September 4, 2024 • 20 mins
What if understanding your customer could revolutionize your business? In this episode of the Zoomers to Boomers Business Show, we promise you'll gain strategic insights from Andrew Deutsch, a multilingual marketing strategist from the Fangled Group. Andrew takes us through his transformative journey from a global trade consultancy to a leader in multicultural marketing. We discuss how truly grasping the value proposition from your customer's perspective can make or break your marketing strategies. Dive into a fascinating case study featuring a steel drum manufacturer, where focusing on customer priorities like on-time delivery and reliable service not only fostered brand loyalty but also elevated the company's market position.
Ever wondered how targeted marketing strategies can double your business growth while slashing costs? Listen as Andrew unveils the nuances of effective market research, blending qualitative and quantitative methods to identify your niche. We explore the importance of pricing strategy and fair value with compelling examples from Walmart and an Amish organic farm. Learn how operational support in sourcing and manufacturing can help scale your business without buckling under demand. This episode underscores the vital role of implementing strategic knowledge, ensuring your company sustains its growth and doesn't falter when demand spikes.
Website: https://fangledtech.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-deutsch-2445936/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thefangledcast5819
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WeCallBS-mr8wk
Be sure to visit BizRadio.US to discover hundreds more engaging conversations, local events and more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hank (00:10):
This is the Zoomers to Boomers Business Show, and
you're listening to bizradiousall entrepreneurs all the time.
Welcome everyone, I'm Hank Eder, also known as Hank the PR Guy,
(00:31):
host of the Zoomers to BoomersBusiness Show, the show formerly
known as the Home BusinessSuccess Show.
You're listening to bizradiousall entrepreneurs all the time.
Each week, we speak withentrepreneurs across all corners
of the generational spectrum,sharing business gems, things
that work, some things thatdon't work, and building bridges
(00:53):
.
Today's guest, andrew Deutsch,isn't your average consultant.
He's a multilingual strategistwho speaks the languages of
business and psychology, havingfueled business growth in over
100 countries.
His superpower Seeing hiddenopportunities and solutions
others miss.
(01:13):
He blends practical businesssmarts with insightful
psychology to craft bold,innovative strategies for his
clients at the Fangled Group.
Fangled Group is your one-stopshop for strategic marketing and
growth muscle.
They offer a range of services,from fractional CMO leadership
(01:35):
to in-depth M&A research, allthe way to crafting killer
branding and go-to marketingstrategies, ready to turn every
touch into an advocate of yourbrand.
Learn more at fangledtechcom orcatch Andrew on his podcast,
the Fangled Cast.
Welcome to the show, andrew Boy.
Andrew (01:56):
That sounded like something I might have written.
Yeah, I think so.
I wonder why?
Hank (01:59):
Yeah, it's great to be here.
Thanks for inviting me.
I wonder why.
Andrew (02:02):
Yeah, it's great to be here.
Thanks for inviting me.
Oh, you're welcome If you wouldtell our audience what it is
that you do.
You know I guess in as few wordsas possible, I've been known
for a few words Really what'soccurred over the years.
(02:23):
We began as a global tradeconsultancy helping American
companies find their globalfootprint, and in that I've
worked.
Our office was originallyestablished when I was living
overseas in South America and westarted to build incredible
multicultural marketingstrategies to help businesses
figure out how to play indifferent markets and different
cultures.
And then, as that evolved overthe years and I came back to the
States and continued with thebusiness, the incredible
learnings that we had reallyapplied to companies recognizing
(02:47):
how do you understand the valueproposition from that culture,
who you're selling to, fromthose markets, and build that
core go-to-market strategybefore you start spending a
fortune on a bunch of tacticsthat aren't aimed.
So imagine a company that usedto spend $300,000, $400,000 a
year in the Google machine nowknow who their customer is,
(03:08):
where they are and can targetthem directly instead of the old
, you know, trying to kill amosquito with a shotgun approach
of let's just throw it outthere and hope that one of them
reaches back to us and filteringthrough all the nonsense that
comes that aren't real customersfor you.
Hank (03:23):
That reminds me of that old saying, and I paraphrase if
you throw enough poop againstthe wall, you kind of hope some
of it will stick.
But that's not a greatmarketing strategy, not by any
means.
Andrew (03:35):
Unless you're in the cleaning products business and
you're trying to create ademonstration.
Hank (03:40):
Remember those demonstrations.
I think it was the old Lucyshow where somebody would
Remember those demonstrations.
I think it was the old Lucyshow where somebody would stop
by, knock on your door, throw abig pile of dirt on the floor
without asking and then theywould show you their vacuum
cleaner.
Yeah, yeah.
Andrew (03:54):
And there's a great joke about that too, where you know
they're training salespeople todo that and they didn't realize
that it doesn't do you much goodto do that in the Amish
community, where there's noplace to plug in the vacuum.
Hank (04:05):
So then they would get thrown out of the place quickly.
