Episode 116 Inside The Strategy Blueprint: Lessons From 30+ Years Building Iconic Brands with Angelo Ponzi Frederick Dudek (Freddy D) Copyright 2025 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
Angelo Ponzi joins us to delve deep into the essentials of brand strategy and the significance of understanding your market. He emphasizes the importance of stepping back to work on your business rather than just in it, highlighting that many companies overlook strategic foundational work in favor of flashy tactics.
With over three decades of experience, including partnerships with giants like Disney and AT&T, Angelo shares valuable insights on how to create powerful messaging that truly resonates with customers. We explore the necessity of knowing your audience, not just their demographics but their motivations and challenges. Tune in for a straightforward conversation packed with actionable advice that can help you elevate your brand and foster lasting relationships with your customers.
Discover more with our detailed show notes and exclusive content by visiting: https://bit.ly/43OpIwY
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In this engaging episode, Freddie D. introduces Angelo Ponzi, a marketing powerhouse whose career encompasses a blend of strategic insight and practical execution. Angelo's approach is all about stepping back to assess the entire marketing landscape rather than getting bogged down in tactical minutiae.
He delves into the importance of building a strong foundational strategy that aligns with customer needs and market opportunities. Listeners are urged to recognize the value of gathering data and insights from real customers rather than relying solely on internal discussions. The conversation flows into the critical aspects of competitive analysis, emphasizing that businesses must continuously monitor their competitors and adapt their strategies accordingly.
Angelo recounts his experiences with various companies, illustrating how neglecting to understand the market can lead to missed opportunities and even failure. This episode is a wake-up call for business leaders to prioritize strategic thinking and foster a culture of collaboration within their teams to transform their marketing efforts and ultimately create lasting customer loyalty.
This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
Takeaways:
- Angelo Ponzi emphasizes the importance of understanding your market, customers, and competition to develop effective strategies.
- He highlights that many businesses struggle because they focus too much on tactics rather than foundational strategic work.
- The podcast discusses the necessity for brands to maintain an ongoing competitive analysis to stay relevant and adjust their strategies accordingly.
- A key point made is that internal alignment within a company is crucial for delivering a consistent message to customers.
- The episode stresses that every employee should feel empowered and informed about the company's mission to turn them into brand advocates.
- Finally, it wraps up with actionable advice to review your marketing messaging to ensure it aligns with your customers' needs and challenges.
Links referenced in this episode:
- https://www.craftmarketingandbranding.com/
- https://amz.cx/3U26 The Strategy Blueprint on Amazon
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:55):
Hey Superfans superstarFreddie D. Here in this episode 116,
we're joined by Angelo Ponzi.The founder of Kraft is a marketing
and brand strategist whosecareer spans more than three decades,
delivering game changingresults across countless industries.
As a Fractional and interimCMO, he has partnered with iconic
(02:18):
brands like AT&T. Ericsson,Kendall Jackson, Disney and many
more guiding teams, both largeand small, through every stage of
the product life cycle. Inaddition to his work as a fractional
executive, Angelo is also anauthor and speaker with deep expertise
(02:39):
in crafting holistic businessand creative brand strategies. He
excels at identifyingopportunities, building powerful
go to market plans, anddriving revenue growth with minimal
risk. His unique perspective,honed by founding and selling two
companies, gives him anunparalleled understanding of the
(02:59):
challenges brands face today.Known for his collaborative approach
and steadfast commitment todata driven insights, Angelo helps
brands reposition, capturemarket share and launch successful
new products across B2B, B2Cand D2C markets. Get ready for an
(03:20):
inspiring conversation thatunpacks invaluable lessons on brand
strategy, innovation andleadership. Welcome, Angelo, to the
Business Superfans podcast.How are you this afternoon?
I'm doing great, Freddie,thank you very much. I'm happy to
be here.
Yeah, we're grateful for yourtime to be on the show and I really
(03:42):
like to get into some of thethings that you've done. But more
importantly, start off withyour strategy blueprint book that
you wrote and how does thatimpact businesses and what's that
about? So what's the backstoryto the story that led you up to writing
the book?
Sure. So in my world, as afractional Chief Marketing officer,
(04:04):
focus on the strategic side ofmarketing. I don't even think about
the tactical stuff. I want tounderstand the market. I want to
understand your customers,your prospects, your competition.
I need to understand thosenuances. I need to understand internally
how your team thinks so Icould match it up with how the market
actually thinks and to lookfor gaps and opportunities then utilizing
(04:27):
this data. So I have a marketresearch background and so everything
is fact based for me.Basically. Let's get out of the boardroom.
Quit talking to yourselves. Ican give you a bunch of case studies
on why that doesn't work.
And drinking your own koolaid.
Oh my. Yeah, exactly. Andsometimes we know what happens when
you drink in those situationsthat you drink the Kool Aid. And
(04:50):
I use that information to helpdefine messaging and positioning
and then also to help buildrevenue growth plans and then eventually
in the plans, of coursethere's tactical stuff. That's another
bailiwick. But my company nowis 11 years old. It's not the first
time I've gone out and startedmy own company. I was fortunate to
(05:10):
grow an ad agency and to sellit and, and a research company. But.
But I also had a couple flameouts as well which were great learning
experiences. But during thepast 11 years and dealing with a
lot of small and medium sizedbusinesses and I walk in and it's
like, hey, this is perfect,let's do our strategic planning.
We're going to go. And theygo, now we just need tactical stuff.
(05:33):
And, and so you hear that andit's, do you understand what those
steps are and why it'simportant? So over the last 11 years
and looking at the way Iapproach business and what I do,
started to create this kind offoundational work that I believe
needs to be done. Heard thephrase people working in their business
instead of on their businessstudies and things that I've done.
(05:56):
I find that a lot of small tomedium sized businesses don't spend
a whole lot of time working onit. Therefore the strategic stuff,
you're making, sales, you gotmoney in the bank, therefore business
is great and you've beenaround. That doesn't always mean
business is great and it's tooeasy to get a turn. So the premise
of the book is all about thatstrategic foundational work. Understanding
(06:19):
everything I just told youabout your customers, your prospects,
looking at strategy versustactics, how do you scale your business,
what is truly brand messagingand how do you create that story?
Narratives that help youdefine how you position yourself
in competitions andunderstanding your customers, which
is I think what we'veindicated before. How do I market
(06:41):
to you if I don't know you?How do I change your behavior? How
do I understand yourmotivations and what your concerns
are as a customer? B2B B2Cdoesn't really matter. Then I can
market to you because now Iknow what's important. Otherwise
it's important to me, theorganization. And that isn't always
aligned with what the marketthinks. So that's really where the
(07:02):
premise of the book came. Andso it's really focused on more of
that strategy side aboutbudgeting and all sorts of things
versus how to create a socialprogram or digital well.
And strategy is reallyimportant in businesses. It's often
overlooked. We get into, youknow, the logo and the branding and
making it look cool and allthe nice colors and all that stuff.
(07:25):
But really what you're Talkingabout is you need to back up a little
bit and first off, define whatwas a customer avatar. Now it's called
customer Persona. And put thattogether. Together is first off,
who's your target market,where do they live, what do they
do, what are their lifechallenges? And then you can start
putting together the strategylike you're talking about to be able
(07:46):
to go to that type of a marketso that the messaging that you're
putting out there resonateswith them. They go, oh yeah, that's
me versus, you know, spray andpray, which is what a lot of businesses
do well.
Too on the B2B side. And we'retalking a little bit earlier about
you come from the SaaS worldand I've had an opportunity to work
in that as well. It isn't justone person. It could be the engineer
(08:11):
that's thinking that I want totest a product or I want to do something,
but it's this CFO that's goingto write the checks and it's maybe
the IT guy that's going to bedoing all the testing. So all of
a sudden you've got multiplePersonas within one organization
that are all looking forsomething a little bit different
when you talk to them. So itgets back to creating those Personas
(08:33):
and truly understanding thedynamics and that the customer journey
has been played for a while.But it is true. It's what's that
hierarchy? How does it work?And then even go to the consumer
side. What's going to motivatepeople to buy your T shirt versus
somebody else's or change yoursneakers or whatever it happens to
be. You can't do that just bythrowing product out there.
(08:54):
No, you can't. And then theother thing too is that you're made.
Me remember years ago when Itransitioned from engineer into sales,
I was very fortunate. Thecompany put me through some really
high end sales programs. Andthere was one company I was selling
to and I was sellingengineering software and manufacturing
software to them. And I wastalking to the VP of engineering
(09:18):
and we got along really welland everything else. And I had remembered
my training, you need to sellwide. So I went to the CFO of the
company and talked to himabout budgeting and what's going
on in the company, everythingelse. And I found out that the VP
of engineering wasn't reallybuddy buddies with the owner of the
(09:38):
company. It was the VP ofmanufacturing that was always golfing
with that owner. So I startedtalking with the VP of manufacturing
and it turned out he had thebudget for everything. The other
guy didn't have any budget. Sothe reason I bring that up, and I
ended up getting the sale andthat's a whole nother adventure story.
