November 7, 2024 • 29 mins
Ready to revolutionize your marketing leadership - and your copywriting? Join Barbara Rozgonyi, host of Growing Social Now, fractional CMO, and marketing transformer, with special guest Dean Waye, host of the Fractional CMO 90 Day Win podcast and master of first-impression copywriting. Get the keys to unlock strategies that will change your marketing, your business, and your world!
🎯 Episode Highlights
- Why "hunter vs. farmer" copywriting is the key to marketing success
- How fractional CMOs are disrupting traditional marketing leadership
- The psychology behind attention-grabbing first impressions
- Why specialization beats generalization in today's market
💡 You'll Discover
- Proven frameworks for crafting irresistible first-contact materials
- Strategic advantages of fractional marketing leadership
- How to command premium rates through specialized expertise
- The exact formula for B2B SaaS and fintech marketing success
Perfect for
- CEOs seeking innovative marketing leadership solutions
- Marketing leaders exploring fractional career paths
- Copywriters looking to specialize and increase their value
- Founders ready to scale their marketing impact
🔑 Key Takeaways
- Master the art of attention-grabbing copy that converts
- Learn why smart companies choose fractional CMOs
- Discover how to position yourself as a premium service provider
- Understand the future of marketing leadership
Guest Expert: Dean Waye brings unique insights from his successful podcast focused on fractional CMOs and his expertise in crafting compelling first-contact materials that capture attention in today's noisy digital landscape.
This power-packed episode reveals the intersection of strategic marketing leadership and compelling copywriting - the combination that's helping today's fastest-growing companies win.
🎙️ Notable Quotes: "In today's market, you don't need a full-time CMO - you need full-time CMO thinking." "The first impression is everything - get it wrong, and nothing else matters."
Ready to transform your marketing strategy and leadership approach?
Connect with
- GUEST Dean Waye: www.WinstonWrites.com
- HOST Barbara Rozgonyi: www.BarbaraRozgonyi.com
#FractionalCMO #MarketingLeadership #Copywriting #GrowthStrategy
Subscribe to Growing Social Now wherever you get your podcasts and never miss an episode packed with actionable marketing insights.
Barbara Rozgonyi
Founder, CoryWest Media
Fractional CMO Digital Marketing PR Consultant
Keynote Speaker
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Barbara Rozgonyi (00:03):
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode
of Growing Social, now producedby Quarry Wes Media.
I'm Barbara Rosco, your showhost.
I'm a fractional CMO, a speakerand someone who loves to
interview people about how theydo what they do.
And today I'm really excited towelcome Dean Way.
I've been on Dean's podcasttwice and I love the way he sets
(00:25):
them up.
He's super successful with that.
He's a fantastic writer andDean welcome.
I'll let you go ahead and filleveryone in on what it is that
you do so well.
Dean Waye (00:35):
I get hired to do first approach or first contact
kind of writing for companies,so not the blog posts and the
articles and the nurturing andthat's all important.
I just don't happen to do thatwork.
I get brought in for writingthe very first thing that a
prospect might ever see fromthat company, so the first ever
ad they might see, the firstever email from the company.
(00:57):
They might get the homepages,landing pages, even video
scripts and voicemail scripts.
So whatever the sort of firstapproach is in some company's
marketing or sales sequence, I'musually brought in if not to
write the whole thing, at leastto write the very first thing
and get that stranger'sattention and help draw them
into the client's world yeah,that's so important, because if
(01:20):
you don't grab them right away,we don't have time anymore, do
we?
No, I tell clients.
I say you think that theincredible amount of distraction
that's present in everyone'slife is your opportunity.
People don't even like to siton the toilet without scrolling
their phone.
Their need and desire fordistraction is, you know, ever
(01:41):
present.
And you just so it's time toget you into that feed.
Barbara Rozgonyi (01:46):
Yeah, I so agree.
It's always amazing to me howpeople just have to be on their
phone and I get it.
But that's great for usmarketers in a way, because we
know that we're gonna get theirattention somehow, some way.
So I have looked at a lot ofyour stuff.
I follow your emails and we'lltalk about that later, about how
to subscribe.
But Dean has some really goodrecommendations and, let's face
(02:09):
it, writing is changing and wedon't need to write 3,000, 5,000
word blog posts.
We need to get people from thebeginning.
There is a spot for both typesof writing and, Dean, I love how
you have a concept calledhunter and farmer copywriters.
So if you could tell us alittle bit about how those frame
up the differences and why weneed to do what we do when.
Dean Waye (02:30):
Okay, so I spent time in sales.
Like you know, had a quotacarried a bag enterprise.
I was not particularly great atthe sort of grind and people
stuff of like one-to-one sailingat an at the enterprise zone,
but I was always really good atthe.
You know what I ended up doingfor a living, which is figuring
out what to say first to thosepeople.
(02:51):
And in sales they have theconcept of hunter salespeople
and farmer salespeople.
And the hunters there's alwaysfar fewer of them than any
company wants.
A lot of salespeople will saythat they're hunter salespeople,
but they're really farmersalespeople and the Hunter is
the one who goes out and finds aprospect or gets into and
starts a relationship and aconversation with a prospective
(03:14):
client that the company has.
No, that the company has notapproached before.
It's their job to go find thenewest of the new possible
customers?
Yeah, and eventually like sign acontract and and the hunter
salespeople are the account sortof expanders and maintainers.
So their specialty is really,you know, understanding what
(03:36):
that client wants and needs todo and deepening the
relationship, landing andexpanding, as they call it in
sales.
Right, like you're not just,you don't have like one VP who's
your contact at that customer,you sort of expand out and you
know, since you're looking forthat, it's a different
psychology and a differentskillset.
Neither one is necessarily moreor less valuable than the other
(03:56):
.
They're just very different andyou need both.
And I focus copywriters work thesame way.
Most copywriters, and thenprobably in excess of 90 95
percent of copywriters, arecontent marketing writers.
They write blog posts andarticles and case studies and
that kind of stuff and socialproof, social content, and
that's absolutely necessary.
(04:17):
A lot of businesses need a lotof words written, but for a few
of us are brought in to do thehunter stuff because you always
need the next customer.
Some number or percentage ofyour customers are going to age
out or you're going to churnthem every year anyway, and so
it's my job to find and helpfigure out what to say to the
newest, new stranger.
Barbara Rozgonyi (04:36):
Well, it's no wonder you're a best friend to
CMOs.
Dean Waye (04:40):
There you go, yeah and CROs.
Barbara Rozgonyi (04:48):
And CROs, correct?
Yeah, so you know, and you havea podcast which we'll talk
about in a minute.
It's about the first 90 daysand it's Fractional CMOs.
Can you talk about why youdecided to focus on this area?
What you see the future is?
It's pretty new.
I mean, we've gone frommarketing consulting to what do
you think a Fractional CMO is?
So fill us in.
Dean Waye (05:04):
So it's November right now when we record, and so
December of 2024 will be thefourth anniversary of me being
out on my own.
Barbara Rozgonyi (05:12):
Congrats.
Dean Waye (05:21):
Thank you.
At about 18 months in, I thinkI got my first or my first and
my second ever fractional CMOsas clients who needed some work
done.
I didn't know what a fractionalanything was, let alone a
fractional CMO you did.
About a year after that, Irealized we go after kind of the
same clients.
I don't need to find everyfintech startup and B2B SaaS
company and specialty paintmanufacturer and whatever.
(05:43):
All the fractional CMOs aregoing after those clients and
they're all trying to add threeto five clients a year, every
year anyway.
Right, why don't I just focuson?
I'll let them find the clientsand I'll just focus on knowing
as many of them as possible, asmany of the fractional as
possible?
