October 9, 2020 • 39 mins
The only way to grow your book of business is with a firm handshake and looking someone in the eye. For years, suppliers, manufactures, and contractors have been growing their client list with strong character, good jokes, and doing what you say. Digital marketing, email, social media, and COVID-19 are propelling sales and marketing into a new era.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it won’t work, because in today’s digital age there is more at stake. One misstep or one viral action can forever change the trajectory and value of your business. Join us and explore how looking at the same challenges, and thinking a bit differently can forever change the face of a proud industry. Digital doesn’t have to be fake, it doesn’t have to be hard, it’s a powerful new tool and we’ll unlock some of the easiest ways for companies like yours to profit from the transition.
Watch The Future of Sales and Marketing for Construction Presentation Here
Presenter: Kyle Hamer
Hamer is the president of Hamer Marketing Group and is passionate about helping businesses leverage sales, marketing, technology, and data to grow their business. No stranger to technology, he previously held executive leadership positions with software, technology, and service companies. When Hamer is not helping businesses with their operations, you will find him enjoying time on a bike, in the pool, or at a show with his wife and four children.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kyle Hamer (00:00):
Hey, thanks for having me Larry and welcome to
everybody today.
You know, I, I think I might'vemissed the memo about this being
about communications.
Apparently this is some part of,uh, sales marketing, and kind of
the future of what's going on.
So a little bit about me.
Uh, I, I appreciate the intro,but, uh, I would be remiss not
to share some of the things I'mreally passionate about.
(00:22):
Um, Hey, marketing group wasfounded after my time at
on-center constructing, thatcame to an end.
Uh, I've spent about five yearsin the construction industry.
And when I look back across my,my career, what I've found is
it's really simple to, to definewho I am.
I'm a sales guy, turnedmarketer, cause I was
passionately curious abouttechnology and making life
easier.
(00:43):
People are like, what does thatmean?
Well, that means in today's dayand age, I'm figuring out how we
, um, we solve some of thechallenges that companies like
yours are going through rightnow.
Now I would be remissed and Italk about some of the fun
things that I've been doing.
As you can see over here, thisis my family pre COVID and
you're right, Larry.
I didn't get a chance to get onmy bike much while we've been,
(01:04):
uh, we've been locked down.
And I think somebody I talked tothe other day said it best you
can lock us down, but you can'tlock us up.
And, um, you know, we've kind ofgot that, that fun adventurous
spirit as a family.
And we're looking forward togetting back out, being active.
So if I'm not doing those thingsoutdoors, I'm recording a
podcast or I'm helpingorganizations as a fractional
(01:24):
CMO, but that leads us to someof the things that I'm seeing on
a regular basis.
What I'm seeing on a regularbasis here is that there's
these, these monumentalchallenges that organizations
are facing as it relates to theday to day business and
construction has historicallybeen a laggard.
I mean like it's, it's, there'sno secret to that.
(01:47):
Construction is not an earlyadopter of many things, right?
It's like, Hey we're and we'lltalk about it here in a minute.
But when it comes to things thatare relevant to this committee,
as I thought about it, um, tome, I think there are really
four main things that are goingto be happening in the coming
months and years that are goingto force marketers and
communicators.
(02:07):
And in construction industryleaders to behave differently.
There were no we're no strangersto change in market dynamics,
right?
It wasn't that long ago that wejust pulled out of the great
recession.
We've seen some of the biggestyears in growth, but those,
those years of growth have beena bit stymied by being able to
find and retain talent.
(02:28):
Another key issue is as well.
How do I communicate acrossmultiple channels, age groups,
job sites, what do I do there?
And then ultimately, how do weembrace this technology
revolution?
I've got an organization thatbelieves this very firmly cogs
was probably said it best.
And I think I go back to thechildhood side of me where it
(02:48):
says, if it ain't broke, don'tfix it.
Cause that's my dad.
My dad was a contractor and itwas, he was a contractor and
he's the type of guy he's like,look, don't tell me 35 new
innovative ways to solve aproblem pile.
Just do it the way that I toldyou to do it.
The challenge with that is, Hey,if we only did that, we'd still
(03:09):
be riding a horse and buggy tojob sites.
So thinking differently and inembracing change is really,
really important.
You're like, okay, I've heard athousand people talk about this
or that.
I get it.
But really digitaltransformation is incredibly
important for organizations.
Why is it important?
(03:31):
Because what happened in thingsthat you've done in the past?
It's not really new techniquesand new things you're coming up
with.
It's a change in where you'rehaving conversations and where
you're doing things, notnecessarily how, but I think
that's really one of the thingsthat that organizations
oftentimes struggle with is theythink, well, I, for me to
(03:51):
embrace digital or for me tothink about the future, I've got
to go through this hugetransformation.
Sometimes it's really not atransformation.
It's just a change in channel.
And so for setting to make surethat the field is completely
level here, digital marketingcan be mean a lot of things to a
lot of different people.
And fundamentally, I thought,well, you know, let's go ask mr.
(04:13):
Google what he says so thatwe're all on the same page.
And digital marketing is reallyutilizing the internet and your
different elements that connectto the internet, to market, to
advertise, to drive revenue andsales.
Now, gosh, that seems prettyobvious.
But if you think about where itstarted, we started with just
(04:35):
website, right?
Digital marketing was you got tohave a website it's important to
have a website.
And then there are somecontractors.
There are some, there are somesuppliers, there are some
manufacturers you go visit theirwebsite and you're like, well,
you haven't updated it since1986.
Um, that's okay.
But as, as you're going throughthis transformation, as we're
starting to think about thefuture, the reality is is that
(04:57):
your buyer and the people aroundyou are changing.
There's more ways to becommunicated and to educate
yourself than ever before.
And so if we continue looking atthings that we've always done
historically, with the samelevel of thinking, we're kind of
expecting this.
You can't expect differentresults.
The thought process of what gotme here will not get you.
(05:19):
There is 100% where we sit todayin the construction industry, as
it relates to sales, marketing,and communication.
Now, what this does is thiscreates a ripe environment for
innovation.
And I have a, I have a shortlittle video that I was going to
share, but the audio is notworking.
I'm going to, I'm just going toshow you what you could see here
(05:39):
is this is a, is the insight ofa marketing organization, as it
starts innovating, try thinkingabout how do I launch a website?
How do I brainstorm thesethings?
And if we just watch, you cansee that it's very, very, very
clear what the, what the thoughtprocess is for most
organizations.
(06:00):
Let's give it just a minutehere.
Boom, Facebook, right?
Oh, that's, that's super easy.
Oh wait.
No, no.
We can make it better.
How many times you've been in aninnovation meeting or a
communications meeting where itstarts and it ends with some,
some level of social media.
(06:20):
It ends up being something wewant to go viral as something
that we want to have happen in away where innovation is really
stifled, because we're onlythinking about executing what
other people are doing.
So what I want to talk to youabout is, okay, we've got an
opportunity to innovate insideof how we communicate, how we
sell, how we market.
What does it mean for each ofthese particular challenges?
(06:43):
When we look at the change inmarket dynamics, nothing has
forced our hand to look atdifferently than our best friend
coronavirus, right?
People are now at home, they'reworking remotely.
They're having a hard timegetting back into society or,
or, or having the same level ofnetworking.
That impact has actually notonly affected marketing teams,
(07:06):
but your sales team.
And so one of the areas that'sright for innovation is it
relates to, uh, as it relates toconstruction, as it relates to
the way you do business is thisthought of, Oh my goodness,
aligning sales and marketing andbringing those teams together
jointly, right?
(07:27):
It's no longer, Oh, my salesguys go out and have dinner and
they're there in the field.
They meet somebody at a tradeshow and we're able to go sell
and move more product.
Or, Hey, we took somebody to goout and go do golf while there's
been more golf played in thelast six months than there has
probably been in the last sixyears.
The reality is that the changein market dynamic has, has
(07:48):
shifted how your buyers and howyour salespeople can engage.
Where's the information that Iwant.
Where's the information that Ineeded.
How do I get it?
And so the way you bring thoseteams together, and the reason
why I think this is really thefuture of sales, is it marketing
is oftentimes only seen asadvertising.
Hey, what's that message.
What's that cool trade show it'sseen as the arts and crafts in
(08:10):
sales is seen as the, therelationship and the, um, the
good old boy network, the folksthat bring them across the
finish line and, and payeverybody's bills.
And while some of that is stillvery, very true.
We're moving into an age basedon the demographic of, of folks
coming in from a talentstandpoint, the accessibility of
information to where marketingis now sharing more and more of
(08:33):
the responsibility of helpingsales deliver revenue.