But I bring that up becauseyou're right about the importance
(09:59):
of being able to understandall the players and all the Personas
in that organization and beable to message to them appropriately.
Yeah, no, absolutely. Thereisn't a one size fits all message
in marketing. And even thougha lot of companies do that, it doesn't
work. And so you've got tounderstand what's relevant and important
(10:20):
to your audience. How do youbecome relevant in their world? I've
worked with companies and Iwas like, here's what we want you
to do. But that you're talkingabout your company, hey, it's great
that you're 75 years old andthat's a good reason to believe,
but not a reason to buy justbecause you've been around a while.
That's just a validator.
Right? Getting folks tounderstand what's really important.
(10:42):
Sometimes I'll take themthrough a process and have them help
me identify what's truly apoint of differentiation. And I get
stuff like, we got greatpeople. Yeah. Every company is going
to say, got great people.We've been around for 25 years. Yeah,
but your competitor's beenaround for 26 or 24, maybe 50. Okay,
(11:03):
so how do you combat that? Andagain, what's really relevant? Am
I buying? Because you've beenaround a while. We have that old
saying, right. Many years ago,if you buy an IBM, you won't get
fired kind of thing.
Yeah, I remember that.
Yeah. That doesn't necessarilyapply now.
There's a lot of differentball games.
Yeah. I think companies losesight of that because again, especially
small companies, they fall inlove with their product or their
(11:25):
service and everybody in theworld wants to buy it. And that isn't
always true. And again,there's a lot of statistics about
startups and failures andthings like that. And a lot of times
it's just they didn't listento the market or didn't do enough
research, which I've alsofound. I've done some mentoring at
some of the universities andsome of these startups and I remember
(11:46):
asking them, did you do someresearch to validate your idea? And
they go, oh, yeah, yeah. Italked to my mom and my dad and my
sister and my cousin. They allloved it. Yeah, of course they did
my ideas too, but they didn'talways work.
It was face plant.
Yeah. Yeah.
So. But you bring up a greatpoint because really think back of
(12:12):
we've been both around theblock a couple times. How many businesses
that were big. You mentionedIBM, Digital Equipment Corporation
was huge back in the day. Andthey're gone. They didn't pivot.
They had one belief. Samething with the multitude of software
companies that don't existanymore, that were big dominant players.
(12:32):
They didn't tweak theirstrategies based upon how the market
was changing. They weren'tkeeping up to date and they're out
of business today.
Right. Well, Kodak's a greatexample. Kodak invented the digital
camera. When you research it alittle bit, I think the lines I found
very interesting is peoplesaying, nobody's going to want to
(12:52):
look at pictures on theirtelevision. Blockbuster. Yeah, Blockbuster
had a chance to buy not onlyNetflix, but Redbox. And their comment
is nobody wants to wait for amovie to come in their mail. But
obviously they were notlooking at disruption and innovation
and streaming was coming alongand they got buried. And Netflix
(13:13):
has done pretty well for themselves.
Netflix has taken out movie studios.
Yep, yep. I used to be an avidmoviegoer. Now I have to think twice
is okay. If I wait, it'll beon TV within three months or less.
Do I really need to go spend40 bucks to go to the movies? Exactly
right. I call it keeping yourfingers on the pulse of what's going
(13:34):
on. And it's not a, hey, wedid a strategic planning session
in October and therefore wedon't need to do it anymore. No,
it's constant. It's every day.You have to get this constant feedback.
Your competition could belaunching new products and services.
Things keep going on, all of asudden you're not getting the sale
when somebody else is. Why?Price is not always the answer. Right.
(13:56):
You need to understand whathappened. And so a case in point,
working with a large H Vaccompany and what we found. The company
told me our clients love us.Great, then let me talk to them.
And so I did. And they wereright. They were loved. However,
(14:19):
their primary customers, themechanical engineers, were all 60
plus getting ready to retire.The new generation didn't actually
like them very much. Why?Because they didn't have any environmentally
friendly products. Thecompetition was now offering not
only environmentally friendlyproducts, they were offering package
(14:39):
deals that my client was not.So the long story, very short, it
was, if you don't do somethingnow, you won't be around in five
years because those engineersare retired. These guys are not accepting
you. You're not getting dealsfrom them because not one person's
doing the deals. There'smultiple engineers within an organization
and that was pretty eyeopening for them. And it all happened
(15:02):
just by having a conversationwith the market.
And let's continue that story.How did you transform them? I'm sure
they've become super fans ofthe work that you did with them.
So let's talk about that.
Yeah, so one of the thingsthat we did is we created some educational
programs that they would taketo their clients and run these kind
(15:25):
of lunch hour seminars andstuff and bring in the food. So they
literally were going out anddoing educational programs. So they
went out and found some newproducts to rep that were offering
environmentally friendlyproducts, looking at heat pumps or
things like that that theydidn't have in their lines. And so
they started changing theirproperties that they offered. They
(15:47):
also increased some of theirinventory so they really weren't
in a situation where it waslike, we don't have the products.
And so they started increasinginventory and then frankly changing
their websites and things likethat. The tactical side of it that
told the world what they weredoing and just being broader and
more transparent about thatinstead of relying on just the sale
communication. And that workedout really well for them.
(16:12):
So you could say that they'rea big, super fan of the transformation
that.
You did with them. I wouldbelieve they are. Yeah. They were
able, my consultation in asense, to step back and I forced
them to work on their businessand not in it because ultimately
those decisions have to. It'snow, oh yeah, we'll just go add equipment.
(16:32):
There's a lot of other thingsthat had to happen. What's it going
to cost to bring in moreinventory? What's it going to cost
to do those training programs?Who's going to do those training
programs? Who's going to buildthose programs? What do they look
like? How often do we do them?And how can we take some of this
data that we've now learnedfrom all this research and translate
that into something that'svery actionable? And then of course,
(16:52):
who does that? Because Ialways make one person responsible.
So you have somebody to go to.Not five people, not a group, one
person, let them sign up thegroup. Then you work with the group.
I remember working withanother client who I still sit on
their board. And I was alsoworking with sales and marketing
(17:13):
at the same time. And so Iwent to the first sales meeting that
I had gone to and it was like,okay, Freddie, how'd you do this
week? Did you have a chance toget out and talk to some clients.
No, I was kind of busy andputting out some paperwork. I really
didn't make any sales callsthis week. Okay, you get back out
there next week and did itagain. It was like they're letting
people off the hook. And I waslike, whoa, timeout, timeout.
(17:36):
You got to get every buy infrom the whole team into the strategy.
Because if they're not onboard, I use the example of a racing
rowing boat. You got eightpeople in that rowing boat. Everybody
has one oar, not two to one.
Or.
Now if you don't get everybodyin line in synchronization, you ain't
(17:57):
going to one place fast.You're not even going in a circle.
Right.
Because everybody has an ownroar. So your boat's going like this,
going no place. So you've gotto take what you've put together.
Here's a new strategy and it'sgoing to go through the entire company
to get everybody on board.
And that's a great point. Andone of the things I look at is, I
think I mentioned it earlier,it's not only externally but internally.
(18:21):
It starts internally.
One of the first steps, I havea sales and marketing assessment
that I give to the strategicteam individually. And then I bring
it together and I look, firstof all, are they in alignment? Do
they agree? Where are thegaps? I use this as one of my examples.
But one of the questions atthe time, I've modified it since.
But one of the questions wasabout onboarding. How good is your
(18:45):
onboarding program? I forget.Exactly. And the CEO rated it a five,
but the guy running theprogram rated it a one. And they
were like in the conferenceroom going, you think it's a one?
He goes, you think it's afive? I'm more concerned about the
fact that you've workedtogether for 26 years and this is
now a question on the samepage. Yeah, been on the same page
in 26 years. That's theproblem. Right.
(19:07):
And it goes further. Sure. Thesale isn't the transaction, the sales,
everything that happens afterthe transaction.
Exactly. Right, Yep.
So you have to have a wholestrategy in place to say, okay, first
we got to get the strategy inplace to get them to buy our stuff.
But now we have to have thestrategy to how do we onboard them?
(19:29):
And more importantly, how dowe really transform them into brand
advocates or what I prefer tocall business super fans who are
now promoting your business.So you're maximizing your marketing
dollars and you create longterm customers.