Yeah, and in exchange, I sortof came up with this in my head.
(06:04):
Unfortunately I didn't doenough research, but I figured
the biggest single cost you haveis anything that takes a lot of
your time.
Barbara Rozgonyi (06:11):
Right For sure .
Dean Waye (06:12):
And so I realized, you know, if I could cut the
costs of the nurturing and thefinding new clients and
researching and all that, if Icould cut that cost out of my
business, If I could cut thatcost out of my business, then I
could sell to the fractionals atwholesale, essentially, and
then let them white label me.
And so right now most of myrevenue comes from fractional
(06:33):
CMOs and CROs.
About half of them buy from medirectly and then just mark me
up and sell me to their clientand then the other half just
pass through the wholesalepricing and then the other half
just pass through the wholesalepricing.
I do a lot of work for a lot ofthe biggest and best known
fractional kind of companieslike where they have collections
of different types offractional people.
For the most part they don'tadd a markup, so they'll pass
(06:56):
through the entire because Iguess the engagements are bigger
for them and they're sort ofmore formalized and so they
don't add a markup to myservices.
They'll just pass through.
I asked once because I work fornot just most of the biggest one
but also the biggest one, and Iasked like why not add a markup
or get a referral fee?
You know, and they said most oftheir clients.
(07:16):
You know these are customersthat are doing anywhere from 25
to.
You know who knows how manymillions of dollars per year in
revenue already I to who knowshow many millions of dollars per
year in revenue.
Already.
I say, if we get asked like,hey, why'd you pick Dean?
We don't wanna have to say.
We wanna be able to say, causehe's the best for this
particular thing.
Not that we get a kickback,we're definitely here, whereas
(07:37):
the clients who hire theindividual, or what I call like
the single shingle, fractionalCMOs or CROs, they're usually
like small enough that what Icall like the single shingle,
fractional CMOs or CROs they'reusually like small enough that
or they know that person reallywell and they say like I just
want you to handle all thisstuff, you just bring your
people, because every fractionalexecutive especially the
marketing and sales folks kindof, especially the marketing
(07:57):
more than anyone they sort ofshow up with a Rolodex of
specialists and a particularproject.
They say, okay, don't need myseo person on this project, but
on this thing I am going to needmy graphics lady.
There's no blog posts for thisengagement right now on the
content marketing side, but I amgoing to need like a home page
rewrite and I am going to needoutbound email sequences and
stuff, and so they just havelike and they just pick and
(08:19):
choose for and my whole businessmodel is to just be one of
those specialists.
Barbara Rozgonyi (08:24):
Yeah, I love it.
Here at Cori West Media, we usewhat we call Hollywood casting,
and so we bring in a fresh crewfor every project.
Because if you try to do ityourself or if you keep people
on staff, and that's fine, itworks for a lot of people.
But things change after 90 days, and so that's what I love
about your show too.
Dean Waye (08:39):
I've been on it twice , and both times you always
bring in someone else, so let'smove on to the podcast, because
yeah it's, I don't actuallybring in anybody.
Barbara Rozgonyi (08:52):
That's sort of the trick of the podcast, right
?
Dean Waye (08:53):
so tell us no idea I have no idea who the guests are
going to be on any given dayuntil the last minute.
Barbara Rozgonyi (08:57):
Yeah, I know I love it.
Yeah, so tell us how you cameup with the concept and how it
works.
Okay, so the concept and how itworks.
Dean Waye (09:05):
Okay, so the concept of the podcast, because I wasn't
looking to start a podcast andwe started recording a year ago,
basically a year ago todayWe've done 140 episodes.
Barbara Rozgonyi (09:16):
As of today, Wow, that's a lot yeah.
Dean Waye (09:22):
I was like a lot of people and a lot of businesses.
I have like a little systemthat every so often will remind
me hey, you haven't talked toBarbara in a while.
You should remind her you'realive.
And so I was reminding somepeople last year in October that
I was alive, and normally Iwould, you know, ask these sort
of self-serving, indirectquestions like so, barbara, what
(09:42):
are you working on these days?
Barbara Rozgonyi (09:43):
Yeah.
Dean Waye (09:45):
And I don't know why, I was just in a bad mood or I
had had enough coffee and Iunderstand.
You know, it was someone thatI'd known for a while and I said
, hey, I gotta ask you aquestion.
Like, besides me bringing in me, I've noticed that most of the
engagements I'm on thefractional cmo hasn't been there
much longer than me.
Why, what else do you do in thefirst 90 days besides bringing
(10:05):
in, like certain experts in yourRolodex?
And it turns out there's somuch fragmentation and
specialization, especiallyfractional CMOs.
Some of them only work forseries B funded startups.
Some of them only work for B2BSaaS companies.
Some of them only work formanufacturers of farming
equipment.
So you get all that layer offragmentation and then you get a
(10:28):
second layer, which is theirCMOs and marketing and
salespeople who specialize incompanies that are just learning
to walk with their marketing ortheir sales or learning to run
or building a rocket.
They're planning for big scaleand if you take those two layers
of fragmentation turns out youcan ask the same five or six
questions over and over and overand you get different answers.
(10:51):
I have just accidentallystumbled on a podcast formula,
because if I can just do thesame thing in every podcast and
ask the same questions and getdifferent content every time,
then there's essentially nolimit to how many episodes I
could produce.
And that's when I said you knowwhat I'm going to reach out to
some people on LinkedIn and seeif anyone's interested, because
I happen to be connected onLinkedIn to, I don't know, a
(11:13):
little under 2000 fractionalCMOs as of today.
Oh wow, it was smaller backthen, but part of that is just
because there are so many morefractional CMOs as of today.
It was smaller back then, butpart of that is just because
there are so many morefractional CMOs now.
Yeah, there are.
I sent out to, I think, about ahundred people, 49 replied.
That's really good.
And on day one, I know right, Imight be the highest response
rate I've ever gotten on anyLinkedIn, because I use an
(11:34):
automation tool to send out andtalk to a hundred people.
So I had this like really weirdexperience a year ago, you know
, a few minutes before recordingepisode one, which was, on the
one hand, 30 people havescheduled to be on this thing
already.
Yeah, and two, I wonder ifanyone's actually going to show
up to this episode or is.
This is like a big bust.
Barbara Rozgonyi (11:54):
Yeah.
Dean Waye (11:55):
And it turns out no people like at any given time.
I have 50 to almost 100fractional CMOs scheduled, like
they booked themselves in.
Yeah, yeah, it turns out.
It's not at all hard to getmarketing people in front of a
microphone It'd be hard to keepthem away from a microphone, but
it's not hard to get them infront of a microphone.
Barbara Rozgonyi (12:12):
Yeah, that's for sure, that's wild.
Yeah, I wanted to ask you aboutwhat's your tech stack, because
one of the things if you'reever a guest on Dean's show,
you'll really come to appreciatehow fluid everything is.
The follow-up is great.
There's invitations.
After you're done, you get therecording.
He shows you how to slice it upand post it.
(12:33):
So what kind of a tech stack doyou use to organize everything?
Dean Waye (12:38):
It's less complicated than you think.
Barbara Rozgonyi (12:40):
Okay.
Dean Waye (12:42):
I have the advantage is that because I'm a copywriter
, and especially one whospecializes in like new outbound
messages to people, I was ableto like, tweak and iterate and
get a really good outboundmessage that got a really high
reply rate.
So that's the only kind of techor skill advantage in the
entire process that I had overanyone else, everything else.
(13:02):
And it's easy to overcome thatwith scale and everything else
just has.
So I use a LinkedIn automationservice at any.