Anyway, I've had brandingspecialists on the show, but you
know you mentioned a fewmoments ago that there are
strategies that must go intothings like advertising,
marketing, even branding.
You know people talk a lotabout branding, people talk a
lot about branding, but I'd liketo know more about what you do
for your customers, honing in onthe branding, and what you do
(04:29):
prior to actually coming up withthe notion of branding.
Andrew (04:33):
Yeah, well, the challenge and there are some
excellent branding people thatI've worked with over the years,
so I'm not by any means sayinganything diminishing about the
branding field, although thereare a lot of folks that call
themselves branding experts thatreally aren't.
So your brand is really nothingmore than what they're saying
about you when you're not in theroom and, depending on how you
(04:53):
build that brand for yourcompany, is really dependent on
whether or not you understandthe end user, the customer, more
than your own belief in yourproduct, so like, for example,
or the customer more than yourown belief in your product, so
like, for example and I'll picksomething super esoteric I
worked with the company thatmanufactures steel drums.
These are products that carrychemicals, coatings, very bland.
(05:14):
In most people's eyes it's acommodity.
It's not.
It's a quite technical productwith a lot of details you have
to understand.
So this company was going tomarket talking about how they
use high quality American steel,how they can paint the drums in
certain ways.
They meet ANSI standards.
They meet the standardsrequired by our government for
DOT transportation of goods andall of this kind of stuff, and
(05:36):
they were very proud of it andit's all correct.
There's only one problem withit.
Those are table stakes.
You can't be in the business ofmaking steel drums without
using steel.
You can't sell them if theydon't meet standards.
All of those things are veryimportant and it was a pride of
the business, but when we didthe intensive research to
understand why, in fact, dopeople do business with them?
None of that.
Of course they wanted somethingthat wouldn't leak.
(05:56):
They wanted something thatwould.
But what they really wanted thebuyers of these drums that
worked in these manufacturingfacilities they wanted on-time
delivery.
They wanted to be able to getthem when they needed them.
They wanted to know that ifsomething went wrong, they could
reach out to a person, and thisis what they specialized in.
This is a small, independentcompany compared to
multi-billion dollarmultinationals, but when we talk
(06:18):
to the advocates of that brandthat love doing business with
them, when I call those behemothcompanies, they don't answer
the phone.
If I have a problem, they sendme forms.
This company, if I've got anissue, they're on the phone.
They're resolving it withindays, not months, not years.
And, by the way, they have andthis is something that we learn
more from the customers thatthis unique way that they
(06:40):
manufacture, which is to convertthe equipment throughout the
day.
So throughout the day they'remaking every type of drum.
They make gave what we callflex manufacturing.
So if I was a buyer and all ofa sudden I needed something with
the other companies it couldtake months to get them because
they don't make those all thetime, whereas this flex
manufacturing meant that I, evenin a tough situation, these
(07:00):
guys will be able to bail me out, not doing something special
for me, but because that's whatthey do.
So when we converted theconversation and the brand to
talk about personal touchcustomer service, making the
lives of buyers better, makingsure you don't lose your job
because the chemical companyneeds a specific drum you don't
have in stock and you can'tfulfill your job, we made lives
(07:23):
better.
We prevented factories fromshutting down.
These were the values that theywanted, and the company went
from 30 something million to $85million in two and a half years
and was acquired for almost $10million over what the
expectation was at the time thatthe thought of exit was.
So that's really what it'sabout is let's talk to the
people who love the company,let's talk to people who may use
(07:44):
them every once in a while andlet's talk to the haters and
understand what all of thatperception is about and what
their needs and values are let'sbase our marketing strategy on
the folks who actually want todo business with us, not on
whether the head office thinkswe're cool or not.
Hank (07:57):
Right, right.
It amazes me at times how Ispeak to business owners, and
not only do they not reach outto their ideal target market,
they don't know who their idealtarget market is, so they really
can't brand because they thinkthey're trying to reach everyone
.
What you talked about a minuteago was a great pain point.
(08:19):
I mean, what if your wholeproduction was halted because
you couldn't get through?
You needed something, but youcouldn't get through to your
supplier.
You had to fill out a form.
That's a great pain point, yeah, and I'm sure that
manufacturers you know thecustomers can understand that.
Andrew (08:39):
Yeah, I've asked companies that I've dealt with
over the years where I'm theconsumer.
Why do you guys think that Ineed to learn how to be an
employee of your company to getthe help I need?
It's your job to get me thehelp.
I shouldn't have to know whatform whatever.
I should be able to reach outand say, hey, I'm your customer,
I need your help and get thehelp.
I didn't go through yourorientation.
(08:59):
I don't know your internalmethodology.
It's bad.
But on the same note, againgoing back to the original
question, in the process ofexpansion too, you have to look
at and we do somethingproprietary to us that we call
the fangled marketattractiveness study.
