November 8, 2021 • 33 mins
In episode 104, host Eric Dickmann interviews Lee Wochner. Lee is highly regarded as a strategic leader and facilitator able to help people grow and change. With more than 25 years of organizational consulting both independently and with Counterintuity, Lee has worked with non-profits, government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and small businesses.
Counterintuity is a full-service marketing agency headquartered in Los Angeles. Since 2007, Counterintuity’s propulsive marketing approach has helped catapult hundreds of small businesses and nonprofits throughout California.
Lee holds a BA in Literature and Language from Stockton University and a Masters in professional writing from the University of Southern California, where he taught graduate writing for 10 years.
He is also a frequent guest speaker and is recognized by the State of California as a “California Thinker.”
For more information and access to the resources mentioned in this episode, visit:
https://fiveechelon.com/how-grab-peoples-attention-s7ep4/
A fractional CMO can help build out a comprehensive marketing strategy and execute targeted campaigns designed to increase awareness and generate demand for your business...without the expense of a full-time hire.
The Five Echelon Group - Fractional CMO and strategic marketing advisory services designed for SMBs looking to grow. Learn more at:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Dickmann (00:02):
Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast.
I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.
In this podcast, we haveconversations with marketing
professionals who share thestrategies, tactics, and mindset
you can use to improve theeffectiveness of your marketing
activities and grow yourbusiness.
Hey Lee, welcome to The VirtualCMO podcast.
I'm so glad he could join ustoday.
Lee Wochner (00:24):
Eric, it's great to be here with you.
Thanks for having me.
Eric Dickmann (00:26):
You know, we're recording this in August.
Good grief I can't believe thissummer has gone by so quickly.
But you know, we live in a timewhere there is just so much
going on and we're going to geta chance to talk about really
how you get people's attention.
And I think this is such arelevant topic for anybody who's
in marketing anybody's business,because really we're trying to
(00:48):
get people's attention or tryingto get the right people's
attention, and it's just such arelevant and timely topic.
How did you sort of get startedwith the agency?
Lee Wochner (01:00):
Well, that's an interesting question.
So my background is principallyas a writer.
I have a Master's inProfessional Writing from
University of SouthernCalifornia.
But I was also raised in afamily of entrepreneurs.
And so my father had a business,a couple of businesses.
My grandfather, my brother, mybrother-in-law, et cetera.
(01:20):
And so although I was writingand directing sometimes for
clients, I'm also a stagedirector.
I started to get pulled intodoing some marketing and then my
number one vendor became a closefriend and a trusted ally.
We merged our companies and shehas a background in marketing
and advertising.
So we've been doing thistogether.
(01:41):
We're in our 14th year and she'sterrific, she's really smart,
and every day is a joy.
Eric Dickmann (01:47):
Oh, that's so great.
When you can partner withsomebody and you each bring
something unique to thebusiness.
And I love that you have thatcreative side too.
Do you still write on your own?
Do you write books or plays, oranything like that?
Lee Wochner (02:00):
Well, I'm a playwright and I had a play up.
So I've been getting produced.
My first play produced was whenI was in high school at age 14.
And I had a play produced inJune on Zoom.
It was written for Zoom, it ranon Zoom, and the interesting
thing Eric was I've hadproductions around the country
(02:21):
and other countries before, butI've never had a simultaneous
international production.
And so people tuned in fromacross Europe, the UK, across
the United States, all at thesame time to watch the show.
And it was like, this is kind ofcool because you know in the
theater you have one locationand people have to come to, and
(02:42):
Zoom of course can be all overthe world simultaneously.
And that was a uniqueexperience.
Eric Dickmann (02:47):
I'm curious, how did you get the word out about
such a unique kind ofproduction?
Cause that's not even somethingI would think to look for.
How did you publicize it and getpeople interested?
Lee Wochner (02:57):
Facebook
Eric Dickmann (02:58):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (02:58):
Twitter, certainly my blog, notifying everybody I
knew around the world having thecast and crew do the same thing.
Same as you would market almostanything digitally anymore,
except we didn't do an ad spend.
Eric Dickmann (03:13):
Interesting, You know, I think you talk about a
play or something, I think aboutthe days of the old west, right?
Where you had a saloon and atheater or whatnot, and somebody
was coming to town, and sothey'd slap up a poster on the
wall and you know, people wouldwalk by and say, oh, I've got to
go this Friday because so-and-sois coming to town to sell their
(03:33):
hair tonic or whatever it mightbe, you know?
We've come a long way, know?
From a poster on the wall tohaving to deal with all of these
different channels, to be ableto get the word out.
When you sort of look at whereyou started the business and
where you are today, has itgotten more complex?
Has it gotten easier?
What do you see as the state ofthings today?
Lee Wochner (03:55):
I think the state of things is that you have
enormous opportunity because nowyou can connect with people
around the globe or around thecorner, depending on what your
targeting is, more easily thanever before, right?
My first job at age 14, again, Iworked at a daily newspaper and
I still have a soft spot fordaily newspapers.
(04:16):
But think about how that used towork.
That you would buy a full-pagead for$60,000.
It was irrelevant to most of thepeople reading the newspaper, so
right away there went a wholebunch of your ad spend, right?
And if you're buying classifiedads, which is what really
sustained newspapers fordecades, you had to anticipate
that people were going to sitthere and pick through all the
(04:37):
classified ads to find what wasrelevant to them.
And most of it wasn't relevantto them.
And now we flipped the funneland we go, here's what we're
putting out, here's who it'sright for, and here's how we
identify them, and try to getthem to see those ads where they
are because now all the digitaladvertising is targeted.
And so when you take thatperspective and you apply that
(04:58):
to 2021, I just think it'sbetter.
Obviously it's better.
it's more interesting.
In terms of consumerperspective, I'm not inundated
with the draws that doesn'tapply to me, right?
I don't get a whole bunch ofjunk mail anymore.
I don't get all this otherstuff.
And instead, what I get is I getadvertising that has correctly
identified me as the possibleconsumer.
Eric Dickmann (05:21):
That's interesting too and timely
because certainly Apple has beenin the news quite a bit with
some of their privacy policiesIOS, and you know, Facebook has
been kind of upset about thatbecause of how it changed their
model a little bit.
But that's not really goingaway.
People will continue to figureout ways to find that target
audience.
Have you seen any real impactsof that yet in business and your
(05:43):
client spend?
Lee Wochner (05:46):
Well, the, the landscape is constantly
shifting, right?
And there's a difference betweenorganic and paid.
And so we'll see what happens.
What we don't realize is thatwe're still in the early days of
the internet.
And I'll take you back to when Iwas in high school and I had an
IBM TRS 80 level 2, a Trash 80.
Eric Dickmann (06:06):
A Trash 80, yep.
Lee Wochner (06:07):
first, A first computer.
And here's how you use to loadmemory into it.
If you're going to play a gameor something, it came with a
cassette recorder, you had tobuy it separately, a cassette
player.
And you would load in a tape andyou would type B load for binary
load and then I would go toschool.
And I would come home for lunch,and it would finally stop
(06:29):
loading that cassette, and Iflip it over and type B load for
the other side and then go backto school.
So it would take you know, sixhours to load whatever the heck
it was loading, and then youwould get home and you would
play whatever game.
And then you would lose in 10minutes and then you'd have to
start all over.
And I was on BBS is at the time,but bulletin board services,
(06:51):
nobody remembers that BBS is.
So, meanwhile, Eric here inAugust at 21, you and I are in
this space together, thisvirtual space.
