculatively ships you a product that you didn’t even order because they know with a high degree of certainty that you’re going to buy it anyway Right. And they’re willing to accept a 10 percent return rate in exchange for delighting you by anticipating your need. Right. And that sounds crazy, but the technology exists to do that today and we’re almost there in some ways. We’re almost at the point where the cost of speculatively generating content. Speculatively you know, just predicting what customers want before they know to ask for it. All of those capabilities exist. So that’s, you know, that’s going to happen. Now, there’s a bigger question, which is the AGI question. So right now You know, uh, artificial intelligence is kind of specialized into things like making images, making music, making text, like it can write letters, or it can write poetry, or I don’t know, it can write an essay, but there’s a different kind of AI that does not yet exist, and that is something that’s closer to a human, where it can learn arbitrary tasks And is not really limited in terms of the things that can do But instead like a human can basically adapt and learn Take on pretty much any task that a human could take on right? Okay, and that does not exist yet That’s the kind of terminator scenario that i’m sure they’re working on it But we don’t yet have agi at least not to the best of anyone’s knowledge I never thought As a person with a computer science background, I never thought we would get as far as we have, meaning I underestimated how far the technology could be taken. I’ve also been shocked beyond words at the pace of innovation. So nothing in the history of computer science has moved this fast. None of the other innovations. If you look at the number of years it took to get the first million people on the internet, first million people on email, first million people on Facebook, whatever it is. And then you look at chat GPT. And it was instant the minute that they put it out there. They had 100 million users on it, right? So this is a different it’s different in a lot of regards, but to be clear, it’s just the beginning This is just the very tip of the iceberg And much bigger things are coming. Yeah, and if there ever is agi We have a whole nother set of problems because AGI means essentially it can replace a human whereas generative AI augments a human and gives you more productivity and capability, but it doesn’t generally replace your entire job. It makes you more of a supervisor and thinker and less of a doer, but it’s not like you can take. You can rip out the pilot of the airplane and drop in a robot and say, fly it. Even though technically that’s possible, humans are not going to let that happen. No, one’s going to get on a jumbo jet that doesn’t have a captain and a co pilot. So generative AI keeps the humans on the loop. Yep, whereas AGI has the potential to cut them out completely and replace them and those are very very different things Yeah
Linda Fanaras: 17:54
And that’s I think something really important for the audience to keep in the back of their mind is as the technologies You know continues to move forward I did want to just take a moment and thank our audience for listening in today And if they enjoy what they’re hearing so far on AI and from jared, we’d love you to like share or subscribe, definitely share it with your colleagues if you can. I do have a final question for you, Jared, because I am just dying to hear a little bit more about your Silicon Silicon Valley experience, the TV show and how did that all come about? It sounds like it was a really cool experience. I’d love to just have you dig in a little
Jared Reimer: 18:30
bit. Yeah, absolutely. And it was, it was a wonderful, like, once in a lifetime dream come true experience. I was introduced to one of the producers by a mutual friend who knew that I had had experience building. Internet infrastructure in unusual places like a gas station, the basement of a church, a vacant office room. When we were first building dial up internet, we had to put the modems near the customers and out of necessity, we had to build them in weird places because these places didn’t have data center. So my role was to help make the data center in the garage in the show as realistic as possible. This was really, really important to the people producing the show. Every single little detail had to be perfect. And I mean, like it would undergo the greatest scrutiny by a technical expert and always pass the test. This was a high budget HBO production. In every job category, they have the best in the business, you know, photographers, screenwriters, actors, editors, they don’t produce, low quality stuff. That’s their brand. There’s a reason people pay extra for HBO. It’s better, right? They sell to an audience that cares about quality. And so, The show itself was amazing because it was so dead accurate. They had a lot of people that had worked in the Valley and understood the ins and outs of like venture backed tech startups in that era. And they, they did a wonderful job at. Parodying but yet in a believable way. It wasn’t a slight exaggeration Not a ridiculous exaggeration and that’s what made it work, right? That’s why it was so funny is The show wasn’t really that different than reality. It just had a bunch of comedians as the actors and they placed the utmost value on quality and excellence and Making it real and making it believable And I think there’s a lesson there I think there’s a really important lesson from this. A, you know, Silicon Valley is a funny show. That’s obvious. But B quality matters, right? There, some percentage of the population will pay for quality. And I think HBO is a great example. It’s not included in your basic cable subscription for a reason. People subscribe for a reason. The quality of the product is worth the price at least to some segment of the addressable audience, right? Maybe not everyone buys it but for the people who appreciate it. It’s a great value hours of awesome entertainment For really not that much money. A lot of people have been hbo subscribers for decades and would never give it up So for us we aspire as cascadio to be more like that Okay, we would rather do the best work of our lives and build the best possible labor force and Build things that we are proud of and excited about and that we want to show the world That that means sacrificing to some degree scalability Because to scale service delivery and technology oftentimes means making sacrifices that we don’t want to make around quality, around, I don’t know, unique value add there are plenty of lift and shift factories that all they do is just move computers to the cloud. And that’s all they do. They’re big name companies. They’re very big, prominent companies that make a lot of money. But all they do is the same thing all day, every day. It’s a robotic job that is uninspiring to engineers, uninspiring to people like me. I would rather work on an HBO show than work on, I don’t know, some low budget B movie, okay? Now, there’s a market for both, but we, we have to decide as a company what we want our brand identity to be and what audience we want to serve. And I think you know, we would rather win on merit. We’d rather be the best. And that’s not for everyone. Not everyone’s going to pay for it, but for the people that appreciate quality I think that’s appreciated. You know, I think that’s that’s how you win. Yeah,
Linda Fanaras: 22:33
That’s great. So I just want to take a moment and thank you, Jared. Jared Reimer from Cascadio for joining us today. I really appreciate your insight on AI and your company. If you could just let the audience know on how they could get in touch with you, I think that would be fantastic.
Jared Reimer: 22:47
Yeah. Our email address is info at cascadio. com. Our website is cascadio. com as you would have guessed. I’m on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn name is Jared Reimer all run together. J A R E D R E I M E R. And I’m very active on LinkedIn by the way. So, if you’re interested in some of these subjects, I write a lot about them on LinkedIn. And then of course, if you want to contact me personally, LinkedIn is a good way to do it, or my email is jaredjared at cascadio. com.
Linda Fanaras: 23:17
Awesome. So again, I just want to wrap up today. My name is Linda Fanaras, and I am the CEO and strategist of Millennium Agency. I’m happy to bring today to you the B2B Brand 180 podcast, where we talk about all things branding and all things marketing. Again, if you like what you heard today, please like, share, or subscribe. We hope you join in on the next podcast that we have. Thanks a lot.
Jared Reimer: 23:41
I know. Take care.
Linda Fanaras: 23:42
Thank you.
In this episode of B2B Brand180, Linda Fanaras interviews Kevin Lee, a seasoned advisor, investor, author, “multipreneur,” and strategist. They discuss the evolving landscape of branding and marketing, sharing insightful strategies that can propel a B2B brand forward in today’s competitive market. Kevin also opens up about his entrepreneurial journey, revealing how he’s been able to navigate the challenges and opportunities through business acquisitions and synergies. If refining your branding message, exploring innovative marketing strategies, or understanding the entrepreneurial journey in the B2B sector are on your agenda, this episode is for you.
Follow Kevin Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/variousventures/
You can follow Linda at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
and Millennium Agency at https://www.linkedin.com/company/millagency/.
Linda Fanaras: 0:00
Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of the B2B Brand180 podcast and CEO of Millennium Agency. And today we’re going to talk about some branding, messaging, and marketing strategies. And before I get started, I just want to thank our audience, take a minute and thank you for listening in. And if you like and share or subscribe or even provide a review for our podcast, that would be fantastic. But I’m actually extra excited today because I brought in Kevin Lee, and we bonded because we are both entrepreneurs and we love to start businesses and do something new and innovative. And it always keeps the excitement going in our lives. So, a little bit about Kevin he owns and operates three entities. One is called Didit.com and he’ll speak a little bit about that. Another one, which is eMarketing Association. And then the third one is what we call GivingForward.org. So he’s definitely a superhero. He has three entities, maybe some others that I might not be aware of. But he’s also on top of that has written four books. He’s done 500 speaking engagements and he’s done 750 columns, which is just quite impressive. So what I, he’s what I call like a transformational expert. So if you need one, he’s your guy. Welcome Kevin to the B2B Brand180 podcast. It’s great to have you here.
Kevin Lee: 1:20
Thanks, Linda. A pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me. And I think they’re calling it multipreneur now when you have your fingers in multiple pots at the same time. The one additional brand is the one up on the shelf behind me, which is Truth Nutrition, which is a nutraceutical company that I bought a few months back mainly to give me a full working marketing lab to try everything that I ever wanted that a client would never say yes to. Now I can do it under Truth Nutrition and we’ve got a bunch of new products coming out in about a month and a half as well and at that point we’ll hit the gas and try everything that we, we always wanted to try that clients wouldn’t say yes to under did it.
Linda Fanaras: 2:02
That’s awesome. That’s a great idea. You can use that as a pilot opportunity to show them some of the results that you’re, that you’re creating. So why don’t I have you take a couple minutes, tell us, tell the audience a little bit about yourself and then we’ll get into some questions.