So if you've got a businessthat goes into multiple channels
, for example in the drumindustry, we'll just use that as
(09:21):
our continued model.
There are chemical companies,there are coatings companies,
there are food companies andthen, if you expand it even
further, there's direct buyers,there's distributors, there's a
whole matrix of differentmarkets.
You can play Well each of thosechannels.
Do they have money?
Do they need what we sell?
(09:52):
Do they need it in the quantitywe want to sell?
Do we know people in thatmarket?
Who's their current supplier?
What are their long-term,short-term?
And we score all of that andthen, out of the 20 potential
markets to sell into, we thenwere able to see which markets
were the most attractive and goafter first.
If, for example, in theindustry people who are packing
(10:12):
road tar in drums, they don'tneed a quality drum, they use
used ones.
It's a garbage market.
They pay pennies on the dollar.
Why would you want to go afterthat market unless you've just
got no other business?
If I could sell it to thoseguys, I've got a margin of 3%.
If I sell the other guys, maybeI can get a 30% margin.
So all of that attractivenessstudy so many times we encounter
(10:36):
companies that want to sellinto 50 markets and the reality
is there are three that theycould make a fortune with and 47
that they should just leave forother people.
Hank (10:44):
Yeah, because they'd be spreading themselves too thin
and the return wouldn't be verygood.
Yeah, because they'd bespreading themselves too thin
and the return wouldn't be verygood.
Yeah, yeah.
How do you help clients zoom inon their specific niche and how
might you prepare them tomarket to that niche?
Andrew (10:59):
Sure, I mean, that is what we do.
So we, on their behalf, do thatresearch.
Well, we have three methods.
One is we will do it for you,where we go out we do all the
research and do all the work.
The second is we'll do it withyou, where we'll come up with a
strategy and charge and trainyour employees to go out and do
that research.
And the last one is a do ityourself, where we just we give
you the framework and you takecare drum industry.
(11:28):
We talked to the customers thathad been loyal for 20 something
years and only bought from them.
We spoke with customers thatuse them as a second source.
So in other words, they boughtfrom the big multinational but
they'd buy 10 or 20 percent fromthem just to have a backup If
the multinational couldn'tdeliver.
They had a backup.
And then we also talked to thevery few customers who had
stopped buying from them.
(11:49):
And then we also tried to reachout to customers that never
heard of, and we didquantitative and qualitative
conversations based on thevolumes and what their
impressions were.
And when we combined all of thatdata, we then found that magic
niche that they filled, that thecompetitor could not compete
with that, they filled that thecompetitor could not compete
(12:11):
with.
And that's how, through thoseresults, we were then able to
build that strategic plan whichled to direct tactics.
There was very little moneyever spent on web search.
We knew who every one of thepotential customers were.
Through the research that wedid, we knew who the players
were and we reached out directly.
And then we did contentstrategies where those people
would see information andunderstand who we were and what
(12:33):
we were.
The budget for marketing wascut to I don't know a third of
what the spend had been priorand the company more than
doubled.
Hank (12:40):
You can't argue with those kinds of statistics.
You know, I discussed this withyou the other day when we had
an initial talk and I've knowntwo companies that had a really
unique product.
Of course they were consumerproducts, but they had these.
Started out they wereoverwhelmed by the amount of
(13:12):
business that came in.
They could not meet the demand.
They went out of business.
I think this thing happens allthe time.
It does.
Andrew (13:21):
It's the Walmart story.
So many companies have gonebroke because they wanted to
start out selling to the big boxretailers and they could not
keep up with the demand.
The first order came in andthey couldn't find the finance
and they couldn't find themanufacturing and were not able
to fulfill what was there andscaled themselves right into the
toilet.
It's not an unusual thing.
Sometimes scarcity is a signthat you're not charging enough.
(13:44):
There was a story.
I live not far from Amishcountry and I had an Amish
friend who had an organic farmand he would set up the stand at
the end of the driveway everySaturday and he would sell out
within two hours everything hehad.
And I asked him I said whydon't you raise your prices?
Well, my prices are fair.
I said fair to who?
Fair to you?
Because marketing is aboutpricing strategy.
Is it fair to you or fair tothe consumer?
And he said, well, fair, youwere fair to the consumer.
(14:05):
And he said, well, fair to theconsumer.
I said, well then it's not fairto you.
So next week raise everything anickel, everything's a nickel,
or 10 cents, and see sold outthe same amount of time.
The next week raise it again.
I said at the end of the day ifyou have stuff left over that
didn't sell back, your pricesback down a little bit, but
that's what you need to dobecause you're not charging
(14:25):
enough.
Well, the prices went up and upand up.
And when he did his books atthe end of the year he said to
me you know, I made $35,000 morethis year than I did last year.
Those nickels add up, don'tthey?
And I said how many peopleduring the entire year came out
and complained about the price.
He said this one guy who alwayswas annoying me, he finally
stopped coming.
So you're welcome.