We are at the universe at thesame time and we're convening
over the internet.
Eric Dickmann (07:07):
Yes.
Lee Wochner (07:08):
And because we're wired to adapt, we take it for
granted.
We, don't really have theappreciation for the tools we
have, and what you and I bothknow, certainly, because look
what you're doing here with thispodcast, you and I both know
that the sky's the limit as faras what we can do with these
things.
Eric Dickmann (07:29):
Absolutely.
I mean the amount of change, theamount of opportunity that we
have, especially in marketing isincredible.
You know, you mentioned junkmail, you know things that would
come to your mailbox.
I think we've all seen you knowjust the decrease in spending
over COVID in general.
But it's kinda dried up.
I just don't get the same amountof offers.
(07:49):
You know, credit card offersused to come almost daily.
That kind of stuff has dried upthe real estate ads that used to
come all the time, a lot of thatis dried up.
And because people are realizingthat these digital tools are so
impactful and they can reach theright audience where that, like
you said, spending$60,000 on anewspaper ad to blanket
everybody, including a lot ofpeople that aren't interested in
(08:10):
your message at all.
Lee Wochner (08:12):
Yeah.
And look at how look at howslowly things used to be in the
quote unquote good old days.
So I grew up in a very ruralarea.
I read a lot of comic books, Istill read a lot of comic books.
And the way we comic book fanswould meet each other was a
letters page and the letterspage would print your name and
your address.
And I had some letters printedand when I would see somebody
(08:34):
else where I was, I would writeto them and we would get to
meet, right?
Well, now I have friendsprincipally around, I know
people all around the world, butI have a bunch of friends in the
UK and in Europe because of ourmutual appreciation of what I
think is the world's greatestrock and roll band, that's pear
ooVoo.
And so now we've formed thesereal friendships because we
(08:58):
underst we get it, right?
Eric Dickmann (08:59):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (08:59):
We're able to find each other and connect around
the shared interest.
That applies to marketing, thatapplies to anything you're
trying to do if you're trying toimprove the world.
I have a client, God bless themin New York right now, who
they're rushing a whole bunch ofreliefs to Haiti, right?
So partly how they're able to dothat is because we have the
(09:21):
internet.So you know, theinternet has a lot of potential
for us and we have some problemswe need to address here to
improve life on this planet overthe next 30 years.
And I think we have the tools todo it.
Eric Dickmann (09:34):
We absolutely do.
And you know on this podcast, wetalk a lot about the importance
of identifying your niche, thatgroup of people that you relate
to.
So you've got your comic bookfans, your rock and roll fans,
but as a business too, right,we've got to figure out what is
the right niche for us to goafter.
And I know with your agency withCounterintuity, you specifically
(09:55):
go after nonprofits andgovernmental agencies, if I
understand that correctly.
Explain to me a little bit aboutwhy you focused in on that niche
versus just helping any businessunder the sun.
Lee Wochner (10:08):
So we do have other sorts of businesses in our
client portfolio.
But you are correct.
We principally work withnonprofits and government
agencies.
My partner and I are interestedin the social good, trying to
make a positive impact on theworld around us.
And we bring a lot of expertise.
I mean, throughout the historyof this company and even before
(10:29):
we've both worked in nonprofit,we both headed nonprofits.
I currently sit on three boards.
And so we bring a lot ofexpertise to that.
And then there is a partnershipbetween government agencies and
nonprofits.
I remember many years ago whenthe first George Bush was
president and he talked aboutthe thousand points of light,
(10:50):
what he was really talking aboutwas social organizations and
nonprofits who could work withthe government to make positive
change.
And I think he was right aboutthat.
And so whether it's here in LosAngeles with people we work with
or the many clients we haveacross the country and in New
York who were in nonprofit, webring a lot of expertise, a lot
(11:12):
of insight, and they're tryingto impact positive change and
it's thrilling to work withthem.
So the reason we did that isit's part of our brand
positioning, but also it's wherewe think we bring a lot of
expertise.
Eric Dickmann (11:26):
And what I really love about what you said there
is, you know, when companies aretrying to figure out what their
niche is, they have to look atthemselves and say, what do we
authentically stand for?
What do we believe?
What are our values?
And then don't we want to sortof serve people who share that
common set of values, thatcommon set of interests, that
sounds like exactly what you'vedone in terms of the clients
(11:48):
that you're serving.
Lee Wochner (11:51):
So our core values posted on the walls here at the
office.
I'm here at our office today.
There are four of us and we havestaggered work shifts as
everybody does during COVID,right?
But there are four of us in theoffice today.
When you walk in, you'll see ourcore values, which are,
creative, strategic, driven,precise, heartfelt, and
(12:11):
collaborative
Eric Dickmann (12:12):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (12:12):
And they're also on our website.
And so we are collaborativepeople, we want to work with
other good partners.
And it's interesting to me thatI'm a theater person and not,
let's say a novelist, right?
Novelists work by themselves.
I'm not guy.
Creativity, you should bring toproblem solving and to having
(12:33):
fun, and making thingsinteresting so they stand out.
You obviously want to bestrategic.
You want to be driven towardssuccess and manifesting the
change that you can do.
It has to be precise, meaningyou got it right.
And it has to be heartfelt, ithas to come from a good place.
And those are our core values.
And it's interesting, and you'llrelate to this.
(12:56):
When, we get a lead, whensomeone comes to us, of course
we're doing a mutual assessment.
Eric Dickmann (13:01):
Hmm.
Lee Wochner (13:02):
They're trying to figure out if we're the right
fit for them and we're trying tofigure out if they're the right
fit for us.
Eric Dickmann (13:09):
That's so important, right?
I think a lot of companies,especially younger stage
companies, when they first enterinto the market, you know, any
lead is a good lead, right?
We'll take business wherever wecan get it.
And you can quickly be in aposition where you're doing all
these things, supporting all ofthese customers, that aren't
really a good fit for eitheryour product or service, or the
values of your company.
And unless you sort of start toniche down and say, okay, thanks
(13:32):
for coming to us, but you'reprobably not the right fit for
us.
You could end up going down alot of tangents.
Lee Wochner (13:40):
Right.
And while doing that, yousimultaneously have to be
careful not to be no oriented.
You really want to be open toopportunity.
And the ways that people getstuck is procrastination comes
from not knowing what to do.
That's one way to get stuck.
And then the other thing is toconstantly find yourself running
(14:00):
down rabbit holes that youreally didn't belong in.
So it's good to know who youare, what you do, who you do it
for, and then from there toembrace the opportunity, to open
up optionality, and to inspirecreativity.
And if you can do those things,everything seems possible.
Eric Dickmann (14:18):
Yeah.
And I'm sure if you're workingwith nonprofits and governmental
agencies, there's a lot that youhave to factor in in terms of
the current climate that we'reliving in, right?
There's a lot of politicalupheaval, there's a lot of
social change, environmentalissues that are going on.
And I'm sure many of theseorganizations are very concerned
(14:39):
about how they fit into all ofthat.
Do you find that that's reallyan essential part of how you
develop the marketingstrategies, is authentic to
these various social issues andcauses?
Lee Wochner (14:52):
Well, authenticity is a given.
You have to be authentic.
Anybody who thinks they can hidetheir identity in the internet
age is fooling themselves.
Um, and so while authenticity isa given, we always make sure
that we understand what'sauthentic.
And so we start with a client,we'll challenge all the
(15:14):
assumptions in a reallyfriendly, upbeat way.