Yeah, exactly. Well said.That's a great example. Another one
that I've used in the past iswe're sitting in a conference room
(19:51):
and we're doing a little Rosssession, and the CEO turns the head
of sales and says, what's yourwish today? What do you want? I want
a million dollar order. Peopleclap in and I want time out. Mr.
Inventory Manager, do you havethe inventory to fulfill this? No.
How long would it take you?Oh, it's going to take us six weeks
to get the inventory. Okay,manufacturing in six weeks. So you
(20:13):
have the capacity. Now we'vegot all these other orders that are
backlogged and by the time weget to this is 90 days out. So I
just turned to them and Isaid, that million dollar order just
hurt you. It hurts you becauseyou've made commitments, you've made
promises, and you can'tfulfill them. So not every business
is good business. And you haveto understand, and you made this
(20:33):
point earlier, the dynamicswithin the organization. People have
to understand their roles andtheir contribution to the whole.
They're not just theaccounting person, they're not a
salesperson. They're part.That team has to work together. And
if you don't know all thesedifferent pieces or you don't have
the systems to make thathappen, there's potential bigger
issues than just making a sale.
(20:57):
Sure. And that's why I go backwith the rolling team. You got to
get everybody in sync of whatthe strategy is, what the mission
is. Otherwise you're not goinganywhere. And perfect example there,
Angelo, was the fact thateverybody looks at the sale number.
But what all happens on theback end of that, and which is what
we talked earlier, that's howyou really create superfans, is be
(21:19):
able to deliver. Getting thepaperwork is the easy part. Getting
the contract signed, that'sduck soup. It's everything that happens
after that is what I keepemphasizing to people, is that's
the sale. That's the mostimportant part. Because people will
forget what you did, they'llforget what you said, but they'll
never forget how you made them feel.
(21:40):
Yep, that's that emotionalconnection. I use a technique called
laddering, and I really lookat functional attributes of the product,
let's say, and then I ladderit up to the emotional connection.
Because ultimately that's howI made this person feel. Right. Safe,
secure. I made a gooddecision. I'm not going to get fired
tomorrow because I bought thisproduct. It's not an easy process.
(22:04):
But to make those connectionsand then understand from a marketing
and a sales Standpoint, how doyou take that now and get face to
face with somebody and makesure they understand that communication.
If you look at an hourglass,that sales in the middle and everything
else happens on top andhappens in the bottom, but there's
one instant when that actuallythat signature gets done and then
everything else after ishaving a baby. I remember telling
(22:26):
my wife, it's not the ninemonths, it's the rest of our lives.
Right. It's exactly correct.That's a very good analogy because.
Yeah, it's that continuedrelationship with the customer. In
a previous business, I had arelationship with the customer. We
had a big transaction. Itended up helping me being close to
(22:47):
a million dollars worth ofrevenue in one deal. One customer
we would spend every month wewould get together and we'd have
five minutes of conversationabout business because everything
was running smooth and ifthere was issues, I was on top of
it and I had my team take careof it right away. We would spend
10, 15 minutes justsocializing. Where were you going
(23:08):
on vacation? What are youdoing for the next month? All that
stuff. Because that's the feelgood part.
Right.
And there was a trust thatthey had with us that if there was
an issue, we take care of itjust like that. And there was the
stress level was there's ahiccup, no big deal, Freddie deal.
Get it taken care of. And Idid. And that was it. So you're absolutely
(23:29):
correct. Is that whole aspectof the whole engagement of the team
and in getting the team onboard and then that transcends to
the whole customer journey?
Yeah, absolutely.
So let's get into some of theother things that you do. We're talking
a little bit about strategy.Let's get into things that business
(23:51):
people overlook. And that'scompetitive analysis because that
is critical to reallyunderstand what your competition's
doing, how they operating andhow do you compete and how do you
stack up to them?
Yeah. One of the biggestfrustrations on my side is as I mentioned
earlier, companies think oftheir competitive analysis as a one
(24:15):
and done for the year. And tome that's. It's an ongoing process
because there's an ebb andflow of outside influences not only
from the competition. Could beinterest rates, it could be politics,
it could be weather. All thesedifferent influences can affect your
business. And by not payingattention to the competition, understanding
(24:38):
the products that they'reselling and how you match up and
where the points of differenceand just to having this collection
process of information. Thereis an ebook on my website about running
a competitive intelligenceprogram. And the reason I put it
together is this very topic isbecause, you know, for them, we wouldn't
talk about competitors foranother year. And meantime, I'm going,
(25:01):
what's the data? What have youcollected in the last 30 days so
we can look at it? And sohaving one person in charge of being
that collector and synthesizerof that information and then putting
it out to management reallyhelps. Because, again, you just don't
know what's going on with yourcompetitors if you're not paying
attention to them. And we'veprobably all been in situations,
(25:21):
and I know I have. When youturn around and find out that they're
right behind you, in themeantime, you thought they were down
a different road than you. Andthey're watching you. I always look
at it, they're watching you.And if you're not watching them and
you're doing yourself adisservice. And so it's extremely
important to understand, notonly from a product standpoint, but
(25:42):
from a messaging standpoint.And did they change their message?
How are they positioningthemselves? Why is that different?
How do your customers think ofthem versus you? One of the questions
I like to ask is, how do youthink you're perceived by your customers?
Then I go out and I talk totheir customers and say, what do
you think of thisorganization? And if they don't align
(26:04):
and your competitors alignbetter than you do, then you've got
an issue that you need to dealwith. How do you change that? Back
to the H Vac company, theythought X, Y and Z, and it turned
out to be they were missing alot of opportunity because they just
weren't thought of as anenvironmentally friendly product
or solution. So I alwaysencourage companies that get a program,
(26:26):
get your benchmark, and havesome kind of cadence to it where
you're out collecting data,whether it's messaging or whether
it's product, whether it'spricing, you should have an ongoing
and steady program that getsreviewed, whether it's once a month
or once a quarter at aminimum, so you can make adjustments
to your efforts.
It's very important to reviewand tweak. I mean, you've always
(26:49):
got to be tweaking. I have abuddy of mine that used to be an
airline pilot for one of thecommercial airlines. And we would
talk and he says, do youunderstand there's technology in
here that is always tweakingthe airplane based upon the wind
velocity, the weatherconditions, and everything else?
He goes, if that wasn't there,we would never get to the destination.
(27:10):
And so really what you'redoing is you're helping people get
to their destination by makingthe tweaks that need to be made to
keep them on course. Becauseotherwise the wind's going to blow
them this way and they'regoing to blow them out of the game.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.And those all become important. One
of the things I've done in thelast year, I've been working in the
(27:31):
M and A space in working withdifferent investment bankers and
PEs, trying to. You're goingto do an acquisition. Everybody talks
about ebitda, right. What dothe numbers look like? Well, my point
is, hey, the numbers lookgreat. Now what? How do you put the
companies together? Or you'regoing to put them together? What's
the cultural fit? What's goingon with the employees? Are all feeling
(27:54):
threatened? Are you going tolose your top people because they're
afraid based on what you'redoing? What's cannibalization of
the products? What are theprofitability of the products? Are
you going to be having twoproducts you're basically selling
to the same company? They'rebasically the same products. So now
what happens? What are yougoing to kill? Or the revenues of
those? What are theprofitability of those? And really
getting involved in helpingcompanies really dissect all of that
(28:17):
and saying, yes, the numberslook good, but here's what happens,
here's what the market lookslike, here's the dynamics, here's
how you're going to grow. Bythe way, this company you're buying
pretty saturated into thismarketplace because of their competition.
You're not going to get thatmuch more share out of that. Now
we need to look at adjacentmarkets. And so again, back to my
whole premise of beingstrategic is how do you grow the
(28:39):
business? You can't. You'regoing to grow through acquisition.
But a lot of companies nowthat two companies, I don't know
how to put them together. Yeah.
There's so many. You and Icould probably talk for hours on
stories of botched mergers.
Yep.
You know, and top peopledisappear. I went through several
in the SaaS world, I wentthrough several acquisitions. And
even though I was top salesguys, I got the plaques and all that
(29:02):
stuff. The acquiring companyis in charge of the acquired company.
So their team is going to bethe preferred team. Doesn't matter
who you are or what you are,because it's just the dynamics of
how it's been done and isstill done today from that perspective.
And they're not taking thetime to really analyze the whole
(29:26):
equation. They're looking atthe numbers, they're looking at it
superficially, I'll word it,which is probably an accurate word.
And they look, oh, this makessense, we're going to do this to
good profit, blah blah, blah,done. And it comes a train wreck.
It's amazing how many trainwreck acquisitions take place regularly.
Yeah, it's funny, at my lastcorporate job, the recruiter came
(29:48):
to me and I was just comingoff of working after I sold my company,
the company I worked for orbought me put us together so they
didn't merge us. They kept usseparate along with one of my partners.