The future of sales andmarketing is really these, this
idea of a team driving revenue.
So you've got to start ingetting your, your marketing
objectives and your salesobjectives, your sales photos,
getting those aligned so thatthey're pulling on the boat and
(08:54):
moving the same way.
One of the reasons that this is,this is an area that's right for
innovation is because fieldsales, which has historically
been doing, um, w which is theway most construction or
manufacturing companies havemoved their products by doing it
face to face on the road,traveling, you know, limited
(09:15):
time for training, they're justworking off a product slip.
It's almost 100%, um,education-based or, um,
relationship-based excuse me,they're being forced to do
things and develop skills theynever had to do before.
What was the last time yourfield sales rep did a cold call
was the last time he did ahundred.
When was the last time that yourmarketing team had to drive
(09:37):
inbound leads of people for yoursales team to call that are
interested in your product?
Think that I think, well, gosh,that's not a, that's not
something that our business canembrace.
That's, uh, that's, uh, adifferent business to business
model.
That's never work inconstruction.
Well, the reality is is thatwhen your reps can't get on the
road, they're not making sales.
(09:57):
And even if they are makingsales, you're being impacted by
things like job delays starts,starts, are down.
They're continuing to getpushed.
We don't know what that means.
That interrupts the supplychain.
That supply chain is interruptedacross the, across the entire
gamut we're impacted.
But if marketing andcommunications is out there
(10:17):
doing their job, they're thereworking on the early mini
commitments.
That sales is just like, Oh,Hey, I'm interested in getting
people's nodding their head.
Yes, you'll find there are newopportunities.
And there are people that arelooking for the goods services
and things that you have today.
Changing your field sales to aninside sales is a huge
(10:43):
undertaking because it's takingthat mentality of what got me
here is not going to get methere.
And now you've got to integrateit with marketing, because I'm
thinking about what are myscripts saying?
What are my emails saying, whatare my, what does, what does my
website say?
Where's my, where's my marketingcollateral.
When was the last time weupdated that, that product
catalog or that guide, and wemay have those things, but is it
(11:06):
something that can be digestedin an email or is it something
where I get an email and you'relike, yeah, on page 342, a third
of the way down, you're lookingfor product number Oh eight one
nine eight three dash sevenseven six two.
And you'll find the technicalspecs when sales moves from the
field to inside.
(11:28):
A lot of the work that marketinghas to do is shortcutting those
conversations, things likecatalogs, things like, um, huge
price lists and product listsneed to be pre digested for your
customers and for your salesteam to ensure that they're
getting to the informationthat's important to them
quickly.
Now I have an example and I wasgonna, I was gonna use, um, our
(11:51):
great manufacturing rep from the1990s to showcase how you can
really bungle this.
But the reality is, is the movieblack sheep, Oh, I'm sorry, not
black sheep, Tommy boy, themovie, Tommy boy does a great
job of helping show you bothwhat works and doesn't work when
it comes to sales and marketingbeing aligned.
(12:14):
And this right here is a greatvisual of what happens when
sales and marketing is notaligned.
Sales is trying to figure outwhat to say, and they're setting
things on fire, and they've gotall this energy, but it's
misplaced and marketing's overthere going, Ooh, you probably
should do that.
That's not what we want to do.
Communications across thoseteams are really, really
(12:35):
important.
And the proof is in the pudding,you can do Google search after
Google search, after Googlesearch.
But when you look at aligningyour sales and your marketing
team and going to market as arevenue team, leveraging digital
technology, leveraging digitalmedia and marketing strategies,
the growth can be exponential.
(12:56):
And it doesn't matter what yourindustry is in this particular,
this particular report, a 208%jump in leads.
Now imagine right now that youhave 10 people calling in a
month interested in product X orproduct Y and you have 208%.
Now you have 30 people.
Well, my sales rep doesn't haveto, you go out and I have
already doubled demand is what Idid before.
(13:18):
So my expenses, those are lowerand my conversations are higher.
It may not lead to revenue rightaway.
But what it does show is thatwhen you have your sales and
your marketing teams align thatyou're going to see higher win
rates and higher customerretention, customer attention to
stuff that you guys have beengood at the building brand
loyalty, keeping that longterm,making sure that people are 100%
(13:39):
after writing, inspecting yourproduct really does boil down to
making sure these teams, right.
That leads us to our nextchallenge, right?
So, Hey, we've got these newinnovative things.
I got to align the sales in thismarketing team.
What, what am I going to do?
How am I going to find thesepeople?
Cause the talent I have today,isn't the, they're not the
(13:59):
people that, that are maybenecessarily going to be able to
do that.
Where am I going to find thistalent?
Well now more than evermarketing community or not
marketing communications,company communications, finding
and retaining talent, even in amarket where there's a higher
unemployment than, than we'veseen in years.
They're still understanding whoI'm working for.
We don't want the Mo the economyto pop back in the next two
(14:22):
years.
And you hired a bunch of peoplethat, that leave because they
didn't, they didn't fall in lovewith your company or your
organization.
And so leveraging digitalmarketing, leveraging digital
media to go find and supportyour employees, support your
company.
It's communications externallyis very valuable in retaining
and attracting young talent.
(14:43):
You can see here on this, thisparticular infographic put
together by, Oh, I can'tremember the name of the
company.
Uh, credibly.
I believe that even thougheverybody's talking about
LinkedIn is the place to go inthe construction industry.
We know darn good.
And well then unless they're anoffice employee, it's highly
unlikely that they're there onLinkedIn and there's there, but
(15:05):
they are on social media.
They are paying attention to thecompanies that are out there
working.
And so it's really importantthat you think about in, in
build your external facingcommunication folks to drive
again, inbound people,interesting to interested in
working for you.
Some successful examples, SimcoeSimcoe on their LinkedIn page
(15:26):
has an employee of the monththat they highlight this
particular employee of the monthwas this month.
You can see that there'sengagement.
There's 17 people in twocomments.
So what does this do?
This builds, this buildscredibility.
That when I go and I look at theSimcoe as a company, I can see,
Oh, wow, there's this, isn'tjust an old white guys, um,
(15:49):
industry.
I can see that there's somebodythat's young, they're in a
professional, a professionalplace, and they're commenting.
They're being supportive.
This is great.
If I'm a young professional,this makes Simcoe very
attractive to me, but it's notjust about young professionals.
I think sometimes marketingcompanies and folks can get
really stuck in thinking, well,it's only about, you know,
trying to get professionaltalent in here.
(16:10):
But the reality is is that thatacross organizations, you still
need people in the field.
You still need people on thefloor.
You need people who are buyinginto that family culture.
That's a part of your business.
And one of the companies that Ithink does a tremendous job, uh,
in, in how they, they, theybuild that family community
across the locations is Bakertriangle Baker.
(16:32):
If you have a five year workanniversary, a 10 year work
anniversary, a 30 year workanniversary, they are posting
that to social media.
And the thing I'd like to, I'dlike to just point out a little
bit here.
This is, if you look at thisparticular image, this is taken
during coronavirus.
So they, they made a point tocontinue supporting the CDC
(16:53):
guidelines, doing the, thesocial distancing, but it was
important enough that theydidn't delay that, getting that
recognition.
So Jose here, didn't miss out onhis 10 year anniversary and the
accolade and being called outfor it.
As a matter of fact, theyshowcased how important he was
by making a point to make thishappen.
If you look at the engagementhere, this is the part where I
(17:15):
think he gets, he gets fun.
Bigger triangle may not have thesame number of followers or the
same number of folks that's thatthat Cinco does inside of their,
their LinkedIn profile.
But because Baker's using theFacebook channel on Facebook
now, the employees and thefriends of the employees and
their spouses can share thatinformation out and it
(17:38):
propagates creating thiscommunity awareness.
So part of what you've got tothink about is what's going on
from my channel and what, whatam I saying in this channel as
it relates to, um, notnecessarily a, just a newsfeed,
I don't need post article afterarticle, after article, after
article, what is this particularchannel saying about my business
(18:00):
and how am I providing value?
Not just newsfeeds, like a newsarticle after news article, but
how am I providing value or, orentertaining people in these, in
these areas.
And when I say entertaining, Ithink this is really, really
important because when you thinkabout Wendy's you think about
Walmart, you think about Apple,you see these giant
corporations, but the peoplethat are falling in love with
(18:22):
these brands, the people thatare working for these brands,
they're not working for 80, ahundred thousand dollars a year.
Oftentimes they're working forminimum wage.
They're doing jobs that a lot ofother people wouldn't do.
So if I'm doing a job that a lotof the people wouldn't do, what
are some of the things that Ican potentially do to fall in
love with a brand?