But we have a process thatstarts with asking great,
reportorial questions.
who, what, where, how,
Eric Dickmann (15:25):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (15:25):
Who are you?
What do you do?
How do you do it?
When do you do it?
Who do you do it for?
How do you do it?
All of those things.
And interestingly, you know, youget into positioning, right?
Developing a positioningstatement.
Here's who this organization isand here's who it does it for.
And you get to that byimpaneling people and having
this conversation, a freefloating conversation that is
(15:48):
actually grounded a process.Andwhat you find is there was
already a lot of consensus inthe room, but they've never
expressed it.
They hadn't shared theconsensus.
And so our job in a way is tokind of draw out the facts, make
sure that they see theirparticipation in those facts,
put them up on the wall, whetherit's in person or virtual.
(16:10):
And then they go, Yeah.
that is us.
That's how you've captured us.
And so it look, Eric, I meanlooking at you, I can see
elements of your identity,right?
And looking at me, you can seeelements of my identity.
So we're already expressingsomething.
The better you can know, who youare, what you represent, what
you want to do, et cetera, andput it out there, the better
(16:31):
overall, because people cancompete with you, but they can't
be you.
Eric Dickmann (16:36):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (16:36):
Everyone is and every organization is unique.
Getting to that core identity isthe heart of your branding and
your branding is the heart ofyour marketing.
Eric Dickmann (16:48):
Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to
the podcast.
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(17:09):
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Services.
Now back to the podcast.
You know, back in the day, earlyin my career, we used to do
things called JAD sessions,joint application design.
Which was basically a glorifiedwhiteboard session where you'd
sit down and try to get to acommon understanding.
In this case, it was about asoftware process design.
And it reminds me very much ofwhat you were just describing
(17:55):
because oftentimes enter a roomthinking that they're on the
same page, thinking that they'reall sort of marching to the same
drummer, if you will.
But then when you sort of geteverybody's unique flavor or
take on that, you find thatthere are some fairly
significant differences.
Lee Wochner (18:11):
Yeah.
Look, coffee is coffee, and yetStarbucks is incredibly
successful.
Starbucks isn't really about thecoffee, I don't even like their
coffee.
Starbucks is about theexperience.
And they keyed into that bygoing to Italy and seeing what
that experience was like, right?
(18:31):
And so the more that you'rethoughtful about this and take
some time and invest in this, Ithink it's better for you rather
than trying to be things youaren't.
The Hyundai buyer and thePorsche buyer are very different
people, right?
Stop trying to sell a Hyundai toa guy who wants a Porsche and
(18:52):
vice versa.
Eric Dickmann (18:54):
I'm interested.
I know you have for-profitclients as well.
But I think that there are manybusinesses that shy away from
servicing the not-for-profitspace or government entities.
They think, well, these guysdon't have any money.
It's very complicated,procurement is difficult.
But that's not necessarily true,right?
There a lot of within thisspace.
(19:16):
How would you contrast sort ofworking in that space versus
working in the for-profit world?
you just share, what do youthink some of the trade-offs are
and negative?
Lee Wochner (19:27):
Sure.
So the first thing that I thinkabout with nonprofits is there's
incredibly, generally there'sincredibly good intention there.
So I ran the AIDS marathon in2008 in Amsterdam.
I'm not a marathoner by nature,and that was my first and last
(19:51):
one.
But I completed.
And you know, so you get totrain for 10 weeks volunteering.
And what I quickly learned wasevildoers don't sign up to raise
money, to fight AIDS.
So
Eric Dickmann (20:07):
Goodbye.
Lee Wochner (20:08):
you know they're good people, right?
And so when you're nonprofit,you're working with a nonprofit
board, the leadership and theboard, and what you find out is
the board they're allvolunteers.
And the leadership and the staffhave all made a degree of
sacrifice because they believein that mission.
And so you really honor that.
(20:29):
The downside is I don't think aterrific downside, I'd rather
not work with committees.
Eric Dickmann (20:36):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (20:36):
Because its hard to get a decision we
Eric Dickmann (20:39):
Sure
Lee Wochner (20:39):
Always ask for one point of contact from any sort
of client.
But you know, I I'm well awarethat with nonprofits, there's
more of a committee systembecause that's what brought them
together to, to do that sort ofwork to begin with.
And on the for-profit side, um,obviously there's more of a
profit incentive as well, butlook, the for-profit people are
(21:00):
trying to do things too, right?
I mean Tom's shoes, how manyshoes have they distributed
around the world to people whocouldn't afford shoes?
So you know, sure there aretrade offs and government
agencies I mean, you know,people rail against the
government and my response is,do you like your streets being
(21:21):
paved to firefighters?
Do you like the utility bill?
I mean you know, do you like tomeet inspectors?
I mean it's ludicrous to attackthe government just because it's
the government.
When actually you should askyourself, what is it doing well
and what could it do better, andhow can we help it do better
where it could do better?
Eric Dickmann (21:41):
Hmm.
Yeah, you know I've hadexperience working with both
for-profits and not-for-profitsas well, and their unique
challenges with each of them.
But there is something like yousaid to non-profits mission that
you sort of they've laid theircards on the table in a way you
sort of know what they're goingafter.
(22:01):
You know, one of the things thatI find so interesting,
especially in space is there's areal appetite for creativity.
And I find that so manynonprofits there, you know, we
started this podcast talkingabout all the noise that's out
there in the marketplace.
And obviously a lot ofnot-for-profits are searching
for donations.
They're trying raise money, butthere's a lot of competition for
(22:24):
that that's out there, They'retrying to do something for a
cause.
And a lot creativity to standout amongst all this noise.
Is that one of the things thatyou enjoy about working with
these not-for-profits is justthe level of creativity that you
can bring to the table.
Lee Wochner (22:40):
100%.
I'll give you anan example.
We have a client, they startedas a graffiti abatement program
in Los Angeles.
That's how they started.
had a little graffiti abatementprogram years ago.
from that they've grown intothis truly impressive nonprofit
(23:02):
that helps get some people offthe street or out of no
employment or low employment,get them some education, get
them housing, and welcome theminto the marketplace, and help
them lead them onto a path ofsuccess.
It's incredible.
And during COVID they had to askourselves, gee, how is this
working?
Because our training centers,where we train them are now
(23:25):
closed.
And so what they did was theygot them all Chromebooks or some
other access to the internet
Eric Dickmann (23:30):
Oh wow.
Lee Wochner (23:30):
so they could work from wherever work virtually.
And so they were creative intheir problem solving.
And so one of the things we workwith them on, we're redoing
their website right now and wedo their annual reports.
And it may not sound like a lot,but what I know is as someone
who sits on boards myself, whenyou get that annual report, the
(23:51):
likelihood that anybody's goingto read through all of it is
slim.
Right.
So you'd better grab theirattention visually and with the
writing, and then you'd bettermake the key points.
And the key point is that thingthat you donated to us to do, we
did it and here was the impacton people's lives.
And so every year in workingwith this group, I get to talk
(24:14):
to them about what's the realstory of what you did last year,
and then how can we present thatthe best?
And so last year, the conceptthat we came up with was, I play
games and my three kids playgames of course.
My PS4 I think is maybe the bestpiece of technology ever
(24:34):
invented,
Eric Dickmann (24:35):
Oh wow.
Lee Wochner (24:35):
I love PlayStation.
I used on X-Box, now I'm onPlayStation, I love it.
Um, And so what we came up withis, was, wow.
you got funding for this.