So you know, pricing strategyis a major part of what we do
(14:48):
also.
Hank (14:49):
Yeah, and also, do you help them acquire the means of
production?
Do you work with them to makesure that they are geared up for
what they may encounter?
Andrew (14:59):
This goes back to the operational part of our business
.
Yes, and sometimes it's asourcing issue.
Sometimes it's it's anoutsource to get to get
manufacturing done somewhereelse before you can scale up.
We work with co-packers and wework with, uh, you know,
third-party manufacturing peoplethat we've worked with for
years.
Um, there's just recently weworked on a project where we
needed kiosks manufactured forfor uh, I can't share the
(15:22):
business, um, but it was a kiosksystem and we found a
manufacturer who was able tomass produce those kiosks that
they could have never donethemselves to to and, of course,
sourcing an Americanmanufacturing company that had
the ability to form, bend, paintand assemble these kiosks for
for the business here locally.
If we had not found that theythey would have, they would have
(15:43):
scaled themselves right intothe garbage can because they
there was no way that they couldbuild and get the equipment and
get manufacturing as quickly asthe demand for their product.
Hank (15:51):
Right.
Well, that's quite somethingthat you don't necessarily want
to overlook.
I want to go back to somethingyou said earlier with the three
things, the three ways that youdo it.
You know one, two and three andthree was.
You know, we'll tell you how todo it and you go ahead and do
it.
You know we'll tell you how todo it and you go ahead and do it
.
I would guess you probablydon't really get a lot of
customers who want to do it thatway, because in my experience,
(16:13):
people don't hire you for yourknowledge.
They hire you for theimplementation, and you can give
them all the knowledge in theworld, but if they're not ready
to implement that knowledge,they need somebody else to do it
.
Andrew (16:26):
Those cases are.
For example, someone will comeand say hey, we're stuck.
Can we pick your brain for anhour?
Can we maybe have threeappointments?
And they are prepared to do it.
They just need the guidance.
It's usually youngentrepreneurs that have never
done it.
I have on my website.
It's called the Pick my BrainSession.
People can sign up for it,matter of fact.
I usually give three of thoseaway a week for 30 minutes of my
(16:48):
time at no cost, and there'stwo reasons I do it.
One is I like to give back andtwo is it keeps me sharp.
Somebody comes to me withsomething totally new and in
less than 30 minutes I've got toget enough information to be
able to provide some value tosomebody.
It's good for me.
I'm selfish that way, but manyof those go into the next level.
Many of them don't.
(17:08):
But a few one-hour sessions withan expert, like having a board
member come in, can be extremelyvaluable to jumpstart the
movement within a company,because once they have the ideas
and the clarity, they don'tneed the consultant.
The second, the we set you upto do it.
We literally will take yourfolks and we will do the
training.
We do the initial creation ofthe protocols to do the research
(17:33):
and then train your people howto do it, and then we come back
involved and help evaluate it.
But if you're not well-fundedand can't afford to have it
handed to you as a completedproduct, where we become
embedded in the company and allof it, it's a great way to go.
Most of the companies that useour full service are companies
that have the funding to.
(17:53):
We become the virtual marketingdepartment, are we the
fractional chief growth officers, chief marketing officer for a
period of time, and we get greatresults from all three,
depending on the status.
The other thing we won't do istake somebody's money if we
don't think we can help them orif you know.
We also try to cut offrelationships before they become
parasitic, where there's like adependence and they just keep
(18:14):
wanting to pay and we're notdelivering any value.
Because our time's limited, I'dmuch rather be helping the next
guy boom than hang on to a guywho's booming just for an extra
buck.
Hank (18:24):
That's certainly an ethical way of doing business,
and I think more companies needto look at things that way.
If you could give nichestartups just one bit of advice
quickly, what would that be?
What kind of startups?
Niche, niche startup companies.
Andrew (18:42):
Make sure there's three kinds of products that people
bring to market.
Number one there's a knownproblem in the market.
Nobody has found a solution orthere's no good solution for it,
and you've got one thateverybody recognizes.
That's the ideal.
Second you recognize a problemin the market that people don't
recognize necessarily as aproblem, but when they see your
solution they go I do have thatproblem.
(19:03):
Wow, that's great.
And then the third is I've gota solution looking for a problem
.
So if you're a startup andyou've got a solution looking
for a problem, think again.
That's the.
You know, we found a new way toopen cans because, you know,
americans have so much troubleopening cans.
Now there's a new can opener.
Well, that's the crap they sellon TV in between the news at 2
am and 2.30.
(19:23):
The Shoe Dini is my favorite.
We now have a way to put on andtake off your shoes.
There's nothing unique about it, but Gilbert Gottfried sold a
lot of them.
Hank (19:32):
There's not even a need, I don't think, to put your shoes
on in a different way.
You know the time really flewhere, so I just want to ask you
how can our listeners contactyou to learn more about your
services?
Andrew (19:46):
We're very old so you have to fax us.