Kevin Lee: 2:16
Sure. Yeah. I’ll try to give a Reader’s Digest version. I’m old, so I’ve had quite the journey along the way. So I’ll try to bake it into a Reader’s Digest version. I started did it 26 years ago as an SEO technology platform that evolved into one of the first bid alert and bid management platforms for paid search. So we were a SaaS-based company for a long time, managing millions in competition with a couple of platforms, some that were owned by Google and one is still publicly traded called Marin software. The challenge with us competing with Marin is that they’ve never had a profitable quarter to my knowledge. So they continue to burn through cash. So it’s very, it was a very difficult, difficult category to be in. You know, along the way, I actually started a cause marketing for profit company called We Care. I happen to have that shirt on today. We raised 8 million, over 8 million for nonprofits in that category. And as we were going through, we evolved, did it into more of a full service agency. We made 11 acquisitions Of other marketing services firms, but we’re still very much SEO paid search paid social paid media and other forms of earned media at the core We have a direct mail division. I’ve invented some technology in the direct mail division as well we care ended up becoming essentially the inspiration for Amazon Smile 11 years ago, and Amazon ran Smile for 10 years and shut it down on President’s Day, so now my non profit Giving Forward has taken up that challenge and run with that, building a multi merchant, multi non profit charity mall, so, the eMarketing Association is just really another hobby project. I acquired that as a result of essentially a good deed I did in relationship to the family that used to own it. Thank you. Thank you. And then at some point, I just sort of inherited it essentially. So, wrapping up events under the EMA this year and into next year as well as potentially the continued podcasts of which you were a guest. Thank you very much for doing that. So that that’s been the journey along the way. There’s been all sorts of little side ventures, like trying to buy Gawker out of the bankruptcy for good, right. Which was before I gave up on WeCare. That was my last Hail Mary pass. I got a ton of publicity trying to buy Gawker out of the bankruptcy, and that was a fun adventure as well.
Linda Fanaras: 4:30
So what I like about what you have done with your entities is they’re interconnected in one way or the other. Is that a purposeful? Acquisition of those all purposeful lack is acquisitions. Or did they just fall into your lap and you say, okay, I could, I can make this work or this looks interesting. So how, how did you go about some of those decision making?
Kevin Lee: 4:48
It’s been a combination of sort of serendipity luck and, and strategy. Sometimes the strategy evolved sort of as the serendipity or luck happened, right, wasn’t really in market to acquire the marketing association. But once I had an opportunity to acquire it, I realized that. I love educating and sharing best practices, and I had already done all the columns and I had already done been on the advisory board of the E. M. A. And I had been on the founding board member of sample dot org, the search engine marketing professionals organization. So It very much was in keeping with my psyche to want to elevate everybody in the industry up to the next level and owning the EMA was a great way to do that. And of course, the fact the byproduct of that is that it generates leads for did it. And so. You know, it’s sort of a no brainer strategically. Once you think about it. Yeah. On the truth nutrition side, as it happens, that was really again, more having both sides of a marketing lab, because I realized that as an agency, if your lab partner, who’s the client is not willing to run the experiment with you, you can’t run the experiment. And so I wanted to have the ability to do that and from a giving forward perspective, interestingly, going back into the, the charity mall business in partnership with merchants. Again, those are the same merchants that I would have as guests on my podcast for the EMA, the same merchants who we could help with SEO or paid search or paid social as, as did it. I can change my hats in real time. I’m having a conversation with these merchants or with these B2B partners as well. I mean, a lot of the same folks who might speak at an EMA event would potentially, you know, be B2B clients for did it because about 55 percent of our clients are B2B.
Linda Fanaras: 6:33
So what are you finding on the did it side that tends to be the largest marketing challenges that companies are facing today? Are there certain areas that you think keep coming up time and time again?
Kevin Lee: 6:45
Yeah, I mean, it’s amazing from the very largest clients and prospects all the way down to the medium size. We try not to go SMB, so medium size is sort of our minimum, but the inability of the companies to understand their internal business intelligence and their internal KPIs to the extent that they can tune their marketing campaigns. to reduce waste and increase efficiency is a common thing, right? I mean in B2B it’s sometimes even more complex than B2C because you’ve got long sales cycles. It takes a while to understand the LTV and stickiness of a B2B customer in comparison the average customer to a great customer. And not having that information at your fingertips handicaps you from a marketing perspective. You don’t know how to find more of those same customers that are your best customers as opposed to an average customer. And so that seems to be a common theme with many prospects. And, and one of the first things we do is we’re, as we’re evaluating prospect and how much we can help them as, as an agency is really try to see to what extent can we get at that given. The tracking systems they have in place, the business intelligence that they have in place. And even if they don’t have that, we try to make that aspirational. how can we take them step by step closer to that nirvana of understanding, here’s what a great customer looks like in comparison to an average customer. Once you have that, everything else flows out of that. And if your strategy flows out of that, your tactics flow out of that, your channel marketing mix flows out of that, your budgeting across paid media versus earned media flows out of that, everything is driven off of the true understanding of what the best customers look like,
Linda Fanaras: 8:26
right? And you know, what’s so interesting because I’ve been reading a lot about some middle market move and movers, and basically it’s Finding that optimum customer, who are they and where are they in the buying cycle and how do you find them? What size business are they? What’s their title? From a marketing perspective, where are they on the marketing life cycle? Are they ready to buy? are they getting ready to get rid of a prior agency? And the more intelligence you have on that, the better you are as a marketer to be able to use that insight to actually sell and move them along that. That process.
Kevin Lee: 8:56
Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you 100 percent on that. And interestingly now in B2B in particular. When CFOs are pushing marketing austerity on the sales teams and the marketing teams, it’s even more important to know, right? Because they’re saying you have to do more with less. Your budget’s cut by 15%, right? And so, well, where are you going to cut? Well, if you don’t know. where your best customers and best leads come from. You don’t know where to cut. So it, when marketing austerity hits, it’s even more important when it’s drunken sailor money and every, everything is great, not as important. Right. But when marketing austerity gets pushed down from the CFO for the C suite it’s even more important. It does.
Linda Fanaras: 9:38
And I think that’s another topic I do want to talk about is the ROI, which I’m sure you have a lot of analytics and tracking into a lot of the campaigns that you build out. But I do, you know, and I think that sometimes that’s the challenge with marketers, especially if they want to add product lines or they’re trying to extend a brand, how do they balance their budgets in a way that actually allows them to get, to put enough money into the new. Let’s say it’s a brand extension to get some traction and have, how do you advise your clients on, on things like that?
Kevin Lee: 10:10
That, you know, example of a brand extension or something that could be cross sold to existing customers. I really should think of that as a share of wallet or upsell cross sell opportunity, depending on whether you’re thinking in a B2B context or B2C context. And obviously those are the kinds of KPIs increasing your share of wallet to the extent that you’re not getting all of a customer’s money. Or you know, increasing longevity or increasing average order value in the case of a simple B2C transaction. Those are the types of changes that you make to a business which add leverage. What I mean by that is, marketing leverage is like compound interest, in that when you manage to get an improvement in AOV, or an improvement in LTV, or an improvement in the ability to cross sell, into a client, right? That means you can actually afford to spend a little bit more on marketing than you could before you did that, right? So when folks come to us and say, Hey, you know, I’m trying to think about ways to move my business forward. And, you know, the top line and at the bottom line, and it has to do with a, a brand extension or product extension or upsell cross sale opportunity. Or again, in consumers, it’s simple, simply, you know, either. AOV for media checkout or LTV in the case of, you know, getting more money out of that customer over time. So all that stuff is leverage. It is super powerful in marketing. Everything’s auctioned off these days, right? When it comes to patent and paid media, so your ability to afford media is not a negotiation like it used to be. 20 years ago, where you can sit down and have a three martini lunch with a rep and like negotiate them down. Now it’s an auction. It’s an auction in search. It’s an auction in social, you know, you have to be able to afford the media. Those
Linda Fanaras: 11:53
things have changed, haven’t they? Sometimes I prefer those. The
Kevin Lee: 11:58
irony really was, I mean, if you think about how media was bought 20 years ago, They would give you a discount for buying more. Now, you pay a penalty for buying more because you’re in an auction. So if you want that next piece of inventory, that next video impression, that next audio impression, that next paint search impression, you’re going to pay more at the margin than you did before. That enforces a level of rigor that you didn’t need to have 20 years ago.
Linda Fanaras: 12:26
And that’s really where the analytics comes in to really prove. You know, what, what’s working and what’s not. And being, being able to bring that back to either C F O or somewhere, or c e o to explain to them, we need to expand our marketing budget and here’s why it’s working. Right. I’d love to talk a little bit about the e Marketing Association. I think it’s a great entity. I’d love to just get a snapshot of what that’s about. How. Benefits individuals and, and what you, what you’re bringing to the table with that association right now. Sure.
Kevin Lee: 13:00
So we haven’t turned membership back on yet because we haven’t felt like we’re in a position to provide sufficient value to do that. However, we’ve got a bunch of events being planned and there’s two types of events being planned. One set of events will probably be very New York City centric because we have sort of a home team advantage here to be able to have an event where we have a venue sponsor who hosted in their large conference room or their lobby. And then we make sure that the topic and the people we bring to that event are in keeping with the kinds of folks they would like to talk to. But it has to meet the educational hurdle, right? It needs to have a panel up front that’s educational that everybody can learn from. And so we’ll start with those types of events and then we’ll start rolling out full. Full day events as well. Again, in keeping with the mission of the e marketing association and my personal mission, that I feel like a well educated marketer is a more powerful member of the executive team, right? You see more and more CMOs taking over the CEO role lately. And I think that’s partially due to the importance of marketing, but it’s also partially due to the fact that a lot of the marketers who used to come with purely creative chops. into the role now come with the math chops as well, you know how to read a balance sheet because analytics in relationship to their marketing role roll very easily into understanding the balance sheet, assuming they’ve taken accounting and they only have a good CFO partner to help them.