I switch maybe like once ortwice a year to try them out.
The latest one is Dripify.
Barbara Rozgonyi (13:14):
Dripify, okay and at any given time.
Dean Waye (13:17):
There are two campaigns running on Dripify One
to reach out to fractional CMOswho I'm not yet connected to,
inviting them to connect, andthen the second is a messaging
campaign that sends a LinkedInmessage to the fractional CMOs
that I'm already connected toand just saying, when I started
out, I said hey, you know, I'mnot going to sugarcoat this, I'm
(13:37):
starting up a brand new podcast.
There's no audience for this.
Yet there's nothing.
But if you're interested, youcan come on and we'll talk about
what it's like.
And this is why I don'tunderstand my view count at all.
I don't understand why my viewcount is as high as it is
because it's a very specifictopic, right?
Yes, what does a fractional CMOdo in the first three months of
(13:58):
an engagement?
I mean, that's very niche andevery fractional CMO has done at
least a three-month engagementand knows what it's like.
And B it's like you know, it'sa bounded topic.
So I just reached out to them.
So Dripify is either growingthe number of people that I can
(14:22):
ultimately send that message to,or is sending that message.
I turned it off a couple ofmonths ago because I mean, I
just have so many people inqueue there's no point.
At one point you were fourmonths out If I talk to you on
any day and you went to thecalendar link to book yourself
in and that's the next step inthe whole thing.
Is the calendar link, right?
The book?
The intro call with me?
As part of the reason for thepodcast is to meet a lot of
fractional cmos.
(14:42):
I met, like I had 400 one-to-onezoom meetings in the course of
12 months, with wow, okay andabout 200 of them ended up being
on the podcast and another 70or so are in queue to be on the
podcast.
Yeah, that's a lot ofprospective clients, it is right
, but like they go and they, ifthey want to, the linkedin
message for hey, are youinterested in being on?
Barbara Rozgonyi (14:58):
the podcast.
Dean Waye (14:58):
Yeah, that's a lot of prospective clients, it is
right.
But like they go and they, ifthey want to, the LinkedIn
message for hey, are youinterested in being on this
podcast?
We'll have a link where theycan get that 15 minute intro
call with me.
We talk about logistics but,yeah, at one point the earliest
time they could book themselvesfor the podcast was four months
from that Tuesday.
I've turned off.
The campaigns that areconnecting me to more and more
(15:21):
fractional CMOs is still runningon LinkedIn, but not the one
that's inviting people to joinand be on the podcast, because I
just couldn't take anymore.
Barbara Rozgonyi (15:29):
Well, yeah, and I know your business has
taken off and it's so successful, and I want to thank you again
for having me on it, because thefirst time I was on it I really
wanted to think about whatcould I do in 90 days, and I
told you what I would do.
But now we've positioned it totake our clients from being
traditional to trendsetters in90 days and we're starting to
develop case studies.
So I think just even puttingthat 90-day time period in
(15:51):
people's minds, that's somethingcompanies can buy into.
Let's see where this goes.
So I think it's brilliant and II just want to thank you for
doing that.
Dean Waye (16:01):
So let's see.
I want to make sure I finishyour question okay a drip of
fire or some sort of linkedinautomation tool like meet alfred
or whatever, and to to letpeople know, because it's all
done through linkedin.
I don't email anyone, it's allcalendly yeah to book the intro
call.
Book a writing session, if youwant, because, because I don't
introduce my guests, one of thethings I wanted to do is give
(16:22):
people the opportunity to see meright in real time, because
that's my business.
Not many businesses can demotheir own capability in a few
minutes live on a screen but Ican.
At one point, eight out ofevery 10 guests would book a
15-minute Zoom call with me.
We'd share a Google document.
They talk about themselves forlike 90 seconds and I would
write an intro, a self intro,for them, because on my podcast,
(16:44):
when you answer question one,you also introduce yourself as a
preamble to that, so I get toshow them how good I am and how
fast I am at this kind ofwriting.
It's not specific to my podcast, right?
That intro would work on anypodcast.
And then the final thing theydo with Calendly is to book in
their own time slot.
It's always going to be on aThursday, but all my guests pick
(17:05):
their own time slot.
There are either three or fourtime slots on every Thursday.
Barbara Rozgonyi (17:10):
It's good, you don't have to do one day.
Dean Waye (17:12):
Yeah, so I don't curate them.
It's completely random and italso adds to some of the energy
of the podcast.
Barbara Rozgonyi (17:19):
I think so too .
You don't know who you're goingto be on with until you show up
, yeah, and then Calendly doesall the follow-up stuff and I
just record on restream.
Dean Waye (17:26):
Oh, and Opus is a big deal.
I'm not sure I could have donethis podcast without Opus.
So Opus is one of the AI-basedvideo clip services where you
can give it a video and it willread it and chop it up into a
bunch of social media type clipswith the captioning on screen
and everything.
And we record in verticalformat, Like right now on this
(17:46):
podcast.
It's a horizontal format but Irecord in vertical.
So I'm on the bottom and thenthere's a guest, and then
there's a guest right, A phonestop, and from day one it's been
set up to lend itself to clipformat, so that because I knew
at some point I would probablywant to make clips what I didn't
understand is that over 99% ofall the views for that podcast
would become clips.
(18:08):
Like almost nobody watches thefull episodes but the clips we
hit.
I mean, within eight months wehad a hundred thousand views,
which, for a brand new podcaston a very niche topic, is crazy.
Six weeks after that we hit200,000.
A few weeks ago we had aquarter million.
If things keep up, we couldvery likely because we started
releasing episodes in Januaryput half a million views from
(18:31):
January to January.
Barbara Rozgonyi (18:33):
Wow, that's so great.
You know, we really need to getvisibility and I think you've
done a lot to help peopleunderstand what fractional CMOs
do, because I think it was kindof fuzzy, but you're driving it
forward, so I appreciate that.
Well, one of the things yousaid that you have.
You have a really interestingiceberg story and we have a few
more minutes, so if you want totell us what that story is about
(18:55):
, I was intrigued.
It looks very nice yeah.
Dean Waye (18:58):
Thank you, I'll let her know.
But on the other wall that Isee all the time is a huge
poster of an iceberg, and itreminds me that my and this is
probably true for all of us ourworst day at work would probably
have been our greatgrandparents' best day at work.
And in my case that's like youknow.
(19:20):
It may be very true.
So my growing up I was alwaystold this story and I kind of
like, once I became a teenager,I kind of thought it was, you
know, made up like a familylegend.
Yeah, but my mom's grandfatherwas part of a crew on a fishing
schooner in the North Atlantic.
My family has been on theisland of Newfoundland up in
(19:43):
eastern Canada for hundreds andhundreds of years.
Barbara Rozgonyi (19:45):
Oh, wow.
Dean Waye (19:46):
Yeah, and the way that these fishing schooners,
these wooden fishing schooners,would work back then this is 100
years ago is they would put outnets in a radius and then park
the schooner sort of in themiddle.
They'd send out a little openbow, almost like a canoe, but
not quite a canoe called a dory,and it'd be two guys from the
(20:07):
crew and they would go out andthey would like check on the
nets and if it seemed like itwas worthwhile, they'd signal or
try to signal or make their wayback to the schooner.
Usually, yeah, and then thenthat's how the schooner knew
which net to go to next andharvest the fish well my
great-grandfather and hiscrewmate went out and what can
happen in that part of the world?
(20:28):
is this really weird?
Fog can come in like it's kindof famous where I grew up for
fog right and that kind of fogis strange, like not not only
does it, you know you can't seeanything, but because there's so
much water in fog, so muchmoisture, it plays with sound.