No, I'm kidding, I'm onLinkedIn.
You can find us there.
You can go tothefangledgroupcom and reach out
to us.
Happy to take inquiries.
You can send us a note right tothe website or through my
LinkedIn.
Hank (20:01):
All right.
Well, thank you so much forbeing here with us today, andrew
, and to our listeners, join usnext Wednesday for the Zoomers
to Boomers business show righthere on bizradious.
As you go about your day to day, I want to remind you all to
practice kindness.
It's the greatest uniter thisworld has ever known.
(20:21):
See you again next week.
This is Hank Eder, wishing allof you a fabulous, productive
and successful day.
This is the Zoomers to Boomers Business Show, and
you're listening to bizradiousall entrepreneurs all the time.
Welcome everyone, I'm Hank Eder, also known as Hank the PR Guy,
(00:31):
host of the Zoomers to BoomersBusiness Show, the show formerly
known as the Home BusinessSuccess Show.
You're listening to bizradiousall entrepreneurs all the time.
Each week, we speak withentrepreneurs across all corners
of the generational spectrum,sharing business gems, things
that work, some things thatdon't work, and building bridges
(00:53):
.
Today's guest, andrew Deutsch,isn't your average consultant.
He's a multilingual strategistwho speaks the languages of
business and psychology, havingfueled business growth in over
100 countries.
His superpower Seeing hiddenopportunities and solutions
others miss.
(01:13):
He blends practical businesssmarts with insightful
psychology to craft bold,innovative strategies for his
clients at the Fangled Group.
Fangled Group is your one-stopshop for strategic marketing and
growth muscle.
They offer a range of services,from fractional CMO leadership
(01:35):
to in-depth M&A research, allthe way to crafting killer
branding and go-to marketingstrategies, ready to turn every
touch into an advocate of yourbrand.
Learn more at fangledtechcom orcatch Andrew on his podcast,
the Fangled Cast.
Welcome to the show, andrew Boy.
Andrew (01:56):
That sounded like something I might have written.
Yeah, I think so.
I wonder why?
Hank (01:59):
Yeah, it's great to be here.
Thanks for inviting me.
I wonder why.
Andrew (02:02):
Yeah, it's great to be here.
Thanks for inviting me.
Oh, you're welcome If you wouldtell our audience what it is
that you do.
You know I guess in as few wordsas possible, I've been known
for a few words Really what'soccurred over the years.
(02:23):
We began as a global tradeconsultancy helping American
companies find their globalfootprint, and in that I've
worked.
Our office was originallyestablished when I was living
overseas in South America and westarted to build incredible
multicultural marketingstrategies to help businesses
figure out how to play indifferent markets and different
cultures.
And then, as that evolved overthe years and I came back to the
States and continued with thebusiness, the incredible
learnings that we had reallyapplied to companies recognizing
(02:47):
how do you understand the valueproposition from that culture,
who you're selling to, fromthose markets, and build that
core go-to-market strategybefore you start spending a
fortune on a bunch of tacticsthat aren't aimed.
So imagine a company that usedto spend $300,000, $400,000 a
year in the Google machine nowknow who their customer is,
(03:08):
where they are and can targetthem directly instead of the old
, you know, trying to kill amosquito with a shotgun approach
of let's just throw it outthere and hope that one of them
reaches back to us and filteringthrough all the nonsense that
comes that aren't real customersfor you.
Hank (03:23):
That reminds me of that old saying, and I paraphrase if
you throw enough poop againstthe wall, you kind of hope some
of it will stick.
But that's not a greatmarketing strategy, not by any
means.
Andrew (03:35):
Unless you're in the cleaning products business and
you're trying to create ademonstration.
Hank (03:40):
Remember those demonstrations.
I think it was the old Lucyshow where somebody would
Remember those demonstrations.
I think it was the old Lucyshow where somebody would stop
by, knock on your door, throw abig pile of dirt on the floor
without asking and then theywould show you their vacuum
cleaner.
Yeah, yeah.
Andrew (03:54):
And there's a great joke about that too, where you know
they're training salespeople todo that and they didn't realize
that it doesn't do you much goodto do that in the Amish
community, where there's noplace to plug in the vacuum.
Hank (04:05):
So then they would get thrown out of the place quickly.
Anyway, I've had brandingspecialists on the show, but you
know you mentioned a fewmoments ago that there are
strategies that must go intothings like advertising,
marketing, even branding.
You know people talk a lotabout branding, people talk a
lot about branding, but I'd liketo know more about what you do
for your customers, honing in onthe branding, and what you do
(04:29):
prior to actually coming up withthe notion of branding.
Andrew (04:33):
Yeah, well, the challenge and there are some
excellent branding people thatI've worked with over the years,
so I'm not by any means sayinganything diminishing about the
branding field, although thereare a lot of folks that call
themselves branding experts thatreally aren't.
