00:01.35 bizzyweb Do you ever? Ah Dave just listen to Spotify and then you find an old friend that you have a song that you haven't heard before in like 2025 years and you're like oh man, add to cart I just found an old. 00:15.37 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Yep, all the time. 00:19.61 bizzyweb Ah, Joe Cocker song that I absolutely adored when I was in college because I was a big Joe Cocker guy in college which made me seem weird because I went to college in the 90 s and why was I listening a guy in the 60 s but it was all about the simple things and it was it helped me remind myself that in all the grind that we do as marketers. Um, sometimes it's as as much as we want to over massage a message and over complicate things. Sometimes there's just some simplicity in in targeting the right person finding the right message and getting the right result and so. 00:50.20 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Yep. 00:58.34 bizzyweb I reached deep into my bag of tricks and actually not only brought out an old old Joe Cocker song from the 90 s but an old friend of mine from the 90 s my friend Brian who is now running his own fractional chief marketing officer organization called tune consulting ah to. Ah, not only learned about the Cmo world but also about some of his just really classic Brian isisms because he's he's always been the standard bearer for me on ah, how to do it right? And how to do it with heart and how to humanize marketing and actually get great results. So. Happy to have my friend Brian here today as our guest welcome Brian. 01:37.60 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Welcome Brian. 01:39.24 Bryan Smith Thanks guys! Great to be here tri I just had a pull from the 90 s 2 on Spotify recently I I rediscovered the klf and that's I've been enjoying that a lot I I get a lot I used to get a lot of guff in the corporate world when I had to really focus. 01:47.71 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Oh my. 01:47.82 bizzyweb Nice. 01:58.94 Bryan Smith I listened to like hardcore Edm and trance music and it's the adh D and me where actually I think the more frantic music helps me focus. Um, but people give they called my office the the ultra lounge. 02:00.86 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb A. 02:02.70 bizzyweb Yep. 02:07.58 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Here. 02:14.97 Bryan Smith Because it was always had some sort of thump coming out of it and. 02:16.40 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Perfect, perfect. 02:18.76 bizzyweb That's so interesting because I'm the same way if I need to really batten down and focus I will throw on something loud and then I won't hear what's going on and but I'll I'll be getting a tremendous amount of work done and so speaking in the 90 s my wife. 02:30.53 Bryan Smith Yeah. 02:31.30 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Yeah. 02:34.95 bizzyweb The other day I was working late later in the evening. My wife came down into my home office and she's like what are you listening to and it turned out for some reason I had Whitney Houston's it's not right? but it's okay, on repeat for the last 45 minutes was like and I was like oh I don't even know but she's like um, do you want to come upstairs now. 02:52.49 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb If if. 02:53.15 Bryan Smith Did she start just yelling but but. 02:53.78 bizzyweb Yes, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly time to cut time for dinner. So anyway, Brian ah, you have a long and storied history and and marketing with a lot of really great. Ah, examples. But you about a year ago you decided to go out on your own to become so a fractional cmo. 03:13.76 Bryan Smith I did yeah so I've been doing fractional work as well as kind of project work and things like that and ah, you know it's It's been great and horrifying and exciting and terrifying and all the things all at once and. 03:29.74 Bryan Smith The further I get away from a corporate gig the harder it feels like if I ever had to go back. It would be um I've said it it The idea of kind of going back to corporate right now feels a little like the idea of putting a wet bathing suit on um like I could do it. But. 03:41.90 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Yeah, right, Totally get that. 03:42.28 bizzyweb Yeah. 03:49.70 Bryan Smith It's just you know it's been It's been a real joy and even when things have been hard. Ah, as far as kind of finding business and some of that. What's kind of kept me going is the level of generosity people have and their willingness to help. Um, it's remarkable. Ah, the number of people I've met in the last year who literally I've been introduced by somebody. We've had a Zoom call and they're just opening their network to me and and bending over backwards to help me find business. It's it's really cool and and so. Those times where you know you feel, you're an imposter you feel like you're going to fail or all those kinds of things I kind of keep coming back to this gratitude for just people really want to help people be successful and um and it's it's pretty inspiring. So yeah, so it's been a journey but it's. Um, it's been a lot of fun. 04:42.54 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Amazing. So Brian tell me about the name tuned to consulting and where that came from and how to how does that tie into your focus. 04:54.76 Bryan Smith Sure and well it's kind of threefold on a personal level 2 big passions of mine are music and cars and so tuned for me ah applied to both of those things. 05:10.30 Bryan Smith Do a lot of singing and choral singing and you know the difference between a good choir and a great choir is very miniscule and the difference between an okay running car and a great running car is also pretty miniscule and I think what I found in my career is a difference between an okay marketing program and a great book. 05:13.59 bizzyweb Um. 05:16.17 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb A. 05:30.00 Bryan Smith Marketing program is also pretty miniscule and so getting into those ideas of of how do we? How do we pull the levers. How do we tune the notes. How do we go through in ah in a pretty meticulous way to get things working in in. Kind of a tuned and harmonious way to be the most effective. It can be so that's yeah, that's where the name comes from. 05:53.20 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb I Love them. 05:54.93 bizzyweb I love that I think because Dave is also a car guy so we're gonna get this out of the way because otherwise like umm I'm just not gonna get anything in for the next half an hour your wife has actually allowed you to own ah to have three jaguars. 