So they set out with a coupleof biscuits and a couple of
canteens of water to startchecking the nets.
(20:48):
The fog comes in during thatmorning.
That's the last time anyone onthat ship sees them.
They spent no, they didn't die.
Okay good, they spent 11 daysadrift and at one point, about
halfway through and it happenedvirtually in the nick of time
they see an iceberg and eventhough they've only got one oar,
(21:08):
they make their way over to theiceberg and icebergs.
You've obviously never beenclose to an iceberg, but they're
incredibly cold.
You imagine if someone takes aglass full of ice cubes and
blows over the top of it on yourface.
It's cold, right, it's verycold, but they put up with the
cold because the water isdrinkable.
Icebergs are made out of snowand ice and rainwater.
It's not seawater, then acanadian ship, because back then
(21:31):
that part of newfoundland, thatpart of canada, didn't belong
to canada yeah he's them andrescues them, but it's going the
wrong way and takes them allthe way across the atlantic to
london and then they end uphaving to find work to make
enough money to get back.
It takes two years from the daythey leave on that schooner to
(21:51):
the day they finally get back.
If your family's big enough,you've got an aunt that's really
into genealogy and she foundthe actual newspaper with a
photo newspaper article of themin a hospital being treated for
exposure and that kind of stuff.
So it really did happen.
And so I just look at thisiceberg once in a while I said
(22:11):
like, well, it's not that bad.
You know someone might yell atme, that's about as bad as my
job ever gets right.
Yeah, I might feel like I didn't, you know, accomplish something
or get something done when Ishould have, or I procrastinated
a little bit, but I look at theiceberg so I'm like, you know,
it's not that bad.
I can keep going, wow.
So yeah, it's really it like.
So I just look at that icebergevery day it's in my field of
(22:32):
view every day yeah, what uhfortitude.
Barbara Rozgonyi (22:35):
And yeah, and look at, if they hadn't made it,
you wouldn't be here.
Dean Waye (22:40):
That's right.
Barbara Rozgonyi (22:41):
Yeah, that is really, really a wonderful story
, my goodness.
Yeah Well, we've talked about alot of stuff, we've covered a
lot of territory, but you didsend over a couple of questions
that you said you would answer.
One of them that jumped out atme, and maybe this is one to
talk about, is why is itimportant to say no to most
opportunities?
And not, like your grandfather,great, great grandfather we do
(23:04):
get indulged and inundated witha lot of opportunities, so why
is it important to say no tomost of them?
Dean Waye (23:11):
if you're good enough at a specialty in my case it's
writing right.
If you're good enough at acertain kind of writing, it's
inevitable customers will wantyou to do other kind of stuff
that they think is adjacent orrelated.
Barbara Rozgonyi (23:24):
Right.
Dean Waye (23:24):
Very common for a client to ask me like can you
like write some blog articlesfor us?
Barbara Rozgonyi (23:29):
Yeah.
Dean Waye (23:30):
And my answer to that initial is always no.
Barbara Rozgonyi (23:34):
Mm-hmm.
Dean Waye (23:35):
It's very rare for me to write blog posts and stuff
for a client.
It has to be a very specialcircumstance or else sometimes,
like the CEO is going to be akeynote speaker and there, there
, there needs to be like asignature piece, and so maybe
once a year I might writesomething like that.
But it's inevitable that youwill be asked to diffuse your
(23:57):
focus.
D I, f, f uses, you know, notdefuse like a bomb, but diffuse
your focus Right.
And then the next thing you knowyou're always in whenever
you're talking to the nextprospect.
If you're going to be truthful,then they're going to ask you
like, do you do that kind ofstuff too?
And you say, yeah, I do thatkind of stuff too.
And all of a sudden you're notin a particular box in their
(24:19):
head anymore, you're in theequivalent of their kitchen junk
drawer, and nobody goes to thejunk drawer first if they expect
it to be in a particularcupboard or a part of the
counter.
Barbara Rozgonyi (24:30):
That's such a good analogy it really is.
Dean Waye (24:32):
You never want to be in the junk drawer.
Barbara Rozgonyi (24:34):
No, but you're right.
I mean, that's how clients are.
Dean Waye (24:37):
The more clearly, with boundaries, you can tell a
client what you sell, the moreyou can charge for it.
Barbara Rozgonyi (24:46):
Oh, that's a good one too.
Well, on that note, we'vetalked a lot.
We could keep going, but Ireally appreciate your time, and
what I love about you is you'rereally succinct and very deep
with your answers at the sametime.
So yeah, great interview.
Succinct and very deep withyour answers at the same time so
yeah, great interview.
So, if you were going to leavepeople with a last thought about
what they should do whetherthey're a fractional CMO,
(25:06):
they're looking for ones whatkind of words of wisdom would
you like to leave for us?
Dean Waye (25:10):
If they're a fractional CMO the biggest at
this point I've talked to, likehundreds upon hundreds upon
hundreds.
Right, the biggest flaw I seein most professional cmos
thinking about their ownbusiness is because they're
marketing people.
They think they're in amarketing-led business, so
they're thinking about contentcreation they're thinking about
(25:32):
they're not.
They're marketing people andthey're being hired by clients
to do marketing but theythemselves are in a sales led
business they're in a high touchselling environment not, and so
I'll have.
I have lots of clients who arefractional cmos.
They'll keep trying to find asilver bullet like what about if
I write and post stuff onmedium?
What if?
(25:53):
I like do facebook targeted adsand look like audiences no a.
That's not the business, that'snot your business model.
You don't really for most of us.
We don't get to choose ourbusiness model right.
We get to choose our angle, butnot the model.
We might choose our profitmodel, but not our business
model.
Either you're going to keepspending money on all of these
(26:14):
like silver bullets in marketingto try to market yourself and
you're going to waste it, or,God forbid, one of them is
actually successful and it hits.
And all of a sudden becauseevery project the reason, by the
way, that fractional CMOs arein sales-led businesses is
because every single engagementis bespoke right.
Every client wants something alittle different, or the
(26:34):
duration is longer, or thenumber of things you have to
deliver.
It's all bespoke.
You cannot be in a marketingled bespoke business.
It doesn't work.
I said god forbid.
You actually like, find or hiton something where, like you
know, you're posting on mediumor you're doing facebook ads and
it actually hits and takes offand you're flooded with leads.
You will literally growyourself into bankruptcy.
So just understand you don'tlike it.
(26:57):
I get that most fractional CMOsreally hate the selling part of
their business, but that's yourbusiness model.
I don't get to choose it.
I'm just telling you what it is.
Just sort of embrace that andstop trying to find a silver
bullet that you're going tomarket your way into success in
a bespoke selling environment.
(27:18):
That's not how it works.
Way into success in a bespokeselling environment.
Barbara Rozgonyi (27:20):
That's not how it works.
That is great advice and it'sreally true, because we want to
show people how great we are atmarket.
So look at what I can do here,look at what I can do there and
it's you know, stop tap dancing.
You really want to do the sales.
Dean Waye (27:37):
That's really great advice.
So, dean, where can we find youonline At?
Barbara Rozgon (27:39):
winstonwritescom .
Winston Writes.
Is that because you're inWinston-Salem?
Dean Waye (27:42):
It's because I'm in Winston-Salem and technically my
first name is Winston, but Iwas never called that.
Barbara Rozgonyi (27:46):
Oh, okay, great yeah.
Dean Waye (27:47):
And also alliteration helps people remember.
I love it.
Winston Writes.
Barbara Rozgonyi (27:51):
Yeah, okay, so Winston Writes, and we always
close the show with the word ofthe day from the guests, so what
would your word of the day betoday?