Well, if I had to choose basedon my personality, if I had to
(18:43):
choose what company I wanted towork for, do I want to work for
McDonald's or do I want to workfor Wendy's Wendy's uses their
Twitter account to troll, besnarky, be clever, and create
this identity of where a Trinityhip, fast food chain.
That's not afraid to communicatein a way that embraces our
(19:04):
employees.
And so you, if you go and youwatch watch, Wendy's not only do
they, you know, did they get alot of traction across social
media on their Twitter, butthey, they get traction from
their employees.
And there's this sense of prideof, Hey, I work for, I worked
for Wendy's now, am I sayingthat people are going to be
holistically staying at Wendy'slongterm?
(19:24):
Because they, you know, becausethey love their Twitter account,
not necessarily, but whatWendy's has done is figured out
how to use Twitter as anattraction model for creating a
communication platform of whatthey want to say, who they want
to be.
And for your organization,you've got to do the same thing.
Now, this brings us tocommunication across, across
(19:47):
multiple generations, multiplejobs.
And I really think that wherewe're at with communication at
this point can be summed up inthis slide.
I don't know if you've seen itor you've heard it or not yet,
but I got called a boomer by mykids.
Hey, I said something to my, my16 year old daughter, 15 year
(20:08):
old daughter, excuse me.
She looked at me and she said,okay, boomer, I didn't deliver
the right message.
It wasn't at the right time.
Obviously I was out of touchwith whatever she was trying to
communicate.
Technically, I'm not a boomer.
So we've got this huge chasm inconversation where both sides
have value that they bring tothe table.
(20:28):
They're not necessarilylistening to each other and, or
they're not necessarilycommunicating in the right path.
So as communicators andmarketers, specifically in a
digital world, we've gotta bereally, really intentional in
finding where, where the rightplaces are to say the right
things, because it's really notabout what we say.
I'm sorry.
It's not only about what we say.
(20:50):
It's also about where you sayit.
So if you start looking at howpeople want to be communicated
to, I mean, it's prettyubiquitous.
Everybody gets email on that.
That's great for them.
But if you're spending themajority of your, your advert or
your marketing budget annuallyon print ads, and you're hoping
that the next round of your, uh,your advertising is going to
(21:10):
drive in a whole new drove ofbuyers.
Well, it doesn't take long tolook to see, Oh, postal, postal,
uh, postal mail here for the 18to 34 group, less than 30%
actually pay attention to it.
And so it's, it's reallyimportant for you to understand
your audience, not only today,but where your audience is going
(21:32):
to be in the coming month.
And when you think about that,right?
It's like, well, we've beencommunicating and marketing for
years.
Like the first written word, the10 commandments carved into
stone.
And when we came up with aprinting press, how can we mass
produce these stones that led usto the encyclopedia salesperson,
(21:52):
which led us to, you know,everybody in their son, sending
you an email in, in saying, Hey,in these challenging times, and,
um, this new normal to, Hey, Igot to try and get a message.
That means everything that I sayacross in a tweet.
And if you think about peoplethat grew up on encyclopedias
(22:14):
and vast amount of informationin the library, trying to get
them to communicate andunderstand what somebody is
saying in a tweet and how thatthose lineup causes all kinds of
challenges.
The challenges really have to dowith field offense, age group,
and knowing your audiencebecause communication is really
more complicated and yet verypersonal than ever your
(22:39):
customers, your audience, youremployees, they expect you to
understand where they are, whatthey're doing, what's going on
with them and talk to them assuch.
So communication across the jobsite.
Am I, am I, am I pushing outmarketing messages?
Maybe I had three tons of thisparticular material and we're in
(23:02):
Denver.
How do I get communicated out tothe job site that your job's
stalled?
And we've got to be able to helpsales quickly fill or move this
order.
Otherwise it sits there andwe've got, we've got some costs
as it relates to the, to thetrucker and these different
things.
The communication intransformation that's happening
(23:23):
for marketers is you are goingto be pulled into talking to
your customers in ways thatyou've not necessarily had to do
before, because it's been partof sales has been part of
customer.
Service has been part of, um,all of these other channels that
now we're starting to get pulledin together and together and
together inside of this spacecalled digital marketing, why
(23:43):
the tech companies are doing it.
The, um, you look at the, theelections, this, this particular
politics is doing it, right.
I get a message via SMS from agroup, vote.
This, I get a person calling onmy phone.
I got a person sending me anemail.
I get Facebook ads.
It, the interruption in the,the, the disruption of where I'm
(24:05):
at or the things I'm thinkingabout it doesn't stop.
Now.
That doesn't mean that you haveto aspire to be those things,
but you need to be cognizant foryour business about how your
buyers are being influenced inother industries because you're
not alone.
And that really ultimately leadsus to this, this technology
revolution, where we are today.
(24:26):
And what is happening toconstruction is your about to
actually see a giant leap intechnology, how things are done,
they're delivered where thefront end of three D printing.
And this is going to create someincredible opportunity, not only
for the businesses to adapt andsucceed, but also gonna create,
(24:46):
um, opportunity fororganizations to do things that
they've never done before.
And to get caught up.
If you look at the, uh, the jobstarts and the production, as it
relates to construction, even intheir marketing, in their sales
efforts, a lot of the samethings we're doing today to move
our products is the same stuffthat was being done in the
(25:07):
1960s.
There's not been a ton ofevolution or revolution in how
we communicate, where wecommunicate, how we market and
how we sell, but it's happeningeverywhere else.
Right?
If you look at the, themechanized changes of at first,
it was like, Hey, we're going tofigure out how to make a steam
(25:27):
pump.
And then we figured out how tomass produce cars and
electricity in the eighties,we've got to introduce to
automotive manufacturing withautomation.
And now, instead of havinghumans push these giant
keyboards, it's being broughttogether through the internet,
through AI.
Well, what does that mean?
That means that we're looking asmarketers and salespeople as
(25:48):
there's an evolution happeningright.
In what we're using.
You might as a, as a marketer inyour career, depending on where
you're at, as communicator inyour career, you might actually
be thinking about writingmessages or creating messages on
a robot.
That's putting up steel for ahigh rise, because it's safer
(26:09):
than doing a toolbox talks foryour, um, for your teams today.
Now that may be, we superfuturistic in the way you're
thinking, but the point here isisn't Oh, you can't, you know,
this isn't gonna happen, orthat's too crazy to think.
The point is, is that theopportunity here to innovate and
to bypass triple bypass, to owna market for the first time in a
(26:34):
long time, you're no longergoing to be regionally bound or
location bound, or, uh, onlyrelated to the market share you
have, you have the ability toland and expand and move into
other markets because you cancustomize your, um, your
messages to your, to youraudience.
You can be more precise anddirect using things like AI.
(26:57):
It's not all the way there yet,but it will influence what you
say, where you say and how yousay it now.
Okay, great.
These are great.
Big ideas.
Kyle digital marketing is justgetting bigger and bigger.
Bigger.
Of course, you're going to saythat you're a technical guy.
Let's get practical.
Okay.
The blocking and tackling ofmarketing is still really these
(27:20):
four base principles.
If you're going to be good atmarketing, if you're going to be
good at sales, you have to havesomething good to say.
So you've got to have a productthat's worth a crap.
You've got to say it well.
So your messaging has to be onpoint.
You got to know what yourcustomer's pains are and how
they're doing things.
You got to say it often.
So I gotta be seeing more thanone time.
I can't just show up and throwup and expect a one call close
(27:42):
now.
And now more than ever, I got tosay it in the right channel.
Those channels have historicallybeen newspaper, print magazines,
um, sponsorships, um, bidboards, you name it.
Those channels are moving toother areas where your customers
or your prospective customerscan start consuming your, your
(28:04):
information, consuming yourmarketing, educating themselves
about what you have to offerpassively not, Hey, I want to
talk to somebody, but Oh, thisis interesting.
Let me consume it.
Oh, this is interesting.
Let me consume it.
Oh, this is interesting.
Let me educate myself.
And they want to educatethemselves that way so that when
they get to a conversation withyour sales team, you're on
(28:26):
equitable footing.
So now more than ever these coreprinciples of having something
good to say, sing it well,sending it often and saying it
to the right channel areincredibly important to your
sales process.
Because if you're not saying theright thing, it's going to lead
to a miscommunication and amisalignment.
Marketers are also well you're,you're being forced to, to
(28:50):
transform, but thattransformation is less about
market development.
One to many, as it is aligningto the new business objectives
are your business objectives oncustomer retention, because that
requires a differentcommunication strategy and a
plan and how you market tightlydifferent digital execution.