And you did that, and you gotfunding for this and you did
this.
And in every one, they achievedsomething.
And I said you know, when youplay a video game, they'll say
(24:56):
achievement unlocked and you geta little trophy.
What if we write and design thisentire thing because you're kind
of youth oriented to show thatachievements were unlocked
throughout the year thanks tothis funding.
And so that wound up being thewhole writing and design aspect
of the annual report and theresults.
(25:17):
So every year we come up with aconcept and the results have
been terrific for them.
And I couldn't be prouder toplay a little role in working
with them.
Eric Dickmann (25:26):
You know, I think one of the dangers of marketing
and this is true in many areasof business, but I've seen it
firsthand in marketing is thatwe can get sort of stuck in a
cycle, right?
There are things that happen atcertain points in the year.
Okay, we've got to produce theannual report at this time.
You know, maybe we have anannual fundraising dinner at
this time, or you know, there'sa trade event that we have to go
(25:49):
to.
And people can get very muchinto kind of this rinse and
repeat cycle where creativityreally isn't there.
They're just doing some versionof what they did last year,
maybe you know, with some minorchange and the fun and the power
of marketing is reallystretching those creative
muscles, right?
And trying to do thingsdifferent to really stand out.
(26:11):
You have to kind of guardagainst that rinse and repeat
mentality.
Lee Wochner (26:14):
Absolutely so.
And the reason for that ofcourse is it's your brain
helping you save time, right?
Your brain writes neuralpathways that are time savers.
The problem with that is thetime-saver for you is deadening
in the marketplace.
Nobody notices it anymore.
So things have to be freshconstantly.
(26:36):
And that's one of the reasonsthat we've always said that our
marketing is made fresh becauseeven if we did it for you last
year, whatever we're doing thisyear is going to be different.
It's gotta be different.
The market place changesconstantly.
I mean, just to give you theobvious point, right?
Right now on my laptop and mylaptop can serve as a phone.
(26:57):
I'll have Facebook meetings withpeople here.
Here's another phone of mine,this is my iPhone.
There's a phone on my desk thatI guess I occasionally use.
I finally talked to my wifeinto, can we cancel the landline
at home?
No one's using it.
We're just getting spam calls.
But I remember I have thatdemographic.
I can remember dial phones andyou can have any sort of phone
(27:20):
as long as it's black and mythree siblings and I pitched in
about my mom, a new phone in theseventies, you could buy a
phone, that felt really strange.
And when it arrived and had acork board and the phone went
inside along with phone booksand it went on the wall and it
looked rectangular over like,what s this?
(27:41):
And so the pace of change hasjust gotten faster and faster,
and you do have to stop and takenote of how things have changed
because otherwise you just slipright into that groove of same
old, same old.
Eric Dickmann (27:55):
Oh, yeah, I see it with companies and marketing
spend, you know maybe they dosome keyword spending.
And you know, it's just a budgetthat happens every month without
really taking the time toanalyze it and see what's
working or you know, they havelanding pages and they never
really looked to see what theconversion rates are.
Because especially the largerthe organization, the more
different tactics that they'rerunning, it can be easy to say,
(28:18):
okay, that was yesterday'sproject, now I got to move on to
today's project, and never sortago back and revisit it.
But there's so much power andunderstanding your data and
figuring out ways that you canenhance and improve, and be
creative with it.
Lee Wochner (28:31):
Well, everyday, you and I are somehow able to pull a
different shirt out of thecloset, right?
we don't know we always put thesame shirt on or the same sort
of shirt.
Eric Dickmann (28:41):
That's right.
Lee Wochner (28:41):
Why don't we invest 5, 10 minutes to see how the
landing page is doing, right?
Wouldn't it be better to take alook at it and go, oh, it was
great last Tuesday, but now it'sdropping off.
I should think about how toimprove this.
Eric Dickmann (28:55):
It's It's amazing how many companies have broken
web pages or contact forms and,you know, they just haven't gone
to check recently and you know,they wonder why they're not
getting a whole lot ofconversions, and it's because
something is broken.
Just little things like that.
But I really love the focus oncreativity, I love sort of what
you're doing in the marketplaceto there.
Do you have any excitingcampaigns that you're working on
(29:17):
right now as we just sort ofwrap up the interview that you
could share with us?
Lee Wochner (29:21):
Well, we did an acquisition a couple of months
ago, so we're pretty excited tohave bought the website
development and applicationdevelopment business of an
agency in New York.
So we picked up 16 new clients,and we're very with them on all
sorts of things.
And so that's driving myexcitement on that level and I'm
(29:44):
going to go back to New York.
I'll be back there in threeweeks for some client meetings.
So we're located in Burbank,California, as I mentioned, and
we saw firsthand the impact ofCOVID on the restaurants.
So the campaign that excites methe most at the time, and as
you'll hear, it's a partnershipbetween a nonprofit, a
government agency, and mycompany, we're doing a
(30:06):
restaurant campaign.
conjunction with the City ofBurbank and the Burbank Chamber
of Commerce to support therestaurants here in Burbank.
So we've done a whole bunch ofsocial, we continued to do
social, we're running contests,we stood up landing pages, we
have partners once a monththere's drawings for like really
cool prizes, like major sportstickets to Staple Center, hotel
(30:30):
stays, all sorts meals, and weknow that it's impactful because
we can see the web traffic andall the stats, and then we're
watching people post on social,all of their interactions at the
local restaurants.
We know the campaign is workingreally well and it makes me feel
like, Oh, good, we did somethingto support the restaurants
(30:51):
because they know they took iton the chin.
Eric Dickmann (30:53):
Oh, that's really exciting.
That sounds like a fun campaignand you know, social media can
be so rewarding when thecampaigns work well and you get
people to repost content or youget some influencers who will
share your content.
It's fun, but it's complicatedtoo.
So that's exciting to hear thatthat's working well.
You know, before we go, I justlove it if you could share with
the folks where they can findout more about you personally,
(31:14):
where they can find out moreabout Counterintuity, if they
want to get in touch and talkwith you.
Lee Wochner (31:19):
So you go to counterintuity.com.
You'll see a whole bunch ofstuff about us, work samples,
case studies.
If you google CounterIntuity orGoogle me, you'll get the
Counterintuitive blog.
We have a white paper on ourwebsite by the way, about how to
get somebody's attention in fourseconds, which is valuable
information for 2021.
(31:39):
And I'm eager to hear from you,find me on LinkedIn, ask me some
questions, tell me what youthink.
We are great partners and we'dlove to meet you.
Eric Dickmann (31:48):
Hey, that's awesome.
I'll make sure that we have allthat linked up in the show notes
so that people can find you.
Love your mission, love yourauthenticity.
It sounds like you're doing somereally exciting things.
Congratulations on theacquisition.
Now, you're truly a, what do youcall bi-coastal?
You're just back and forth allthe time.
Lee Wochner (32:03):
Yep, and it's great.
I grew up in Southern NewJersey, I love New York.
It's thrilling to me to be moreinvested in New York.
Eric Dickmann (32:11):
Well, that's awesome.
Well, congratulations again.
Lee, thank you so much for yourtime today.
I really appreciate you being aguest on the show.
Lee Wochner (32:19):
Eric, it's been a real pleasure.
And hats off to you for all ofyour incredible producing
capability with this.
You've really done a great job.
Eric Dickmann (32:26):
Hey, thanks so much.
I really do appreciate that.
Thanks again.
Lee Wochner (32:30):
Thank you.