Linda Fanaras: 14:26
That sounds like a great organization. I think there’s gonna bring a lot of value and marketing is always changing. And that’s, that’s, I think that’s a great thing about what we do is it never stops. I mean, if you just shut your eyes for five minutes, you know, it’s far beyond you. So whatever the big transition is, whether it’s technology or moving from like waxing paper to getting it to the printer. I mean, it changes overnight. So I think it’s really important for marketers to stay abreast of what’s going on on a consistent basis. Don’t take a nap. Doesn’t work, not in what we do today. So I think having an organization and association like yours, just. Adds another level of academics and education to the marketer. So that’s, I think that’s fantastic. So it sounds like it’ll be events. It’ll be education resources, networking that’s great. So I love to learn, cause I think this is great. The fact that you did giving forward, but love to learn, a little bit more about that, how that, you know, brings value to individuals and, and get some insight from
Kevin Lee: 15:26
you. Sure. What was fascinating about smile is, you know, 10 years ago when Amazon was inspired to launch smile, people didn’t really understand about cause marketing powered commerce and shopping. And they really, brought it to a large group of individuals. I mean, 20. Billion dollars last year was transacted through the small side of Amazon. Now, of course, that’s that’s been shut down. But what’s fascinating is the people who learned about it include not just the consumer, right? But B to B buyers are also consumers as well. So our vision for as we roll out giving forward is to not exclusively focus on cause marketing powered commerce for the consumer, but cause marketing powered commerce for the business as well. Right. So we’ve got a lot of partners already in giving forward and a bunch more rolling out that start from the very simple B2B ones. Like we’ve got staples and office max depot in there, but also we’re adding in, companies that do incorporation and companies that, that sell, you know, access to legal documents and companies that, that handle B2B, right. And they also all have performance marketing platforms that we can play, like we can plug into them at impact. Or, or C. J. Or rocket 10 or one of the other platforms. And then from that point forward, we can, you know, use our leverage as a cause marketing platform to say to the businesses that are going to engage with other B to B to B partners. Hey, check to see if you’ve got, you know, if somebody in the giving forward platform will simultaneously meet your needs, but also potentially help a nonprofit that you get to pick as you engage with that partner. So we’re looking forward to deploying entrepreneurs a lot of cool stuff under giving forward, not in a b, purely a B two C context, but a B two B context as well. So that you know, there’s, and, and there’s co-registration and some other monetization channels that we’re layering in on top of smile.’cause Amazon really never assigned a product manager to smile. It, it, it sunset. Pretty much identically to where it launched, whereas I already have started to layer on a bunch of additional features and functionality that we’ll be deploying shortly. Yeah,
Linda Fanaras: 17:35
I noticed when I went in there, which I think individuals should check that out, is that some of the, some of the donation numbers were up to 30%. I was, I was just shocked.
Kevin Lee: 17:43
Yeah, yeah. Well, again, you know, when you’ve got sass companies or companies that sell intellectual property, you can afford to be very generous right now on that, whereas Amazon’s margin on products exactly thin and therefore, you know, they had limited themselves to half a percent. So, yeah, we’re super excited about what we’ll be able to do with some of these partnerships Where the, the rev shares to, to giving forward, which then we give 70 percent to the cause that the individual chooses, right? We’ll end up being pretty material.
Linda Fanaras: 18:14
Sounds great. Oh, well, it sounds like if you meet somebody, you definitely have something to talk about, whether it’s one of the several entities that you own. So that’s easy enough. So on the back to the marketing side on the did it, how do you go about, working with clients figuring out what their needs are and then, trying to identify a plan and strategy that fits their overall goals.
Kevin Lee: 18:37
It depends how we came across them. I would say probably, About 60 percent of the time people come across us to solve a very specific problem that they believe that they have And they may think it’s their most their biggest problem, right? So maybe it’s an seo problem or they feel like their paid search or paid social or paid media is not optimized And in those cases, it’s easy enough to go in and audit that specific Element and tell them how much upside is available within that very specific element. I would say maybe 40 percent of the time folks come in and say, listen, you know, my internal team’s just too thinly staffed to, to do everything. I really want you more as agency of record. I want you to have everything right. And that would include even direct mail. We’ve got a direct mail team, for example, and I’ve invented some technology around direct mail that makes it uniquely powerful, particularly in B2B. So sometimes they’ll come to us and say, We’d like you to pitch us on being our our say an extension of our entire marketing team, right? We’re equally comfortable in either case. Now, oddly enough, what ends up happening probably more than half the time when we go in as a point solution to solve a very specific problem is once the client’s team has a chance to interact with the did it team and we’re solving their problems, it just naturally cross sells into our other things because they they suddenly realize How great my team is and I really give kudos to my team exactly that my team sort of expresses their subject matter expertise and may even say oh, you know, this will work better if that Tangential piece of your business works better. And then of course the client says well, I don’t know how to fix that Can you help us fix that too? Right, right. It has to do with that concept of compound marketing where you know If you improve your efficiency of your media and your landing page and your upsell, cross sell and your LTV, all those things, you know, add, add to your EBITDA, right. So, so yeah, that’s, that’s how we’ve been engaging. We’re indifferent to either one. If a person comes in with a very specific problem, we won’t say, no, we’ll only work with you as an AOR agency record, because, you know, that doesn’t really, It derails the whole conversation. But I prefer to like go in there and help them with what they’re raising their hand on first.
Linda Fanaras: 20:57
Yeah. We find too, that a lot of times clients, you know, they like to start small, especially with a new agency to make sure that you can prove yourself. And I did want to make a point because direct mail is back. Those numbers keep going up. So people are, reverting back to sort of, the old days, I guess I’ll say, but we’ve come a long way because there’s so much data that’s available to us on personalization. So, I don’t know if you want to speak to that a little bit, that we have personalized images using names, we have QR codes, we have deals, we’re pulling in. Prior purchases. Do you want to speak about direct mail and how that has changed and how you can maybe integrate that into other strategies?
Kevin Lee: 21:38
Sure. Sure. I mean, there’s a few things obviously on the direct mail itself used to be that most of the printing that went out as direct mail was on a lithographic press. The only thing that changed was the name and address on the envelope right now. With variable digital printing, you can change everything and hyper personalize your direct mail to the individual recipient, including custom QR codes and personalized URLs and custom content in the piece, which makes that piece resonate more with the recipient, of course, improving the results. You know, during the pandemic, oddly enough on B2C direct mail, the response rates went way up because people were at home, right? Now we have to even be more innovative on, on B2B mail. And try to append recipients home addresses onto the lists so that we don’t just snail mail them at the office Because they’re only in two or three days a week and the rest of the time you’re at home So you have to figure out how to again be more strategic around that and you know being able to append additional information And do sort of abm, but or even more sophisticated than abm style marketing by just appending more information onto the individual and the company record allow you to tune that direct mail to again, the predicted LTV or the predicted size of that prospect or the predicted value of that prospect and then of course once you’re using custom qr codes or custom pearls That can kick off the crm and let the sales team know. Hey, these are glen gary leads, by the way They didn’t actually fill out The form on the thank you pay on the landing page, but we still know they were interested because they scanned the QR code. And of course, you have to make that clear on your direct mail piece. So that’s not creepy. The person realizes that it’s hyper personalized to them so you can greet them on the landing page, potentially, and also know, you know, have them know that that they’re being tracked, but in a nice way, right? Not exactly the way. Yeah, I
Linda Fanaras: 23:30
know. There’s some serious power in the numbers when it comes to that and integrating it with other strategies as well. So I think that’s a great point. That’s awesome. Is there anything else? You want to share with the audience today relating to any of your entities?
Kevin Lee: 23:43
The fascinating thing about B2B in comparison to B2C is that longer sales cycle really requires that you almost be more strategic in how you think about the process. I mean, I love B2C, you know, I bought a B2C brand. We’re not distributing via, via B2B2C there now, but maybe we’ll get there. My team really enjoys the strategic element on the digit side of B2B marketing. I know that’s a big area for you as well. And you know, the way that ends up crossing over into CRM Salesforce automation and business intelligence, I think is, is so critical these days that, that B2B marketing, I think they really need to ratchet themselves up because if they’re competitors in class and they’re not, They’re going to get their lunch eaten for sure. Yeah,
Linda Fanaras: 24:30
absolutely. It won’t take long either. So that was fantastic. Thank you. So I know you have some books out there. I’d love for you to share how people can get in touch with you. And where to get any
Kevin Lee: 24:40
of your books. Yeah. The books are a little stale at this moment. I wrote the books. They’re still, you know, somewhat relevant. The two paid search books. Actually, three paid search books and then my first book was really more about how the power is now in the consumer’s hands called the eyes have it, which was a play on words, obviously with E. Y. E. S. But you know, the consumer and whether it’s a B to B consumer or B to C consumer now decides which media they interact with in which media they don’t. And that transfer of power to the consumer’s hands, I think, was my first epiphany, you know, as I was growing, did it about how we can’t really cram our marketing messages down people’s throats anymore. People can reach me on LinkedIn. I’m super easy to find there and happy to brainstorm. I love brainstorming with folks. Some, I’ll do that usually for free. I probably, probably should charge, but it’s always fun to brainstorm with people about their businesses and about where the low hanging fruit may exist within their businesses.
Linda Fanaras: 25:37
That’s great. Thank you, Kevin. Well, before we go, I would like to just take a moment and thank our audience for listening in today. And again, if you could like, share, or subscribe or give us a great review, that would be fantastic. And thanks Kevin for coming today. It’s great to have you as always. And thank you
Kevin Lee: 25:55
all. All right. Thanks for having me.
In this episode of B2B Brand 180, Linda Fanaras interviews Tim Koelzer, the Managing Partner of Equibrand Consulting and author of ‘Upstream Marketing’.
Dive into the intricacies of upstream marketing and uncover how it helps drive conventional marketing tactics. Discover how a strategic upstream approach can fundamentally bolster your brand’s presence and impact.
Thanks for listening to the B2B Brand180 Strategy podcast with Linda Fanaras, CEO/Strategist at Millennium Agency.