(29:11):
Then if I'm going out and I'mtrying to build new market, I'm
trying to gain new market share.
If I'm trying to sell a newproduct, you've also got to
transform by cozying up tosales.
For many, many, many years,sales was versus marketing and
their heads were budding, butthat's, that's, that's moving
away rapidly.
It's moving away rapidly becauseyou need each other sales
enablement is a thing where Hey,marketing has given me exactly
(29:33):
what to say.
Pre-packaged so that I cancontinue.
The next conversation in mysales process.
Technology is here.
It's coming.
You need to embrace it.
That doesn't mean that you needto be sending out 10,000 emails
to everybody on your list everyday.
But what it does need to, whatit does mean is that you've got
to look at your data.
You've got to look at yourinformation.
You've got to look at yoursystems.
(29:54):
You've got to look at how you'releveraging these things
together.
So it's coordinated.
Nothing is more uncomfortablefor a customer or a prospect to
come through and have their,their, uh, their experience be
completely disjointed.
If you're not thinking aboutyour customer here in step four,
if you're not thinking about howyou delight your customer and or
(30:15):
your prospect, you've losteverything you've done up to
this point.
All the digital marketingdoesn't matter what
transformation you're on.
If you're not worried about thelighting them and making their
lives easier, even in yourcommunication, how am I
delivering it?
What am I delivering it?
What am I delivering it with?
You're going to lose.
Customers are more and moreselfish, self centered, because
(30:37):
they can be because we canaccommodate them.
And construction might haveplaces where there's a lot of
friction.
If you think about your entireengagement with your customer,
whether it's your RFP or RFQ,your, your procurement process,
there's all kinds of frictionwhere customers might go, that's
enough.
I'm gonna go find somebody elsethat's easier to do business
(30:58):
with.
And ultimately that boils downto your, you know, the stuff
that you're your customer reallyis the boss, right?
Yes.
You've got a, you've got a, um,a board or wall street, or you
have different people thatyou've got to answer to, but you
can't answer those people.
If you haven't focused on yourcustomer too many times,
(31:21):
communicators and marketers,think about what am I telling
upstream?
What am I telling the CEO?
What am I telling the VP ofsales?
What am I telling the board orwall street are all my quarterly
earnings or my reports versushow am I actually communicating
to my customer?
And when you're turning, you'retalking upstream to your, to
your, your board and yourbosses, your back is turned to
(31:42):
your customer and they're thepeople with the money.
So just remember at the end ofthe day, customer is the boss.
My final thought is, is rememberthat when you're doing digital
marketing and when you'retalking about customers, there's
no magic bullet.
This is one of my favoritegraphics, because so often times
(32:02):
owners and leaders will say,well, you have to, you have to
just, you know, everybody shouldjust quit doing marketing that
you're doing today and godirectly to e-commerce.
Well, when you look at thisright there's billboards,
there's trade shows, there'sradio ads, there's TV, where
the, where the transaction wasactually made for this
particular person was online.
And so some leaders saying,well, obviously you should only
(32:25):
be online.
The reality is, is that anintegrated marketing plan,
integrated communications planfocused on your customer.
Isn't going to be only bedigital.
Isn't only going to be totallyaligned with sales.
Isn't only going to be, youknow, and, um, trade shows.
All of those things areevolving, but it's always going
to take a little bit ofeverything in order to pull off
(32:47):
success.
That's the, that's all I got.
I mean, I could get into lots oftips and techniques and lots of
other things, but at this point,it's your time.
So what kind of questions do youhave?
And, and, um, what an additionalinsight kind of provide.
All right, this is Larry back onthe line here.
Thank you very much, Kyle.
(33:07):
It was very interesting.
I think that there's a lot ofthings that you were talking
about that I could actually lookand say, okay, well, this is
something that we've experiencedin the last four or five months,
or in talking with some of ourmember companies understand that
they're they're dealing with.
So this is all very helpful.
I have a couple of questionsalready that came in on the
(33:28):
question panel, um, on yourcontrol panel.
So if you do have anotherquestion, you can enter that
there and we'll take that.
Let's take the two that we haveso far.
The first one is, um, are you,are you seeing a lot more
dependent or advanced researchon a product before a prospect
(33:52):
will take a sales call or make asales decision?
Who can, so you said independentor advanced research before
they'll take a sales call.
And the answer to that is yes.
Um, it's, it's been happeningvery heavily in tech.
A lot of people are pushing outcontent and what's happening is,
is, uh, specifically inindustrial type organizations.
(34:15):
We see this in oil and gas.
We see this manufacturers thatwe work with here locally is
that customers have been trainedthat, Hey, if I want to go buy,
um, if I want to go buy aspecific tool, I can go do
research and learn about it formyself.
I can be almost educated enoughto be at a yes, no crossroads to
(34:36):
make a decision now, understandthat there are technologies and
things that are a lot morecomplicated than that.
But what the, what the, what thechallenge now is, is for
marketers, instead of thinkingabout, well, how do I just
create a slick and a couple ofthe high bullets?
It's how do I educate thisperson as if they were in person
at a trade show, talking aboutthe things that really matters
(34:56):
to them, right?
If, if you had somebody walk upto this product at a trade show,
and you're like, Hey, I want toshow you X, Y, Z, is it solves?
This, this, this, and this, theperson that's coming and looking
for this, this, this, and this,they're not looking for your
product.
They're not looking for a slick.
They're looking for solve thispain for me, solve this pain for
me solve this issue for me.
And they like, Oh, you havethese three issues.
(35:18):
Great.
Do you need this product?
People are trying to self servethemselves more with sales
education.
Not because sales guys aregreasy or uncomfortable, but
it's just like, it's moreconvenient.
I don't have to interrupt my dayor schedule certain things.
I can, I can educate myself.
And then when I'm ready to makea decision, I'm making it with
confidence.
And I don't ever feel likesomebody convinced me to, you
(35:38):
did convince them, but theynever had to talk to somebody
who I should pull them acrossthe line.
Larry Williams (35:44):
Very good.
I apologize for the backgroundnoise, a, you know, one of the
side effects of having a homeoffice is that sometimes you get
your, the, the neighbor'slawnmower, hopefully it's not
too bad.
Uh, the second question is, arethere things, other
manufacturers and suppliersdoing in digital marketing to
drive to me?
Kyle Hamer (36:06):
So I think this is, this is really, really, uh,
interesting and what I say, butI think this is interesting.
I have a specific, specificexample that I've seen going on
in the, um, medical supplies,manufacturing space, the, the
changes in office regulations,the changes in how doctors let
(36:26):
people in how they're makingdecisions.
It used to be that the doctorswould make the decisions because
they have the technicalaptitude.
And now the decisions are beingmade and moved to, you know,
folks that are more inaccounting or finance versus
somebody that really understandslike, and by the way, the
parallels here are, Hey, I wasselling this particular product,
or I needed to distribute thisparticular product that I'm used
to dealing with.
(36:48):
Um, without, because Al's theguy in the field, he's the
foreman or the soup.
He understands what's going onin this particular job site and
why this particular productfunctions there, but it's not
specked out in the, in the, inthe planes.
And so Sally comes over andshe's the CFO.
And she's like, Oh, why are youdoing that?
We can actually make a bit moreprofit if we choose product B,
(37:09):
we're going with product B.
And so what, uh, what we'reseeing in the medical devices,
manufacturing space is they'retaking the, remember.
I just told you a second agoabout, um, you know, pain, one,
two, three, four, they're takingvideos just short, two, three
minute videos and talking aboutpain one or pain two.
(37:30):
And they're saying, Hey, if youhave this pain, maybe you need
this particular product.
Hey, if this job sitesfunctioning like this, maybe on
your next job site, you ought toconsider this or this.
And when you think about that inthe application for
construction, as it relates toarchitects, as it relates to
superintendents or procurementdepartments, they have these
(37:51):
complex things that are alwayscoming at them during the day,
the best time to talk tosomebody isn't actually, while
they're in the middle of the, ofthe, of the pain, it's the time
to educate them is when they'veslowed down.
And so there's a, there are acouple of, of partners that
we've done work with, who theywill go out.
They will build these campaignsand they'll run social media
posts on Facebook only afterhours.
(38:14):
So after five o'clock andthey're targeting the office
assistant, they're targetingwhat you consider lower level
folks, they're targeting thoselower level folks because they
become an internal champion tothe organization in over about a
90 day, 120 day period on theircampaigns.
They're seeing revenues shiftdramatically seeing orders shift
(38:39):
dramatically because now they'redriving inbound with intent.
They're not just filling out aform and call and saying, Hey,
tell me about product.