Eric Dickmann (32:33):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of
The Virtual CMO podcast.
For more episodes, go tofiveechelon.com/podcast to
subscribe through your podcastplayer of choice.
And if you'd like to developconsistent lead flow and a
highly effective marketingstrategy, visit fiveechelon.com
to learn more about our VirtualCMO consulting services.
Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast.
I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.
In this podcast, we haveconversations with marketing
professionals who share thestrategies, tactics, and mindset
you can use to improve theeffectiveness of your marketing
activities and grow yourbusiness.
Hey Lee, welcome to The VirtualCMO podcast.
I'm so glad he could join ustoday.
Lee Wochner (00:24):
Eric, it's great to be here with you.
Thanks for having me.
Eric Dickmann (00:26):
You know, we're recording this in August.
Good grief I can't believe thissummer has gone by so quickly.
But you know, we live in a timewhere there is just so much
going on and we're going to geta chance to talk about really
how you get people's attention.
And I think this is such arelevant topic for anybody who's
in marketing anybody's business,because really we're trying to
(00:48):
get people's attention or tryingto get the right people's
attention, and it's just such arelevant and timely topic.
How did you sort of get startedwith the agency?
Lee Wochner (01:00):
Well, that's an interesting question.
So my background is principallyas a writer.
I have a Master's inProfessional Writing from
University of SouthernCalifornia.
But I was also raised in afamily of entrepreneurs.
And so my father had a business,a couple of businesses.
My grandfather, my brother, mybrother-in-law, et cetera.
(01:20):
And so although I was writingand directing sometimes for
clients, I'm also a stagedirector.
I started to get pulled intodoing some marketing and then my
number one vendor became a closefriend and a trusted ally.
We merged our companies and shehas a background in marketing
and advertising.
So we've been doing thistogether.
(01:41):
We're in our 14th year and she'sterrific, she's really smart,
and every day is a joy.
Eric Dickmann (01:47):
Oh, that's so great.
When you can partner withsomebody and you each bring
something unique to thebusiness.
And I love that you have thatcreative side too.
Do you still write on your own?
Do you write books or plays, oranything like that?
Lee Wochner (02:00):
Well, I'm a playwright and I had a play up.
So I've been getting produced.
My first play produced was whenI was in high school at age 14.
And I had a play produced inJune on Zoom.
It was written for Zoom, it ranon Zoom, and the interesting
thing Eric was I've hadproductions around the country
(02:21):
and other countries before, butI've never had a simultaneous
international production.
And so people tuned in fromacross Europe, the UK, across
the United States, all at thesame time to watch the show.
And it was like, this is kind ofcool because you know in the
theater you have one locationand people have to come to, and
(02:42):
Zoom of course can be all overthe world simultaneously.
And that was a uniqueexperience.
Eric Dickmann (02:47):
I'm curious, how did you get the word out about
such a unique kind ofproduction?
Cause that's not even somethingI would think to look for.
How did you publicize it and getpeople interested?
Lee Wochner (02:57):
Eric Dickmann (02:58):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (02:58):
Twitter, certainly my blog, notifying everybody I
knew around the world having thecast and crew do the same thing.
Same as you would market almostanything digitally anymore,
except we didn't do an ad spend.
Eric Dickmann (03:13):
Interesting, You know, I think you talk about a
play or something, I think aboutthe days of the old west, right?
Where you had a saloon and atheater or whatnot, and somebody
was coming to town, and sothey'd slap up a poster on the
wall and you know, people wouldwalk by and say, oh, I've got to
go this Friday because so-and-sois coming to town to sell their
(03:33):
hair tonic or whatever it mightbe, you know?
We've come a long way, know?
From a poster on the wall tohaving to deal with all of these
different channels, to be ableto get the word out.
When you sort of look at whereyou started the business and
where you are today, has itgotten more complex?
Has it gotten easier?
What do you see as the state ofthings today?
Lee Wochner (03:55):
I think the state of things is that you have
enormous opportunity because nowyou can connect with people
around the globe or around thecorner, depending on what your
targeting is, more easily thanever before, right?
My first job at age 14, again, Iworked at a daily newspaper and
I still have a soft spot fordaily newspapers.
(04:16):
But think about how that used towork.
That you would buy a full-pagead for$60,000.
It was irrelevant to most of thepeople reading the newspaper, so
right away there went a wholebunch of your ad spend, right?
And if you're buying classifiedads, which is what really
sustained newspapers fordecades, you had to anticipate
that people were going to sitthere and pick through all the
(04:37):
classified ads to find what wasrelevant to them.
And most of it wasn't relevantto them.
And now we flipped the funneland we go, here's what we're
putting out, here's who it'sright for, and here's how we
identify them, and try to getthem to see those ads where they
are because now all the digitaladvertising is targeted.
And so when you take thatperspective and you apply that
(04:58):
to 2021, I just think it'sbetter.
Obviously it's better.
it's more interesting.
In terms of consumerperspective, I'm not inundated
with the draws that doesn'tapply to me, right?
I don't get a whole bunch ofjunk mail anymore.
I don't get all this otherstuff.
And instead, what I get is I getadvertising that has correctly
identified me as the possibleconsumer.
Eric Dickmann (05:21):
That's interesting too and timely
because certainly Apple has beenin the news quite a bit with
some of their privacy policiesIOS, and you know, Facebook has
been kind of upset about thatbecause of how it changed their
model a little bit.
But that's not really goingaway.
People will continue to figureout ways to find that target
audience.
Have you seen any real impactsof that yet in business and your
(05:43):
client spend?
Lee Wochner (05:46):
Well, the, the landscape is constantly
shifting, right?
And there's a difference betweenorganic and paid.
And so we'll see what happens.
What we don't realize is thatwe're still in the early days of
the internet.
And I'll take you back to when Iwas in high school and I had an
IBM TRS 80 level 2, a Trash 80.
Eric Dickmann (06:06):
A Trash 80, yep.
Lee Wochner (06:07):
first, A first computer.
And here's how you use to loadmemory into it.
If you're going to play a gameor something, it came with a
cassette recorder, you had tobuy it separately, a cassette
player.
And you would load in a tape andyou would type B load for binary
load and then I would go toschool.
And I would come home for lunch,and it would finally stop
(06:29):
loading that cassette, and Iflip it over and type B load for
the other side and then go backto school.
So it would take you know, sixhours to load whatever the heck
it was loading, and then youwould get home and you would
play whatever game.
And then you would lose in 10minutes and then you'd have to
start all over.
And I was on BBS is at the time,but bulletin board services,
(06:51):
nobody remembers that BBS is.
So, meanwhile, Eric here inAugust at 21, you and I are in
this space together, thisvirtual space.
We are at the universe at thesame time and we're convening
over the internet.
Eric Dickmann (07:07):
Yes.
Lee Wochner (07:08):
And because we're wired to adapt, we take it for
granted.
We, don't really have theappreciation for the tools we
have, and what you and I bothknow, certainly, because look
what you're doing here with thispodcast, you and I both know
that the sky's the limit as faras what we can do with these
things.
Eric Dickmann (07:29):
Absolutely.
I mean the amount of change, theamount of opportunity that we
have, especially in marketing isincredible.
You know, you mentioned junkmail, you know things that would
come to your mailbox.
I think we've all seen you knowjust the decrease in spending
over COVID in general.
But it's kinda dried up.
I just don't get the same amountof offers.
(07:49):
You know, credit card offersused to come almost daily.
That kind of stuff has dried upthe real estate ads that used to
come all the time, a lot of thatis dried up.