Dean Waye (28:00):
A word of the day.
It would be 90%, which is anumber, I guess, and not a word.
But in my business and for allof us, when we're looking to
write to a stranger, we have todo 100% of all of our work
figuring out what to say and howto say.
But we also have to do 90% ofthe reader's work.
We have to do 90 of the readerswork.
(28:20):
We have to do 90 of theirthinking and feeling and we show
up with all of that work doneon their behalf.
So they only have to lean inthat last 10 and then the
relationship starts we make iteasy for them not dumbing it
down, not simplified, doing 90of all of their thinking and
feeling for them like verydifferent yeah, and it adds some
(28:40):
emotion, empathy.
Barbara Rozgonyi (28:42):
I love that.
Yeah, that's really a good way.
Well, thank you so much, dean,it's been wonderful talking to
you.
This is barbara Rozgonyi, thehost of growing social.
Now I'm a fractional cmo, aspeaker, trainer, and I love to
help people attract attention,build brands and click with
clients.
This podcast is sponsored bycorey west media and I'd love it
if you could like it, share itand download it on your favorite
(29:05):
podcast platform and youtube.
Thanks, and we'll see you againsoon.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode
of Growing Social, now producedby Quarry Wes Media.
I'm Barbara Rosco, your showhost.
I'm a fractional CMO, a speakerand someone who loves to
interview people about how theydo what they do.
And today I'm really excited towelcome Dean Way.
I've been on Dean's podcasttwice and I love the way he sets
(00:25):
them up.
He's super successful with that.
He's a fantastic writer andDean welcome.
I'll let you go ahead and filleveryone in on what it is that
you do so well.
Dean Waye (00:35):
I get hired to do first approach or first contact
kind of writing for companies,so not the blog posts and the
articles and the nurturing andthat's all important.
I just don't happen to do thatwork.
I get brought in for writingthe very first thing that a
prospect might ever see fromthat company, so the first ever
ad they might see, the firstever email from the company.
(00:57):
They might get the homepages,landing pages, even video
scripts and voicemail scripts.
So whatever the sort of firstapproach is in some company's
marketing or sales sequence, I'musually brought in if not to
write the whole thing, at leastto write the very first thing
and get that stranger'sattention and help draw them
into the client's world yeah,that's so important, because if
(01:20):
you don't grab them right away,we don't have time anymore, do
we?
No, I tell clients.
I say you think that theincredible amount of distraction
that's present in everyone'slife is your opportunity.
People don't even like to siton the toilet without scrolling
their phone.
Their need and desire fordistraction is, you know, ever
(01:41):
present.
And you just so it's time toget you into that feed.
Barbara Rozgonyi (01:46):
Yeah, I so agree.
It's always amazing to me howpeople just have to be on their
phone and I get it.
But that's great for usmarketers in a way, because we
know that we're gonna get theirattention somehow, some way.
So I have looked at a lot ofyour stuff.
I follow your emails and we'lltalk about that later, about how
to subscribe.
But Dean has some really goodrecommendations and, let's face
(02:09):
it, writing is changing and wedon't need to write 3,000, 5,000
word blog posts.
We need to get people from thebeginning.
There is a spot for both typesof writing and, Dean, I love how
you have a concept calledhunter and farmer copywriters.
So if you could tell us alittle bit about how those frame
up the differences and why weneed to do what we do when.
Dean Waye (02:30):
Okay, so I spent time in sales.
Like you know, had a quotacarried a bag enterprise.
I was not particularly great atthe sort of grind and people
stuff of like one-to-one sailingat an at the enterprise zone,
but I was always really good atthe.
You know what I ended up doingfor a living, which is figuring
out what to say first to thosepeople.
(02:51):
And in sales they have theconcept of hunter salespeople
and farmer salespeople.
And the hunters there's alwaysfar fewer of them than any
company wants.
A lot of salespeople will saythat they're hunter salespeople,
but they're really farmersalespeople and the Hunter is
the one who goes out and finds aprospect or gets into and
starts a relationship and aconversation with a prospective
(03:14):
client that the company has.
No, that the company has notapproached before.
It's their job to go find thenewest of the new possible
customers?
Yeah, and eventually like sign acontract and and the hunter
salespeople are the account sortof expanders and maintainers.
So their specialty is really,you know, understanding what
(03:36):
that client wants and needs todo and deepening the
relationship, landing andexpanding, as they call it in
sales.
Right, like you're not just,you don't have like one VP who's
your contact at that customer,you sort of expand out and you
know, since you're looking forthat, it's a different
psychology and a differentskillset.
Neither one is necessarily moreor less valuable than the other
(03:56):
.
They're just very different andyou need both.
And I focus copywriters work thesame way.
Most copywriters, and thenprobably in excess of 90 95
percent of copywriters, arecontent marketing writers.
They write blog posts andarticles and case studies and
that kind of stuff and socialproof, social content, and
that's absolutely necessary.
(04:17):
A lot of businesses need a lotof words written, but for a few
of us are brought in to do thehunter stuff because you always
need the next customer.
Some number or percentage ofyour customers are going to age
out or you're going to churnthem every year anyway, and so
it's my job to find and helpfigure out what to say to the
newest, new stranger.
Barbara Rozgonyi (04:36):
Well, it's no wonder you're a best friend to
CMOs.
Dean Waye (04:40):
There you go, yeah and CROs.
Barbara Rozgonyi (04:48):
And CROs, correct?
Yeah, so you know, and you havea podcast which we'll talk
about in a minute.
It's about the first 90 daysand it's Fractional CMOs.
Can you talk about why youdecided to focus on this area?
What you see the future is?
It's pretty new.
I mean, we've gone frommarketing consulting to what do
you think a Fractional CMO is?
So fill us in.
Dean Waye (05:04):
So it's November right now when we record, and so
December of 2024 will be thefourth anniversary of me being
out on my own.
Barbara Rozgonyi (05:12):
Congrats.
Dean Waye (05:21):
Thank you.
At about 18 months in, I thinkI got my first or my first and
my second ever fractional CMOsas clients who needed some work
done.
I didn't know what a fractionalanything was, let alone a
fractional CMO you did.
About a year after that, Irealized we go after kind of the
same clients.
I don't need to find everyfintech startup and B2B SaaS
company and specialty paintmanufacturer and whatever.
(05:43):
All the fractional CMOs aregoing after those clients and
they're all trying to add threeto five clients a year, every
year anyway.
Right, why don't I just focuson?
I'll let them find the clientsand I'll just focus on knowing
as many of them as possible, asmany of the fractional as
possible?
Yeah, and in exchange, I sortof came up with this in my head.
(06:04):
Unfortunately I didn't doenough research, but I figured
the biggest single cost you haveis anything that takes a lot of
your time.
Barbara Rozgonyi (06:11):
Right For sure .
Dean Waye (06:12):
And so I realized, you know, if I could cut the
costs of the nurturing and thefinding new clients and
researching and all that, if Icould cut that cost out of my
business, If I could cut thatcost out of my business, then I
could sell to the fractionals atwholesale, essentially, and
then let them white label me.
And so right now most of myrevenue comes from fractional
(06:33):
CMOs and CROs.
About half of them buy from medirectly and then just mark me
up and sell me to their clientand then the other half just
pass through the wholesalepricing and then the other half
just pass through the wholesalepricing.
I do a lot of work for a lot ofthe biggest and best known
fractional kind of companieslike where they have collections
of different types offractional people.
For the most part they don'tadd a markup, so they'll pass
(06:56):
through the entire because Iguess the engagements are bigger
for them and they're sort ofmore formalized and so they
don't add a markup to myservices.
They'll just pass through.
