November 19, 2024 • 31 mins
In this episode of *Schmidt List*, host Kurt Schmidt has a conversation with Craig Pladson from BraveCo to explore the intricacies of modern marketing. They discuss the challenges businesses face when choosing between marketing agencies that focus solely on implementation and those that provide strategic impact and measurable results. Kurt struggles to find agencies capable of developing comprehensive go-to-market strategies, instead of just executing specific tasks like SEO.
Craig emphasizes the importance of identifying target audiences and understanding various growth factors before making promises about return on investment (ROI). Listeners gain valuable insights as Craig explains that small businesses often outsource marketing due to a lack of in-house expertise. He also highlights the necessity of having a dedicated point person to ensure campaign success.
The discussion delves into cross-industry learnings, the shift toward flexible marketing models, and the evolution from traditional agencies of record to monthly retainer models. BraveCo, Craig's consultancy, crafts tailored marketing solutions by leveraging a network of independent professionals, focusing on client-specific outcomes such as leads and sales.
Craig further explains the significance of understanding audience insights and the customer journey, overcoming "shiny object syndrome," and incorporating empathy into consumer engagement for effective strategies. He offers a refreshing perspective on marketing priorities, setting realistic expectations, and implementing efficient strategies to support small businesses through gradual, project-based engagements.
For more information about BraveCo, Craig encourages listeners to visit "Go Brave Co." The conversation concludes with Kurt thanking Craig and expressing anticipation for future discussions. Tune in for an enlightening conversation about aligning marketing strategies with business goals for long-term success.
https://gobrave.co/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/gobraveco/
https://www.instagram.com/gobraveco
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/schmidt-list-entrepreneurial-insights--2664825/support.
Craig emphasizes the importance of identifying target audiences and understanding various growth factors before making promises about return on investment (ROI). Listeners gain valuable insights as Craig explains that small businesses often outsource marketing due to a lack of in-house expertise. He also highlights the necessity of having a dedicated point person to ensure campaign success.
The discussion delves into cross-industry learnings, the shift toward flexible marketing models, and the evolution from traditional agencies of record to monthly retainer models. BraveCo, Craig's consultancy, crafts tailored marketing solutions by leveraging a network of independent professionals, focusing on client-specific outcomes such as leads and sales.
Craig further explains the significance of understanding audience insights and the customer journey, overcoming "shiny object syndrome," and incorporating empathy into consumer engagement for effective strategies. He offers a refreshing perspective on marketing priorities, setting realistic expectations, and implementing efficient strategies to support small businesses through gradual, project-based engagements.
For more information about BraveCo, Craig encourages listeners to visit "Go Brave Co." The conversation concludes with Kurt thanking Craig and expressing anticipation for future discussions. Tune in for an enlightening conversation about aligning marketing strategies with business goals for long-term success.
https://gobrave.co/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/gobraveco/
https://www.instagram.com/gobraveco
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/schmidt-list-entrepreneurial-insights--2664825/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Schmidt List. Today's guest is Craig Pladsen from Braveco,
a marketing visionary transforming how businesses approach strategy and growth.
Tune in to hear his expert insights on audience understanding
the evolution of agencies, and navigating marketing challenges. You won't
want to miss this.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Craig, How are you today?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I'm doing well, kerk, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm so excited that you're here. I should have woren
my CP shirt, but it's laundry day, so it's in there.
I've got my old Craig shirt. But you're a Brave
code now. You're doing Brave Coe. Tell me about that
and what types of work do you do and who
do you work with.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Braveco is a marketing consultancy that guides leader is ready
for change, and we do that in two primary ways.
One is through fact fractional marketing leadership. Let me start over.
Braveco is a marketing consultancy that guides leaders ready for change,
and we do that in two ways, fractional marketing leadership
and project based advisory. I lead many of those engagements,
(01:02):
but I also work with a large group of collective
partners that will solve a variety of marketing challenges, whether
it's strategy and planning, UAX and design, media and measurement,
influencer and public relations, photography and video execution, a lot
of common things that you might get solutions from an
agency for. We do this in a variety of industries,
(01:24):
whether it's professional services, higher education, healthcare, CpG B to
B B two C B to B two C things.
So to me, it's an industry agnostic discipline that we
really hold true. And there's a variety of reasons for that,
but in a nutshell, that's what Brave Co is and
what our focus is today.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's great, thanks for sharing that, Craig, because to your point,
I think a lot of industries can learn from each
other with that. I think that having that ability to
take ideas from B two C put them to be
to be because it's all people in the end, right yep,
it is it.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Is, and I draw from a variety of different industries
where they can learn from one another. It's nothing proprietary
that shared client by client. However, when we engage clients
at the very beginning, the problems they're trying to solve,
may not be the same, but they oftentimes are trying
to solve the same problems, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
It might be in a different.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Part of the marketing and brand experience. It might be
further upfront where they're really trying to better understand their
audiences and who they should be targeting. It could be
all the way on the back end where they're trying
to better measure and optimize performance of the campaign. As
an example, the common problems that exist in marketing are prevalent.