Learn more about Tim Koelzer and Kristin Kurth’s book Upstream Marketing.
You can follow Linda at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
and Millennium Agency at https://www.linkedin.com/company/millagency/.
Linda Fanaras:
Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of B2B Brand180 Podcast and CEO of Millennium Agency. If you want to transform your B2B marketing into a powerhouse brand, then you should listen in today. And if you like what you heard, simply like, share, or subscribe. Today, we’re going to talk to Tim Koelzer, Managing Partner at Equibrand Consulting. And he brings a substantial amount of expertise and knowledge in helping companies actually build their brand from a strategic perspective. Tim published a book called ‘Upstream Marketing’, and this is where he has shared some really great best practices around marketing, research, and he has shared some case studies as well and analysis, and Tim is going to speak to us today about how he helps companies achieve some of their goals and what he’s done. And also speak a little bit about his book. So, Tim, we can get started. Maybe take a couple of minutes and tell us a little bit about yourself first.
Tim Koelzer: 0:57
Thank you very much, Linda, for providing this opportunity. I love your show, as I just mentioned to you. So I’m really looking forward to be a part of it. I’m Tim Koelzer. I work for a company called Equibrand Consulting, which we launched about 20 years ago. More recently, we published a book called Upstream Marketing, which is really kind of a culmination of everything we’ve learned, both studying best practice companies as well as working with existing clients. And so we kind of bring that to bear and we’re a small firm. We’re kind of a boutique firm. We’re out of the Bay Area and our focus is really an upstream marketing, which I know we’ll talk some more about today.
Linda Fanaras: 1:29
That’s fantastic. And, you know, I love talking to other marketers, especially ones that actually own either strategy firms or digital marketing firms, because I love to learn about how different companies differentiate themselves, because often they talk about marketing companies and branding companies being like a commodity, like we all offer very similar services. So how are you different than others?
Tim Koelzer: 1:52
That’s a great question, because we really are pretty different, and we agree as well that marketing is so much about differentiation. We focus primarily, or actually almost exclusively on what we call upstream marketing, which is really a lot of the Work that would proceed working with like an advertising agency. So the work that we do is what we call upstream, which more about the marketing strategy aspects. You need to have both upstream marketing as well as downstream marketing. A lot of people, when they think about a brand strategy firm or a marketing strategy firm, they think about things like, like, like SEO or pay per click or website or advertising. We, we appreciate all that stuff, but we don’t really focus there. Our focus is the work that goes in front of that, what we call downstream. Both are absolutely necessary. And they need to go hand in hand, but our focus is more on the upstream. So we don’t do logo developments or website developments or advertising. We do the strategy and the planning that goes into those services.
Linda Fanaras: 2:46
That’s a really good take on something that’s a little bit different as far as where you’re, what you’re, how you’re niching that out. And I think that that’s an important part. So when we today, when we talked to the marketers, they all have different needs. And what I’m hearing a lot is that we want to generate leads. We want to generate sales. That seems to be their big focus. And, and building a brand is a huge part of that because if you don’t have a solid brand and if you don’t have key messaging that really ties into, your overall product or service offering, it’s hard to. Build interest in your sales funnel. How do you tackle that? How do you work with clients to address some of those needs?
Tim Koelzer: 3:26
Well, you know, right now, some of the biggest challenges facing a lot of marketers, there’s saturation, digital content increased noise, increased marketplace, people have compressed budgets, there’s rapid technological advances. So we do try to step back. What we’ve done as part of our work is we have a kind of a system we find we’ve studied a number of companies over the years, specifically in a book, we did kind of a best practice profile of companies that many people think about Amazon, Apple, Google, Nike, Starbucks, Southwest and the Walt Disney Company. And so. We took a step back and said, Well, how do these companies that everybody points to grow? Is there a set of principles or a process that they actually undertake that we can help our clients with? So we’ve defined a set of principles, insight, identity and innovation. Those kind of the three core principles that most companies need to. adhere to. And then a set of best practices that companies really need to follow to help grow. And it’s certainly challenging times. But if you take a step back and you have a systemized approach through growth, we find our clients are most successful in kind of that structured approach to growth.
Linda Fanaras: 4:33
Yeah. And I think that’s a great point because I think what CEOs of companies What they’ll do is they’ll try different strategies and they’ll decide, okay, that doesn’t work or this doesn’t work. And, but they don’t really realize that marketing is a cumulative process. And it is about finding what works and what doesn’t work, but it’s also about making sure you’re always piloting and testing opportunities that are out there to see what really does, line up with your business strategy and your lead generation plans. So I think those are all kind of key components. I like how you touched on that for sure. If you had some clients that you were working with that wanted to maybe expand their product line through some strategies and they’re feeling like, Oh, we don’t have much of a budget, but we need to grow. Do you have some initial thoughts or how you go about tackling that with some of your clients?
Tim Koelzer: 5:22
We typically would start with a internal audit. Every client situation is different. But we get in there and see are there opportunities to free up some dollars because you’re right, there’s limited funds and you can’t all of a sudden launch a new growth effort because you’ve got the bills to pay and getting the word out and some of the downstream activities. So we normally would start with a kind of an internal audit to see are there places. Where there might be some efficiencies gain. What are you doing right now to think about growth and new products and new offerings? Take a look at maybe the brand architecture, you know, how are you currently supporting your brands. it’s expensive to create a brand. You have too many brands. Are there ways to free up some dollars and part of the marketing to focus in other areas? Because you really do have to focus both on the upstream as well as the downstream. And people get caught up in, you know, the day to day firefighting and getting the word out that they forget to step back. And any entrepreneurs, as you know, an entrepreneur yourself, when they start, they think about all these things. Who am I going to target? Who is my segment? What segment? What target? positioning with some messaging, then they get tied up in the business. So we help them kind of step back and rethink, the old adage of working on the business versus working in the business, you need to work on the business as a leader in particular and identify those, those future growth opportunities.
Linda Fanaras: 6:39
Yeah. And I think as an entrepreneur, you’re always looking for the next idea that can help you grow. And it might not technically line up with what your initial plan was as a company and to your point, time passes and you’ve made all these. changes. And we find this with even brand managers is that they make go off onto these other tangents. And before you know it, they’re marketing execution doesn’t even line up with their actual original brand plan and strategy. So, I always think it’s important to keep in mind, who are you? What is your brand? What is your message? And then how you, and what are the markets that you’re going to go after in order to get that out there in a more, as systematic way as possible. And then making sure to your point is always kind of backtracking and saying, okay, are we still on target here? Are we still achieving the goals? You know, or are we getting off the rails off the rails here? And I think those are the types of things that companies really do need a consultant to help them stay on track. And I think that’s where that’s where you guys come in. Where do you see the biggest areas that you can help companies grow? Are there certain things that you have found that have been very successful in helping companies grow?
Tim Koelzer: 7:51
Yeah, I mean, we kind of a principled approach to growth. The first thing is we always start with the customer, and some of these are the principles that are in the book, but maniacally focus on the end customer, put customers first and look the business through their eyes. So there’s an orientation. Looking at the business from the eyes of the customer. And the second aspect is defining that core purpose. Cause as you suggested, you have to have kind of a guiding light or a beacon. So we help clients define a core purpose helps them define their playing field, which really then begins to scope up business opportunities. And then we have a framework of to whom are we speaking to. With what particular offering. So it’s a way of mapping opportunities through like a customer segmentation. The third step then is to develop winning value propositions at the company division or product level, really understanding what the needs of the customers are and translating that into actionable product plans. Then it’s defining a brand positioning as, as you very well know, you know, how do we elevate the brand to the highest levels of the organization and then develop You know, positionings that resonate in the marketplace, then it’s, innovation is is another focus. How do you provide a consistent stream of innovation over time, supported by a flexible test and learn approach? I think that’s the thing you talked about as well. Just mentioned, it’s you don’t always know what’s going to be successful. So to get out. Marketplace with opportunity areas is a way to do it. And that’s what Amazon does. They have the process called working backwards where it’s like, let’s define where we want to be in two or three years conceptually, but in a fair amount of detail and then define a plan to get there and make sure that it’s rooted in the customer needs. Then the final component is the final principle is one we call aim them, don’t tame them, which is you need to provide the structure and the process discipline, but you also want to provide your people. With the latitude to make mistakes, to grow, to be creative, to take some risk. And if you do all those things well that really sets you up for success with upstream marketing and longterm growth.
Linda Fanaras: 9:46
I think that’s a great point. And just sort of to back up a little bit when you’re talking about building out the messaging arc, and figuring out the pain points are and what your customer segments are and so on and so forth. I think companies need to realize, especially with manufacturers or tech companies where they’re dealing with different sectors, you’re dealing with different audiences and they need to speak to those audiences in the most effective way. So we always encourage our, our clients to figure out, To really sit down and profile, like, who are they speaking to? What is the language? And what does a messaging architecture look like for those target markets? And start to build that out based on whatever your product is, whatever the market is that you’re going after. And then also, what is the language that they speak? Because you don’t want to use generic language across multiple sectors. Otherwise, it just doesn’t resonate. It doesn’t work. Especially today where we are flooded with so much data, to your point, and everything’s coming at us at a very quick pace. I think it’s important to keep in mind that you really have to get a little bit more narrow and niche in your communication and be more personalized in your communication. Otherwise, you won’t be able to cut through a lot of the clutter that’s out there today. So we like to make sure that our clients and I’m assuming you do too, have that messaging architecture down and that that’s built out in a way that’s very effective and that they can use that as, as a guiding post to their, for all their marketing and efforts. So I totally agree with that.