So your brand is really nothingmore than what they're saying
about you when you're not in theroom and, depending on how you
(04:53):
build that brand for yourcompany, is really dependent on
whether or not you understandthe end user, the customer, more
than your own belief in yourproduct, so like, for example,
or the customer more than yourown belief in your product, so
like, for example and I'll picksomething super esoteric I
worked with the company thatmanufactures steel drums.
These are products that carrychemicals, coatings, very bland.
(05:14):
In most people's eyes it's acommodity.
It's not.
It's a quite technical productwith a lot of details you have
to understand.
So this company was going tomarket talking about how they
use high quality American steel,how they can paint the drums in
certain ways.
They meet ANSI standards.
They meet the standardsrequired by our government for
DOT transportation of goods andall of this kind of stuff, and
(05:36):
they were very proud of it andit's all correct.
There's only one problem withit.
Those are table stakes.
You can't be in the business ofmaking steel drums without
using steel.
You can't sell them if theydon't meet standards.
All of those things are veryimportant and it was a pride of
the business, but when we didthe intensive research to
understand why, in fact, dopeople do business with them?
None of that.
Of course they wanted somethingthat wouldn't leak.
(05:56):
They wanted something thatwould.
But what they really wanted thebuyers of these drums that
worked in these manufacturingfacilities they wanted on-time
delivery.
They wanted to be able to getthem when they needed them.
They wanted to know that ifsomething went wrong, they could
reach out to a person, and thisis what they specialized in.
This is a small, independentcompany compared to
multi-billion dollarmultinationals, but when we talk
(06:18):
to the advocates of that brandthat love doing business with
them, when I call those behemothcompanies, they don't answer
the phone.
If I have a problem, they sendme forms.
This company, if I've got anissue, they're on the phone.
They're resolving it withindays, not months, not years.
And, by the way, they have andthis is something that we learn
more from the customers thatthis unique way that they
(06:40):
manufacture, which is to convertthe equipment throughout the
day.
So throughout the day they'remaking every type of drum.
They make gave what we callflex manufacturing.
So if I was a buyer and all ofa sudden I needed something with
the other companies it couldtake months to get them because
they don't make those all thetime, whereas this flex
manufacturing meant that I, evenin a tough situation, these
(07:00):
guys will be able to bail me out, not doing something special
for me, but because that's whatthey do.
So when we converted theconversation and the brand to
talk about personal touchcustomer service, making the
lives of buyers better, makingsure you don't lose your job
because the chemical companyneeds a specific drum you don't
have in stock and you can'tfulfill your job, we made lives
(07:23):
better.
We prevented factories fromshutting down.
These were the values that theywanted, and the company went
from 30 something million to $85million in two and a half years
and was acquired for almost $10million over what the
expectation was at the time thatthe thought of exit was.
So that's really what it'sabout is let's talk to the
people who love the company,let's talk to people who may use
(07:44):
them every once in a while andlet's talk to the haters and
understand what all of thatperception is about and what
their needs and values are let'sbase our marketing strategy on
the folks who actually want todo business with us, not on
whether the head office thinkswe're cool or not.
Hank (07:57):
Right, right.
It amazes me at times how Ispeak to business owners, and
not only do they not reach outto their ideal target market,
they don't know who their idealtarget market is, so they really
can't brand because they thinkthey're trying to reach everyone
.
What you talked about a minuteago was a great pain point.
(08:19):
I mean, what if your wholeproduction was halted because
you couldn't get through?
You needed something, but youcouldn't get through to your
supplier.
You had to fill out a form.
That's a great pain point, yeah, and I'm sure that
manufacturers you know thecustomers can understand that.
Andrew (08:39):
Yeah, I've asked companies that I've dealt with
over the years where I'm theconsumer.
Why do you guys think that Ineed to learn how to be an
employee of your company to getthe help I need?
It's your job to get me thehelp.
I shouldn't have to know whatform whatever.
I should be able to reach outand say, hey, I'm your customer,
I need your help and get thehelp.
I didn't go through yourorientation.
(08:59):
I don't know your internalmethodology.
It's bad.
But on the same note, againgoing back to the original
question, in the process ofexpansion too, you have to look
at and we do somethingproprietary to us that we call
the fangled marketattractiveness study.
So if you've got a businessthat goes into multiple channels
, for example in the drumindustry, we'll just use that as
(09:21):
our continued model.
There are chemical companies,there are coatings companies,
there are food companies andthen, if you expand it even
further, there's direct buyers,there's distributors, there's a
whole matrix of differentmarkets.
You can play Well each of thosechannels.
Do they have money?
Do they need what we sell?
(09:52):
Do they need it in the quantitywe want to sell?
Do we know people in thatmarket?
Who's their current supplier?
What are their long-term,short-term?
And we score all of that andthen, out of the 20 potential
markets to sell into, we thenwere able to see which markets
were the most attractive and goafter first.