06:00.49 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Ah. 06:08.89 bizzyweb Vintage jaguars in your house at 1 time. 06:11.58 Bryan Smith Ah, yes, well one of the rules is they can't all be here at the same time so they have ah I have 2 other places where they live. But yes I bought one a few years ago and it's been ah a great passion and then I accidentally bought two more. Um. 06:13.23 bizzyweb Okay. 06:13.79 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Fifty Fifth 5 06:28.49 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Accidentally. 06:29.25 Bryan Smith Yeah I was I've been a part of the Minnesota Jaguar club and I was talking to a guy an event who just kind of wanted to get out of it and he told me what he had and I offered him a ridiculous amount of money low amount of money and he just said done and then I was like. 06:48.25 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Wow. Ah. 06:48.99 Bryan Smith Oh no now I have to duck my wife into it and but I bought 2 cars and a whole garage full of parts for a obscenely low amount of money so I'm I'm going to flip those 2 and they're they're in process. They're both in pretty rough shape. So i'm. 07:01.42 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Um, if. 07:03.44 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb For sure. 07:06.30 Bryan Smith In the process of getting them ready to sell and I'll keep my my convertible I've had for a while. But yeah, it's a labor of love man they are. It's it's good to have 3 because then you kind of have 1 running? yeah. 07:12.74 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Record. 1 that works. Yep, right? But I think it's important for anyone that's in the kind of space that we're in where we mostly operate out of our heads and in ideas and thoughts. 07:22.86 bizzyweb It's like ah it's like a puppy. Well you can't really just get one because they need friends. 07:27.19 Bryan Smith Um, exactly yeah. 07:37.62 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb To have something tangible so Brian you and I have cars to play around with trigby does a lot of woodworking and he has just a gorgeous desk table that he made alive is it. It's it's like a live interior edge on the table that's filled in with epoxy right. 07:53.42 Bryan Smith Oh cool. 07:54.50 bizzyweb Yep So I took ah a piece of red cedar from a guy who does chainsaw art and then I cut it down and made it made a mold that was sort of desk size and then um. I filled in the gaps with boat epoxy that I died black. So it looks it kind of looks I I thought it looked really pretty and really it really accentuated the wood. So. It's this beautiful Western Red cedar. But. 08:14.22 Bryan Smith M. 08:27.94 bizzyweb I shared it with a friend and he was like oh my goodness look you made ah a giant slab of bacon. Ah. 08:34.30 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Um, yeah. 08:35.93 Bryan Smith I Actually made this desk. Um, this is this is old bowling alley. 08:39.58 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Oh that's cool. Well. 08:42.96 bizzyweb Bowling Alley is thick though and it's so heavy. 08:45.62 Bryan Smith It is yes, both thick and heavy and we I bought a big slab of it and took 4 of us to move it into the garage and then yeah, ah. 09:00.70 Bryan Smith Cut it up for the desk and then I have a matching shelf made out of it and then still have a whole bunch I'm trying to figure out what to do with. But yeah I actually ended up because it was the finish that they put on is so awful I ended up renting a floor sander. 09:03.99 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Um, ah. 09:12.75 bizzyweb Yeah. 09:17.73 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Um, a. 09:17.97 Bryan Smith Like a diamond floor sander and put it on the floor and just use the Diamond floor sander to get it cleaned up because I couldn't none of the hand sanders I had would even touch it. Yeah. 09:26.60 bizzyweb No yeah, you would go through so much sandpaper and I actually have a friend who who built his own house from scratch and when I say built his own house. He flew to Belize cut down an ipave tree. And I pay us kind of like teak um had the tree sent here on a boat and then ah sawyered it and then ah made his own doors and windows out of the tree and. 09:59.26 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Wow wow. 09:59.30 Bryan Smith Wow. 10:03.23 bizzyweb He would he would give me his remnants because it's I praise like and yeah, no, he he's he's ah he's a whole. He's one of those people that doesn't watch Tv so he had. He's just like barely on the on on the sanity level. 10:03.88 Bryan Smith Did did you let them know they just have windows at Home Depot You can just buy. Yeah. 10:09.31 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb You're right and stains that'll probably be. 10:19.76 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb A. 10:21.98 bizzyweb Ah, um, but yeah and he would give me the the stuff and I would try and work with it and it's just it's just so oily that I I went through I think 2 hands sand right away all right? So we've now devolved into 3 middle aged guys talking about their hobbies. So maybe we should bring this back to business. Um. 10:30.65 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Oh my. 10:39.35 Bryan Smith Um, yeah thank God for editing. 10:40.82 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb So. 10:41.30 bizzyweb What? Yeah what? Ah Brian what? What's the hardest part that you found of starting your own business. 