You're looking for.
People are calling in andsaying, Hey, I've got this pain
and I know you have thisproduct.
Can I schedule more time tounderstand it?
I want to buy this and marketingin these particular situations
for these suppliers is drivingpeople that are purchasing
(39:02):
right.
They're driving POS not justleads that sales has to close.
Larry Williams (39:08):
Very interesting.
Very interesting.
Well, thanks.
Um, don't have any morequestions at the moment from the
, uh, the audience, but if youdo have any additional
questions, please feel free toenter them in the question pane.
Uh, also Kyle just had up his,um,
Hey, thanks for having me Larry and welcome to
everybody today.
You know, I, I think I might'vemissed the memo about this being
about communications.
Apparently this is some part of,uh, sales marketing, and kind of
the future of what's going on.
So a little bit about me.
Uh, I, I appreciate the intro,but, uh, I would be remiss not
to share some of the things I'mreally passionate about.
(00:22):
Um, Hey, marketing group wasfounded after my time at
on-center constructing, thatcame to an end.
Uh, I've spent about five yearsin the construction industry.
And when I look back across my,my career, what I've found is
it's really simple to, to definewho I am.
I'm a sales guy, turnedmarketer, cause I was
passionately curious abouttechnology and making life
easier.
(00:43):
People are like, what does thatmean?
Well, that means in today's dayand age, I'm figuring out how we
, um, we solve some of thechallenges that companies like
yours are going through rightnow.
Now I would be remissed and Italk about some of the fun
things that I've been doing.
As you can see over here, thisis my family pre COVID and
you're right, Larry.
I didn't get a chance to get onmy bike much while we've been,
(01:04):
uh, we've been locked down.
And I think somebody I talked tothe other day said it best you
can lock us down, but you can'tlock us up.
And, um, you know, we've kind ofgot that, that fun adventurous
spirit as a family.
And we're looking forward togetting back out, being active.
So if I'm not doing those thingsoutdoors, I'm recording a
podcast or I'm helpingorganizations as a fractional
(01:24):
CMO, but that leads us to someof the things that I'm seeing on
a regular basis.
What I'm seeing on a regularbasis here is that there's
these, these monumentalchallenges that organizations
are facing as it relates to theday to day business and
construction has historicallybeen a laggard.
I mean like it's, it's, there'sno secret to that.
(01:47):
Construction is not an earlyadopter of many things, right?
It's like, Hey we're and we'lltalk about it here in a minute.
But when it comes to things thatare relevant to this committee,
as I thought about it, um, tome, I think there are really
four main things that are goingto be happening in the coming
months and years that are goingto force marketers and
communicators.
(02:07):
And in construction industryleaders to behave differently.
There were no we're no strangersto change in market dynamics,
right?
It wasn't that long ago that wejust pulled out of the great
recession.
We've seen some of the biggestyears in growth, but those,
those years of growth have beena bit stymied by being able to
find and retain talent.
(02:28):
Another key issue is as well.
How do I communicate acrossmultiple channels, age groups,
job sites, what do I do there?
And then ultimately, how do weembrace this technology
revolution?
I've got an organization thatbelieves this very firmly cogs
was probably said it best.
And I think I go back to thechildhood side of me where it
(02:48):
says, if it ain't broke, don'tfix it.
Cause that's my dad.
My dad was a contractor and itwas, he was a contractor and
he's the type of guy he's like,look, don't tell me 35 new
innovative ways to solve aproblem pile.
Just do it the way that I toldyou to do it.
The challenge with that is, Hey,if we only did that, we'd still
(03:09):
be riding a horse and buggy tojob sites.
So thinking differently and inembracing change is really,
really important.
You're like, okay, I've heard athousand people talk about this
or that.
I get it.
But really digitaltransformation is incredibly
important for organizations.
Why is it important?
(03:31):
Because what happened in thingsthat you've done in the past?
It's not really new techniquesand new things you're coming up
with.
It's a change in where you'rehaving conversations and where
you're doing things, notnecessarily how, but I think
that's really one of the thingsthat that organizations
oftentimes struggle with is theythink, well, I, for me to
(03:51):
embrace digital or for me tothink about the future, I've got
to go through this hugetransformation.
Sometimes it's really not atransformation.
It's just a change in channel.
And so for setting to make surethat the field is completely
level here, digital marketingcan be mean a lot of things to a
lot of different people.
And fundamentally, I thought,well, you know, let's go ask mr.
(04:13):
Google what he says so thatwe're all on the same page.
And digital marketing is reallyutilizing the internet and your
different elements that connectto the internet, to market, to
advertise, to drive revenue andsales.
Now, gosh, that seems prettyobvious.
But if you think about where itstarted, we started with just
(04:35):
website, right?
Digital marketing was you got tohave a website it's important to
have a website.
And then there are somecontractors.
There are some, there are somesuppliers, there are some
manufacturers you go visit theirwebsite and you're like, well,
you haven't updated it since1986.
Um, that's okay.
But as, as you're going throughthis transformation, as we're
starting to think about thefuture, the reality is is that
(04:57):
your buyer and the people aroundyou are changing.
There's more ways to becommunicated and to educate
yourself than ever before.
And so if we continue looking atthings that we've always done
historically, with the samelevel of thinking, we're kind of
expecting this.
You can't expect differentresults.
The thought process of what gotme here will not get you.
(05:19):
There is 100% where we sit todayin the construction industry, as
it relates to sales, marketing,and communication.
Now, what this does is thiscreates a ripe environment for
innovation.
And I have a, I have a shortlittle video that I was going to
share, but the audio is notworking.
I'm going to, I'm just going toshow you what you could see here
(05:39):
is this is a, is the insight ofa marketing organization, as it
starts innovating, try thinkingabout how do I launch a website?
How do I brainstorm thesethings?
And if we just watch, you cansee that it's very, very, very
clear what the, what the thoughtprocess is for most
organizations.
(06:00):
Let's give it just a minutehere.
Boom, Facebook, right?
Oh, that's, that's super easy.
Oh wait.
No, no.
We can make it better.
How many times you've been in aninnovation meeting or a
communications meeting where itstarts and it ends with some,
some level of social media.
(06:20):
It ends up being something wewant to go viral as something
that we want to have happen in away where innovation is really
stifled, because we're onlythinking about executing what
other people are doing.
So what I want to talk to youabout is, okay, we've got an
opportunity to innovate insideof how we communicate, how we
sell, how we market.
What does it mean for each ofthese particular challenges?
(06:43):
When we look at the change inmarket dynamics, nothing has
forced our hand to look atdifferently than our best friend
coronavirus, right?
People are now at home, they'reworking remotely.
They're having a hard timegetting back into society or,
or, or having the same level ofnetworking.
That impact has actually notonly affected marketing teams,
(07:06):
but your sales team.
And so one of the areas that'sright for innovation is it
relates to, uh, as it relates toconstruction, as it relates to
the way you do business is thisthought of, Oh my goodness,
aligning sales and marketing andbringing those teams together
jointly, right?
(07:27):
It's no longer, Oh, my salesguys go out and have dinner and
they're there in the field.
They meet somebody at a tradeshow and we're able to go sell
and move more product.
Or, Hey, we took somebody to goout and go do golf while there's
been more golf played in thelast six months than there has
probably been in the last sixyears.
The reality is that the changein market dynamic has, has
(07:48):
shifted how your buyers and howyour salespeople can engage.
Where's the information that Iwant.
Where's the information that Ineeded.
How do I get it?
And so the way you bring thoseteams together, and the reason
why I think this is really thefuture of sales, is it marketing
is oftentimes only seen asadvertising.
Hey, what's that message.
What's that cool trade show it'sseen as the arts and crafts in
(08:10):
sales is seen as the, therelationship and the, um, the
good old boy network, the folksthat bring them across the
finish line and, and payeverybody's bills.
And while some of that is stillvery, very true.
We're moving into an age basedon the demographic of, of folks
coming in from a talentstandpoint, the accessibility of
information to where marketingis now sharing more and more of
(08:33):
the responsibility of helpingsales deliver revenue.
The future of sales andmarketing is really these, this
idea of a team driving revenue.
So you've got to start ingetting your, your marketing
objectives and your salesobjectives, your sales photos,
getting those aligned so thatthey're pulling on the boat and
(08:54):
moving the same way.
One of the reasons that this is,this is an area that's right for
innovation is because fieldsales, which has historically
been doing, um, w which is theway most construction or
manufacturing companies havemoved their products by doing it
face to face on the road,traveling, you know, limited
(09:15):
time for training, they're justworking off a product slip.