And because people are realizingthat these digital tools are so
impactful and they can reach theright audience where that, like
you said, spending$60,000 on anewspaper ad to blanket
everybody, including a lot ofpeople that aren't interested in
(08:10):
your message at all.
Lee Wochner (08:12):
Yeah.
And look at how look at howslowly things used to be in the
quote unquote good old days.
So I grew up in a very ruralarea.
I read a lot of comic books, Istill read a lot of comic books.
And the way we comic book fanswould meet each other was a
letters page and the letterspage would print your name and
your address.
And I had some letters printedand when I would see somebody
(08:34):
else where I was, I would writeto them and we would get to
meet, right?
Well, now I have friendsprincipally around, I know
people all around the world, butI have a bunch of friends in the
UK and in Europe because of ourmutual appreciation of what I
think is the world's greatestrock and roll band, that's pear
ooVoo.
And so now we've formed thesereal friendships because we
(08:58):
underst we get it, right?
Eric Dickmann (08:59):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (08:59):
We're able to find each other and connect around
the shared interest.
That applies to marketing, thatapplies to anything you're
trying to do if you're trying toimprove the world.
I have a client, God bless themin New York right now, who
they're rushing a whole bunch ofreliefs to Haiti, right?
So partly how they're able to dothat is because we have the
(09:21):
internet.So you know, theinternet has a lot of potential
for us and we have some problemswe need to address here to
improve life on this planet overthe next 30 years.
And I think we have the tools todo it.
Eric Dickmann (09:34):
We absolutely do.
And you know on this podcast, wetalk a lot about the importance
of identifying your niche, thatgroup of people that you relate
to.
So you've got your comic bookfans, your rock and roll fans,
but as a business too, right,we've got to figure out what is
the right niche for us to goafter.
And I know with your agency withCounterintuity, you specifically
(09:55):
go after nonprofits andgovernmental agencies, if I
understand that correctly.
Explain to me a little bit aboutwhy you focused in on that niche
versus just helping any businessunder the sun.
Lee Wochner (10:08):
So we do have other sorts of businesses in our
client portfolio.
But you are correct.
We principally work withnonprofits and government
agencies.
My partner and I are interestedin the social good, trying to
make a positive impact on theworld around us.
And we bring a lot of expertise.
I mean, throughout the historyof this company and even before
(10:29):
we've both worked in nonprofit,we both headed nonprofits.
I currently sit on three boards.
And so we bring a lot ofexpertise to that.
And then there is a partnershipbetween government agencies and
nonprofits.
I remember many years ago whenthe first George Bush was
president and he talked aboutthe thousand points of light,
(10:50):
what he was really talking aboutwas social organizations and
nonprofits who could work withthe government to make positive
change.
And I think he was right aboutthat.
And so whether it's here in LosAngeles with people we work with
or the many clients we haveacross the country and in New
York who were in nonprofit, webring a lot of expertise, a lot
(11:12):
of insight, and they're tryingto impact positive change and
it's thrilling to work withthem.
So the reason we did that isit's part of our brand
positioning, but also it's wherewe think we bring a lot of
expertise.
Eric Dickmann (11:26):
And what I really love about what you said there
is, you know, when companies aretrying to figure out what their
niche is, they have to look atthemselves and say, what do we
authentically stand for?
What do we believe?
What are our values?
And then don't we want to sortof serve people who share that
common set of values, thatcommon set of interests, that
sounds like exactly what you'vedone in terms of the clients
(11:48):
that you're serving.
Lee Wochner (11:51):
So our core values posted on the walls here at the
office.
I'm here at our office today.
There are four of us and we havestaggered work shifts as
everybody does during COVID,right?
But there are four of us in theoffice today.
When you walk in, you'll see ourcore values, which are,
creative, strategic, driven,precise, heartfelt, and
(12:11):
collaborative
Eric Dickmann (12:12):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (12:12):
And they're also on our website.
And so we are collaborativepeople, we want to work with
other good partners.
And it's interesting to me thatI'm a theater person and not,
let's say a novelist, right?
Novelists work by themselves.
I'm not guy.
Creativity, you should bring toproblem solving and to having
(12:33):
fun, and making thingsinteresting so they stand out.
You obviously want to bestrategic.
You want to be driven towardssuccess and manifesting the
change that you can do.
It has to be precise, meaningyou got it right.
And it has to be heartfelt, ithas to come from a good place.
And those are our core values.
And it's interesting, and you'llrelate to this.
(12:56):
When, we get a lead, whensomeone comes to us, of course
we're doing a mutual assessment.
Eric Dickmann (13:01):
Hmm.
Lee Wochner (13:02):
They're trying to figure out if we're the right
fit for them and we're trying tofigure out if they're the right
fit for us.
Eric Dickmann (13:09):
That's so important, right?
I think a lot of companies,especially younger stage
companies, when they first enterinto the market, you know, any
lead is a good lead, right?
We'll take business wherever wecan get it.
And you can quickly be in aposition where you're doing all
these things, supporting all ofthese customers, that aren't
really a good fit for eitheryour product or service, or the
values of your company.
And unless you sort of start toniche down and say, okay, thanks
(13:32):
for coming to us, but you'reprobably not the right fit for
us.
You could end up going down alot of tangents.
Lee Wochner (13:40):
Right.
And while doing that, yousimultaneously have to be
careful not to be no oriented.
You really want to be open toopportunity.
And the ways that people getstuck is procrastination comes
from not knowing what to do.
That's one way to get stuck.
And then the other thing is toconstantly find yourself running
(14:00):
down rabbit holes that youreally didn't belong in.
So it's good to know who youare, what you do, who you do it
for, and then from there toembrace the opportunity, to open
up optionality, and to inspirecreativity.
And if you can do those things,everything seems possible.
Eric Dickmann (14:18):
Yeah.
And I'm sure if you're workingwith nonprofits and governmental
agencies, there's a lot that youhave to factor in in terms of
the current climate that we'reliving in, right?
There's a lot of politicalupheaval, there's a lot of
social change, environmentalissues that are going on.
And I'm sure many of theseorganizations are very concerned
(14:39):
about how they fit into all ofthat.
Do you find that that's reallyan essential part of how you
develop the marketingstrategies, is authentic to
these various social issues andcauses?
Lee Wochner (14:52):
Well, authenticity is a given.
You have to be authentic.
Anybody who thinks they can hidetheir identity in the internet
age is fooling themselves.
Um, and so while authenticity isa given, we always make sure
that we understand what'sauthentic.
And so we start with a client,we'll challenge all the
(15:14):
assumptions in a reallyfriendly, upbeat way.
But we have a process thatstarts with asking great,
reportorial questions.
who, what, where, how,
Eric Dickmann (15:25):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (15:25):
Who are you?
What do you do?
How do you do it?
When do you do it?
Who do you do it for?
How do you do it?
All of those things.
And interestingly, you know, youget into positioning, right?
Developing a positioningstatement.
Here's who this organization isand here's who it does it for.
And you get to that byimpaneling people and having
this conversation, a freefloating conversation that is
(15:48):
actually grounded a process.Andwhat you find is there was
already a lot of consensus inthe room, but they've never
expressed it.
They hadn't shared theconsensus.
And so our job in a way is tokind of draw out the facts, make
sure that they see theirparticipation in those facts,
put them up on the wall, whetherit's in person or virtual.
(16:10):
And then they go, Yeah.
that is us.
That's how you've captured us.