10:49.33 Bryan Smith Um I think fighting the imposter syndrome has been the hardest part and and it's been hard on a number of levels 1 just feeling. You know who am I to be selling my services to people. I'm not relying on a team anymore in the same ways I I am me and it's very easy to get in my own head of of thinking geez. You know who do I think I am but it even continues more of you know when you get opportunities even in pricing sometimes I start to price out a project. And I you know, add up all the resources that I think it's going to take and I get a number and then I start secondguessing going off I'm not worth that much money and you know and and for some reason I don't have as much trouble asking for a good salary but asking for. You know one fifth of that salary for an important project seems to be hard and so I've really had to kind of work hard to get out of my head to say like no this is this is what I cost and you know and I don't get a lot of pushback on price. It's usually just. 11:43.86 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb You know. 12:02.52 Bryan Smith My biggest competitor is typically doing nothing. Um, you know whether they want to move forward or not and but I think that's probably been the hardest part for me, especially when ah things are a little slower and you're outselling and. 12:03.75 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Here. 12:19.28 Bryan Smith And things aren't happening as fast as you want them to and and that that voice in your head can get very loud very quickly and you know really having to lean on the people who love and care about me to remind me that I'm I'm actually pretty good at this and that you know. I Do bring a lot of value to my clients but it's It's very easy to get down that road really fast when you're in this office all by yourself all day. 12:44.50 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Yeah, for sure. 12:46.22 bizzyweb That's not that's that's not unique to you though I think anybody who's really good at marketing or really good at selling can't sell themselves out of or or can't really market themselves because it's so much easier to. 12:55.82 Bryan Smith Pat's hard 13:02.99 bizzyweb To to solve somebody else's problem but to turn it inward. That's that's incredibly difficult. 13:08.48 Bryan Smith Um, it. 13:08.95 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Well and Brian I think you had ah the perfect quote in our pre-interview and it was the the label they can you leave it. 13:16.40 Bryan Smith Yeah, it's it's it's really hard to read the label when you're in the bottle. Um, and yeah it is I broke every rule I broke every one of my own rules starting off first I did not want to position myself I didn't want to limit I didn't want to define myself. 13:19.30 bizzyweb Yeah I Love that. 13:34.60 Bryan Smith And you know I was going out to potential clients in the beginning and I'm like well I do marketing. Well what does that mean like that's I'm I'm no good to anybody if I if I'm trying to sell everything to everyone I'm selling nothing to anybody like it's It's not. 13:42.77 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb 4 4 13:49.92 Bryan Smith Helpful and it it took me a good 6 to eight months to sort of hone down, get comfortable with finding a niche get comfortable with defining what I'm good at and the problems I solve and you know it doesn't mean I'm not going to get other work. But. Um, yeah, it was really hard to sort of get disciplined about that again and and to because I didn't want to say no to anything and yeah, so it's it's been a challenge and and um I think it's it's it's. It's scary when you don't have guaranteed income to think that you might be turning away business in the way that you're marketing yourself. 14:31.60 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Right. 14:37.79 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb I Think it is kind of constructive though or instructive when you're working with a client to walk through that path yourself and to be thoughtful about it so you took this recently and you know the job of a fractional marketer. Is literally to have that conversation and to get people in their head out of their heads and on paper from their customer's perspective. So what? what? where did you point yourself after you reconfigured. 15:01.54 Bryan Smith 7 15:11.42 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Where where you're going like what is your focus now then? yeah. 15:15.26 Bryan Smith Yeah, absolutely well I've always been B to B focused at least that I started with but um, where I've really focused So the way that I went about it First of all is I took a step back and said what are the parts of my career that I've had the most impact and enjoyed the most. 15:31.87 Bryan Smith And ideally I want to do that right? And what I found was a unique space. A unique place where I've added a lot of value in my career has been the fact that I have worked I started in sales I've worked in marketing throughout my career and I've also had a number of stints in product management. 15:33.99 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Right. 15:51.64 Bryan Smith And I can speak all 3 of those languages and so often within b two b organizations those 3 teams are at loggerheads about 1 thing or another usually for no good reason all the time right? And so. 15:59.39 bizzyweb All the time all the time. 16:00.60 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Oh my? ah. 16:06.99 Bryan Smith Where I've been the most effective is when I've been able to create go-to-market strategies that are inclusive of all 3 of those teams that get those teams bought in early working together focused on the customer instead of each other and and have a sense of ownership in this. Strategy going forward. You know so often marketing will kick out a marketing plan and sales is like well that's adorable. Thanks I'm going to go back to doing what I was just doing and product says. Yeah,, that's great, but we have a 5 year roadmap. So hope your plan meets our roadmap and it's sort of over. 16:32.98 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb So. 16:42.45 Bryan Smith Whereas when you can start at the frontend. Get those folks working together and understand what does the customer actually need from you and what story are we going to tell them and what story do we tell them in Marketing. What story do we tell them in the choices we make in our product development. And what story do we tell them when we're sitting across the table from them in the sales meeting has to be consistent and powerful and if we can do that. That's Great. So That's where I sort of saw my superpower of of doing that and actually. 16:59.64 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Are. 17:11.67 Bryan Smith I was kind of workshoping this with a whole lot of people. Um, that are also kind of independents trying to get input because I I I Also find I actually have my best meetings off and talking to people So I try to find these sort of kind of Pseudo colleagues that I've built a network around that I can go to and. 1 of them is like yeah it's like you're trilingual I'm like oh boom Yeah trilingual marketing that is kind of what I'm trying to approach from a targeting perspective I've been focusing on ah professional services and manufacturing largely because they all have this problem. 