It's almost 100%, um,education-based or, um,
relationship-based excuse me,they're being forced to do
things and develop skills theynever had to do before.
What was the last time yourfield sales rep did a cold call
was the last time he did ahundred.
When was the last time that yourmarketing team had to drive
(09:37):
inbound leads of people for yoursales team to call that are
interested in your product?
Think that I think, well, gosh,that's not a, that's not
something that our business canembrace.
That's, uh, that's, uh, adifferent business to business
model.
That's never work inconstruction.
Well, the reality is is thatwhen your reps can't get on the
road, they're not making sales.
(09:57):
And even if they are makingsales, you're being impacted by
things like job delays starts,starts, are down.
They're continuing to getpushed.
We don't know what that means.
That interrupts the supplychain.
That supply chain is interruptedacross the, across the entire
gamut we're impacted.
But if marketing andcommunications is out there
(10:17):
doing their job, they're thereworking on the early mini
commitments.
That sales is just like, Oh,Hey, I'm interested in getting
people's nodding their head.
Yes, you'll find there are newopportunities.
And there are people that arelooking for the goods services
and things that you have today.
Changing your field sales to aninside sales is a huge
(10:43):
undertaking because it's takingthat mentality of what got me
here is not going to get methere.
And now you've got to integrateit with marketing, because I'm
thinking about what are myscripts saying?
What are my emails saying, whatare my, what does, what does my
website say?
Where's my, where's my marketingcollateral.
When was the last time weupdated that, that product
catalog or that guide, and wemay have those things, but is it
(11:06):
something that can be digestedin an email or is it something
where I get an email and you'relike, yeah, on page 342, a third
of the way down, you're lookingfor product number Oh eight one
nine eight three dash sevenseven six two.
And you'll find the technicalspecs when sales moves from the
field to inside.
(11:28):
A lot of the work that marketinghas to do is shortcutting those
conversations, things likecatalogs, things like, um, huge
price lists and product listsneed to be pre digested for your
customers and for your salesteam to ensure that they're
getting to the informationthat's important to them
quickly.
Now I have an example and I wasgonna, I was gonna use, um, our
(11:51):
great manufacturing rep from the1990s to showcase how you can
really bungle this.
But the reality is, is the movieblack sheep, Oh, I'm sorry, not
black sheep, Tommy boy, themovie, Tommy boy does a great
job of helping show you bothwhat works and doesn't work when
it comes to sales and marketingbeing aligned.
(12:14):
And this right here is a greatvisual of what happens when
sales and marketing is notaligned.
Sales is trying to figure outwhat to say, and they're setting
things on fire, and they've gotall this energy, but it's
misplaced and marketing's overthere going, Ooh, you probably
should do that.
That's not what we want to do.
Communications across thoseteams are really, really
(12:35):
important.
And the proof is in the pudding,you can do Google search after
Google search, after Googlesearch.
But when you look at aligningyour sales and your marketing
team and going to market as arevenue team, leveraging digital
technology, leveraging digitalmedia and marketing strategies,
the growth can be exponential.
(12:56):
And it doesn't matter what yourindustry is in this particular,
this particular report, a 208%jump in leads.
Now imagine right now that youhave 10 people calling in a
month interested in product X orproduct Y and you have 208%.
Now you have 30 people.
Well, my sales rep doesn't haveto, you go out and I have
already doubled demand is what Idid before.
(13:18):
So my expenses, those are lowerand my conversations are higher.
It may not lead to revenue rightaway.
But what it does show is thatwhen you have your sales and
your marketing teams align thatyou're going to see higher win
rates and higher customerretention, customer attention to
stuff that you guys have beengood at the building brand
loyalty, keeping that longterm,making sure that people are 100%
(13:39):
after writing, inspecting yourproduct really does boil down to
making sure these teams, right.
That leads us to our nextchallenge, right?
So, Hey, we've got these newinnovative things.
I got to align the sales in thismarketing team.
What, what am I going to do?
How am I going to find thesepeople?
Cause the talent I have today,isn't the, they're not the
(13:59):
people that, that are maybenecessarily going to be able to
do that.
Where am I going to find thistalent?
Well now more than evermarketing community or not
marketing communications,company communications, finding
and retaining talent, even in amarket where there's a higher
unemployment than, than we'veseen in years.
They're still understanding whoI'm working for.
We don't want the Mo the economyto pop back in the next two
(14:22):
years.
And you hired a bunch of peoplethat, that leave because they
didn't, they didn't fall in lovewith your company or your
organization.
And so leveraging digitalmarketing, leveraging digital
media to go find and supportyour employees, support your
company.
It's communications externallyis very valuable in retaining
and attracting young talent.
(14:43):
You can see here on this, thisparticular infographic put
together by, Oh, I can'tremember the name of the
company.
Uh, credibly.
I believe that even thougheverybody's talking about
LinkedIn is the place to go inthe construction industry.
We know darn good.
And well then unless they're anoffice employee, it's highly
unlikely that they're there onLinkedIn and there's there, but
(15:05):
they are on social media.
They are paying attention to thecompanies that are out there
working.
And so it's really importantthat you think about in, in
build your external facingcommunication folks to drive
again, inbound people,interesting to interested in
working for you.
Some successful examples, SimcoeSimcoe on their LinkedIn page
(15:26):
has an employee of the monththat they highlight this
particular employee of the monthwas this month.
You can see that there'sengagement.
There's 17 people in twocomments.
So what does this do?
This builds, this buildscredibility.
That when I go and I look at theSimcoe as a company, I can see,
Oh, wow, there's this, isn'tjust an old white guys, um,
(15:49):
industry.
I can see that there's somebodythat's young, they're in a
professional, a professionalplace, and they're commenting.
They're being supportive.
This is great.
If I'm a young professional,this makes Simcoe very
attractive to me, but it's notjust about young professionals.
I think sometimes marketingcompanies and folks can get
really stuck in thinking, well,it's only about, you know,
trying to get professionaltalent in here.
(16:10):
But the reality is is that thatacross organizations, you still
need people in the field.
You still need people on thefloor.
You need people who are buyinginto that family culture.
That's a part of your business.
And one of the companies that Ithink does a tremendous job, uh,
in, in how they, they, theybuild that family community
across the locations is Bakertriangle Baker.
(16:32):
If you have a five year workanniversary, a 10 year work
anniversary, a 30 year workanniversary, they are posting
that to social media.
And the thing I'd like to, I'dlike to just point out a little
bit here.
This is, if you look at thisparticular image, this is taken
during coronavirus.
So they, they made a point tocontinue supporting the CDC
(16:53):
guidelines, doing the, thesocial distancing, but it was
important enough that theydidn't delay that, getting that
recognition.
So Jose here, didn't miss out onhis 10 year anniversary and the
accolade and being called outfor it.
As a matter of fact, theyshowcased how important he was
by making a point to make thishappen.
If you look at the engagementhere, this is the part where I
(17:15):
think he gets, he gets fun.
Bigger triangle may not have thesame number of followers or the
same number of folks that's thatthat Cinco does inside of their,
their LinkedIn profile.
But because Baker's using theFacebook channel on Facebook
now, the employees and thefriends of the employees and
their spouses can share thatinformation out and it
(17:38):
propagates creating thiscommunity awareness.
So part of what you've got tothink about is what's going on
from my channel and what, whatam I saying in this channel as
it relates to, um, notnecessarily a, just a newsfeed,
I don't need post article afterarticle, after article, after
article, what is this particularchannel saying about my business
(18:00):
and how am I providing value?
Not just newsfeeds, like a newsarticle after news article, but
how am I providing value or, orentertaining people in these, in
these areas.
And when I say entertaining, Ithink this is really, really
important because when you thinkabout Wendy's you think about
Walmart, you think about Apple,you see these giant
corporations, but the peoplethat are falling in love with
(18:22):
these brands, the people thatare working for these brands,
they're not working for 80, ahundred thousand dollars a year.
Oftentimes they're working forminimum wage.
They're doing jobs that a lot ofother people wouldn't do.
So if I'm doing a job that a lotof the people wouldn't do, what
are some of the things that Ican potentially do to fall in
love with a brand?
Well, if I had to choose basedon my personality, if I had to
(18:43):
choose what company I wanted towork for, do I want to work for
McDonald's or do I want to workfor Wendy's Wendy's uses their
Twitter account to troll, besnarky, be clever, and create
this identity of where a Trinityhip, fast food chain.
That's not afraid to communicatein a way that embraces our
(19:04):
employees.
And so you, if you go and youwatch watch, Wendy's not only do
they, you know, did they get alot of traction across social
media on their Twitter, butthey, they get traction from
their employees.