I asked once because I work fornot just most of the biggest one
but also the biggest one, and Iasked like why not add a markup
or get a referral fee?
You know, and they said most oftheir clients.
(07:16):
You know these are customersthat are doing anywhere from 25
to.
You know who knows how manymillions of dollars per year in
revenue already I to who knowshow many millions of dollars per
year in revenue.
Already.
I say, if we get asked like,hey, why'd you pick Dean?
We don't wanna have to say.
We wanna be able to say, causehe's the best for this
particular thing.
Not that we get a kickback,we're definitely here, whereas
(07:37):
the clients who hire theindividual, or what I call like
the single shingle, fractionalCMOs or CROs, they're usually
like small enough that what Icall like the single shingle,
fractional CMOs or CROs they'reusually like small enough that
or they know that person reallywell and they say like I just
want you to handle all thisstuff, you just bring your
people, because every fractionalexecutive especially the
marketing and sales folks kindof, especially the marketing
(07:57):
more than anyone they sort ofshow up with a Rolodex of
specialists and a particularproject.
They say, okay, don't need myseo person on this project, but
on this thing I am going to needmy graphics lady.
There's no blog posts for thisengagement right now on the
content marketing side, but I amgoing to need like a home page
rewrite and I am going to needoutbound email sequences and
stuff, and so they just havelike and they just pick and
(08:19):
choose for and my whole businessmodel is to just be one of
those specialists.
Barbara Rozgonyi (08:24):
Yeah, I love it.
Here at Cori West Media, we usewhat we call Hollywood casting,
and so we bring in a fresh crewfor every project.
Because if you try to do ityourself or if you keep people
on staff, and that's fine, itworks for a lot of people.
But things change after 90 days, and so that's what I love
about your show too.
Dean Waye (08:39):
I've been on it twice , and both times you always
bring in someone else, so let'smove on to the podcast, because
yeah it's, I don't actuallybring in anybody.
Barbara Rozgonyi (08:52):
That's sort of the trick of the podcast, right
?
Dean Waye (08:53):
so tell us no idea I have no idea who the guests are
going to be on any given dayuntil the last minute.
Barbara Rozgonyi (08:57):
Yeah, I know I love it.
Yeah, so tell us how you cameup with the concept and how it
works.
Okay, so the concept and how itworks.
Dean Waye (09:05):
Okay, so the concept of the podcast, because I wasn't
looking to start a podcast andwe started recording a year ago,
basically a year ago todayWe've done 140 episodes.
Barbara Rozgonyi (09:16):
As of today, Wow, that's a lot yeah.
Dean Waye (09:22):
I was like a lot of people and a lot of businesses.
I have like a little systemthat every so often will remind
me hey, you haven't talked toBarbara in a while.
You should remind her you'realive.
And so I was reminding somepeople last year in October that
I was alive, and normally Iwould, you know, ask these sort
of self-serving, indirectquestions like so, barbara, what
(09:42):
are you working on these days?
Barbara Rozgonyi (09:43):
Yeah.
Dean Waye (09:45):
And I don't know why, I was just in a bad mood or I
had had enough coffee and Iunderstand.
You know, it was someone thatI'd known for a while and I said
, hey, I gotta ask you aquestion.
Like, besides me bringing in me, I've noticed that most of the
engagements I'm on thefractional cmo hasn't been there
much longer than me.
Why, what else do you do in thefirst 90 days besides bringing
(10:05):
in, like certain experts in yourRolodex?
And it turns out there's somuch fragmentation and
specialization, especiallyfractional CMOs.
Some of them only work forseries B funded startups.
Some of them only work for B2BSaaS companies.
Some of them only work formanufacturers of farming
equipment.
So you get all that layer offragmentation and then you get a
(10:28):
second layer, which is theirCMOs and marketing and
salespeople who specialize incompanies that are just learning
to walk with their marketing ortheir sales or learning to run
or building a rocket.
They're planning for big scaleand if you take those two layers
of fragmentation turns out youcan ask the same five or six
questions over and over and overand you get different answers.
(10:51):
I have just accidentallystumbled on a podcast formula,
because if I can just do thesame thing in every podcast and
ask the same questions and getdifferent content every time,
then there's essentially nolimit to how many episodes I
could produce.
And that's when I said you knowwhat I'm going to reach out to
some people on LinkedIn and seeif anyone's interested, because
I happen to be connected onLinkedIn to, I don't know, a
(11:13):
little under 2000 fractionalCMOs as of today.
Oh wow, it was smaller backthen, but part of that is just
because there are so many morefractional CMOs as of today.
It was smaller back then, butpart of that is just because
there are so many morefractional CMOs now.
Yeah, there are.
I sent out to, I think, about ahundred people, 49 replied.
That's really good.
And on day one, I know right, Imight be the highest response
rate I've ever gotten on anyLinkedIn, because I use an
(11:34):
automation tool to send out andtalk to a hundred people.
So I had this like really weirdexperience a year ago, you know
, a few minutes before recordingepisode one, which was, on the
one hand, 30 people havescheduled to be on this thing
already.
Yeah, and two, I wonder ifanyone's actually going to show
up to this episode or is.
This is like a big bust.
Barbara Rozgonyi (11:54):
Yeah.
Dean Waye (11:55):
And it turns out no people like at any given time.
I have 50 to almost 100fractional CMOs scheduled, like
they booked themselves in.
Yeah, yeah, it turns out.
It's not at all hard to getmarketing people in front of a
microphone It'd be hard to keepthem away from a microphone, but
it's not hard to get them infront of a microphone.
Barbara Rozgonyi (12:12):
Yeah, that's for sure, that's wild.
Yeah, I wanted to ask you aboutwhat's your tech stack, because
one of the things if you'reever a guest on Dean's show,
you'll really come to appreciatehow fluid everything is.
The follow-up is great.
There's invitations.
After you're done, you get therecording.
He shows you how to slice it upand post it.
(12:33):
So what kind of a tech stack doyou use to organize everything?
Dean Waye (12:38):
It's less complicated than you think.
Barbara Rozgonyi (12:40):
Okay.
Dean Waye (12:42):
I have the advantage is that because I'm a copywriter
, and especially one whospecializes in like new outbound
messages to people, I was ableto like, tweak and iterate and
get a really good outboundmessage that got a really high
reply rate.
So that's the only kind of techor skill advantage in the
entire process that I had overanyone else, everything else.
(13:02):
And it's easy to overcome thatwith scale and everything else
just has.
So I use a LinkedIn automationservice at any.
I switch maybe like once ortwice a year to try them out.
The latest one is Dripify.
Barbara Rozgonyi (13:14):
Dripify, okay and at any given time.
Dean Waye (13:17):
There are two campaigns running on Dripify One
to reach out to fractional CMOswho I'm not yet connected to,
inviting them to connect, andthen the second is a messaging
campaign that sends a LinkedInmessage to the fractional CMOs
that I'm already connected toand just saying, when I started
out, I said hey, you know, I'mnot going to sugarcoat this, I'm
(13:37):
starting up a brand new podcast.
There's no audience for this.
Yet there's nothing.
But if you're interested, youcan come on and we'll talk about
what it's like.
And this is why I don'tunderstand my view count at all.
I don't understand why my viewcount is as high as it is
because it's a very specifictopic, right?
Yes, what does a fractional CMOdo in the first three months of
(13:58):
an engagement?
I mean, that's very niche andevery fractional CMO has done at
least a three-month engagementand knows what it's like.
And B it's like you know, it'sa bounded topic.
So I just reached out to them.
So Dripify is either growingthe number of people that I can
(14:22):
ultimately send that message to,or is sending that message.