17:32.88 bizzyweb Yes. 17:39.22 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Um. 17:45.75 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Love it. Yep who. 17:50.76 Bryan Smith And professional services I think the real challenges there are just I mean you go to most consulting from websites and I defy you to tell me what they do, um. 18:00.22 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Right? They optimize the paradigm. 18:05.50 Bryan Smith Right? by Cross-functional strategic alignment driving growth strategies like that. But you know Puke Puke puke. Um. 18:08.29 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Um, if the. 18:11.42 bizzyweb The rule that I learned was when I was a recruiter twenty years ago was if you shouldn't take anybody seriously if they use words or phrases that also describe your dog so hyper task focused note are. 18:30.50 Bryan Smith Nope nope yeah, totally and 1 of my favorite activities with young marketers when I was in corporate still was to go to trade shows and to walk around. 18:30.61 bizzyweb Real Go get her no work hard play Hard Nope No no. 18:36.86 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Yeah, stays off the couch. Note. 18:46.83 Bryan Smith And just ask them to tell me. But as we walked you by each booth. What those companies did and it is so amazing. How often you can't tell what they do and how they show up at a show. 18:50.52 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb You? Oh yeah, you should almost huh now. Now there's your marketing idea Brian let's let's get a whole bunch of business cards with a checkbot with checkboxes on them and just hand them to all of the booths that we go to next time and say. 18:51.79 bizzyweb Yeah. 19:08.28 Bryan Smith Totally. 19:10.18 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb I Don't know your brand I don't know your product I can't tell out what what you do. 19:14.80 Bryan Smith Right? Um,. It's totally true and and so that's kind of that professional services piece a lot around positioning but also around you know, kind of wrangling those groups together and on the manufacturing side. It's it's ah often ah more about. Getting them out of focusing on just their products and what they do and understanding better. What do they do for their customers and that can be a big challenge for them and again a challenge that sales marketing and product often have 3 very different ideas about so. Um, yeah I've worked in Tech I've worked in some other spaces I feel like tech right now is ah is a pretty ah volatile space and there's also a lot of people who do what I do in that Space. So I'm certainly willing to take the work there but I'm not kind of focusing my efforts there right now because I feel like I've got a little more. 19:59.85 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Coming in. 20:09.41 Bryan Smith Unique opportunity within those other 2 industries. 20:10.28 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb For sure. Yeah. 20:11.11 bizzyweb I think cmos right now are are kind of like the same thing that you find with realtors is I think half of them are playing because they don't have anything better to do and they well let me edit that so don't don't actually say that half are doing it. As a transitional mode and then half of them are actually really talented and have a lot to offer and have that background that you have Brian where you can bridge the divide between product marketing and sales to say. 20:34.72 Bryan Smith Um, in it. 20:47.58 bizzyweb And no, you know what we're really trying to do is get the logo to win not an individual department and so. 20:52.32 Bryan Smith Yeah, and I think sometimes as marketers we've done ourselves a disservice too where we lose the vision of we're trying to sell stuff and if if what we're doing isn't turning into revenue. It's a waste of time you know and I tell my. My clients like I don't care how many people come to your website if they're not buying anything I don't care how many people click on your ad if they don't do anything after that like that a click's not a win. Ah a click is a little step to a win. 21:14.88 bizzyweb Yeah. 21:27.40 Bryan Smith And I think there's a lot of marketers who get really focused on those metrics those activity metrics and because we can measure them and sometimes measuring the actual path to sale can be tricky but you know it I think sometimes our function. Is seen by other functions as being sort of fluffy or not real business or some of those kinds of spaces. We're not always seen as a kind of a critical business leader within the organization and you know you think about how many ceos actually come up through marketing in in the B Two B world. Not many. 22:02.42 bizzyweb Now. 22:04.77 Bryan Smith Um, and it's too bad because I think to your point like the good ones are the most sophisticated and broad business people. Um, it's just that the hobbyists are make it. 22:14.10 bizzyweb Yeah, the unicorns. 22:22.90 Bryan Smith Kind of hard sometimes. 22:22.86 bizzyweb So I want to I want to tie this all back together and and and talk about a Brian use case and especially to to help you with your own imposter syndrome can roll out a a classic but I think yeah before we do that I think you're absolutely right? 1 of the things that we get frustrated all the time with it. Ah, busy web is that we can show the activity. But the result we can't sell for people so we can tee the ball up exactly how you want it. But if you can't bring it home is that on us and that's you know. what I what I often refer to is the the Dave's mom problem. So if if you hire busy web to do lead generation for you and get more customers. Okay, great here's Dave's mom's name here's Dave's mom's number did I do my job. Well on the one hand. Yes I gave you a lead I gave you a number I gave you a contact on the other hand really really no because Dave's mom is a sweet old lady who's retired who likes living at the lake and she's probably not going to buy your manufactured product. 23:36.94 Bryan Smith Right? Well it and I mean it it goes back to I think one of the reasons I was inspired to go off on my own is just this dynamic of when when things are great. It's because our sales teams are brilliant and when things are terrible. It's because marketing sucks. 