And so it look, Eric, I meanlooking at you, I can see
elements of your identity,right?
And looking at me, you can seeelements of my identity.
So we're already expressingsomething.
The better you can know, who youare, what you represent, what
you want to do, et cetera, andput it out there, the better
(16:31):
overall, because people cancompete with you, but they can't
be you.
Eric Dickmann (16:36):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (16:36):
Everyone is and every organization is unique.
Getting to that core identity isthe heart of your branding and
your branding is the heart ofyour marketing.
Eric Dickmann (16:48):
Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to
the podcast.
But first, are you ready togrow, scale, and take your
marketing to the next level?
If so, The Five Echelon Group'sVirtual CMO consulting service
may be a great fit for you.
We can help build a strategicmarketing plan for your business
and manage its execution,step-by-step.
(17:09):
We'll focus on areas like how toattract more leads.
How to create compellingmessaging that resonates with
your ideal customers.
How to strategically package andposition your products and
services.
How to increase lead conversion,improve your margins, and scale
your business.
To find out more about ourconsulting offerings and
schedule a consultation, go tofiveechelon.com and click on
(17:32):
Services.
Now back to the podcast.
You know, back in the day, earlyin my career, we used to do
things called JAD sessions,joint application design.
Which was basically a glorifiedwhiteboard session where you'd
sit down and try to get to acommon understanding.
In this case, it was about asoftware process design.
And it reminds me very much ofwhat you were just describing
(17:55):
because oftentimes enter a roomthinking that they're on the
same page, thinking that they'reall sort of marching to the same
drummer, if you will.
But then when you sort of geteverybody's unique flavor or
take on that, you find thatthere are some fairly
significant differences.
Lee Wochner (18:11):
Yeah.
Look, coffee is coffee, and yetStarbucks is incredibly
successful.
Starbucks isn't really about thecoffee, I don't even like their
coffee.
Starbucks is about theexperience.
And they keyed into that bygoing to Italy and seeing what
that experience was like, right?
(18:31):
And so the more that you'rethoughtful about this and take
some time and invest in this, Ithink it's better for you rather
than trying to be things youaren't.
The Hyundai buyer and thePorsche buyer are very different
people, right?
Stop trying to sell a Hyundai toa guy who wants a Porsche and
(18:52):
vice versa.
Eric Dickmann (18:54):
I'm interested.
I know you have for-profitclients as well.
But I think that there are manybusinesses that shy away from
servicing the not-for-profitspace or government entities.
They think, well, these guysdon't have any money.
It's very complicated,procurement is difficult.
But that's not necessarily true,right?
There a lot of within thisspace.
(19:16):
How would you contrast sort ofworking in that space versus
working in the for-profit world?
you just share, what do youthink some of the trade-offs are
and negative?
Lee Wochner (19:27):
Sure.
So the first thing that I thinkabout with nonprofits is there's
incredibly, generally there'sincredibly good intention there.
So I ran the AIDS marathon in2008 in Amsterdam.
I'm not a marathoner by nature,and that was my first and last
(19:51):
one.
But I completed.
And you know, so you get totrain for 10 weeks volunteering.
And what I quickly learned wasevildoers don't sign up to raise
money, to fight AIDS.
So
Eric Dickmann (20:07):
Goodbye.
Lee Wochner (20:08):
you know they're good people, right?
And so when you're nonprofit,you're working with a nonprofit
board, the leadership and theboard, and what you find out is
the board they're allvolunteers.
And the leadership and the staffhave all made a degree of
sacrifice because they believein that mission.
And so you really honor that.
(20:29):
The downside is I don't think aterrific downside, I'd rather
not work with committees.
Eric Dickmann (20:36):
Yeah.
Lee Wochner (20:36):
Because its hard to get a decision we
Eric Dickmann (20:39):
Sure
Lee Wochner (20:39):
Always ask for one point of contact from any sort
of client.
But you know, I I'm well awarethat with nonprofits, there's
more of a committee systembecause that's what brought them
together to, to do that sort ofwork to begin with.
And on the for-profit side, um,obviously there's more of a
profit incentive as well, butlook, the for-profit people are
(21:00):
trying to do things too, right?
I mean Tom's shoes, how manyshoes have they distributed
around the world to people whocouldn't afford shoes?
So you know, sure there aretrade offs and government
agencies I mean, you know,people rail against the
government and my response is,do you like your streets being
(21:21):
paved to firefighters?
Do you like the utility bill?
I mean you know, do you like tomeet inspectors?
I mean it's ludicrous to attackthe government just because it's
the government.
When actually you should askyourself, what is it doing well
and what could it do better, andhow can we help it do better
where it could do better?
Eric Dickmann (21:41):
Hmm.
Yeah, you know I've hadexperience working with both
for-profits and not-for-profitsas well, and their unique
challenges with each of them.
But there is something like yousaid to non-profits mission that
you sort of they've laid theircards on the table in a way you
sort of know what they're goingafter.
(22:01):
You know, one of the things thatI find so interesting,
especially in space is there's areal appetite for creativity.
And I find that so manynonprofits there, you know, we
started this podcast talkingabout all the noise that's out
there in the marketplace.
And obviously a lot ofnot-for-profits are searching
for donations.
They're trying raise money, butthere's a lot of competition for
(22:24):
that that's out there, They'retrying to do something for a
cause.
And a lot creativity to standout amongst all this noise.
Is that one of the things thatyou enjoy about working with
these not-for-profits is justthe level of creativity that you
can bring to the table.
Lee Wochner (22:40):
100%.
I'll give you anan example.
We have a client, they startedas a graffiti abatement program
in Los Angeles.
That's how they started.
had a little graffiti abatementprogram years ago.
from that they've grown intothis truly impressive nonprofit
(23:02):
that helps get some people offthe street or out of no
employment or low employment,get them some education, get
them housing, and welcome theminto the marketplace, and help
them lead them onto a path ofsuccess.
It's incredible.
And during COVID they had to askourselves, gee, how is this
working?
Because our training centers,where we train them are now
(23:25):
closed.
And so what they did was theygot them all Chromebooks or some
other access to the internet
Eric Dickmann (23:30):
Oh wow.
Lee Wochner (23:30):
so they could work from wherever work virtually.
And so they were creative intheir problem solving.
And so one of the things we workwith them on, we're redoing
their website right now and wedo their annual reports.
And it may not sound like a lot,but what I know is as someone
who sits on boards myself, whenyou get that annual report, the
(23:51):
likelihood that anybody's goingto read through all of it is
slim.
Right.
So you'd better grab theirattention visually and with the
writing, and then you'd bettermake the key points.
And the key point is that thingthat you donated to us to do, we
did it and here was the impacton people's lives.
And so every year in workingwith this group, I get to talk
(24:14):
to them about what's the realstory of what you did last year,
and then how can we present thatthe best?
And so last year, the conceptthat we came up with was, I play
games and my three kids playgames of course.
My PS4 I think is maybe the bestpiece of technology ever
(24:34):
invented,
Eric Dickmann (24:35):
Oh wow.
Lee Wochner (24:35):
I love PlayStation.
I used on X-Box, now I'm onPlayStation, I love it.
Um, And so what we came up withis, was, wow.
you got funding for this.
And you did that, and you gotfunding for this and you did
this.
And in every one, they achievedsomething.
And I said you know, when youplay a video game, they'll say
(24:56):
achievement unlocked and you geta little trophy.
What if we write and design thisentire thing because you're kind
of youth oriented to show thatachievements were unlocked
throughout the year thanks tothis funding.