Tim Koelzer: 11:17
Yeah, I think that’s very true, particularly the B to B spaces. As you well know, historically, a lot of marketing grew up in the, packaged goods like Procter and Gamble. You had one single unique selling position, which is still very important. But in B to B, it’s a more complex sale and there are more benefits that companies potentially are interested. So you really need to be thoughtful about, https: otter. ai Hey, there’s so many considerations. We want to be more effective in our messaging and really identify that core position in your unique selling stuff, but then promote it, you know, different messages that kind of tied to that, but can expand the value of the offering is, you know, brand like to think of brand values, what you get for what you pay, pay is, is fixed. So what you get, you know, you can, you can really dial that up through effective messaging and that messaging architecture where you’re identifying different marketing segments and then specific messages that resonate with those targets.
Linda Fanaras: 12:14
And I like the point that you made on innovation because I think that that’s a key point that companies, I don’t want to say they forget about it, but they don’t look at that as part of their marketing strategy. So whether that innovation, it could be something as adding a proprietary process. to their product or to their service line, or it could be something as simple as creating a product line extension or developing a new product. I mean, there are so many opportunities for new business growth that I think companies also need to put that into the mix. Otherwise they stop innovating and they stop thinking. I mean, Amazon’s a separate example because they’re always innovating like Apple and other large entities like that. But if you’re looking at a small to medium sized company. To your point, they get so into the weeds that it is so difficult to just take a step back and say, okay, what else can we be doing? What’s happening in the market? What are some of the emerging trends that are out there that we might be able to leverage for our own company growth? And how do we take advantage of that?
Tim Koelzer: 13:15
Yeah. I mean, just to, just to kind of Piggyback on that, we find the strongest companies take a portfolio approach to innovation. So they’re balancing incremental innovation, you know, like improvement, like the next iPhone generation, that’s incremental. There’s substantial innovation, which is extending beyond the court of new markets or new segments. So in the case of Apple, that would be like Apple music. And then there’s transformational where, you know, the Apple, the new vision pro or the apple phone. So it is helpful to think about innovation in a structured way and make sure that you’ve got certain things going on. In each of those. And you want to have a continual stream of innovation, much like apple does or amazon does every year.
Linda Fanaras: 13:56
So before we go to our next question, I just want to take a moment and thank our audience for listening in today. We really appreciate you supporting our channel and if you actually do enjoy what you’re hearing, we appreciate it. If you take a moment and just either like or subscribe or share to any of your colleagues and friends and that would be great. So, we’ll just move along to my next question, which I’m really curious about is, do you have some, maybe some stories, that you could share relating to some results that you’ve seen or that you helped your clients achieve?
Tim Koelzer: 14:27
Sure. Yeah. The one example would be if you probably remember the Hyundai many years ago and then more recently, they’ve, they’ve launched the Genesis brand. We’ve been a consultant to Hyundai for some time and Hyundai was an interesting product when it initially launched in the U. S., I don’t know, 25 years ago, it was launched as a very low cost product, maybe 500. I think it was the lowest at the time. It was like under 5, 000. You could buy a new Hyundai. And they launched and they had some very negative quality problems. And they were lingering quality problems because it takes some time to build a brand. And we assisted Hyundai when they were trying to come out of this bad quality metric and identify. You know, what do they want the brand to stand for? And what, how do they, how do they get through to the consumer? So we actually did an effort the study, we didn’t do the study, but they did some market research where they had the Hyundai car. They make a great car, by the way, and they’ve been making a great car for a number of years, but the image was always lagging behind the car. Mm-hmm. And so they actually took consumers out and said, here’s a car. they covered up all the branding icons, like the little front and all the identifiers in the car. And they asked consumers what they pay for that car. And consumers said, you know, 25, 000. Then they had another set of consumers and they did the same thing. But in this case, they had all the Hyundai logo and brand identity imagery on the car. And they said, like, you know, like 20, 000. So they actually had negative brand equity. You know, they would pay 25, 000 that was unbranded and 20, 000 if it was branded. So that’s the inverse, obviously, but where you want to be. And we do, we do studies with other clients where it’s like, you know, there’s brand value, they’re getting brand value. So the whole, how do you define brand value? Then it all goes back to, you know, customer segmentation, selecting the right target, developing a distinctive positioning and then getting certainly the word out into the marketplace. So, you know, we use a methodology methodological process to get through there, but it’s really a recognition how important that brand value can be because that that that relates to the bottom line. In the case of honey, they were actually losing money for the brand. And then more recently they’ve been tremendously successful. The brand has finally caught up. from where, from where it was to where it should be. And then, then they recently launched the, the Genesis brand several years ago, we were the, we were the consulting firm behind that launch to help define the brand position, developing a new luxury vehicle and bring it to the market. So that’s some of the work that we’ve done over the years. And we work in different categories. We tend to use consumer products with people. Everybody knows what a Hyundai is or an Acura. But our work is in, medical devices or pharmaceuticals or insurance or financial services. But the principles of effective, you know, marketing strategy, upstream marketing, brand management are really the same across categories we find anyway.
Linda Fanaras: 17:23
So when you’re working with clients, I think, especially when you’re working with maybe the small to midsize clients, they’re always interested in those fast, short, quick gains. And a lot of, I think the work that we do takes a long time, you know, and how do you, how do you balance
Tim Koelzer: 17:40
that? Yeah, it’s tough because you’re absolutely right. We just try to, demonstrate how these larger companies and successful companies do things. And we do pull in a fair number of best practices because, you know, Amazon or Apple didn’t build their business on, SEO or pay per click or their website or advertising business. I’m listening to the customer. defining opportunities and then growing from there. So a lot of it is education. You know, some of it is having said that a lot of these big companies, they can have a whole department, focus on everything tied to new products. So most smaller companies don’t have that luxury of, of having separate people because the best companies that do innovation have a dedicated staff because when you think about innovation and growth, you really need to consider that it’s not done the same way like incremental innovations. We talked about the differences between types of innovation. If you really want that longterm, transformational innovation, you have to really separate that from the organization. Ideally, you’re, you maybe have, you know, separate people working at, but you have to at least have things like strategy sessions and. And marketing strategy projects or concept development projects or new product development initiatives where you’re parceling that off and saying, this is separate, how we grow the business here in the new business space may be different from what we’re doing in kind of the existing business. So just mindset, and that’s why we separate upstream marketing from downstream marketing, just to have that orientation that both have to happen to be successful.
Linda Fanaras: 19:08
That’s a really, it’s a great point that you make, because I think when you’re talking about downstream and you’re talking about things like when you’re building a logo or you’re building a brand strategy and you’re building out messaging architecture and the client recognizes, okay, that needs to get done, but we need to generate revenue and we need to generate leads. Well, to do it right, you want to have the brand and you want to have the messaging straight. So I, it’s sometimes it’s a very challenging balance to, to make them, to get them to sort of understand How we need to get to be, but in order to get to be, we really need to get a done. Cause if, if we, you take too long, then, you know, they may not be happy. So there’s gotta be some tactics and strategies to get them some initial sort of lead generation and sales opportunities while at the same time working on brand development and the logo. So I like how you split that up because I think it helps. You differentiate it and it helps them focus on just one aspect of marketing because there are so many different aspects of it.
Tim Koelzer: 20:11
Yeah. Yeah. Marketing almost needs to market itself, you know, because you said there’s so many, you know, there’s, you know, there’s content marketing, digital marketing. You can probably name a dozen or more different types of marketing. So much focus and emphasis is there.’cause it, it makes the cash registers ring. Mm-hmm. And a lot of the upstream stuff, it’s, it falls into that quadrant of important but not urgent. You know, it’s like we can put that off to, to tomorrow or the next day. Or the next day. Exactly. So many companies just put it off almost indefinitely, so. Mm-hmm. you know, it’s really just to have that, that discipline and, and, And a lot of this, by the way, is writing stuff down. I didn’t really talk about that, but so much innovation is, is like, where’s our strategy? What are the growth? What are the strategic growth opportunity areas that, that are compelling for this business and how do we prioritize them over time? So we always have a list of stuff we’re working on and that ties to budgeting budgeting process, but just to write a codified manner. Really help organize. They say, Yeah, we don’t have time for that growth initiative today. That’s on the list, though. Let’s focus here. So this is just the discipline of a systemized process.
Linda Fanaras: 21:24
Yeah. And I was going to ask you about a customized plan, which you just, you know, spoke a little bit about as you’re building out these ideas and strategies for the clients. But I think it’s also important for clients to take advantage of consultants like yourself because you can help them pick and choose what works and what doesn’t work. Because I think for a CEO, it’s a little bit of a guessing game, but for a marketer, we’ve been doing this for, you know, years and years and years. So we do know what works and what doesn’t work. And that’s really where you can leverage expertise that you have, as a consultant.
Tim Koelzer: 21:56
Yeah, that’s very true. So, so much of this is just, you know, getting it out of the clients or the, but then getting, getting feedback too from customers. One of our, one of our our bias is many of the answers to marketing reside in the marketplace and so you need to get their feedback and you can do that through exploratory research, just sitting down with them, understanding their needs or pain points or benefits sought. Or through concept work, where concept work we do a fair amount of. They’re very simple concepts, but it’s just to say, here’s an idea this company’s working on. Here’s the headline. Here’s a couple of copy points, and here’s the benefit wrap up at the end. And so we expose these ideas to their customers in a one on one session or group session and say, here’s an idea this company’s, this company’s working on. Do you like the idea? Yes. No. Why? Why not? It’s good. It really, it takes a lot of research to the next level where you’re exposing them to new ideas, whether it’s a positioning idea or a new product idea or some other growth platform opportunity. And you’re exposing the ideas, getting feedback from customers and using that to help make the decisions when you’re speaking with the client, whether it’s a CEO or the marketing manager, whomever it may be.