23:54.42 bizzyweb Yeah I could agree with that. 23:56.60 Bryan Smith And and one of the things I've been talking to my clients about as far as this trilingual approach is you know credit is free credit doesn't cost us anything we can. We can all take credit for a win and we can all take responsibility for a fail and you know. 24:04.88 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Here. 24:14.92 Bryan Smith I think to understand if you win a big contract. It's because you had a good sales team. It also means that you probably told them a great story in the lead up and it also probably means that you had a great product to sell them right? as well as lots of other things within the org but just within those 3 teams all 3 of those teams contributed to that. It's just. 24:30.98 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb So right. 24:34.50 Bryan Smith The sales team often is the one that gets the recognition for that because it's sort of how they're wired and you know that's good that they need to be wired that way. Otherwise they would go nuts but to be able to share that credit and and then also be able to share responsibility I think it's oh sorry guys. Um, to be able to share that credit as well share that responsibility is really important and it doesn't cost us anything. 24:59.45 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Right. 25:01.27 bizzyweb I Think that's a let's let's That's a great prophetic thing to stop take a break on because I think so many organizations don't do that and don't understand that credit can be shared. 25:13.00 Bryan Smith And credit is an important motivator for people. It builds culture. It builds an esprit to core it builds a commitment to the business and it's more than just happy fun times like. 25:17.29 bizzyweb Off. 25:29.45 Bryan Smith Um, how many times in your in your career have you felt like I love this job because I feel like I have impact right? and so it's it's not just fluffinessy and here I to like give everybody a green ribbon. It's it really comes back to how to build a winning culture. Ah. 25:36.49 bizzyweb That's true. Yeah. 25:48.53 Bryan Smith Revenue-driven culture and a collaborative culture that people are excited about. 25:53.34 bizzyweb Yeah, all right? Let's take a quick break. We'll come back more with Brian Smith all right? We're back I wanted to circle brack because Brian you kind of you kind of poo the lead a little. Because I asked about how's it going. You were like oh I'm fine. But you're actually considerably more talented than most people in marketing and so I'm going to force you into a golden oldie and a classic hit of of one of yours because I think it's a. Not only is there a good explanation of what a real marketer can do for you. But also it's a great example of heart and ah but belief which then translates into actual dollar revenues. So tell me about the janitors. 26:53.69 Bryan Smith I Will thank you and thanks for keeping me on track I always say I'm sort of a egomaniac with an inferiority complex which leads to all kinds of crazy. So um, yeah, ah. 27:03.85 bizzyweb I like that I'm gonna steal that too. 27:03.94 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Makes sense. Yep. 27:09.28 Bryan Smith Anyways, ah, yeah, so I was a tenant company for about almost ten years tenant is a manufacturer of floor cleaning machines. So if you go to Costco the sort of floors zamb bonies that go around cleaning the floors and the 150 year old company. Great company, awesome products, good people. Um. Incredible commitment to their customers and just can't say enough good things about them as an organization and um, but you know it's ah it's a competitive market. You're having more and more global competitors coming into the market at lower price points lower quality quality levels as well. But you know it's it's getting more and more competitive and so we were really trying to figure out how do we? How do we tell the story of tenant in a way that is more human right? Ah, like many manufacturing. 28:01.26 bizzyweb And to look at the product though I'm I'm sorry to interrupt the product is not all that exciting to look at it is a large blue box on on wheels. Basically yeah, so it's not exactly Monka ask in. Its. 28:08.42 Bryan Smith Yeah, and it squirts stuff on the floor. It brushes it around and then it sucks it back up again. That's that's it. 28:20.20 bizzyweb In its colorful glory. 28:22.00 Bryan Smith No, it's not and you know it's funny like having worked there and agencies I worked with and stuff like you start to see them everywhere. You don't you know they were invisible to me before I worked there but they're everywhere. We just ran into some ah at the. 28:29.62 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Um, yeah. 28:39.33 Bryan Smith At the University a couple weeks ago with my kids robotics tournament and you know I get sort of excited to see him still even though I'm not there anymore, but ah, but a really important market for for tenant is the K through 12 school market. Um, as you can imagine keeping schools clean is ah a pretty critical Job. And there's lots of schools out there. So it's it's it's ah it's a big market and um. 29:03.42 bizzyweb So the the Cliche then is to say okay from a problem solution standpoint we're gonna so we're gonna show kids being messy and then how we clean them up. 29:14.34 Bryan Smith Yeah, exactly and and actually so that this all sort of started with a project we did it was idea of my friend Carrie who I worked with to interview kids of tenant employees and interview them about why it's important to keep schools clean. So I interviewed. Almost forty kids in a day we just we had a studio. We had him come in and out we picked a day that Minnesota was off school and we just kind of cycled these elementary school kids in and out it was a blast 1 of probably the best days at work I've ever had my kid was in it and. 29:34.63 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Wow. 29:54.20 Bryan Smith Whatnot and we got hilarious stuff out of these kids talking about you know someone barfed in my class and you know they had to come clean it up and all this kind of stuff and but one of the things I walked away with at the end of the day was this moment of of. Realizing that every single kid I talked to knew the names of their janitors knew the names of the people that clean their schools and I thought you know I've worked in corporate offices my whole career I don't think I know the name of anybody who's cleaned my office over that period of time and. 30:27.99 bizzyweb Yeah I don't either. 