So for eight years webasically had to ran our own company.
Then they decided to absorbus. And so that's when I said, okay,
I don't want to be absorbed. Iwent from being the number two guy
(30:10):
in a 25 person firm, Iwould've been one of 750 people.
And that's not what I wantedin life. So I went and took a corporate
job. And the recruiter waslike, it's a small company, it's
been around for 30 years,there's some options, opportunities
for you and blah blah blah. SoI took the job. Six months later,
they sell it. And I of coursehad no options or anything. And the
(30:33):
company that bought us, so itwas a evidence based research company,
which is really justfascinating considering I come from
a traditional research worldover talking to customers. They didn't
ever talk to customers. It wasall evidence based anyway. And they
had a great history, which wasreally exciting. They worked with
Anheuser Busch, which I had anopportunity to work with and Purina
(30:54):
and all these big namecompanies. Anyway, this company comes
in and buys them because theywant our process and our government
side of the business. We hadtwo sides, commercial and government.
And I'm on the commercialside. So this company comes in, buys
us. And over that course ofthe next two years, I can see my
(31:16):
division, the commercialdivision, shrinking. I could see
that the dynamics of thecompany was changing. So new CEO
comes in and we're makingpresentations to the new CEO and
the old CEO, the guy that madethe initial acquisition, sitting
next to me. And so I get up, Igive my presentation and he comes
down, he leans over and hegoes, that's fascinating. I had no
(31:38):
idea. Now you know what Iwanted to say to him. You've been
here for two years and younever once even walked across the
hallway to understand what wedid on our side. So I'm standing
in front of the new CEO makinga presentation to the organization.
And at the end of hispresentation, I raised my hand and
said I didn't see my divisionup there on the screen. And I watched
(32:02):
him panic. And I came homethat night and I told my wife, I'm
going to go back and work formyself again. I can't do this. And
there was a great example.They took this very culturally driven,
I don't want to use the termmom and pop, but it was like a mom
and pop that had tremendousexposure in big companies and just
(32:25):
totally changed the culture. Alot of the people left and my division
basically ended up shrinkingdown from, I don't know, 20 people,
down to maybe a couple after Ileft. That's just my own personal
example of one that worked. Weweren't absorbed and we were absorbed.
It didn't work. And then onethat got acquired and watched it
(32:48):
fall apart.
That's a perfect example ofthe best way to not create super
fans internally.
Yeah.
Because if you don't havesuper fans internally, you have zero
chance of having super fans externally.
Yeah, absolutely. And thesuper fan, I love that phraseology
because I tell companies,everybody in the organization needs
(33:10):
to understand what theorganization is about. They need
to be privy to the strategiesand stuff like that. Why? Because
if you had 10 people, 50people, hundred people, when they
walk out the door at night,they're your brand ambassadors, super
fans.
They got to be excited aboutwhere they're working. They got to
be excited about what thecompany's doing, the direction, the
(33:31):
impact that the company'shaving. Because that's the front
line. It's not the CEO or theVP of marketing and the VP of sales
or the cfo. They're not thefront line. The front line is the
team. It's the person thatpicks up the phone that answers the
inquiry. If they're feeldisgruntled and shortchanged, that
(33:52):
tonality comes across. Youcan't hide it. Yeah, you're going
to feel something's off versussomeone that's all bubbly and excited.
I use sports analogies a lot.You look at a football team and look
at this past super bowl, theguys who are having fun high fiving
and everything else. And youcan see it when they come out on
the field before the game evenstarts. You can see who's got the
(34:15):
energy and who's got a stalicface. The guys that are fired up,
relaxed, they kick butt allthe time. And the other guys are
into a reactionary mode.They're frustrated, they're discombobbled
and there you have it.
Yeah. And it's true. There'snothing worse than walking down the
(34:36):
hallway and asking theaccounting manager, what do you think
of the new strategies that aregoing on? And they go, I have no
idea what you're talkingabout, or the HR person or anybody
else. They'll have some kindof an idea. One of the early agencies
that I worked for, they usedto hold a monthly state. He called
it the state of the state.He'd literally stand up, talk to
the entire company, talk aboutnew business, talk about business
(34:59):
that was long, business thatwas lost, talking about whatever
it happened to be. You alwaysfelt like you knew what was going
on in the organization, whichgave you a great comfort. And, and
because again, you were partof it, you were just not working
there, you were part of it andyou felt like it was home and family.
(35:19):
When I've had my ownbusinesses, that's the way I run
it. I do it now. I have asmall team and I make sure people
are involved and theyunderstand that, hey, we just picked
up a new account, or hey, wejust lost some business or something
happened, or hey, I needeverybody to stay late. And nobody
complains. Why? Because theyunderstand their contribution and
their role. That's unfortunate.
(35:40):
Well, they're super fans ofwhat they're doing of the company
that you're leading. That'sthe bottom line.
Yeah.
One things I learned aboutmanagement is your job is to empower
people and then really helpthem be successful and then get the
heck out of the way.
That's exactly right.
So as we kind of get closer tothe end here, Angelo, any last tips
(36:00):
that you want to share to ourlisteners? Things that they should
really think about?
We didn't talk about this, butI'm happy to, you know, do any follow
ups. But get out and talk toyour folks. Do some market research.
Doesn't have to be expensive.Get out of the boardroom, quit talking
to yourselves and get outthere and have conversations with
your customers. Understand themarket and how that can play and
(36:23):
help shape. Spend time workingon your business and not just in
it. And I know it's hard, Ieven struggle with it. Right. Because
we get going. But to find timeto work on it and do some thinking.
A friend of mine, sheliterally goes away a couple weeks
a year and just does herstrategic work. And those are the
(36:44):
areas that I really thinkpeople need to focus on and understand
and quit worrying about. I putmarketing out there, but tactical,
there's branding and brandbuilding and that takes time Takes
time to build yourorganization, to build trust and
loyalty in the customer base.Hey, we could put out a campaign
in the next 15 minutes if wewant. Might not be very good, but
we can do it. So I think yougot to step back, as you said earlier,
(37:08):
and analyze and understand whydidn't it work? What's wrong with
our messaging and what's wrongwith our tactics or our execution
or our channels. I worked forthe company. When I did their analysis,
I found that they wereinvesting in five vertical markets
equally investing theirmarketing budget. The two of those
verticals never yielded anymoney. That's 40% of their marketing
(37:30):
dollars going into a marketthat never in history yielded any
real return on investment. Somy recommendation, get rid of them.
Yeah. Well, I'm going toemphasize one thing here that you
really talked about talking toyour customers, and I'm going to
put a twist to that becausereally, your employees are your customers.
(37:52):
Suppliers are your customers.Your contractors are your customers.
Your distributors are yourcustomers. Your complementary business
is a customer. Your banker isa customer. You need to really treat
that whole ecosystem ascustomers because that's really the
difference. I think peopleoverlook that and look at focusing.
(38:14):
Well, that's my customer. Butreally everybody's the customer.
Because if you don't take careof your supplier, your H Vac company,
as you mentioned, and youdon't have a good relationship with
that supplier, don't expectany favors anytime soon.
It's a great point. It's agreat point.
So, Angelo, it's beenpleasure. How can people find you?
(38:36):
The easiest way is LinkedIn.I'm on LinkedIn. And so if they want
to connect with me or check meout, that LinkedIn has a place to
go from there to my website.And so you can see all the offerings
that I have as free ebooks and videos.
You've got marketing,competitive intelligence.
Yeah.
Storytelling workshop. So yougot some questions? We'll make sure
(38:59):
that we put that into the show notes.
Yeah. And then the booklisteners. And the book actually
just came out. So you're oneof the first to actually talk about
the book. The book justliterally that that page on the website
went up yesterday. Wow, thisis really good timing. There's the
book, there's the COVID Anddude, I've been working on it since
November. I told somebodytoday, there's 30 plus years packed
(39:21):
in this book.
That's one of the things Ibrought up. The fact many times I'll
bring it up again is you canlearn from somebody's 20, 30, 40
year experience in a week andreally shortcut the process. If you
really take the time to eitherread the book, listen to the audio.
I usually do both. I usuallylisten to the audio and still buy
(39:42):
the book because there's stuffin the book that the audio talks
about and you can't see itthrough the audio. You gotta flip
through the pages, right?
Yeah.
So Angelo's been a pleasurehaving you on the Business Superfans
podcast show. Greatconversation, great insight for our
listeners and we definitelywould love to have you back on the
show down the road.
(40:02):
Yeah, I'd be happy to. Thishas been a lot of fun and hopefully
your listeners get somethingout of it.
Thank you again for your time.
All right.