And there's this sense of prideof, Hey, I work for, I worked
for Wendy's now, am I sayingthat people are going to be
holistically staying at Wendy'slongterm?
(19:24):
Because they, you know, becausethey love their Twitter account,
not necessarily, but whatWendy's has done is figured out
how to use Twitter as anattraction model for creating a
communication platform of whatthey want to say, who they want
to be.
And for your organization,you've got to do the same thing.
Now, this brings us tocommunication across, across
(19:47):
multiple generations, multiplejobs.
And I really think that wherewe're at with communication at
this point can be summed up inthis slide.
I don't know if you've seen itor you've heard it or not yet,
but I got called a boomer by mykids.
Hey, I said something to my, my16 year old daughter, 15 year
(20:08):
old daughter, excuse me.
She looked at me and she said,okay, boomer, I didn't deliver
the right message.
It wasn't at the right time.
Obviously I was out of touchwith whatever she was trying to
communicate.
Technically, I'm not a boomer.
So we've got this huge chasm inconversation where both sides
have value that they bring tothe table.
(20:28):
They're not necessarilylistening to each other and, or
they're not necessarilycommunicating in the right path.
So as communicators andmarketers, specifically in a
digital world, we've gotta bereally, really intentional in
finding where, where the rightplaces are to say the right
things, because it's really notabout what we say.
I'm sorry.
It's not only about what we say.
(20:50):
It's also about where you sayit.
So if you start looking at howpeople want to be communicated
to, I mean, it's prettyubiquitous.
Everybody gets email on that.
That's great for them.
But if you're spending themajority of your, your advert or
your marketing budget annuallyon print ads, and you're hoping
that the next round of your, uh,your advertising is going to
(21:10):
drive in a whole new drove ofbuyers.
Well, it doesn't take long tolook to see, Oh, postal, postal,
uh, postal mail here for the 18to 34 group, less than 30%
actually pay attention to it.
And so it's, it's reallyimportant for you to understand
your audience, not only today,but where your audience is going
(21:32):
to be in the coming month.
And when you think about that,right?
It's like, well, we've beencommunicating and marketing for
years.
Like the first written word, the10 commandments carved into
stone.
And when we came up with aprinting press, how can we mass
produce these stones that led usto the encyclopedia salesperson,
(21:52):
which led us to, you know,everybody in their son, sending
you an email in, in saying, Hey,in these challenging times, and,
um, this new normal to, Hey, Igot to try and get a message.
That means everything that I sayacross in a tweet.
And if you think about peoplethat grew up on encyclopedias
(22:14):
and vast amount of informationin the library, trying to get
them to communicate andunderstand what somebody is
saying in a tweet and how thatthose lineup causes all kinds of
challenges.
The challenges really have to dowith field offense, age group,
and knowing your audiencebecause communication is really
more complicated and yet verypersonal than ever your
(22:39):
customers, your audience, youremployees, they expect you to
understand where they are, whatthey're doing, what's going on
with them and talk to them assuch.
So communication across the jobsite.
Am I, am I, am I pushing outmarketing messages?
Maybe I had three tons of thisparticular material and we're in
(23:02):
Denver.
How do I get communicated out tothe job site that your job's
stalled?
And we've got to be able to helpsales quickly fill or move this
order.
Otherwise it sits there andwe've got, we've got some costs
as it relates to the, to thetrucker and these different
things.
The communication intransformation that's happening
(23:23):
for marketers is you are goingto be pulled into talking to
your customers in ways thatyou've not necessarily had to do
before, because it's been partof sales has been part of
customer.
Service has been part of, um,all of these other channels that
now we're starting to get pulledin together and together and
together inside of this spacecalled digital marketing, why
(23:43):
the tech companies are doing it.
The, um, you look at the, theelections, this, this particular
politics is doing it, right.
I get a message via SMS from agroup, vote.
This, I get a person calling onmy phone.
I got a person sending me anemail.
I get Facebook ads.
It, the interruption in the,the, the disruption of where I'm
(24:05):
at or the things I'm thinkingabout it doesn't stop.
Now.
That doesn't mean that you haveto aspire to be those things,
but you need to be cognizant foryour business about how your
buyers are being influenced inother industries because you're
not alone.
And that really ultimately leadsus to this, this technology
revolution, where we are today.
(24:26):
And what is happening toconstruction is your about to
actually see a giant leap intechnology, how things are done,
they're delivered where thefront end of three D printing.
And this is going to create someincredible opportunity, not only
for the businesses to adapt andsucceed, but also gonna create,
(24:46):
um, opportunity fororganizations to do things that
they've never done before.
And to get caught up.
If you look at the, uh, the jobstarts and the production, as it
relates to construction, even intheir marketing, in their sales
efforts, a lot of the samethings we're doing today to move
our products is the same stuffthat was being done in the
(25:07):
1960s.
There's not been a ton ofevolution or revolution in how
we communicate, where wecommunicate, how we market and
how we sell, but it's happeningeverywhere else.
Right?
If you look at the, themechanized changes of at first,
it was like, Hey, we're going tofigure out how to make a steam
(25:27):
pump.
And then we figured out how tomass produce cars and
electricity in the eighties,we've got to introduce to
automotive manufacturing withautomation.
And now, instead of havinghumans push these giant
keyboards, it's being broughttogether through the internet,
through AI.
Well, what does that mean?
That means that we're looking asmarketers and salespeople as
(25:48):
there's an evolution happeningright.
In what we're using.
You might as a, as a marketer inyour career, depending on where
you're at, as communicator inyour career, you might actually
be thinking about writingmessages or creating messages on
a robot.
That's putting up steel for ahigh rise, because it's safer
(26:09):
than doing a toolbox talks foryour, um, for your teams today.
Now that may be, we superfuturistic in the way you're
thinking, but the point here isisn't Oh, you can't, you know,
this isn't gonna happen, orthat's too crazy to think.
The point is, is that theopportunity here to innovate and
to bypass triple bypass, to owna market for the first time in a
(26:34):
long time, you're no longergoing to be regionally bound or
location bound, or, uh, onlyrelated to the market share you
have, you have the ability toland and expand and move into
other markets because you cancustomize your, um, your
messages to your, to youraudience.
You can be more precise anddirect using things like AI.
(26:57):
It's not all the way there yet,but it will influence what you
say, where you say and how yousay it now.
Okay, great.
These are great.
Big ideas.
Kyle digital marketing is justgetting bigger and bigger.
Bigger.
Of course, you're going to saythat you're a technical guy.
Let's get practical.
Okay.
The blocking and tackling ofmarketing is still really these
(27:20):
four base principles.
If you're going to be good atmarketing, if you're going to be
good at sales, you have to havesomething good to say.
So you've got to have a productthat's worth a crap.
You've got to say it well.
So your messaging has to be onpoint.
You got to know what yourcustomer's pains are and how
they're doing things.
You got to say it often.
So I gotta be seeing more thanone time.
I can't just show up and throwup and expect a one call close
(27:42):
now.
And now more than ever, I got tosay it in the right channel.
Those channels have historicallybeen newspaper, print magazines,
um, sponsorships, um, bidboards, you name it.
Those channels are moving toother areas where your customers
or your prospective customerscan start consuming your, your
(28:04):
information, consuming yourmarketing, educating themselves
about what you have to offerpassively not, Hey, I want to
talk to somebody, but Oh, thisis interesting.
Let me consume it.
Oh, this is interesting.
Let me consume it.
Oh, this is interesting.
Let me educate myself.
And they want to educatethemselves that way so that when
they get to a conversation withyour sales team, you're on
(28:26):
equitable footing.
So now more than ever these coreprinciples of having something
good to say, sing it well,sending it often and saying it
to the right channel areincredibly important to your
sales process.
Because if you're not saying theright thing, it's going to lead
to a miscommunication and amisalignment.
Marketers are also well you're,you're being forced to, to
(28:50):
transform, but thattransformation is less about
market development.
One to many, as it is aligningto the new business objectives
are your business objectives oncustomer retention, because that
requires a differentcommunication strategy and a
plan and how you market tightlydifferent digital execution.
(29:11):
Then if I'm going out and I'mtrying to build new market, I'm
trying to gain new market share.
If I'm trying to sell a newproduct, you've also got to
transform by cozying up tosales.
For many, many, many years,sales was versus marketing and
their heads were budding, butthat's, that's, that's moving
away rapidly.
It's moving away rapidly becauseyou need each other sales
enablement is a thing where Hey,marketing has given me exactly
(29:33):
what to say.
Pre-packaged so that I cancontinue.
The next conversation in mysales process.
Technology is here.
It's coming.
You need to embrace it.