(02:45):
Where people need to focus and get a starting point
for how they solve their individual challenge is where it
becomes a little bit more customized and unique. And if
you look at the different industries using a professional services
and higher education is examples, the leading time is significant,
as there's a way oh yeah, it's double trick, TI, Yeah,
(03:05):
so much goes into it, whereas you're in the CpG
world and you're on a day to day, hour by
hour e comm basis and pivoting and iterating. So I
just think there's a lot to be learned across industries
in different areas of business and different business models.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, it makes sense, and speaking of those challenges, Craig
I want to hear some of the interesting ways that
you're seeing people and some of the things that maybe
have changed over the last couple of years in the
way that people are maybe not executing on marketing, but
maybe how they're approaching it.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
It's a great question, and I think each time we
get asked that question, our answers might be a little
bit different. And honestly, and I've always been curious about
another way to make marketing work, whether it was working
for advertising agencies, working on the client side at General Mills, Yeah,
it just always felt like there was a better way,
and there was a different way, a more efficient way,
(03:58):
a more fulfilling way. And I continue to spend a
ton of time thinking about that and trying to figure
out the best way to orchestrate marketing teams for small businesses,
in particular because I do think they have some unique challenges,
of course, and also related to that, based on how
many more people are independent out in the market today,
(04:22):
has really honestly been inspiring to me to have more
validation even that there is a more flexible, adaptable way
to staff, build lead and create marketing teams and support
and resources for small businesses. I always had a hunch
that was true because working for agencies, you'd want to
(04:42):
work with a small business, and very quickly it became
too expensive due to overhead, sure the amount of people involved.
If it's an integrated agency, you kind of have to
default to doing everything. Whereas, again, as we talked about previously,
the very specific problem might be about audience insights and
creating a journey map that allows a client to understand
how should they assess the experience that they're designing for
(05:04):
a client. And now that there are so many more
independent people out in the market that are very honed
at their craft right, so they might be a ux
designer awesome, a writer, a media strategist, a measurement analyst,
an influencer in PR person. Those are all incredibly valuable
(05:25):
skills that small businesses need. They just don't need them
all at the same time. And I do think that's
a big difference. And as you think about the people
who are out in the world who are independent, whether
they're new and just getting started now, or they've been
at it for five years like me, or they've been
at it ten plus years like many folks that I've
been working with, it's really understanding their craft, but then
(05:46):
also the types of work that makes them tick and
the projects they're most fulfilled by. What is a really
important part of the equation that I think oftentimes gets
overlooked because you can find a not a lot, but
there are some really stellar designers out in the market, yeah,
but they can't articulate the type of work that fulfills
the most. And that's where I have a hard time
(06:07):
potentially building a partnership because I want to help them
find more opportunities where they're feeling best about the work
that they're doing. And then you add a client on
top of that that I become more keen to finding
that I have a really good sense that they'll be
a good partner. That's where things get really fun and interesting.
I can find an opportunity the client genuinely needs help
(06:28):
in a particular area that I believe Brave Co can help,
and then I will find a couple people who are
best fit to solve that problem, who I know have
passion for the problem that's trying to be solved, the
industry that it is in, or the type of leader
that we'll be working with. That's five years in, but
that's been a huge unlock for me, I think is
(06:48):
sure in really figuring out how Brave Co can do
more meaningful work for the clients that we serve.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, I think it's great because again you look at
the different business models when it comes to providing professional services,
and since the fifties and the sixties all the way
into the eighties and nineties, you had this idea of
the agency of record where basically Marlborough Cigarettes would be like,
we have a million dollars a year for our budget.
Whoever wins our agency of record, they get the million
(07:15):
dollars a year and then it's up to the agency
to just deliver on whatever that budget was for the year.
But we've moved into this MRR sort of world where
where we've got these retainers that are monthly retainers that
are driving I think in some cases bad forecasting for agencies,
bad forecasting for clients right, because it's no and even
(07:39):
the clients know that you can't just hire a marketing
team and then in a couple of weeks you're seeing results.
It takes time and everybody understands it, but we still
we still pretend sometimes that we bill by the hour
or by the month, or by the sprint or things
like that, when we all know these things are going
to take time. So I think there's I feel like
(08:01):
there's some unmet expectations because it's also hard to go
to a client and say, here is what six month
is going to cost you, and that's a big price
tag compared to showing them what a month looks like.
It looks more digestible, even though and they know this
is going to take six months to see any results.
But we don't have those conversations because the world hasn't
(08:22):
been built around that. We've been built into these smaller,
bite sized chunks. And I don't really have a question
or quig, but I just want to get your reaction
to their perspective.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah, I understand what you're saying, and that's part of
the traditional way in which the agency models have been built.