Before we wrap, here's yourquick debrief. Every conversation
focuses on a single pillar ofthe Superfans framework. Nine road
(40:22):
tested steps that turn a sparkof possibility into unstoppable scalable
prosperity. The nine pillars SStart Strategic positioning and purpose.
You unite stakeholder synergyP Propel magnetic messaging E Elevate
(40:45):
every stakeholder experience RRally referrals and reputation S
Foster financial fitness Aautomate for exponential leverage
Nurture lifetime loyalty SScale and sustain prosperity Each
(41:08):
episode concludes with aSuperfans Success Spark, a practical
guest driven action distilledfrom today's conversation that you
can implement within 24 hours.Follow the nine episode cycle, apply
every spark and you'll build aproven playbook for turning stakeholders
into loyal superfans,accelerating referrals, reputation
(41:31):
and revenue. Here's thisepisode's Superfan Success Spark
P Promote Magnetic Messagingso here's the top insight how do
I market to you if I don'tknow you? How do I change your behavior
if I don't understand yourmotivations and concerns? Angelo
(41:53):
Ponzi so here's your action todo in 24 hours. Review your website
or latest marketing email andcheck if your messaging speaks directly
to your ideal customer's needsand challenges. Instead of just listing
your company's features,rewrite one headline or paragraph
(42:14):
to address what matters mostto your customer.
Hey Superfans superstarFreddie D. Here in this episode 116,
we're joined by Angelo Ponzi.The founder of Kraft is a marketing
and brand strategist whosecareer spans more than three decades,
delivering game changingresults across countless industries.
As a Fractional and interimCMO, he has partnered with iconic
(02:18):
brands like AT&T. Ericsson,Kendall Jackson, Disney and many
more guiding teams, both largeand small, through every stage of
the product life cycle. Inaddition to his work as a fractional
executive, Angelo is also anauthor and speaker with deep expertise
(02:39):
in crafting holistic businessand creative brand strategies. He
excels at identifyingopportunities, building powerful
go to market plans, anddriving revenue growth with minimal
risk. His unique perspective,honed by founding and selling two
companies, gives him anunparalleled understanding of the
(02:59):
challenges brands face today.Known for his collaborative approach
and steadfast commitment todata driven insights, Angelo helps
brands reposition, capturemarket share and launch successful
new products across B2B, B2Cand D2C markets. Get ready for an
(03:20):
inspiring conversation thatunpacks invaluable lessons on brand
strategy, innovation andleadership. Welcome, Angelo, to the
Business Superfans podcast.How are you this afternoon?
I'm doing great, Freddie,thank you very much. I'm happy to
be here.
Yeah, we're grateful for yourtime to be on the show and I really
(03:42):
like to get into some of thethings that you've done. But more
importantly, start off withyour strategy blueprint book that
you wrote and how does thatimpact businesses and what's that
about? So what's the backstoryto the story that led you up to writing
the book?
Sure. So in my world, as afractional Chief Marketing officer,
(04:04):
focus on the strategic side ofmarketing. I don't even think about
the tactical stuff. I want tounderstand the market. I want to
understand your customers,your prospects, your competition.
I need to understand thosenuances. I need to understand internally
how your team thinks so Icould match it up with how the market
actually thinks and to lookfor gaps and opportunities then utilizing
(04:27):
this data. So I have a marketresearch background and so everything
is fact based for me.Basically. Let's get out of the boardroom.
Quit talking to yourselves. Ican give you a bunch of case studies
on why that doesn't work.
And drinking your own koolaid.
Oh my. Yeah, exactly. Andsometimes we know what happens when
you drink in those situationsthat you drink the Kool Aid. And
(04:50):
I use that information to helpdefine messaging and positioning
and then also to help buildrevenue growth plans and then eventually
in the plans, of coursethere's tactical stuff. That's another
bailiwick. But my company nowis 11 years old. It's not the first
time I've gone out and startedmy own company. I was fortunate to
(05:10):
grow an ad agency and to sellit and, and a research company. But.
But I also had a couple flameouts as well which were great learning
experiences. But during thepast 11 years and dealing with a
lot of small and medium sizedbusinesses and I walk in and it's
like, hey, this is perfect,let's do our strategic planning.
We're going to go. And theygo, now we just need tactical stuff.
(05:33):
And, and so you hear that andit's, do you understand what those
steps are and why it'simportant? So over the last 11 years
and looking at the way Iapproach business and what I do,
started to create this kind offoundational work that I believe
needs to be done. Heard thephrase people working in their business
instead of on their businessstudies and things that I've done.
(05:56):
I find that a lot of small tomedium sized businesses don't spend
a whole lot of time working onit. Therefore the strategic stuff,
you're making, sales, you gotmoney in the bank, therefore business
is great and you've beenaround. That doesn't always mean
business is great and it's tooeasy to get a turn. So the premise
of the book is all about thatstrategic foundational work. Understanding
(06:19):
everything I just told youabout your customers, your prospects,
looking at strategy versustactics, how do you scale your business,
what is truly brand messagingand how do you create that story?
Narratives that help youdefine how you position yourself
in competitions andunderstanding your customers, which
is I think what we'veindicated before. How do I market
(06:41):
to you if I don't know you?How do I change your behavior? How
do I understand yourmotivations and what your concerns
are as a customer? B2B B2Cdoesn't really matter. Then I can
market to you because now Iknow what's important. Otherwise
it's important to me, theorganization. And that isn't always
aligned with what the marketthinks. So that's really where the
(07:02):
premise of the book came. Andso it's really focused on more of
that strategy side aboutbudgeting and all sorts of things
versus how to create a socialprogram or digital well.
And strategy is reallyimportant in businesses. It's often
overlooked. We get into, youknow, the logo and the branding and
making it look cool and allthe nice colors and all that stuff.
(07:25):
But really what you're Talkingabout is you need to back up a little
bit and first off, define whatwas a customer avatar. Now it's called
customer Persona. And put thattogether. Together is first off,
who's your target market,where do they live, what do they
do, what are their lifechallenges? And then you can start
putting together the strategylike you're talking about to be able
(07:46):
to go to that type of a marketso that the messaging that you're
putting out there resonateswith them. They go, oh yeah, that's
me versus, you know, spray andpray, which is what a lot of businesses
do well.
Too on the B2B side. And we'retalking a little bit earlier about
you come from the SaaS worldand I've had an opportunity to work
in that as well. It isn't justone person. It could be the engineer
(08:11):
that's thinking that I want totest a product or I want to do something,
but it's this CFO that's goingto write the checks and it's maybe
the IT guy that's going to bedoing all the testing. So all of
a sudden you've got multiplePersonas within one organization
that are all looking forsomething a little bit different
when you talk to them. So itgets back to creating those Personas
(08:33):
and truly understanding thedynamics and that the customer journey
has been played for a while.But it is true. It's what's that
hierarchy? How does it work?And then even go to the consumer
side. What's going to motivatepeople to buy your T shirt versus
somebody else's or change yoursneakers or whatever it happens to
be. You can't do that just bythrowing product out there.
(08:54):
No, you can't. And then theother thing too is that you're made.
Me remember years ago when Itransitioned from engineer into sales,
I was very fortunate. Thecompany put me through some really
high end sales programs. Andthere was one company I was selling
to and I was sellingengineering software and manufacturing
software to them. And I wastalking to the VP of engineering
(09:18):
and we got along really welland everything else. And I had remembered
my training, you need to sellwide. So I went to the CFO of the
company and talked to himabout budgeting and what's going
on in the company, everythingelse. And I found out that the VP
of engineering wasn't reallybuddy buddies with the owner of the
(09:38):
company. It was the VP ofmanufacturing that was always golfing
with that owner. So I startedtalking with the VP of manufacturing
and it turned out he had thebudget for everything. The other
guy didn't have any budget. Sothe reason I bring that up, and I
ended up getting the sale andthat's a whole nother adventure story.
But I bring that up becauseyou're right about the importance
(09:59):
of being able to understandall the players and all the Personas
in that organization and beable to message to them appropriately.
Yeah, no, absolutely. Thereisn't a one size fits all message
in marketing. And even thougha lot of companies do that, it doesn't
work. And so you've got tounderstand what's relevant and important
(10:20):
to your audience. How do youbecome relevant in their world? I've
worked with companies and Iwas like, here's what we want you
to do. But that you're talkingabout your company, hey, it's great
that you're 75 years old andthat's a good reason to believe,
but not a reason to buy justbecause you've been around a while.
That's just a validator.
Right? Getting folks tounderstand what's really important.