If, for example, in theindustry people who are packing
(10:12):
road tar in drums, they don'tneed a quality drum, they use
used ones.
It's a garbage market.
They pay pennies on the dollar.
Why would you want to go afterthat market unless you've just
got no other business?
If I could sell it to thoseguys, I've got a margin of 3%.
If I sell the other guys, maybeI can get a 30% margin.
So all of that attractivenessstudy so many times we encounter
(10:36):
companies that want to sellinto 50 markets and the reality
is there are three that theycould make a fortune with and 47
that they should just leave forother people.
Hank (10:44):
Yeah, because they'd be spreading themselves too thin
and the return wouldn't be verygood.
Yeah, because they'd bespreading themselves too thin
and the return wouldn't be verygood.
Yeah, yeah.
How do you help clients zoom inon their specific niche and how
might you prepare them tomarket to that niche?
Andrew (10:59):
Sure, I mean, that is what we do.
So we, on their behalf, do thatresearch.
Well, we have three methods.
One is we will do it for you,where we go out we do all the
research and do all the work.
The second is we'll do it withyou, where we'll come up with a
strategy and charge and trainyour employees to go out and do
that research.
And the last one is a do ityourself, where we just we give
you the framework and you takecare drum industry.
(11:28):
We talked to the customers thathad been loyal for 20 something
years and only bought from them.
We spoke with customers thatuse them as a second source.
So in other words, they boughtfrom the big multinational but
they'd buy 10 or 20 percent fromthem just to have a backup If
the multinational couldn'tdeliver.
They had a backup.
And then we also talked to thevery few customers who had
stopped buying from them.
(11:49):
And then we also tried to reachout to customers that never
heard of, and we didquantitative and qualitative
conversations based on thevolumes and what their
impressions were.
And when we combined all of thatdata, we then found that magic
niche that they filled, that thecompetitor could not compete
with that, they filled that thecompetitor could not compete
(12:11):
with.
And that's how, through thoseresults, we were then able to
build that strategic plan whichled to direct tactics.
There was very little moneyever spent on web search.
We knew who every one of thepotential customers were.
Through the research that wedid, we knew who the players
were and we reached out directly.
And then we did contentstrategies where those people
would see information andunderstand who we were and what
(12:33):
we were.
The budget for marketing wascut to I don't know a third of
what the spend had been priorand the company more than
doubled.
Hank (12:40):
You can't argue with those kinds of statistics.
You know, I discussed this withyou the other day when we had
an initial talk and I've knowntwo companies that had a really
unique product.
Of course they were consumerproducts, but they had these.
Started out they wereoverwhelmed by the amount of
(13:12):
business that came in.
They could not meet the demand.
They went out of business.
I think this thing happens allthe time.
It does.
Andrew (13:21):
It's the Walmart story.
So many companies have gonebroke because they wanted to
start out selling to the big boxretailers and they could not
keep up with the demand.
The first order came in andthey couldn't find the finance
and they couldn't find themanufacturing and were not able
to fulfill what was there andscaled themselves right into the
toilet.
It's not an unusual thing.
Sometimes scarcity is a signthat you're not charging enough.
(13:44):
There was a story.
I live not far from Amishcountry and I had an Amish
friend who had an organic farmand he would set up the stand at
the end of the driveway everySaturday and he would sell out
within two hours everything hehad.
And I asked him I said whydon't you raise your prices?
Well, my prices are fair.
I said fair to who?
Fair to you?
Because marketing is aboutpricing strategy.
Is it fair to you or fair tothe consumer?
And he said, well, fair, youwere fair to the consumer.
(14:05):
And he said, well, fair to theconsumer.
I said, well then it's not fairto you.
So next week raise everything anickel, everything's a nickel,
or 10 cents, and see sold outthe same amount of time.
The next week raise it again.
I said at the end of the day ifyou have stuff left over that
didn't sell back, your pricesback down a little bit, but
that's what you need to dobecause you're not charging
(14:25):
enough.
Well, the prices went up and upand up.
And when he did his books atthe end of the year he said to
me you know, I made $35,000 morethis year than I did last year.
Those nickels add up, don'tthey?
And I said how many peopleduring the entire year came out
and complained about the price.
He said this one guy who alwayswas annoying me, he finally
stopped coming.
So you're welcome.
So you know, pricing strategyis a major part of what we do
(14:48):
also.
Hank (14:49):
Yeah, and also, do you help them acquire the means of
production?
Do you work with them to makesure that they are geared up for
what they may encounter?
Andrew (14:59):
This goes back to the operational part of our business
.
Yes, and sometimes it's asourcing issue.
Sometimes it's it's anoutsource to get to get
manufacturing done somewhereelse before you can scale up.
We work with co-packers and wework with, uh, you know,
third-party manufacturing peoplethat we've worked with for
years.