That doesn't mean that you needto be sending out 10,000 emails
to everybody on your list everyday.
But what it does need to, whatit does mean is that you've got
to look at your data.
You've got to look at yourinformation.
You've got to look at yoursystems.
(29:54):
You've got to look at how you'releveraging these things
together.
So it's coordinated.
Nothing is more uncomfortablefor a customer or a prospect to
come through and have their,their, uh, their experience be
completely disjointed.
If you're not thinking aboutyour customer here in step four,
if you're not thinking about howyou delight your customer and or
(30:15):
your prospect, you've losteverything you've done up to
this point.
All the digital marketingdoesn't matter what
transformation you're on.
If you're not worried about thelighting them and making their
lives easier, even in yourcommunication, how am I
delivering it?
What am I delivering it?
What am I delivering it with?
You're going to lose.
Customers are more and moreselfish, self centered, because
(30:37):
they can be because we canaccommodate them.
And construction might haveplaces where there's a lot of
friction.
If you think about your entireengagement with your customer,
whether it's your RFP or RFQ,your, your procurement process,
there's all kinds of frictionwhere customers might go, that's
enough.
I'm gonna go find somebody elsethat's easier to do business
(30:58):
with.
And ultimately that boils downto your, you know, the stuff
that you're your customer reallyis the boss, right?
Yes.
You've got a, you've got a, um,a board or wall street, or you
have different people thatyou've got to answer to, but you
can't answer those people.
If you haven't focused on yourcustomer too many times,
(31:21):
communicators and marketers,think about what am I telling
upstream?
What am I telling the CEO?
What am I telling the VP ofsales?
What am I telling the board orwall street are all my quarterly
earnings or my reports versushow am I actually communicating
to my customer?
And when you're turning, you'retalking upstream to your, to
your, your board and yourbosses, your back is turned to
(31:42):
your customer and they're thepeople with the money.
So just remember at the end ofthe day, customer is the boss.
My final thought is, is rememberthat when you're doing digital
marketing and when you'retalking about customers, there's
no magic bullet.
This is one of my favoritegraphics, because so often times
(32:02):
owners and leaders will say,well, you have to, you have to
just, you know, everybody shouldjust quit doing marketing that
you're doing today and godirectly to e-commerce.
Well, when you look at thisright there's billboards,
there's trade shows, there'sradio ads, there's TV, where
the, where the transaction wasactually made for this
particular person was online.
And so some leaders saying,well, obviously you should only
(32:25):
be online.
The reality is, is that anintegrated marketing plan,
integrated communications planfocused on your customer.
Isn't going to be only bedigital.
Isn't only going to be totallyaligned with sales.
Isn't only going to be, youknow, and, um, trade shows.
All of those things areevolving, but it's always going
to take a little bit ofeverything in order to pull off
(32:47):
success.
That's the, that's all I got.
I mean, I could get into lots oftips and techniques and lots of
other things, but at this point,it's your time.
So what kind of questions do youhave?
And, and, um, what an additionalinsight kind of provide.
All right, this is Larry back onthe line here.
Thank you very much, Kyle.
(33:07):
It was very interesting.
I think that there's a lot ofthings that you were talking
about that I could actually lookand say, okay, well, this is
something that we've experiencedin the last four or five months,
or in talking with some of ourmember companies understand that
they're they're dealing with.
So this is all very helpful.
I have a couple of questionsalready that came in on the
(33:28):
question panel, um, on yourcontrol panel.
So if you do have anotherquestion, you can enter that
there and we'll take that.
Let's take the two that we haveso far.
The first one is, um, are you,are you seeing a lot more
dependent or advanced researchon a product before a prospect
(33:52):
will take a sales call or make asales decision?
Who can, so you said independentor advanced research before
they'll take a sales call.
And the answer to that is yes.
Um, it's, it's been happeningvery heavily in tech.
A lot of people are pushing outcontent and what's happening is,
is, uh, specifically inindustrial type organizations.
(34:15):
We see this in oil and gas.
We see this manufacturers thatwe work with here locally is
that customers have been trainedthat, Hey, if I want to go buy,
um, if I want to go buy aspecific tool, I can go do
research and learn about it formyself.
I can be almost educated enoughto be at a yes, no crossroads to
(34:36):
make a decision now, understandthat there are technologies and
things that are a lot morecomplicated than that.
But what the, what the, what thechallenge now is, is for
marketers, instead of thinkingabout, well, how do I just
create a slick and a couple ofthe high bullets?
It's how do I educate thisperson as if they were in person
at a trade show, talking aboutthe things that really matters
(34:56):
to them, right?
If, if you had somebody walk upto this product at a trade show,
and you're like, Hey, I want toshow you X, Y, Z, is it solves?
This, this, this, and this, theperson that's coming and looking
for this, this, this, and this,they're not looking for your
product.
They're not looking for a slick.
They're looking for solve thispain for me, solve this pain for
me solve this issue for me.
And they like, Oh, you havethese three issues.
(35:18):
Great.
Do you need this product?
People are trying to self servethemselves more with sales
education.
Not because sales guys aregreasy or uncomfortable, but
it's just like, it's moreconvenient.
I don't have to interrupt my dayor schedule certain things.
I can, I can educate myself.
And then when I'm ready to makea decision, I'm making it with
confidence.
And I don't ever feel likesomebody convinced me to, you
(35:38):
did convince them, but theynever had to talk to somebody
who I should pull them acrossthe line.
Larry Williams (35:44):
Very good.
I apologize for the backgroundnoise, a, you know, one of the
side effects of having a homeoffice is that sometimes you get
your, the, the neighbor'slawnmower, hopefully it's not
too bad.
Uh, the second question is, arethere things, other
manufacturers and suppliersdoing in digital marketing to
drive to me?
Kyle Hamer (36:06):
So I think this is, this is really, really, uh,
interesting and what I say, butI think this is interesting.
I have a specific, specificexample that I've seen going on
in the, um, medical supplies,manufacturing space, the, the
changes in office regulations,the changes in how doctors let
(36:26):
people in how they're makingdecisions.
It used to be that the doctorswould make the decisions because
they have the technicalaptitude.
And now the decisions are beingmade and moved to, you know,
folks that are more inaccounting or finance versus
somebody that really understandslike, and by the way, the
parallels here are, Hey, I wasselling this particular product,
or I needed to distribute thisparticular product that I'm used
to dealing with.
(36:48):
Um, without, because Al's theguy in the field, he's the
foreman or the soup.
He understands what's going onin this particular job site and
why this particular productfunctions there, but it's not
specked out in the, in the, inthe planes.
And so Sally comes over andshe's the CFO.
And she's like, Oh, why are youdoing that?
We can actually make a bit moreprofit if we choose product B,
(37:09):
we're going with product B.
And so what, uh, what we'reseeing in the medical devices,
manufacturing space is they'retaking the, remember.
I just told you a second agoabout, um, you know, pain, one,
two, three, four, they're takingvideos just short, two, three
minute videos and talking aboutpain one or pain two.
(37:30):
And they're saying, Hey, if youhave this pain, maybe you need
this particular product.
Hey, if this job sitesfunctioning like this, maybe on
your next job site, you ought toconsider this or this.
And when you think about that inthe application for
construction, as it relates toarchitects, as it relates to
superintendents or procurementdepartments, they have these
(37:51):
complex things that are alwayscoming at them during the day,
the best time to talk tosomebody isn't actually, while
they're in the middle of the, ofthe, of the pain, it's the time
to educate them is when they'veslowed down.
And so there's a, there are acouple of, of partners that
we've done work with, who theywill go out.
They will build these campaignsand they'll run social media
posts on Facebook only afterhours.
(38:14):
So after five o'clock andthey're targeting the office
assistant, they're targetingwhat you consider lower level
folks, they're targeting thoselower level folks because they
become an internal champion tothe organization in over about a
90 day, 120 day period on theircampaigns.
They're seeing revenues shiftdramatically seeing orders shift
(38:39):
dramatically because now they'redriving inbound with intent.
They're not just filling out aform and call and saying, Hey,
tell me about product.
You're looking for.
People are calling in andsaying, Hey, I've got this pain
and I know you have thisproduct.
Can I schedule more time tounderstand it?
I want to buy this and marketingin these particular situations
for these suppliers is drivingpeople that are purchasing
(39:02):
right.
They're driving POS not justleads that sales has to close.
Larry Williams (39:08):
Very interesting.
Very interesting.
Well, thanks.
Um, don't have any morequestions at the moment from the
, uh, the audience, but if youdo have any additional
questions, please feel free toenter them in the question pane.
Uh, also Kyle just had up his,um,
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