And so that wound up being thewhole writing and design aspect
of the annual report and theresults.
(25:17):
So every year we come up with aconcept and the results have
been terrific for them.
And I couldn't be prouder toplay a little role in working
with them.
Eric Dickmann (25:26):
You know, I think one of the dangers of marketing
and this is true in many areasof business, but I've seen it
firsthand in marketing is thatwe can get sort of stuck in a
cycle, right?
There are things that happen atcertain points in the year.
Okay, we've got to produce theannual report at this time.
You know, maybe we have anannual fundraising dinner at
this time, or you know, there'sa trade event that we have to go
(25:49):
to.
And people can get very muchinto kind of this rinse and
repeat cycle where creativityreally isn't there.
They're just doing some versionof what they did last year,
maybe you know, with some minorchange and the fun and the power
of marketing is reallystretching those creative
muscles, right?
And trying to do thingsdifferent to really stand out.
(26:11):
You have to kind of guardagainst that rinse and repeat
mentality.
Lee Wochner (26:14):
Absolutely so.
And the reason for that ofcourse is it's your brain
helping you save time, right?
Your brain writes neuralpathways that are time savers.
The problem with that is thetime-saver for you is deadening
in the marketplace.
Nobody notices it anymore.
So things have to be freshconstantly.
(26:36):
And that's one of the reasonsthat we've always said that our
marketing is made fresh becauseeven if we did it for you last
year, whatever we're doing thisyear is going to be different.
It's gotta be different.
The market place changesconstantly.
I mean, just to give you theobvious point, right?
Right now on my laptop and mylaptop can serve as a phone.
(26:57):
I'll have Facebook meetings withpeople here.
Here's another phone of mine,this is my iPhone.
There's a phone on my desk thatI guess I occasionally use.
I finally talked to my wifeinto, can we cancel the landline
at home?
No one's using it.
We're just getting spam calls.
But I remember I have thatdemographic.
I can remember dial phones andyou can have any sort of phone
(27:20):
as long as it's black and mythree siblings and I pitched in
about my mom, a new phone in theseventies, you could buy a
phone, that felt really strange.
And when it arrived and had acork board and the phone went
inside along with phone booksand it went on the wall and it
looked rectangular over like,what s this?
(27:41):
And so the pace of change hasjust gotten faster and faster,
and you do have to stop and takenote of how things have changed
because otherwise you just slipright into that groove of same
old, same old.
Eric Dickmann (27:55):
Oh, yeah, I see it with companies and marketing
spend, you know maybe they dosome keyword spending.
And you know, it's just a budgetthat happens every month without
really taking the time toanalyze it and see what's
working or you know, they havelanding pages and they never
really looked to see what theconversion rates are.
Because especially the largerthe organization, the more
different tactics that they'rerunning, it can be easy to say,
(28:18):
okay, that was yesterday'sproject, now I got to move on to
today's project, and never sortago back and revisit it.
But there's so much power andunderstanding your data and
figuring out ways that you canenhance and improve, and be
creative with it.
Lee Wochner (28:31):
Well, everyday, you and I are somehow able to pull a
different shirt out of thecloset, right?
we don't know we always put thesame shirt on or the same sort
of shirt.
Eric Dickmann (28:41):
That's right.
Lee Wochner (28:41):
Why don't we invest 5, 10 minutes to see how the
landing page is doing, right?
Wouldn't it be better to take alook at it and go, oh, it was
great last Tuesday, but now it'sdropping off.
I should think about how toimprove this.
Eric Dickmann (28:55):
It's It's amazing how many companies have broken
web pages or contact forms and,you know, they just haven't gone
to check recently and you know,they wonder why they're not
getting a whole lot ofconversions, and it's because
something is broken.
Just little things like that.
But I really love the focus oncreativity, I love sort of what
you're doing in the marketplaceto there.
Do you have any excitingcampaigns that you're working on
(29:17):
right now as we just sort ofwrap up the interview that you
could share with us?
Lee Wochner (29:21):
Well, we did an acquisition a couple of months
ago, so we're pretty excited tohave bought the website
development and applicationdevelopment business of an
agency in New York.
So we picked up 16 new clients,and we're very with them on all
sorts of things.
And so that's driving myexcitement on that level and I'm
(29:44):
going to go back to New York.
I'll be back there in threeweeks for some client meetings.
So we're located in Burbank,California, as I mentioned, and
we saw firsthand the impact ofCOVID on the restaurants.
So the campaign that excites methe most at the time, and as
you'll hear, it's a partnershipbetween a nonprofit, a
government agency, and mycompany, we're doing a
(30:06):
restaurant campaign.
conjunction with the City ofBurbank and the Burbank Chamber
of Commerce to support therestaurants here in Burbank.
So we've done a whole bunch ofsocial, we continued to do
social, we're running contests,we stood up landing pages, we
have partners once a monththere's drawings for like really
cool prizes, like major sportstickets to Staple Center, hotel
(30:30):
stays, all sorts meals, and weknow that it's impactful because
we can see the web traffic andall the stats, and then we're
watching people post on social,all of their interactions at the
local restaurants.
We know the campaign is workingreally well and it makes me feel
like, Oh, good, we did somethingto support the restaurants
(30:51):
because they know they took iton the chin.
Eric Dickmann (30:53):
Oh, that's really exciting.
That sounds like a fun campaignand you know, social media can
be so rewarding when thecampaigns work well and you get
people to repost content or youget some influencers who will
share your content.
It's fun, but it's complicatedtoo.
So that's exciting to hear thatthat's working well.
You know, before we go, I justlove it if you could share with
the folks where they can findout more about you personally,
(31:14):
where they can find out moreabout Counterintuity, if they
want to get in touch and talkwith you.
Lee Wochner (31:19):
So you go to counterintuity.com.
You'll see a whole bunch ofstuff about us, work samples,
case studies.
If you google CounterIntuity orGoogle me, you'll get the
Counterintuitive blog.
We have a white paper on ourwebsite by the way, about how to
get somebody's attention in fourseconds, which is valuable
information for 2021.
(31:39):
And I'm eager to hear from you,find me on LinkedIn, ask me some
questions, tell me what youthink.
We are great partners and we'dlove to meet you.
Eric Dickmann (31:48):
Hey, that's awesome.
I'll make sure that we have allthat linked up in the show notes
so that people can find you.
Love your mission, love yourauthenticity.
It sounds like you're doing somereally exciting things.
Congratulations on theacquisition.
Now, you're truly a, what do youcall bi-coastal?
You're just back and forth allthe time.
Lee Wochner (32:03):
Yep, and it's great.
I grew up in Southern NewJersey, I love New York.
It's thrilling to me to be moreinvested in New York.
Eric Dickmann (32:11):
Well, that's awesome.
Well, congratulations again.
Lee, thank you so much for yourtime today.
I really appreciate you being aguest on the show.
Lee Wochner (32:19):
Eric, it's been a real pleasure.
And hats off to you for all ofyour incredible producing
capability with this.
You've really done a great job.
Eric Dickmann (32:26):
Hey, thanks so much.
I really do appreciate that.
Thanks again.
Lee Wochner (32:30):
Thank you.
Eric Dickmann (32:33):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of
The Virtual CMO podcast.
For more episodes, go tofiveechelon.com/podcast to
subscribe through your podcastplayer of choice.
And if you'd like to developconsistent lead flow and a
highly effective marketingstrategy, visit fiveechelon.com
to learn more about our VirtualCMO consulting services.
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