Um, there's just recently weworked on a project where we
needed kiosks manufactured forfor uh, I can't share the
(15:22):
business, um, but it was a kiosksystem and we found a
manufacturer who was able tomass produce those kiosks that
they could have never donethemselves to to and, of course,
sourcing an Americanmanufacturing company that had
the ability to form, bend, paintand assemble these kiosks for
for the business here locally.
If we had not found that theythey would have, they would have
(15:43):
scaled themselves right intothe garbage can because they
there was no way that they couldbuild and get the equipment and
get manufacturing as quickly asthe demand for their product.
Hank (15:51):
Right.
Well, that's quite somethingthat you don't necessarily want
to overlook.
I want to go back to somethingyou said earlier with the three
things, the three ways that youdo it.
You know one, two and three andthree was.
You know, we'll tell you how todo it and you go ahead and do
it.
You know we'll tell you how todo it and you go ahead and do it
.
I would guess you probablydon't really get a lot of
customers who want to do it thatway, because in my experience,
(16:13):
people don't hire you for yourknowledge.
They hire you for theimplementation, and you can give
them all the knowledge in theworld, but if they're not ready
to implement that knowledge,they need somebody else to do it
.
Andrew (16:26):
Those cases are.
For example, someone will comeand say hey, we're stuck.
Can we pick your brain for anhour?
Can we maybe have threeappointments?
And they are prepared to do it.
They just need the guidance.
It's usually youngentrepreneurs that have never
done it.
I have on my website.
It's called the Pick my BrainSession.
People can sign up for it,matter of fact.
I usually give three of thoseaway a week for 30 minutes of my
(16:48):
time at no cost, and there'stwo reasons I do it.
One is I like to give back andtwo is it keeps me sharp.
Somebody comes to me withsomething totally new and in
less than 30 minutes I've got toget enough information to be
able to provide some value tosomebody.
It's good for me.
I'm selfish that way, but manyof those go into the next level.
Many of them don't.
(17:08):
But a few one-hour sessions withan expert, like having a board
member come in, can be extremelyvaluable to jumpstart the
movement within a company,because once they have the ideas
and the clarity, they don'tneed the consultant.
The second, the we set you upto do it.
We literally will take yourfolks and we will do the
training.
We do the initial creation ofthe protocols to do the research
(17:33):
and then train your people howto do it, and then we come back
involved and help evaluate it.
But if you're not well-fundedand can't afford to have it
handed to you as a completedproduct, where we become
embedded in the company and allof it, it's a great way to go.
Most of the companies that useour full service are companies
that have the funding to.
(17:53):
We become the virtual marketingdepartment, are we the
fractional chief growth officers, chief marketing officer for a
period of time, and we get greatresults from all three,
depending on the status.
The other thing we won't do istake somebody's money if we
don't think we can help them orif you know.
We also try to cut offrelationships before they become
parasitic, where there's like adependence and they just keep
(18:14):
wanting to pay and we're notdelivering any value.
Because our time's limited, I'dmuch rather be helping the next
guy boom than hang on to a guywho's booming just for an extra
buck.
Hank (18:24):
That's certainly an ethical way of doing business,
and I think more companies needto look at things that way.
If you could give nichestartups just one bit of advice
quickly, what would that be?
What kind of startups?
Niche, niche startup companies.
Andrew (18:42):
Make sure there's three kinds of products that people
bring to market.
Number one there's a knownproblem in the market.
Nobody has found a solution orthere's no good solution for it,
and you've got one thateverybody recognizes.
That's the ideal.
Second you recognize a problemin the market that people don't
recognize necessarily as aproblem, but when they see your
solution they go I do have thatproblem.
(19:03):
Wow, that's great.
And then the third is I've gota solution looking for a problem
.
So if you're a startup andyou've got a solution looking
for a problem, think again.
That's the.
You know, we found a new way toopen cans because, you know,
americans have so much troubleopening cans.
Now there's a new can opener.
Well, that's the crap they sellon TV in between the news at 2
am and 2.30.
(19:23):
The Shoe Dini is my favorite.
We now have a way to put on andtake off your shoes.
There's nothing unique about it, but Gilbert Gottfried sold a
lot of them.
Hank (19:32):
There's not even a need, I don't think, to put your shoes
on in a different way.
You know the time really flewhere, so I just want to ask you
how can our listeners contactyou to learn more about your
services?
Andrew (19:46):
We're very old so you have to fax us.
No, I'm kidding, I'm onLinkedIn.
You can find us there.
You can go tothefangledgroupcom and reach out
to us.
Happy to take inquiries.
You can send us a note right tothe website or through my
LinkedIn.
Hank (20:01):
All right.
Well, thank you so much forbeing here with us today, andrew
, and to our listeners, join usnext Wednesday for the Zoomers
to Boomers business show righthere on bizradious.
As you go about your day to day, I want to remind you all to
practice kindness.
It's the greatest uniter thisworld has ever known.
(20:21):
See you again next week.
This is Hank Eder, wishing allof you a fabulous, productive
and successful day.
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