30:28.56 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb I. 30:32.50 Bryan Smith At the same time we were also out visiting a lot of schools and and doing a lot of customer outreach and and really getting up close and personal not just with the executive level folks but in the schools working with the people that operated our machines and the other insight we had was that these folks. Love their jobs and you don't hear that in the cleaning industry. A whole lot. Um, you know most cleaning contractors have 4 or 500% turnover. Um, but most cleaning contractors have between four and five hundred percent turnover 30:55.78 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Oh how. 31:03.89 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Or 500 wow 31:04.40 bizzyweb I'm sorry what. 31:10.68 Bryan Smith Um, it is really difficult. Um, but within the schools you have long-term employees who are highly engaged in what they do and speak in in a very positive way about what they do even though. 31:11.72 bizzyweb Ouch. 31:27.81 Bryan Smith For a lot of us. It might not seem like a very nice job and so we thought about that we thought about those 2 pieces of of information we picked up and and the conclusion we came to is that the difference is they're part of the community. They are a valued part of the community they are they are known the kids know them the teachers know them. They are the ones that either kids and teachers can go to when they're having an issue and they fix stuff and they and they clean stuff and they make this environment for children to learn, um, healthy and livable and comfortable and and there's a purpose to that. 32:06.21 Bryan Smith That was the insight we had and so another colleague of mine Melissa came up with this awesome idea to say what if we just did a ah program where we asked people to nominate custodians in k through 12 schools who are going above and beyond the call of duty. And we give them some sort of a prize. So I thought that was an awesome idea so we ran with it and we created this program where we were gonna give away like we gave away a $15000 package. Basically so we're gonna give 5000 to the custodian who won and 10000 to the school. 32:35.96 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Wow. 32:43.33 Bryan Smith And we expected you know, maybe a hundred nominations something like that we that was sort of our goal to get at and the first year we did it. We had over two thousand nominations and thank you. 32:55.73 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Oh wow. 32:56.54 bizzyweb 2065 I pulled the number. 33:02.17 Bryan Smith And it was a it was unbelievable. Um, and we you know we promote it to some degree but like tenant isn't exactly popping up on everybody's social media feeds every day. Um and the stories. 33:17.39 bizzyweb It's also important to note that that 2065 were for 800 custodians so underlying. Yeah, their point there like or there were repeat customers. 33:22.58 Bryan Smith Right? We we had a few. We had a few very popular ones. Yeah I think there was 1 guy that had like over a hundred nominations. Um, yeah, ah it was. 33:32.51 bizzyweb Wow. 33:39.49 Bryan Smith It was but the stories we got were remarkable. There was one story I remember about a woman up in Alaska who was a custodian there and you can imagine when you play the basketball team in Alaska for you to have an away game is often an 8 or 9 hour drive um 33:55.20 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb You Oh yeah, I'm sure. 33:59.21 Bryan Smith Not even a tournament just to go play another school and so this woman would help drive the team um to games and things like that there was another story about a custodian who there was a child who was neurodivergent in the school and. And elementary school was really struggling with having a locker that locked and being able to unlock that locker. Um, this custodian did a bunch of research found a locker lock that was designed for kids with this type of neuro divergence. Installed that lock on the kid's locker. So the kid could get in and out of his locker. But then when the kid went to junior high school that custodian went over to the junior high and installed it there and two years later when the kid went to high school the custodian kept track went to the high school and installed this lock form in the high school. 34:51.76 bizzyweb Seriously. 34:54.30 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Ah, that's spectacular I Love that? Yeah and. 34:54.77 Bryan Smith Yeah, like you you can't make this stuff up right? I mean we got to the point where we had the finalists and we're reading the stories and we're sitting around a conference table in a big corporate office and everybody's crying at the table because of these incredible stories. Um, so when we announced the winner We got local news coverage. 35:05.57 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Here. 35:14.65 Bryan Smith We got a tremendous amount of earned media out of it and trust me, you know floor Scrubber companies are not getting on your local news often ever. Um, and. 35:21.55 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Right. 35:26.38 bizzyweb Well let's let's let's back up a second because ah for for the the newbies in the audience explain what earned media is because that's that's that's where the victory lap really comes into play and I I pulled the stats I found some stats on this on this campaign. So. 35:35.28 Bryan Smith For sure. So. 35:42.52 Bryan Smith Thanks! Thanks Trig? Um, so you know paid media is pretty straightforward right? We're buying ad space on social or or through search engines or you know in the B to C World on Billboards or. 35:42.62 bizzyweb You do your thing and then I'm going to talk about how great you are. 35:58.67 Bryan Smith Tv Radio whatever you're paying for communication earned media is when you get typically news organizations but maybe other kinds of organizations to cover what you're doing and and they're covering it as news. So it's free. Um, and that's you know it's. Typically a much wider audience and and and is I think in many ways seen as more credible because it's you're not paying for it. It is someone who felt that whatever is happening is important so earned media to me is always a You're right? It's a victory lap. It's really valuable and it's you know from a from a I guess one of the best examples I think is the old Apple ad right? The old Super Bowl Apple ad from 1984 that literally they paid the air. Once. And how many times have we seen that ad over the court like right, but they paid to show it once? Um, that's a great example I think of earned media or just you know anytime you get covered in the news. So yeah, it was it was a it was a big win from a brand perspective. 36:54.53 bizzyweb Yeah, yeah, but. 36:56.71 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Right? Forty years later we're still talking about it. Um. 37:10.73 bizzyweb Well hold on. We're gonna actually talk about what the brent with what the big win is so your little nominate the janitor program at tenant. Not only got the two thousand nominations and highlighted an unsung hero in the schools. 