Linda Fanaras: 23:04
So that brings me to my next question. How do you use data analysis and research, you know, in your process to help to help the clients? Are you doing it through interviews with their customers? Are you doing it through quantitative or qualitative processes? What type of research do you engage
Tim Koelzer: 23:22
in? Yeah, we do, broadly qualitative and quantitative. Within qualitative, there would be exploratory. Research, whether it’s focus groups or individual interviews, then quantitative research could be anything from market sizing, you know, the opportunity of concept development, testing the strength, you know, measuring the strength of our brand versus our competitor brand. Kind of the Hyundai example I mentioned earlier. So there’s so many methods, but we do, we’re very strong believers in the role of customer research. You know, one of the, one of the anchor questions we ask our clients is what do you know about your important customers that your competitors don’t know? So if you can ask that question, what do you know about your important customers? At first it defines, it makes you define who is that important. And then, you know, what, that level of insight that maybe they’re not, that they, that isn’t. And that everybody knows. So you really spend your time with customers so you can gain that level of proprietary insight into their needs. And that can often form the basis of competitive advantage. So if we have deeper insight into our customers, I mean, true insights and then use that insight to develop products or programs or promotions will be that much more effective. And so many clients, they, they don’t take the time. And this doesn’t always have to be a research study too. If you’re a small company, I mean, You know, you’re, you’re, you know, you’re a company that does like you look at Yelp or you look at social I mean, some of this stuff can be done. much less expensively, but it’s taking the tools that you do have and maybe it is looking through social listening. So there’s, there’s so much more interactivity now and certainly, you know, more of the detailed analysis, like click through analysis as well as other aspects. But a lot of it is just, having that orientation of, everything we do is different from the, from the eyes of the customer.
Linda Fanaras: 25:06
And my last question is, is, How are you always, and I know you talked about writing everything down and making sure you sort of look back, but how do you make sure that the strategies that you are implementing actually align with their overall vision and
Tim Koelzer: 25:20
goals? It’s a great question because, you know, we very much are believers in doing that and it really starts, you know, and so first off, it’s having that that clarity of definition of who are we as a company and whether you call it the purpose, or your mission, your vision, your values. That’s really where you start. And, and then once you have that, everything kind of stems from that. So at the back end, you shouldn’t have opportunities that are necessarily misaligned. But it may be though that, you know, you’re, this brand stands for something and you wanna identify that opportunity, but another opportunity comes way that’s inconsistent with the brand. And then you have to think, well, do we create a new brand or should we. say, you know, this is not consistent with who we are as a company. We’re not going to go after this initiative. So it really does that with that, with that, that overarching purpose or mission or vision. And you use that continually to screen ideas. So whenever we screen like a new idea or a new product opportunity, new service opportunity, we’re looking for four measures. Number one is meet the needs of the customers. Number two, operationally, can we, can we manage it? We have to do something different. Number three, financially, can we make money on it? And then the fourth one is strategically just a fit with who we want to be as an organization. So every product idea really needs to be screened through those four measures. Right. So that fourth one is really, maybe that’s the first one I would talk about with the order here, but you have to be, has to meet these customers has to be. You know, operationally consistent we can make money and it fits with where we want to go as an organization. So that’s definitely one of the screens that you’d apply against those new business opportunities.
Linda Fanaras: 26:58
So I, so just to wrap up, I’d love for you to share a little bit about your book, where they can buy it and how companies can get in touch with you and. Yeah. Learn more about your company. Go ahead.
Tim Koelzer: 27:11
This is the book. It’s available on Amazon. It’s available audio book too. I know a lot of business people are busy but it’s a great way to download audio books or or it’s available there. And then we do have a website upstream marketing. com. And then all of this really. Alliance with our business, which is ecobrandconsulting. com, which is where we do the actual work. So it’s really our two offerings upstream marketing, by the way, it was, it’s kind of a growth platform for us because we took a lot of our knowledge and use that as a platform for podcasts like this, or we’re trying to get the word out about, about our company. So it is really a growth initiative on our own. And we use a lot of the principles in the book and it’s based on. Profiling these 67 companies that I mentioned, we just do a really in depth dive and try to make it as actionable as we can. It’s principle based. So it’s particularly good for, you know, business, business, business, consumer, as well as large and small companies. So I think we think people, you know, wherever you’re coming from, you’ll get a lot out of it.
Linda Fanaras: 28:10
That’s great. I love talking to other marketing experts. So this has been fantastic. I always like to like. level up what we speak about when it comes to branding and messaging and marketing. And it’s always important to have individuals like you on the air to help do that. So I do appreciate that very much. I just want to thank our listeners today for listening in to a B2B Brand 180 podcast. And again, if you like what you heard, please feel free to share, like, or subscribe. And Tim, thank you again so much for your insights.
Tim Koelzer: 28:40
Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye
Linda Fanaras: 28:43
bye.
In this episode of B2B Brand180, Linda Fanaras, CEO of Millennium Agency, interviews Harry Spaight, sales consultant and author of “Selling with Dignity.” Drawing from his mission background and competitive sales experience, Harry provides invaluable strategies to enhance sales performance and drive revenue growth. Join us to discover how selling can be a genuine act of providing value and the positive outcomes it brings.
Thanks for listening to the B2B Brand180 Strategy podcast with Linda Fanaras, CEO/Strategist at Millennium Agency.
Learn more about Harry Spaight’s book Selling With Dignity.
You can follow Linda at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindafanaras/
and Millennium Agency at https://www.linkedin.com/company/millagency/.
Linda Fanaras:
Welcome to the B2B Brand180 Strategy Podcast. Hi, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of B2B Brand180 and CEO of Millennium Agency. 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, just click like share or subscribe. So today we’re going to talk to Harry Speight. He’s a renowned sales consultant, author of Selling with Dignity and keynote speaker and drawing on his mission background and extensive experience in competitive sales. He offers valuable insights to improve sales performance and drive substantial revenue growth. Harry proves that selling can be an act of service to others that will yield great results. So let’s get started. Welcome, Harry. Thanks for coming to the B2B Brand 180 podcast today.
Harry Spaight:
Linda, it’s an honor to be here. And I appreciate your attitude about podcasting. And I’m sure we’re going to have some fun today. So the short version of me is that I used to be I did mission work in places like Russia and Berlin, Germany, and a couple of years in the Dominican Republic. I got into sales. As a former missionary, typically not a lot of companies hiring that resume. So I pleaded and begged apparently, and someone felt sorry for me. But what ended up happening is after I was failing mightily in a sales bullpen for a number of months, I eventually started to get it that I could sell coming from a place of service. That would be my differentiator. And things started to click and I built a nice career, helped a lot of salespeople over the years because I eventually rose to becoming a VP of sales for a fortune 500 company. Everything was based on coming from a place of service. And I’m just here to help others to feel that selling can be clean and happy without feeling gross and icky as some people describe it. How does that?
Linda Fanaras:
That’s perfect. That’s a great way to put it because we remember the good old days when you were buying a car. Buying some sort of recreational vehicle and you get that hard sales pitch and you just walked away rolling your eyes. So things have changed. People have gotten smarter and they’re really not tolerating that as much as they used to. So we’ll get started. We’ll talk about some different, strategies that, companies can take advantage of or individuals who are interested in selling better, and building their confidence around selling with dignity. Let’s talk about your book a little bit because you had written a book called selling with dignity And I just want to ask you like what actually inspired you to write that
Harry Spaight:
book. During the whole COVID time period where some of us had a little more time to think and reflect on our lives and so forth I realized that 10 years earlier, I had said something to a friend of mine that I should write a book someday and combine my experience and show people how to sell coming from a place of service. Well, that came back to me during COVID, and I didn’t waste any time. I immediately started writing. The whole goal was. Look, I’ve helped people make a lot of money in growing their business over the years, but I really want to help the small business owners. The people who are creatives, the people who are on a mission, that have a purpose, that want to make the world a better place. I can help those people, I thought, and so that’s why I wrote the book. It’s really not for the people that already, the super strong salespeople, the strong closers. It’s for people who want to be better and just don’t consider themselves, quote unquote, a salesperson. So that’s the real purpose behind it.
Linda Fanaras:
So that’s how it’s a little bit different than some of the other sales books. I remember back in the old days, I had read that you probably have to those Ziggler books on how to sell and how to motivate people and so on and so forth. So this is a nice strategy because I also align with what you’re saying here today. So what would you say some of the challenges are entrepreneurs and sales people actually faced during the selling process?
Harry Spaight:
Yeah, the number one thing is that people disappear on him. I mean, it happens all the time where people show interest and then they disappear. And I asked someone recently in sales who was telling me this problem and I said, do your friends, disappear on you? He says, no. And I said, so you can’t think of any of your friends that disappear on you. He says, no, none. I said, okay, so what’s the difference? And he immediately connected the dots and he says, I guess my prospects are now viewing me as a friend. So from that point on, we talked about how can you provide value? If people know that you’re out to sell something, they’re not looking to buy something unless they have a need. So if you’re not providing value for them or for their business, then they know you’re there and when they need you. They might remember, but you stand a much better chance if you continually provide value for them, staying in touch, sharing something of insight for their business, maybe something that they like personally. Maybe they’re a Red Sox fan. I don’t know. I used to come from Massachusetts. Talk about, Hey, the Sox are having a wonderful season or not so much. Um, got tickets to the game or did you pick up something and, it’s just a little small talk and that way people don’t expect that every time you talk to them, it’s about you. Once they figure it out, it’s always about you, then that’s when they typically disappear. What’s your thought on that?