I turned it off a couple ofmonths ago because I mean, I
just have so many people inqueue there's no point.
At one point you were fourmonths out If I talk to you on
any day and you went to thecalendar link to book yourself
in and that's the next step inthe whole thing.
Is the calendar link, right?
The book?
The intro call with me?
As part of the reason for thepodcast is to meet a lot of
fractional cmos.
(14:42):
I met, like I had 400 one-to-onezoom meetings in the course of
12 months, with wow, okay andabout 200 of them ended up being
on the podcast and another 70or so are in queue to be on the
podcast.
Yeah, that's a lot ofprospective clients, it is right
, but like they go and they, ifthey want to, the linkedin
message for hey, are youinterested in being on?
Barbara Rozgonyi (14:58):
the podcast.
Dean Waye (14:58):
Yeah, that's a lot of prospective clients, it is
right.
But like they go and they, ifthey want to, the LinkedIn
message for hey, are youinterested in being on this
podcast?
We'll have a link where theycan get that 15 minute intro
call with me.
We talk about logistics but,yeah, at one point the earliest
time they could book themselvesfor the podcast was four months
from that Tuesday.
I've turned off.
The campaigns that areconnecting me to more and more
(15:21):
fractional CMOs is still runningon LinkedIn, but not the one
that's inviting people to joinand be on the podcast, because I
just couldn't take anymore.
Barbara Rozgonyi (15:29):
Well, yeah, and I know your business has
taken off and it's so successful, and I want to thank you again
for having me on it, because thefirst time I was on it I really
wanted to think about whatcould I do in 90 days, and I
told you what I would do.
But now we've positioned it totake our clients from being
traditional to trendsetters in90 days and we're starting to
develop case studies.
So I think just even puttingthat 90-day time period in
(15:51):
people's minds, that's somethingcompanies can buy into.
Let's see where this goes.
So I think it's brilliant and II just want to thank you for
doing that.
Dean Waye (16:01):
So let's see.
I want to make sure I finishyour question okay a drip of
fire or some sort of linkedinautomation tool like meet alfred
or whatever, and to to letpeople know, because it's all
done through linkedin.
I don't email anyone, it's allcalendly yeah to book the intro
call.
Book a writing session, if youwant, because, because I don't
introduce my guests, one of thethings I wanted to do is give
(16:22):
people the opportunity to see meright in real time, because
that's my business.
Not many businesses can demotheir own capability in a few
minutes live on a screen but Ican.
At one point, eight out ofevery 10 guests would book a
15-minute Zoom call with me.
We'd share a Google document.
They talk about themselves forlike 90 seconds and I would
write an intro, a self intro,for them, because on my podcast,
(16:44):
when you answer question one,you also introduce yourself as a
preamble to that, so I get toshow them how good I am and how
fast I am at this kind ofwriting.
It's not specific to my podcast, right?
That intro would work on anypodcast.
And then the final thing theydo with Calendly is to book in
their own time slot.
It's always going to be on aThursday, but all my guests pick
(17:05):
their own time slot.
There are either three or fourtime slots on every Thursday.
Barbara Rozgonyi (17:10):
It's good, you don't have to do one day.
Dean Waye (17:12):
Yeah, so I don't curate them.
It's completely random and italso adds to some of the energy
of the podcast.
Barbara Rozgonyi (17:19):
I think so too .
You don't know who you're goingto be on with until you show up
, yeah, and then Calendly doesall the follow-up stuff and I
just record on restream.
Dean Waye (17:26):
Oh, and Opus is a big deal.
I'm not sure I could have donethis podcast without Opus.
So Opus is one of the AI-basedvideo clip services where you
can give it a video and it willread it and chop it up into a
bunch of social media type clipswith the captioning on screen
and everything.
And we record in verticalformat, Like right now on this
(17:46):
podcast.
It's a horizontal format but Irecord in vertical.
So I'm on the bottom and thenthere's a guest, and then
there's a guest right, A phonestop, and from day one it's been
set up to lend itself to clipformat, so that because I knew
at some point I would probablywant to make clips what I didn't
understand is that over 99% ofall the views for that podcast
would become clips.
(18:08):
Like almost nobody watches thefull episodes but the clips we
hit.
I mean, within eight months wehad a hundred thousand views,
which, for a brand new podcaston a very niche topic, is crazy.
Six weeks after that we hit200,000.
A few weeks ago we had aquarter million.
If things keep up, we couldvery likely because we started
releasing episodes in Januaryput half a million views from
(18:31):
January to January.
Barbara Rozgonyi (18:33):
Wow, that's so great.
You know, we really need to getvisibility and I think you've
done a lot to help peopleunderstand what fractional CMOs
do, because I think it was kindof fuzzy, but you're driving it
forward, so I appreciate that.
Well, one of the things yousaid that you have.
You have a really interestingiceberg story and we have a few
more minutes, so if you want totell us what that story is about
(18:55):
, I was intrigued.
It looks very nice yeah.
Dean Waye (18:58):
Thank you, I'll let her know.
But on the other wall that Isee all the time is a huge
poster of an iceberg, and itreminds me that my and this is
probably true for all of us ourworst day at work would probably
have been our greatgrandparents' best day at work.
And in my case that's like youknow.
(19:20):
It may be very true.
So my growing up I was alwaystold this story and I kind of
like, once I became a teenager,I kind of thought it was, you
know, made up like a familylegend.
Yeah, but my mom's grandfatherwas part of a crew on a fishing
schooner in the North Atlantic.
My family has been on theisland of Newfoundland up in
(19:43):
eastern Canada for hundreds andhundreds of years.
Barbara Rozgonyi (19:45):
Oh, wow.
Dean Waye (19:46):
Yeah, and the way that these fishing schooners,
these wooden fishing schooners,would work back then this is 100
years ago is they would put outnets in a radius and then park
the schooner sort of in themiddle.
They'd send out a little openbow, almost like a canoe, but
not quite a canoe called a dory,and it'd be two guys from the
(20:07):
crew and they would go out andthey would like check on the
nets and if it seemed like itwas worthwhile, they'd signal or
try to signal or make their wayback to the schooner.
Usually, yeah, and then thenthat's how the schooner knew
which net to go to next andharvest the fish well my
great-grandfather and hiscrewmate went out and what can
happen in that part of the world?
(20:28):
is this really weird?
Fog can come in like it's kindof famous where I grew up for
fog right and that kind of fogis strange, like not not only
does it, you know you can't seeanything, but because there's so
much water in fog, so muchmoisture, it plays with sound.
So they set out with a coupleof biscuits and a couple of
canteens of water to startchecking the nets.
(20:48):
The fog comes in during thatmorning.
That's the last time anyone onthat ship sees them.
They spent no, they didn't die.
Okay good, they spent 11 daysadrift and at one point, about
halfway through and it happenedvirtually in the nick of time
they see an iceberg and eventhough they've only got one oar,
(21:08):
they make their way over to theiceberg and icebergs.
You've obviously never beenclose to an iceberg, but they're
incredibly cold.
You imagine if someone takes aglass full of ice cubes and
blows over the top of it on yourface.
It's cold, right, it's verycold, but they put up with the
cold because the water isdrinkable.
Icebergs are made out of snowand ice and rainwater.
It's not seawater, then acanadian ship, because back then
(21:31):
that part of newfoundland, thatpart of canada, didn't belong
to canada yeah he's them andrescues them, but it's going the
wrong way and takes them allthe way across the atlantic to
london and then they end uphaving to find work to make
enough money to get back.
It takes two years from the daythey leave on that schooner to
(21:51):
the day they finally get back.