(10:42):
Sometimes I'll take themthrough a process and have them help
me identify what's truly apoint of differentiation. And I get
stuff like, we got greatpeople. Yeah. Every company is going
to say, got great people.We've been around for 25 years. Yeah,
but your competitor's beenaround for 26 or 24, maybe 50. Okay,
(11:03):
so how do you combat that? Andagain, what's really relevant? Am
I buying? Because you've beenaround a while. We have that old
saying, right. Many years ago,if you buy an IBM, you won't get
fired kind of thing.
Yeah, I remember that.
Yeah. That doesn't necessarilyapply now.
There's a lot of differentball games.
Yeah. I think companies losesight of that because again, especially
small companies, they fall inlove with their product or their
(11:25):
service and everybody in theworld wants to buy it. And that isn't
always true. And again,there's a lot of statistics about
startups and failures andthings like that. And a lot of times
it's just they didn't listento the market or didn't do enough
research, which I've alsofound. I've done some mentoring at
some of the universities andsome of these startups and I remember
(11:46):
asking them, did you do someresearch to validate your idea? And
they go, oh, yeah, yeah. Italked to my mom and my dad and my
sister and my cousin. They allloved it. Yeah, of course they did
my ideas too, but they didn'talways work.
It was face plant.
Yeah. Yeah.
So. But you bring up a greatpoint because really think back of
(12:12):
we've been both around theblock a couple times. How many businesses
that were big. You mentionedIBM, Digital Equipment Corporation
was huge back in the day. Andthey're gone. They didn't pivot.
They had one belief. Samething with the multitude of software
companies that don't existanymore, that were big dominant players.
(12:32):
They didn't tweak theirstrategies based upon how the market
was changing. They weren'tkeeping up to date and they're out
of business today.
Right. Well, Kodak's a greatexample. Kodak invented the digital
camera. When you research it alittle bit, I think the lines I found
very interesting is peoplesaying, nobody's going to want to
(12:52):
look at pictures on theirtelevision. Blockbuster. Yeah, Blockbuster
had a chance to buy not onlyNetflix, but Redbox. And their comment
is nobody wants to wait for amovie to come in their mail. But
obviously they were notlooking at disruption and innovation
and streaming was coming alongand they got buried. And Netflix
(13:13):
has done pretty well for themselves.
Netflix has taken out movie studios.
Yep, yep. I used to be an avidmoviegoer. Now I have to think twice
is okay. If I wait, it'll beon TV within three months or less.
Do I really need to go spend40 bucks to go to the movies? Exactly
right. I call it keeping yourfingers on the pulse of what's going
(13:34):
on. And it's not a, hey, wedid a strategic planning session
in October and therefore wedon't need to do it anymore. No,
it's constant. It's every day.You have to get this constant feedback.
Your competition could belaunching new products and services.
Things keep going on, all of asudden you're not getting the sale
when somebody else is. Why?Price is not always the answer. Right.
(13:56):
You need to understand whathappened. And so a case in point,
working with a large H Vaccompany and what we found. The company
told me our clients love us.Great, then let me talk to them.
And so I did. And they wereright. They were loved. However,
(14:19):
their primary customers, themechanical engineers, were all 60
plus getting ready to retire.The new generation didn't actually
like them very much. Why?Because they didn't have any environmentally
friendly products. Thecompetition was now offering not
only environmentally friendlyproducts, they were offering package
(14:39):
deals that my client was not.So the long story, very short, it
was, if you don't do somethingnow, you won't be around in five
years because those engineersare retired. These guys are not accepting
you. You're not getting dealsfrom them because not one person's
doing the deals. There'smultiple engineers within an organization
and that was pretty eyeopening for them. And it all happened
(15:02):
just by having a conversationwith the market.
And let's continue that story.How did you transform them? I'm sure
they've become super fans ofthe work that you did with them.
So let's talk about that.
Yeah, so one of the thingsthat we did is we created some educational
programs that they would taketo their clients and run these kind
(15:25):
of lunch hour seminars andstuff and bring in the food. So they
literally were going out anddoing educational programs. So they
went out and found some newproducts to rep that were offering
environmentally friendlyproducts, looking at heat pumps or
things like that that theydidn't have in their lines. And so
they started changing theirproperties that they offered. They
(15:47):
also increased some of theirinventory so they really weren't
in a situation where it waslike, we don't have the products.
And so they started increasinginventory and then frankly changing
their websites and things likethat. The tactical side of it that
told the world what they weredoing and just being broader and
more transparent about thatinstead of relying on just the sale
communication. And that workedout really well for them.
(16:12):
So you could say that they'rea big, super fan of the transformation
that.
You did with them. I wouldbelieve they are. Yeah. They were
able, my consultation in asense, to step back and I forced
them to work on their businessand not in it because ultimately
those decisions have to. It'snow, oh yeah, we'll just go add equipment.
(16:32):
There's a lot of other thingsthat had to happen. What's it going
to cost to bring in moreinventory? What's it going to cost
to do those training programs?Who's going to do those training
programs? Who's going to buildthose programs? What do they look
like? How often do we do them?And how can we take some of this
data that we've now learnedfrom all this research and translate
that into something that'svery actionable? And then of course,
(16:52):
who does that? Because Ialways make one person responsible.
So you have somebody to go to.Not five people, not a group, one
person, let them sign up thegroup. Then you work with the group.
I remember working withanother client who I still sit on
their board. And I was alsoworking with sales and marketing
(17:13):
at the same time. And so Iwent to the first sales meeting that
I had gone to and it was like,okay, Freddie, how'd you do this
week? Did you have a chance toget out and talk to some clients.
No, I was kind of busy andputting out some paperwork. I really
didn't make any sales callsthis week. Okay, you get back out
there next week and did itagain. It was like they're letting
people off the hook. And I waslike, whoa, timeout, timeout.
(17:36):
You got to get every buy infrom the whole team into the strategy.
Because if they're not onboard, I use the example of a racing
rowing boat. You got eightpeople in that rowing boat. Everybody
has one oar, not two to one.
Or.
Now if you don't get everybodyin line in synchronization, you ain't
(17:57):
going to one place fast.You're not even going in a circle.
Right.
Because everybody has an ownroar. So your boat's going like this,
going no place. So you've gotto take what you've put together.
Here's a new strategy and it'sgoing to go through the entire company
to get everybody on board.
And that's a great point. Andone of the things I look at is, I
think I mentioned it earlier,it's not only externally but internally.
(18:21):
It starts internally.
One of the first steps, I havea sales and marketing assessment
that I give to the strategicteam individually. And then I bring
it together and I look, firstof all, are they in alignment? Do
they agree? Where are thegaps? I use this as one of my examples.
But one of the questions atthe time, I've modified it since.
But one of the questions wasabout onboarding. How good is your
(18:45):
onboarding program? I forget.Exactly. And the CEO rated it a five,
but the guy running theprogram rated it a one. And they
were like in the conferenceroom going, you think it's a one?
He goes, you think it's afive? I'm more concerned about the
fact that you've workedtogether for 26 years and this is
now a question on the samepage. Yeah, been on the same page
in 26 years. That's theproblem. Right.
(19:07):
And it goes further. Sure. Thesale isn't the transaction, the sales,
everything that happens afterthe transaction.
Exactly. Right, Yep.
So you have to have a wholestrategy in place to say, okay, first
we got to get the strategy inplace to get them to buy our stuff.
But now we have to have thestrategy to how do we onboard them?
(19:29):
And more importantly, how dowe really transform them into brand
advocates or what I prefer tocall business super fans who are
now promoting your business.So you're maximizing your marketing
dollars and you create longterm customers.
Yeah, exactly. Well said.That's a great example. Another one
that I've used in the past iswe're sitting in a conference room
(19:51):
and we're doing a little Rosssession, and the CEO turns the head
of sales and says, what's yourwish today? What do you want? I want
a million dollar order. Peopleclap in and I want time out. Mr.
Inventory Manager, do you havethe inventory to fulfill this? No.
How long would it take you?Oh, it's going to take us six weeks
to get the inventory. Okay,manufacturing in six weeks. So you
(20:13):
have the capacity. Now we'vegot all these other orders that are
backlogged and by the time weget to this is 90 days out. So I
just turned to them and Isaid, that million dollar order just
hurt you. It hurts you becauseyou've made commitments, you've made
promises, and you can'tfulfill them. So not every business
is good business. And you haveto understand, and you made this
(20:33):
point earlier, the dynamicswithin the organization. People have
to understand their roles andtheir contribution to the whole.
They're not just theaccounting person, they're not a
salesperson. They're part.That team has to work together. And
if you don't know all thesedifferent pieces or you don't have
the systems to make thathappen, there's potential bigger
issues than just making a sale.
(20:57):
Sure. And that's why I go backwith the rolling team. You got to
get everybody in sync of whatthe strategy is, what the mission
is. Otherwise you're not goinganywhere. And perfect example there,
Angelo, was the fact thateverybody looks at the sale number.