Linda Fanaras:
No, I agree with that, or, or, just the fact that you’re actually taking an interest in them as an individual versus them as a, uh, you know, an employee that works for a company, because, to your point, I mean, people have lives and people are people and we all, face a lot of the same things. So you don’t really want to be dealing with a salesperson that every time you hear from them or see them, they’re just going to ask you Hey, did you close that deal? Or, Hey, are you going to buy this from me? Because really, frankly, that’s a little, you know, it’s discouraging and it doesn’t really make for a good relationship. It makes for a little bit of a resentful relationship, I think. So how do you, you know, this, you try to nudge people along the process because I, you know, maybe somebody might have a little bit of interest. Maybe they don’t even have any interest. And you spoke a little bit about how you actually provide value. Maybe it’s an article. Maybe it’s something that you saw and that you want to share with them. Is that something that you, you start right from the beginning? Do you do it? Do you start it during a certain part of the sales process? How do you identify when you would start that? And then maybe when you would just give up and end
Harry Spaight:
that. I think right from the beginning is when you want to start showing value. So asking people about their business and, you know, the old question is what’s keeping you up at night? Maybe that’s stale, but you might say something like, what’s, what has your focus these days? You know, besides buying stuff for me, what’s really on your mind? And when they tell you, that’s when you want to make a quick note and then see if you could be a resource. And when they say this is where a lot of people will lose it, right? Because an example is someone, you might say, well, how’s business? And someone might say, well, it’s summer. So it’s a little slow. And well, what does that mean? What does that mean to the business owner that says it’s a little slow? Does that mean they’re now a little bit stressed? Are they concerned about payroll? Are they concerned about the business eventually stopping? You know, what’s going through their mind? We don’t know. So when we say callous things like, yeah, it’s summer. so the reason I’m here is. You know, it just shows that we’re not empathetic, that we’re not really listening, that we don’t care, and it’s all about us. So, being empathetic, we can then ask, yeah, I get it, business is slow at times in the summer. When you think of this, what’s top of mind for you? What comes up for you when you’re thinking that business is slow in the summer? Did you experience this last summer right and then you’re opening up the conversation and then when they give you something You can just ask what was that like or what do you think? The reason is it’s different or how does that impact you or tell me more? And we’re just putting out this where we’re extending the conversation and the longer we can talk about them, the more they build trust that we’re not there for ourselves. Once we start faking the listening, which is what some salespeople do, because they come across with these superficial questions and then, you know, they’re not really listening, they’re nodding. Right. And then, uh, they go right to themselves. Right. And people pick up on that stuff, because we’re all smart enough to pick up when someone is fake listening to us. And we say things like, that person’s a phony, and that’s not what you want to be. You want to be sincere, and genuine, and put yourself in their shoes, and say, If I was struggling to make payroll or I was worried about business coming in in months, What would I be thinking? And when we start thinking like that we can say wow, that must be tough right where we’re showing some empathy
Linda Fanaras:
Yeah, and that’s a great point because I think A lot of times that is what happens is that you get somebody that doesn’t, and I always say, you gotta listen more and talk less because the more you listen, the more you learn. And it’s really simple. It’s very simple, recipe for success as far as I’m concerned, because if you are able to take the time and listen to an individual and hear what they’re saying, then And maybe like read between the lines from time to time. You can come back to them with something that’ll actually bring value to them versus just starting up with your own conversation that will benefit you. So I totally agree with that. And I think that’s an important part of business just in general is to just listen more and talk less. and it’s a big part of that sales process as well. Yeah, that’s a great
Harry Spaight:
point. Yeah. A hundred percent on that. And you know, you mentioned something about reading between the lines. This is where that observation of body language comes in. And so when someone says, yeah, everything is fine. You know, you know, that they’re probably just not feeling like it’s a safe place for them to open up because they don’t want to tell you, right. There are certain things that people don’t want to share. So that that’s on us then, because we’re not making it a safe place. So the more we have the conversation and we are paying close attention, giving them eye contact, right, actively listening, which is nodding and being engaged versus, uh, uh, uh, and clearly, you know, just get through it so I can get back to my piece or I can meet. Right. Now you can then say after they share something, that’s when you show the empathy and that’s where, you know, they start to see that you’re different from others because they’ve already gone into any sales conversation, pretty much thinking, anyone that’s selling is pretty much the same. We’re all out. It’s all about us. So when you can show you’re different, I’m sure you do. I can tell. Is that we’re like minded here is that people look at you and say, yeah, she’s different. Linda’s different.
Linda Fanaras:
As far as the the hard sell tactics I I don’t know. I always do the eye roll because the reason why it’s so important to listen and do less talking is because An individual who’s on the other side, the individual that’s buying has very specific goals and objectives in mind. And if you’re busy talking, they’re not able to tell you or communicate those to you in an effective way that you’re actually able to address. So part of the whole process here, I think, to be successful is making sure, like we spoke about earlier, listen and try to uncover really in a deep way what those are. And then kind of come back with some solutions that will actually work for that person, because if they don’t get the, if they don’t have the time to get out their thoughts, they’ll be disinterested in you. So I think that that’s a key component and it’s a very simple recipe for success. So I, you know, I’ve had people come to me and talk about getting into sales or getting into marketing. And I’m wondering, and a lot of times people are like, Oh, I can’t handle the no, or I don’t know if I can handle the rejection or they get their first, no, or their second, no. And then the third, no. And they’re like, I’m not cut out for this. Probably what you had experienced. I mean, what do you say to those people that really are down and out and just have had enough and they’re ready to just throw in the towel?
Harry Spaight:
Well, yeah, you cannot succeed if you’re going to be bothered by the word. No, it’s just a fact of life in business. If you, you have to grow your business. You have to ask for the business. And if the word no intimidates you, you have to get over it and recognizing that this is the comparison I give. Do you like fine dining restaurants, Linda? Mm hmm. Me too. And I don’t know if the server has ever asked you if you like a, uh, to look at the wine list, or have a specialty cocktail, or ask about the dessert, and once in a while you might say, no, I’ll just have water, or I’m really stuffed, I don’t need dessert, but thank you. Does the server walk away dejected, saying, Oh my God, I can’t face another person saying no, right? The server just keeps serving and they smile. So the thing is about us in sales, if we just approach it where they serve it mindset, when people are saying no, it’s like, Hey, they just don’t want the dessert right now. It doesn’t mean they’ll never want dessert. It doesn’t mean they’re bad people doesn’t mean you’re a failure It’s just they’re not in the mood for what you’re selling today But next month or three months from now or a year from now They might be and so just respect that that people do not necessarily buy on our time frame They buy when they need something And if we continue to show that we’re there for them and serve them Who are they going to think of when they actually need the product? Just like in your
Linda Fanaras:
business. Exactly. And I think that’s a great point because in the agency business that we’re in, obviously we’re often up against other agencies and it’s quite competitive. So if we lose out, some agencies are like, oh yeah, well we didn’t want your business anyway. Well, I have a, I have a different philosophy around that. Smart. My feeling is, If you can maintain a positive connection with whoever you’re working with and say, Hey, sometimes you might be like a strong second or even a third, we find that, you know, sometimes it doesn’t work out with a selected agency. We’re here to help you when things. All by the wayside. We want you to know that we can pick up wherever they left off. You wouldn’t be shocked at how many clients come back to us for that. So they just have to experience some of the pain on the other side. And then as long as they know, okay, these guys, I think I can work with them. They seem open minded and transparent. I’ll give them a call. And then we start that relationship from there. So I think that’s an important thing for salespeople to keep in mind is to rise above it all and just be positive and try to have a smile. Like, like you said, be a good waiter or waitress and just have a smile on your face no matter
Harry Spaight:
what. Yeah. And be understanding because we’ve all made decisions to go a different direction when we’re talking to a salesperson, a salesperson might be trying to sell a car to us. We say, I want a different direction. If we hear you total loser, do you know how much time I spent on you? You know what? I already spent the commission check. I can’t believe you did this to me and they throw all that stuff back We’re just making sure that we’ll not do business with that person again. Exactly, right? So why do that? I mean i’ve been around sales people doing the same thing and I shake my head. It’s like Are you just like cutting off your nose here? This is the perfect example Because you don’t want to wait a year for them to try out something and maybe that doesn’t work and you can sell something a year from now. Why would you do that? Exactly, exactly.
Linda Fanaras:
No, it’s so true. So sales training, I think is great. And I’ve, you know, done that over the years and coaching. So can you tell me why it’s so valuable either, even for somebody who’s experienced and maybe somebody who’s inexperienced, explain to me the value behind that and how it sort of expedites that learning process, versus, falling down on your face year after year after year.
Harry Spaight:
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the question. So if you think of like anyone who is a dentist, doctor, I mean, I’m hoping that any doctor or dentist I visit is staying up to date. With what modern practices are, you know, if you walked into a dentist’s office and it looked like it was decorated for the 1970s with shag carpets imagine they come over, no gloves and no mask. They did when I was a kid. It’s a hundred years ago, but no one wore gloves and no one wore a mask is like if the dentist had bad for imagine if they’re doing the same thing and they said, well, I’ve been doing this a long time. I know how to do dentistry. Okay. You know how to sell probably, but are you current? Do you understand what permission based selling is? Do we understand what your personal branding is now? Do you understand how to provide value? I have a dog barking. I apologize for that. That’s okay. Yeah. So providing value, massive value, even not just providing value. People say, well, I’m providing value of my product or service. Now, are you providing massive value to your prospect so that they actually look at you as a resource for their business versus a salesperson? You’re not able to say yes to that question and say, Hmm, last time I spoke to someone who asked me about what’s going on in the world in their business. Uh, was like never. So maybe we might want to improve on some of our business acumen and some skills. And there are some simple ways you could do that. And that’s why I help people.
Linda Fanaras:
Oh, that’s fantastic. I think that’s great. Helps expedite the whole process, the whole learning curve. So before we go to our next question, I just wanted Take some time and thank the audience for listening in today. and you can help us grow our channel by liking, subscribing, and sharing B2B Brand 180 Podcast with your colleagues. So thanks again. Okay. So Harry, I have a few more questions for you. I think one of the interesting points that I wanted to cover is there are a lot of nuances of different personalities, as we know, and relationships that successful salespeople actually kind of get, and they understand, and they know how to use those personalities and those little nuances to their advantage and bring in new business. What are some of those key points and maybe how would. a new salesperson overcome some of those challenges.