If your family's big enough,you've got an aunt that's really
into genealogy and she foundthe actual newspaper with a
photo newspaper article of themin a hospital being treated for
exposure and that kind of stuff.
So it really did happen.
And so I just look at thisiceberg once in a while I said
(22:11):
like, well, it's not that bad.
You know someone might yell atme, that's about as bad as my
job ever gets right.
Yeah, I might feel like I didn't, you know, accomplish something
or get something done when Ishould have, or I procrastinated
a little bit, but I look at theiceberg so I'm like, you know,
it's not that bad.
I can keep going, wow.
So yeah, it's really it like.
So I just look at that icebergevery day it's in my field of
(22:32):
view every day yeah, what uhfortitude.
Barbara Rozgonyi (22:35):
And yeah, and look at, if they hadn't made it,
you wouldn't be here.
Dean Waye (22:40):
That's right.
Barbara Rozgonyi (22:41):
Yeah, that is really, really a wonderful story
, my goodness.
Yeah Well, we've talked about alot of stuff, we've covered a
lot of territory, but you didsend over a couple of questions
that you said you would answer.
One of them that jumped out atme, and maybe this is one to
talk about, is why is itimportant to say no to most
opportunities?
And not, like your grandfather,great, great grandfather we do
(23:04):
get indulged and inundated witha lot of opportunities, so why
is it important to say no tomost of them?
Dean Waye (23:11):
if you're good enough at a specialty in my case it's
writing right.
If you're good enough at acertain kind of writing, it's
inevitable customers will wantyou to do other kind of stuff
that they think is adjacent orrelated.
Barbara Rozgonyi (23:24):
Right.
Dean Waye (23:24):
Very common for a client to ask me like can you
like write some blog articlesfor us?
Barbara Rozgonyi (23:29):
Yeah.
Dean Waye (23:30):
And my answer to that initial is always no.
Barbara Rozgonyi (23:34):
Mm-hmm.
Dean Waye (23:35):
It's very rare for me to write blog posts and stuff
for a client.
It has to be a very specialcircumstance or else sometimes,
like the CEO is going to be akeynote speaker and there, there
, there needs to be like asignature piece, and so maybe
once a year I might writesomething like that.
But it's inevitable that youwill be asked to diffuse your
(23:57):
focus.
D I, f, f uses, you know, notdefuse like a bomb, but diffuse
your focus Right.
And then the next thing you knowyou're always in whenever
you're talking to the nextprospect.
If you're going to be truthful,then they're going to ask you
like, do you do that kind ofstuff too?
And you say, yeah, I do thatkind of stuff too.
And all of a sudden you're notin a particular box in their
(24:19):
head anymore, you're in theequivalent of their kitchen junk
drawer, and nobody goes to thejunk drawer first if they expect
it to be in a particularcupboard or a part of the
counter.
Barbara Rozgonyi (24:30):
That's such a good analogy it really is.
Dean Waye (24:32):
You never want to be in the junk drawer.
Barbara Rozgonyi (24:34):
No, but you're right.
I mean, that's how clients are.
Dean Waye (24:37):
The more clearly, with boundaries, you can tell a
client what you sell, the moreyou can charge for it.
Barbara Rozgonyi (24:46):
Oh, that's a good one too.
Well, on that note, we'vetalked a lot.
We could keep going, but Ireally appreciate your time, and
what I love about you is you'rereally succinct and very deep
with your answers at the sametime.
So yeah, great interview.
Succinct and very deep withyour answers at the same time so
yeah, great interview.
So, if you were going to leavepeople with a last thought about
what they should do whetherthey're a fractional CMO,
(25:06):
they're looking for ones whatkind of words of wisdom would
you like to leave for us?
Dean Waye (25:10):
If they're a fractional CMO the biggest at
this point I've talked to, likehundreds upon hundreds upon
hundreds.
Right, the biggest flaw I seein most professional cmos
thinking about their ownbusiness is because they're
marketing people.
They think they're in amarketing-led business, so
they're thinking about contentcreation they're thinking about
(25:32):
they're not.
They're marketing people andthey're being hired by clients
to do marketing but theythemselves are in a sales led
business they're in a high touchselling environment not, and so
I'll have.
I have lots of clients who arefractional cmos.
They'll keep trying to find asilver bullet like what about if
I write and post stuff onmedium?
What if?
(25:53):
I like do facebook targeted adsand look like audiences no a.
That's not the business, that'snot your business model.
You don't really for most of us.
We don't get to choose ourbusiness model right.
We get to choose our angle, butnot the model.
We might choose our profitmodel, but not our business
model.
Either you're going to keepspending money on all of these
(26:14):
like silver bullets in marketingto try to market yourself and
you're going to waste it, or,God forbid, one of them is
actually successful and it hits.
And all of a sudden becauseevery project the reason, by the
way, that fractional CMOs arein sales-led businesses is
because every single engagementis bespoke right.
Every client wants something alittle different, or the
(26:34):
duration is longer, or thenumber of things you have to
deliver.
It's all bespoke.
You cannot be in a marketingled bespoke business.
It doesn't work.
I said god forbid.
You actually like, find or hiton something where, like you
know, you're posting on mediumor you're doing facebook ads and
it actually hits and takes offand you're flooded with leads.
You will literally growyourself into bankruptcy.
So just understand you don'tlike it.
(26:57):
I get that most fractional CMOsreally hate the selling part of
their business, but that's yourbusiness model.
I don't get to choose it.
I'm just telling you what it is.
Just sort of embrace that andstop trying to find a silver
bullet that you're going tomarket your way into success in
a bespoke selling environment.
(27:18):
That's not how it works.
Way into success in a bespokeselling environment.
Barbara Rozgonyi (27:20):
That's not how it works.
That is great advice and it'sreally true, because we want to
show people how great we are atmarket.
So look at what I can do here,look at what I can do there and
it's you know, stop tap dancing.
You really want to do the sales.
Dean Waye (27:37):
That's really great advice.
So, dean, where can we find youonline At?
Barbara Rozgon (27:39):
winstonwritescom .
Winston Writes.
Is that because you're inWinston-Salem?
Dean Waye (27:42):
It's because I'm in Winston-Salem and technically my
first name is Winston, but Iwas never called that.
Barbara Rozgonyi (27:46):
Oh, okay, great yeah.
Dean Waye (27:47):
And also alliteration helps people remember.
I love it.
Winston Writes.
Barbara Rozgonyi (27:51):
Yeah, okay, so Winston Writes, and we always
close the show with the word ofthe day from the guests, so what
would your word of the day betoday?
Dean Waye (28:00):
A word of the day.
It would be 90%, which is anumber, I guess, and not a word.
But in my business and for allof us, when we're looking to
write to a stranger, we have todo 100% of all of our work
figuring out what to say and howto say.
But we also have to do 90% ofthe reader's work.
We have to do 90 of the readerswork.
(28:20):
We have to do 90 of theirthinking and feeling and we show
up with all of that work doneon their behalf.
So they only have to lean inthat last 10 and then the
relationship starts we make iteasy for them not dumbing it
down, not simplified, doing 90of all of their thinking and
feeling for them like verydifferent yeah, and it adds some
(28:40):
emotion, empathy.
Barbara Rozgonyi (28:42):
I love that.
Yeah, that's really a good way.
Well, thank you so much, dean,it's been wonderful talking to
you.
This is barbara Rozgonyi, thehost of growing social.
Now I'm a fractional cmo, aspeaker, trainer, and I love to
help people attract attention,build brands and click with
clients.
This podcast is sponsored bycorey west media and I'd love it
if you could like it, share itand download it on your favorite
(29:05):
podcast platform and youtube.
Thanks, and we'll see you againsoon.
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