37:12.61 Bryan Smith And. 37:30.28 bizzyweb From an earned media standpoint. It got picked up by 12 different publications. 29 online print and social placements for about a 72000000 person reach. 37:45.43 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Dang. Yeah yeah. 37:46.52 Bryan Smith Yeah, not a bad day's work. Um, it it and and I think they're on year five or 6 of it now. Um, so it's become an annual event and they're they're still doing it and they're doing a great job and. And the stories are still coming out and they're still getting that kind of engagement every year of of of these folks and you know sometimes as marketers it's it's gotten harder especially on the b two b side for us to kind of value the brand work. It's harder to measure. It's harder to. 38:17.98 bizzyweb Yeah. 38:22.76 Bryan Smith Um, sometimes show the ah roi to to executives they they love the demand work because we got all kinds of numbers up in there and go hire busy web to go and get us those numbers and you know it's it's It's pretty concrete. Ah, but I think. In some ways we've done ourselves a little disservice of of forgetting about the brand side and that what enables that demand work to be effective is to have the power that brand coming in ahead of you. It's it's it's breaking the trail. 38:54.42 bizzyweb I Think it's I think it's a really great illustrative concept of why branding is so important because if you think about the concept of the of the campaign that you just talked about you weren't selling. You weren't selling the the product you weren't talking about the features you weren't talking about the benefits. You weren't talking about how. 39:07.20 Bryan Smith Google. 39:08.91 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb It's great. 39:14.70 bizzyweb Tenant is better than anything Else. You're talking about something else entirely that was related to it but working in concert with it but by doing it with the heart that you did translated into real actual revenue and so I think. A lot of times. It's so easy to fall back on the feature benefits Problem Solve Great. Let's let's make an ad but the the world is so loud right now with all that kind of stuff that. 39:46.37 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Boy. 39:50.69 bizzyweb Even if somebody has a genuine problem How how are you going to solve it if all you hear is noise. It's It's a thing that that actually gives you heart and gives you pause. 39:57.23 Bryan Smith Um, yeah. 39:59.96 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb And the noise is always the me me me stuff. So I think the brilliance of that janitorial campaign in particular was that you were focusing on the community and that's truly what people are most interested in is the people local to them. So. 40:16.84 Bryan Smith So. 40:19.66 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb That's super powerful. Yeah, kind of flipping that to an example, that's probably the opposite is ah back in the day I was in Media relations for a large larger agency and we were working for a whiskey. Ah, like ah like a consumer Brand whiskey and we did a DiY Allstar campaign. So it was kind of the same where people would write in and say the projects that they were doing but then what they did is they. Got together and we would have events where people would like drive a tractor with a trailer on it. Backwards Hammer in so many nails and like paint a fence nothing to do with the drink nothing to do with the community nothing to do with anything. Kind of would have been like if if you would have had tenant machines just going out to local communities and just driving an obstacle course with the scrubbers completely self-serving would have fallen way flat and our program sucked it was It was just not Great. So and the point about doing highly tactical things for a. 41:17.50 bizzyweb The. 41:18.50 Bryan Smith E. 41:31.10 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Whiskey is kind of interesting Anyways, like are they going to get hammered and then Hammer in Hammer in nails and like hit their fingers or what so it was super weird. 41:38.22 Bryan Smith Yeah, well and I've done a lot of weird stuff like that in my career too that was not smart like we're talking about 1 of the wins here. So it's yeah you know, but I think part of what. 41:40.22 bizzyweb Well, that would have been funny or yeah. 41:46.59 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Um, yeah, yeah, this is win for sure. 41:53.44 Bryan Smith I Think part of the subtle message that went with this too though was that tenant had a unique understanding of the market a unique understanding of those people and I do think there is a sort of a a soft benefit that is being communicated through something like this in a really subtle way. 41:58.67 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Oh yeah. 42:12.51 Bryan Smith That was important. Um, yeah that we get it right? and that is something that I think you know for instance, a new competitor coming into the market would have a really hard time establishing that and you know they. 42:12.68 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Um, connecting to your community. Yeah for me. 42:32.25 Bryan Smith They might be able to say that they're they have a faster Rpm on their brushes than we do, but you know at the end of the day. Nobody really cares. 42:37.26 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Right. 42:46.33 bizzyweb So what? What were some of the lessons that you learned moving forward from that janitorial campaign exercise I mean what are some things that we can take away from that I think one of the things that you owe is preach to me is ah slowing down. In order to go faster. 43:05.28 Bryan Smith Yeah of of listening um those ideas came out of the fact that we were listening to our customers and and that we were listening to not just the quote unquote important people who made the decisions. But that we were listening to people the operators of our machines that we were listening to the kids who go to schools that we were listening to the supervisors who are on site every day making sure these I mean some of these high schools are huge right? And to. Have a staff of 15 to 18 people having to maintain that building. It's you know it's it's a big job and and there's a lot of complicated elements to it and so to have that sort of empathy and curiosity really paid off and. Not pretend like because we're 150 year old company that we knew everything there was to know about cleaning floors. We know a lot about cleaning floors. But we don't necessarily know a lot about what it takes to clean a school. 