But what all happens on theback end of that, and which is what
we talked earlier, that's howyou really create superfans, is be
(21:19):
able to deliver. Getting thepaperwork is the easy part. Getting
the contract signed, that'sduck soup. It's everything that happens
after that is what I keepemphasizing to people, is that's
the sale. That's the mostimportant part. Because people will
forget what you did, they'llforget what you said, but they'll
never forget how you made them feel.
(21:40):
Yep, that's that emotionalconnection. I use a technique called
laddering, and I really lookat functional attributes of the product,
let's say, and then I ladderit up to the emotional connection.
Because ultimately that's howI made this person feel. Right. Safe,
secure. I made a gooddecision. I'm not going to get fired
tomorrow because I bought thisproduct. It's not an easy process.
(22:04):
But to make those connectionsand then understand from a marketing
and a sales Standpoint, how doyou take that now and get face to
face with somebody and makesure they understand that communication.
If you look at an hourglass,that sales in the middle and everything
else happens on top andhappens in the bottom, but there's
one instant when that actuallythat signature gets done and then
everything else after ishaving a baby. I remember telling
(22:26):
my wife, it's not the ninemonths, it's the rest of our lives.
Right. It's exactly correct.That's a very good analogy because.
Yeah, it's that continuedrelationship with the customer. In
a previous business, I had arelationship with the customer. We
had a big transaction. Itended up helping me being close to
(22:47):
a million dollars worth ofrevenue in one deal. One customer
we would spend every month wewould get together and we'd have
five minutes of conversationabout business because everything
was running smooth and ifthere was issues, I was on top of
it and I had my team take careof it right away. We would spend
10, 15 minutes justsocializing. Where were you going
(23:08):
on vacation? What are youdoing for the next month? All that
stuff. Because that's the feelgood part.
Right.
And there was a trust thatthey had with us that if there was
an issue, we take care of itjust like that. And there was the
stress level was there's ahiccup, no big deal, Freddie deal.
Get it taken care of. And Idid. And that was it. So you're absolutely
(23:29):
correct. Is that whole aspectof the whole engagement of the team
and in getting the team onboard and then that transcends to
the whole customer journey?
Yeah, absolutely.
So let's get into some of theother things that you do. We're talking
a little bit about strategy.Let's get into things that business
(23:51):
people overlook. And that'scompetitive analysis because that
is critical to reallyunderstand what your competition's
doing, how they operating andhow do you compete and how do you
stack up to them?
Yeah. One of the biggestfrustrations on my side is as I mentioned
earlier, companies think oftheir competitive analysis as a one
(24:15):
and done for the year. And tome that's. It's an ongoing process
because there's an ebb andflow of outside influences not only
from the competition. Could beinterest rates, it could be politics,
it could be weather. All thesedifferent influences can affect your
business. And by not payingattention to the competition, understanding
(24:38):
the products that they'reselling and how you match up and
where the points of differenceand just to having this collection
process of information. Thereis an ebook on my website about running
a competitive intelligenceprogram. And the reason I put it
together is this very topic isbecause, you know, for them, we wouldn't
talk about competitors foranother year. And meantime, I'm going,
(25:01):
what's the data? What have youcollected in the last 30 days so
we can look at it? And sohaving one person in charge of being
that collector and synthesizerof that information and then putting
it out to management reallyhelps. Because, again, you just don't
know what's going on with yourcompetitors if you're not paying
attention to them. And we'veprobably all been in situations,
(25:21):
and I know I have. When youturn around and find out that they're
right behind you, in themeantime, you thought they were down
a different road than you. Andthey're watching you. I always look
at it, they're watching you.And if you're not watching them and
you're doing yourself adisservice. And so it's extremely
important to understand, notonly from a product standpoint, but
(25:42):
from a messaging standpoint.And did they change their message?
How are they positioningthemselves? Why is that different?
How do your customers think ofthem versus you? One of the questions
I like to ask is, how do youthink you're perceived by your customers?
Then I go out and I talk totheir customers and say, what do
you think of thisorganization? And if they don't align
(26:04):
and your competitors alignbetter than you do, then you've got
an issue that you need to dealwith. How do you change that? Back
to the H Vac company, theythought X, Y and Z, and it turned
out to be they were missing alot of opportunity because they just
weren't thought of as anenvironmentally friendly product
or solution. So I alwaysencourage companies that get a program,
(26:26):
get your benchmark, and havesome kind of cadence to it where
you're out collecting data,whether it's messaging or whether
it's product, whether it'spricing, you should have an ongoing
and steady program that getsreviewed, whether it's once a month
or once a quarter at aminimum, so you can make adjustments
to your efforts.
It's very important to reviewand tweak. I mean, you've always
(26:49):
got to be tweaking. I have abuddy of mine that used to be an
airline pilot for one of thecommercial airlines. And we would
talk and he says, do youunderstand there's technology in
here that is always tweakingthe airplane based upon the wind
velocity, the weatherconditions, and everything else?
He goes, if that wasn't there,we would never get to the destination.
(27:10):
And so really what you'redoing is you're helping people get
to their destination by makingthe tweaks that need to be made to
keep them on course. Becauseotherwise the wind's going to blow
them this way and they'regoing to blow them out of the game.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.And those all become important. One
of the things I've done in thelast year, I've been working in the
(27:31):
M and A space in working withdifferent investment bankers and
PEs, trying to. You're goingto do an acquisition. Everybody talks
about ebitda, right. What dothe numbers look like? Well, my point
is, hey, the numbers lookgreat. Now what? How do you put the
companies together? Or you'regoing to put them together? What's
the cultural fit? What's goingon with the employees? Are all feeling
(27:54):
threatened? Are you going tolose your top people because they're
afraid based on what you'redoing? What's cannibalization of
the products? What are theprofitability of the products? Are
you going to be having twoproducts you're basically selling
to the same company? They'rebasically the same products. So now
what happens? What are yougoing to kill? Or the revenues of
those? What are theprofitability of those? And really
getting involved in helpingcompanies really dissect all of that
(28:17):
and saying, yes, the numberslook good, but here's what happens,
here's what the market lookslike, here's the dynamics, here's
how you're going to grow. Bythe way, this company you're buying
pretty saturated into thismarketplace because of their competition.
You're not going to get thatmuch more share out of that. Now
we need to look at adjacentmarkets. And so again, back to my
whole premise of beingstrategic is how do you grow the
(28:39):
business? You can't. You'regoing to grow through acquisition.
But a lot of companies nowthat two companies, I don't know
how to put them together. Yeah.
There's so many. You and Icould probably talk for hours on
stories of botched mergers.
Yep.
You know, and top peopledisappear. I went through several
in the SaaS world, I wentthrough several acquisitions. And
even though I was top salesguys, I got the plaques and all that
(29:02):
stuff. The acquiring companyis in charge of the acquired company.
So their team is going to bethe preferred team. Doesn't matter
who you are or what you are,because it's just the dynamics of
how it's been done and isstill done today from that perspective.
And they're not taking thetime to really analyze the whole
(29:26):
equation. They're looking atthe numbers, they're looking at it
superficially, I'll word it,which is probably an accurate word.
And they look, oh, this makessense, we're going to do this to
good profit, blah blah, blah,done. And it comes a train wreck.
It's amazing how many trainwreck acquisitions take place regularly.
Yeah, it's funny, at my lastcorporate job, the recruiter came
(29:48):
to me and I was just comingoff of working after I sold my company,
the company I worked for orbought me put us together so they
didn't merge us. They kept usseparate along with one of my partners.
So for eight years webasically had to ran our own company.
Then they decided to absorbus. And so that's when I said, okay,
I don't want to be absorbed. Iwent from being the number two guy
(30:10):
in a 25 person firm, Iwould've been one of 750 people.
And that's not what I wantedin life. So I went and took a corporate
job. And the recruiter waslike, it's a small company, it's
been around for 30 years,there's some options, opportunities
for you and blah blah blah. SoI took the job. Six months later,
they sell it. And I of coursehad no options or anything. And the
(30:33):
company that bought us, so itwas a evidence based research company,
which is really justfascinating considering I come from
a traditional research worldover talking to customers. They didn't
ever talk to customers. It wasall evidence based anyway. And they
had a great history, which wasreally exciting. They worked with
Anheuser Busch, which I had anopportunity to work with and Purina
(30:54):
and all these big namecompanies. Anyway, this company comes
in and buys them because theywant our process and our government
side of the business. We hadtwo sides, commercial and government.