Harry Spaight:
Yeah, that’s such a great question. Well, there’s a number of tools out there that will help. I mean, the DISC personality profile is one. There’s another one that’s called Code Breaker Bank that basically it divides, puts people into one of four main categories. Is the person a dominant personality or are they in the code breakers? It’s, does the person take action quickly? You know, people like, uh, give you an example, a person I, uh, was, was trying to sell me insurance one time. It’s very analytical and I’m an action person. So I was basically saying, what do I need? And person gave me no less than five different options. And I’m looking at the options and I’m thinking, why are you making this so complicated? And we’re off like 20 a month. I mean, I don’t care if it’s 20 or if it’s 18 or if it’s 22, that doesn’t matter to an action person. The action people are the people that are making decisions quickly that are saying cut to the chase just tell me what I need Those are indicators that they don’t want to be bogged down with 73 choices About what are the different programs you offer and then there are people that are very analytical and you know, you know in a conversation You’ll ask, for instance, when you buy a new car or look at, uh, you know, a new washer and dryer, what goes into your process? Are you a person that compares a lot of different things? Really shops through all the details? Or can you walk into a Lowe’s and just say, I want the white one. And that will give you an idea if they are going to be very analytical. Which means you better continue to provide a lot of information with those people and be very patient because they are going to analyze versus the people that are quick decision makers and then there’s a lot of in betweens, but those two will get you going. Right. If you can just say quick decision maker, analytical, you’re going to treat them differently. That will get you started.
Linda Fanaras:
That’s actually a good point because I think sales people might get a little impatient with the analytical people and if they don’t identify that like immediately, then it’s like, okay, then that could just. And the sale and the potential of a sale. So that’s a good point that you that you brought up is that if you notice that they’re analytical, put on the brakes a little bit, provide the detail and the research and the data that they need. So they feel like they’re making a decision based on information, versus somebody that’s going to make a quick decision based on maybe gut or, you
Harry Spaight:
know, referral.
Linda Fanaras:
So that’s great. Yeah. Um, You know, it’s interesting as from a salesperson’s perspective, because they are, I mean, I think You know, a lot of people want to be real during the selling process. They want to be authentic. They want to care about their, you know, customer. But on the other hand, they’ve got corporate bearing down on them for quotas and sales numbers to meet last quarter’s numbers. So how do they, how do they find that balance between meeting those targets and actually, actually being a genuine human and serving their customers
Harry Spaight:
properly? Oh my goodness. It sounds like you have experience in that one, Linda. Did you come from that background? It’s such a great question.
Linda Fanaras:
Yes, the answer would be, the answer would be yes.
Harry Spaight:
All right. Well, yeah. So I worked for a publicly held company and I had the same philosophy back then. Do, do we need to close business every month? Yes. Do we have to forecast for the quarter? Yes. You don’t sacrifice the relationship with the customer in order to get business. Never. So you just have to bite the bullet and say, you know, they, my forecast is off. They decided to wait and you just have to do what you have to do because you cannot force someone. Last time I checked, you cannot go to someone’s office, take a pen or give them a, uh, a docu sign. Say, sign this today because my quarter depends on your business. They don’t care. They care about them. And if we misread it, I mean we mis, we misread it. But I would do, over the years, of course, I would ask like if, uh, as a leader of a sales team, I would say, oh my goodness. I would ask the sales team who’s got a deal that’s stuck and can I make a call? And I would take the pressure off the rep and I would just ask a question. Is this look pretty good for you? And they say yeah, and I’d say, uh, what’s your time frame for taking delivery and they say well in a couple weeks It’s a great we’re absolutely here for you in a couple weeks And I got a quick question for you And then I would ask is there any way if we could do a little sweetener that you’d be able to take delivery? Before the end of the month. Mm hmm. And they say well, it depends on the sweetener something along those lines, right? Right, and it would be give away something to make them feel good not cut you. Yeah in half But make them feel good to help you drive your revenue. Yeah, what’s your thought on that? Does that sound fair? I think that’s a
Linda Fanaras:
good tip. I think that’s great. If you were to fast forward a little bit, how do you see the sales? changing. I mean, with AI and taking advantage of that through different types of platforms and email marketing and LinkedIn. And it removes that personal touch that we all like. how are you seeing that in the future?
Harry Spaight:
Oh, I totally believe that sales is going to be around as long as there’s people. If we look at selling as As part of persuading, as part of serving, even if there’s like chat GPT is awesome. I use chat GPT for love it. However, if I put out the best content or someone else puts out the best content, I have to read it. And if I don’t read it, it doesn’t, I miss, it’s sort of like having the billboard in the desert. No one’s seeing it. So having somebody in sales, getting the message out, communicating, networking, calling on a specific market. for instance, marketing might be, well, I’m going to call on HVAC people, or I’m going to call on people who live in nice homes or my business or whoever your avatar is when I say call on. There has to be some connection to get you in front of those people because not everyone has the desire to read or to listen or to watch video, but it’s like you can pull in relatively inexpensively if you do sales the right way. It’s just by networking and having conversations with people and saying, so Linda, what’s your focus on your business this year? And you start sharing. It’s like, well, I’m really looking to cross sell or get more business out of my current clients and then you’re building the trust and relationship. Then say, I’ve got a tool after a while, not right off the bat, but after there’s a lengthy conversation, I can share you a, share a couple of thoughts if you’re interested in exploring this a little bit further, right? Yeah. Like, Oh, okay. Well, the copy may be out there. Could be on your website. Could be on Facebook. But if I don’t see it. You know, that’s a real simple thing. It’s like, I don’t think it’s going to go away. So maybe if we all become robots someday, but I don’t think that’s any time soon.
Linda Fanaras:
I don’t know. Maybe. So, let me ask one last final question. What would you, what would you say the one tip is you can provide as sales listeners today that will help them in the long run? Like the biggest tip, maybe something that you learned. I know we already talked, we did talk about rejection. We talked about listening, we talked about different types of personalities. Is there something else that you think you could share with our audience that would be a great, takeaway?
Harry Spaight:
Yeah. There’s, one that comes to mind. I don’t know why, but it’s, you have business inside of your funnel or in your pipeline and your group of people that maybe you’ve sent proposals to in the past. And they didn’t do anything. There is business there. And most, many don’t follow up with those people because they said no, or what? They weren’t ready. And so they moved on. Those people will eventually buy from somebody. And so I call it stir it, stir the pot. Get in touch with them, find them on LinkedIn, wherever, and just say, it’s been a while since you and I spoke. I’d love to catch up to hear what you’ve got going on these days and see if I can be a resource for you and be a resource, right? Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. Don’t think about the sale.
Linda Fanaras:
I guess what I was thinking is if you think about the salesperson and that hunter mentality, they’re just like, okay. They didn’t close next. They didn’t close next. They didn’t close next. So, really what you’re saying is just stop for a minute and go back to that list of nexts. People that said no and try to get them going again because maybe they, like we said earlier, maybe they’re not happy. Maybe they have another project. You just never, never know.
Harry Spaight:
Maybe they didn’t make a decision. Maybe we just gave up because they said they were going to go a different direction. But shockingly, people get busy and don’t make the decision. They think they do, and then they don’t, and then they’re still sitting out there and then you’ll find out that they never did anything again. Don’t jump down their throat. Like, is there a great opportunity? Think about how you can serve them. What is it that they need? And provide some value, whether it be a network connection, maybe it’s a comment on a LinkedIn post, maybe it’s an article about the future of AI, something that is valuable. And when you do that and stir the pot without looking like you’re selling something, People will connect the dots. They know what you do. They will remember. You don’t have to say, Well, I don’t know if you remember me, but six months ago, you, you, you turned me down. You don’t want to go there, right? They remember and just provide value and totally surprise them and get that conversation and be genuine and treat them like they’re brand new and you’ll be shocked at some of the business that starts to get developed.
Linda Fanaras:
No, that’s great. That’s fantastic. All right. Well, thank you very much, Harry. and thank you to the audience today for listening in today, and thanks for all your sales insights. So Harry, I would love for you to share with the audience how they can get in touch with you, how they can find your book, maybe how they can learn about your services.
Harry Spaight:
Yeah, absolutely. If they want to find me, I’m real easy to find on LinkedIn. Um, if you just look up selling with dignity, I’m pretty much the only one there with that. And if you go to sellingwithdignity. com, you can get a free download of a book preview. Um, and then, you know, we’ll go from there. We’ll have a conversation if you want, and no pressure, no obligation, see if I can help solve a problem
Linda Fanaras:
fantastic, Carrie. Well, thank you. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for joining me today. It was great to have you. I’m always interested in sales strategies and insights. I just think it’s such an interesting, um, you know, career. And I even say it to my kids. I’m like, okay, if you want to succeed in life, you need to go into sales and just get rejected because once you get through that, you can pretty much get through anything.
Harry Spaight:
It is, it’s a skin, skin thickener
Linda Fanaras:
for sure. Yeah, it gets thick after that. So anyway, let me take a moment and, thanks. Thanks again for tuning in to B2B, Brand 180. And we hope you found the insights and strategies shared today valuable for your business. Again, I’m Linda Fanaras, host of B2B Brand 180. And if you’d like to find us, just visit us at mill, M I L L dot agency, or feel free to email me directly at L Fanaras, which is F A N A R A S at mill, M I L L dot agency, or simply just connect with me on LinkedIn and just search for my name. So just to help our channel grow and educate more B2B leaders on brand strategy and sales, feel free to click. Like, share or subscribe. And thanks again for listening until next time. Happy sales and marketing.