44:13.12 bizzyweb What's a great example of I know a lot about cleaning floors I need to get other people excited about cleaning floors my way. 44:18.81 Bryan Smith Yeah, and and and and to build that Brand Affinity. You know you know it's there is a there is an element of when a school district looks at replacing equipment. They're asking people who operate the equipment. What their favorites are and why you know those folks have a fair amount of influence on that decision and you know if they're coming back and saying well XYZruber is broken every other week. You know that's that's. 44:41.60 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb A. 44:57.80 Bryan Smith Kind of have an impact or it's really hard to use or it makes my hands hurt or it's it's doesn't clean, very well. You know, whatever yeah that stuff matters. 44:59.78 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Here. A. 45:08.11 bizzyweb So I Think the punchline to all of this is and you don't have to reveal actual numbers but were were you were you able to create revenue attribution for this campaign could you could you point from the campaign to actual. Real dollars. Yes, yes. 45:28.96 Bryan Smith It's hard right? It is hard. Ah, we have a small element of this campaign where we did direct follow up with um school District decision Makers who had nominated people. 45:45.20 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Who. 45:45.80 Bryan Smith Where we had our reps do direct follow up with them. We were very clear with the call is to thank them for nominating someone and to offer help and to then shut up. 45:57.12 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Grape. 46:03.36 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb And that's brilliant because you didn't want to go a we we ah you nominated a janitor so can can we rely on you for our next sale So connecting him up with the Sands team would have been back? yeah. 46:12.79 Bryan Smith Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't want to cheapen it right? like a whole idea was that this was not cheap, but it's also a very warm call you know and and so we didn't want to lose that opportunity either. 46:13.88 bizzyweb Here's the 5% off coupon. 46:21.30 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Right? So respect the message in them and what it is for what it is. Yeah yeah I'll say. 46:31.58 Bryan Smith So we had We had very good conversion rates out of those phone calls. Um, and that was that was promising. Um, but yeah I mean as far as the broad brand impact. We weren't for a number of reasons. 46:48.70 Bryan Smith It was very hard for us to measure that part part of the challenge is most most school districts are served through third party distributors. So we don't always know who we're selling to so it's ah. 46:54.22 bizzyweb Down. 46:54.24 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Chair. 46:59.32 bizzyweb But getting back to your original point about how the the how sales and marketing are often at loggerheads if sales decided to go in and not and not listen and trample on the message. The. All of that amazing work. All of that earned media and all of that Goodwill just would have been ruined in 1 phone call. 47:17.98 Bryan Smith Yeah I will say though our sales team was so excited about this program because it gave them something just really great to talk about with their customers and their prospects right? and that wasn't feature based and that was just really feel good. 47:34.39 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Right. 47:36.29 bizzyweb And not problem based either because so much of sales is negative hit negative negativity tell me about where it hurts I want to know where it hurts and then having to deal with the rejection so any salesperson 75% of their life is dealing with negative things. 47:37.75 Bryan Smith And no, it was a great story to tell and. Yeah, so. 47:54.47 Bryan Smith Totally and and you know I think there's an element too where I think particularly executives and salespeople just love to see their companies and print like it's It's a feel goodd for folks and so I think that was an element as well. But um. 48:05.92 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Amen and. 48:11.27 Bryan Smith Yeah, definitely I think helped us it was it was you know 1 more step along the way of us building credibility with our own sales team too. 48:21.11 bizzyweb Absolutely Brian. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you so much for rolling out a golden oldie and we'll just skip over the fact that we're all about the same age and we'll we'll will remember what? ah. What 93 Xx was before it was 93 xx which is a local Minneapolis joke. So Brian as tradition on the podcast. We. We like a full blatant and naked promotion. So where can people find you online. 48:35.81 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Have. 48:38.27 Bryan Smith Yeah. 48:47.80 Bryan Smith I am at tunedcons consultting dot com and or if you search Linkedin for Brian Oliver Smith you'll find me there with a name like Smith you got to use your middle name too. Um, so yeah Brian with a y that's ah that's an important step yeah tuned to you and. 48:59.67 bizzyweb And Brian with a wife. 49:07.53 Bryan Smith edconsulting.com all 1 word is is our site and you can get me there. 49:10.34 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb And just general plug if you see an old jag on the side of the road. Please stop to help Brian. 49:16.60 bizzyweb Yeah, because his wife is going to be tapping her toe with her arms crossed wondering where he is. 49:18.26 Bryan Smith Yes, please, it's yes and my son will probably be sitting next to me making fun of me. Um, which that's what fifteen year olds do I guess. 49:21.64 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb If it. 49:29.69 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Absolutely thanks! Brown. 49:32.79 bizzyweb A I've I've I've done that to Dave I he he had a car with with an air ride that punctured night to go pick him up and do you remember what happened when you got in the car. Ah. 49:44.10 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Ah, he was playing lowrider. 49:48.65 bizzyweb That was the last time Dave asked me for a ride ever. 49:48.71 Bryan Smith Um, that's great. 49:52.11 Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb Ah.