And I'm on the commercialside. So this company comes in, buys
us. And over that course ofthe next two years, I can see my
(31:16):
division, the commercialdivision, shrinking. I could see
that the dynamics of thecompany was changing. So new CEO
comes in and we're makingpresentations to the new CEO and
the old CEO, the guy that madethe initial acquisition, sitting
next to me. And so I get up, Igive my presentation and he comes
down, he leans over and hegoes, that's fascinating. I had no
(31:38):
idea. Now you know what Iwanted to say to him. You've been
here for two years and younever once even walked across the
hallway to understand what wedid on our side. So I'm standing
in front of the new CEO makinga presentation to the organization.
And at the end of hispresentation, I raised my hand and
said I didn't see my divisionup there on the screen. And I watched
(32:02):
him panic. And I came homethat night and I told my wife, I'm
going to go back and work formyself again. I can't do this. And
there was a great example.They took this very culturally driven,
I don't want to use the termmom and pop, but it was like a mom
and pop that had tremendousexposure in big companies and just
(32:25):
totally changed the culture. Alot of the people left and my division
basically ended up shrinkingdown from, I don't know, 20 people,
down to maybe a couple after Ileft. That's just my own personal
example of one that worked. Weweren't absorbed and we were absorbed.
It didn't work. And then onethat got acquired and watched it
(32:48):
fall apart.
That's a perfect example ofthe best way to not create super
fans internally.
Yeah.
Because if you don't havesuper fans internally, you have zero
chance of having super fans externally.
Yeah, absolutely. And thesuper fan, I love that phraseology
because I tell companies,everybody in the organization needs
(33:10):
to understand what theorganization is about. They need
to be privy to the strategiesand stuff like that. Why? Because
if you had 10 people, 50people, hundred people, when they
walk out the door at night,they're your brand ambassadors, super
fans.
They got to be excited aboutwhere they're working. They got to
be excited about what thecompany's doing, the direction, the
(33:31):
impact that the company'shaving. Because that's the front
line. It's not the CEO or theVP of marketing and the VP of sales
or the cfo. They're not thefront line. The front line is the
team. It's the person thatpicks up the phone that answers the
inquiry. If they're feeldisgruntled and shortchanged, that
(33:52):
tonality comes across. Youcan't hide it. Yeah, you're going
to feel something's off versussomeone that's all bubbly and excited.
I use sports analogies a lot.You look at a football team and look
at this past super bowl, theguys who are having fun high fiving
and everything else. And youcan see it when they come out on
the field before the game evenstarts. You can see who's got the
(34:15):
energy and who's got a stalicface. The guys that are fired up,
relaxed, they kick butt allthe time. And the other guys are
into a reactionary mode.They're frustrated, they're discombobbled
and there you have it.
Yeah. And it's true. There'snothing worse than walking down the
(34:36):
hallway and asking theaccounting manager, what do you think
of the new strategies that aregoing on? And they go, I have no
idea what you're talkingabout, or the HR person or anybody
else. They'll have some kindof an idea. One of the early agencies
that I worked for, they usedto hold a monthly state. He called
it the state of the state.He'd literally stand up, talk to
the entire company, talk aboutnew business, talk about business
(34:59):
that was long, business thatwas lost, talking about whatever
it happened to be. You alwaysfelt like you knew what was going
on in the organization, whichgave you a great comfort. And, and
because again, you were partof it, you were just not working
there, you were part of it andyou felt like it was home and family.
(35:19):
When I've had my ownbusinesses, that's the way I run
it. I do it now. I have asmall team and I make sure people
are involved and theyunderstand that, hey, we just picked
up a new account, or hey, wejust lost some business or something
happened, or hey, I needeverybody to stay late. And nobody
complains. Why? Because theyunderstand their contribution and
their role. That's unfortunate.
(35:40):
Well, they're super fans ofwhat they're doing of the company
that you're leading. That'sthe bottom line.
Yeah.
One things I learned aboutmanagement is your job is to empower
people and then really helpthem be successful and then get the
heck out of the way.
That's exactly right.
So as we kind of get closer tothe end here, Angelo, any last tips
(36:00):
that you want to share to ourlisteners? Things that they should
really think about?
We didn't talk about this, butI'm happy to, you know, do any follow
ups. But get out and talk toyour folks. Do some market research.
Doesn't have to be expensive.Get out of the boardroom, quit talking
to yourselves and get outthere and have conversations with
your customers. Understand themarket and how that can play and
(36:23):
help shape. Spend time workingon your business and not just in
it. And I know it's hard, Ieven struggle with it. Right. Because
we get going. But to find timeto work on it and do some thinking.
A friend of mine, sheliterally goes away a couple weeks
a year and just does herstrategic work. And those are the
(36:44):
areas that I really thinkpeople need to focus on and understand
and quit worrying about. I putmarketing out there, but tactical,
there's branding and brandbuilding and that takes time Takes
time to build yourorganization, to build trust and
loyalty in the customer base.Hey, we could put out a campaign
in the next 15 minutes if wewant. Might not be very good, but
we can do it. So I think yougot to step back, as you said earlier,
(37:08):
and analyze and understand whydidn't it work? What's wrong with
our messaging and what's wrongwith our tactics or our execution
or our channels. I worked forthe company. When I did their analysis,
I found that they wereinvesting in five vertical markets
equally investing theirmarketing budget. The two of those
verticals never yielded anymoney. That's 40% of their marketing
(37:30):
dollars going into a marketthat never in history yielded any
real return on investment. Somy recommendation, get rid of them.
Yeah. Well, I'm going toemphasize one thing here that you
really talked about talking toyour customers, and I'm going to
put a twist to that becausereally, your employees are your customers.
(37:52):
Suppliers are your customers.Your contractors are your customers.
Your distributors are yourcustomers. Your complementary business
is a customer. Your banker isa customer. You need to really treat
that whole ecosystem ascustomers because that's really the
difference. I think peopleoverlook that and look at focusing.
(38:14):
Well, that's my customer. Butreally everybody's the customer.
Because if you don't take careof your supplier, your H Vac company,
as you mentioned, and youdon't have a good relationship with
that supplier, don't expectany favors anytime soon.
It's a great point. It's agreat point.
So, Angelo, it's beenpleasure. How can people find you?
(38:36):
The easiest way is LinkedIn.I'm on LinkedIn. And so if they want
to connect with me or check meout, that LinkedIn has a place to
go from there to my website.And so you can see all the offerings
that I have as free ebooks and videos.
You've got marketing,competitive intelligence.
Yeah.
Storytelling workshop. So yougot some questions? We'll make sure
(38:59):
that we put that into the show notes.
Yeah. And then the booklisteners. And the book actually
just came out. So you're oneof the first to actually talk about
the book. The book justliterally that that page on the website
went up yesterday. Wow, thisis really good timing. There's the
book, there's the COVID Anddude, I've been working on it since
November. I told somebodytoday, there's 30 plus years packed
(39:21):
in this book.
That's one of the things Ibrought up. The fact many times I'll
bring it up again is you canlearn from somebody's 20, 30, 40
year experience in a week andreally shortcut the process. If you
really take the time to eitherread the book, listen to the audio.
I usually do both. I usuallylisten to the audio and still buy
(39:42):
the book because there's stuffin the book that the audio talks
about and you can't see itthrough the audio. You gotta flip
through the pages, right?
Yeah.
So Angelo's been a pleasurehaving you on the Business Superfans
podcast show. Greatconversation, great insight for our
listeners and we definitelywould love to have you back on the
show down the road.
(40:02):
Yeah, I'd be happy to. Thishas been a lot of fun and hopefully
your listeners get somethingout of it.
Thank you again for your time.
All right.
Before we wrap, here's yourquick debrief. Every conversation
focuses on a single pillar ofthe Superfans framework. Nine road
(40:22):
tested steps that turn a sparkof possibility into unstoppable scalable
prosperity. The nine pillars SStart Strategic positioning and purpose.
You unite stakeholder synergyP Propel magnetic messaging E Elevate
(40:45):
every stakeholder experience RRally referrals and reputation S
Foster financial fitness Aautomate for exponential leverage
Nurture lifetime loyalty SScale and sustain prosperity Each
(41:08):
episode concludes with aSuperfans Success Spark, a practical
guest driven action distilledfrom today's conversation that you
can implement within 24 hours.Follow the nine episode cycle, apply
every spark and you'll build aproven playbook for turning stakeholders
into loyal superfans,accelerating referrals, reputation
(41:31):
and revenue. Here's thisepisode's Superfan Success Spark
P Promote Magnetic Messagingso here's the top insight how do
I market to you if I don'tknow you? How do I change your behavior
if I don't understand yourmotivations and concerns? Angelo
(41:53):
Ponzi so here's your action todo in 24 hours. Review your website
or latest marketing email andcheck if your messaging speaks directly
to your ideal customer's needsand challenges. Instead of just listing
your company's features,rewrite one headline or paragraph
(42:14):
to address what matters mostto your customer.
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