And there's nothing wrong with that. By the way, I
have to be super clear, I have learned an incredible
amount in my career working at a variety of different
shapes and sizes of agencies. Yeah, the intention and the
(08:53):
work that they do can be remarkably great, and it
can be for sure a great investment for the client
to get return on what they're looking to accomplish. I
just believe that to your point, trying to forecast needs
for a client six twelve, two years down the road,
which oftentimes agencies are looking to get engagements agree to
(09:16):
play for that claration is really challenging, especially again for
small businesses. And the other thing that I would say
is one of my biggest frustrations working at any organization,
but just let's use agencies as an example, is you're
stuck with the cards that are dealt to you. You
(09:37):
have full time employees, and the default alleys for an
agency is going to be, how do we get as
many FTEs, build as much as possible at this percentage,
whereas the brave co model does not work that way
at all. Again, we've tried to figure out what is
the first thing we should be doing together, let's scope
for that, Let's start making progress there, and then as
(10:00):
we progress and we start to uncover new things where
there's opportunity, we'll then enlist talent, write another scope, and
be on our way. And the motivations are also different.
In that situation. More than likely I'll be serving as
a fractional marketing lead where I can identify these opportunities
over time as I bring people in to support Brave
(10:24):
Co whatever we're doing at that moment. They are independent
business owners. They I do not mark up their rates.
I do not take a commission off of the work
that they do for the clients that I may have
initiated in the first place. I've gone back and forth
on this a lot. I have a lot of people
opinions about how to monetize that, in particular as a
(10:49):
business owner. But when I start having that conversation with
my partners, and I've experimented with it on a few
projects and it just doesn't quite feel right, the conversation changes.
Whereas what I realize now with the collective that I've
built and have partnership with is there's a sense of
abundance and if we can work together and share work
(11:11):
opportunities with each other as they come, the equity for
Brave Co goes up substantially because they are outstanding at
what they do, and any time I put them in
front of a client, they deliver outstanding work. And so
I remain convinced that while it may not be the
most efficient business model and leaving money on the table,
(11:32):
it feels right because My motivation with Brave Co is
to make me and my family as comfortable as we
can be. It isn't to scale it, it isn't to
sell it. We're living in the moment that Braveco currently
is and to me, it's taken a while to get there,
but it feels very settling and fulfilling. And I think
I feel most comfortable and confident as I going to
(11:54):
new business conversations. That is our motivation. And if you're
really upfront with people, I think they're kind of taken back.
Really you don't want to sign up twelve month retainer
right now?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
No?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I don't. It's not the best thing for your business.
Your work won't be right. And I feel a responsibility
and accountability, especially in a fractional role where I'm involved
with the leadership team over a period of time, that
conscious decisions need to be made because it's going to
impact the sustainability and long term impact of their business.
When I'm gone, okay, like when I make sense is
(12:24):
a really important moment.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, what's your opinion about how clients should be looking
at because it can be confused on am I hiring
a freelancer, an agency or a fractional person, and these
terms seem to get bantered around in the last year interchangeably.
So do you want to give me your definition of
how what your advice would be for people that are
(12:48):
seeking these kind of services should be thinking about it?
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Honestly, I don't mean the punt. But when I started consulting,
I was doing fractional marketing leadership, but it wasn't even
called that then. Yeah, I would find a client that
needed help over a period of time that did not
have leadership or the capability to do it with a focus.
So I had a few clients that were ahead of
the curve as it relates to how they were thinking
(13:12):
about staffing their business. But I would say, if you
want to call it a consultant, a fractional, a freelance,
and independent, they all kind of mean the same thing.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
They are.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Contractors who are going to come work on your business,
probably for an hourly rate or a project fee. The
mechanics of it remain the same across all those different labels. Yeah,
that's the part I want to get at. It is
because is it just nomenclature?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Is that? Because is it? Freelancers have rebranded themselves as
fractional because it just sounds better, just like we used
to we changed time the story points for development because
their managed time. Because again, I think it can be
confusing if you're an h VAC supplier in a mid
(14:03):
size city and you're looking for an agency to you've
been told like, go get a marketing agency, they'll help
you out or whatever, and you're seeing all these terms
marketing consultant, fractional, CMO, marketing agency, all these things. I
think it can be confusing for these people to understand
what should I be buying when their NBA basically tells them,
(14:25):
like find an advertising agency or something. Because it's it's
curriculum from the eighties, right.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, it is confusing, it's noisy, it really It's challenged
Brave Co in a way, but it's also pushed me
to think more clearly about the outcomes. What sort of
outcome can I imagine the perspective client is looking for?
And I will try to shift the conversation earlier in
the conversation to be like if we were doing if
(14:53):
we were a partner together, or if you were to
find a solution for whatever problem you're trying to solve,
what is the best outcome that would happen, and there
will be obvious ones, more leads, more sales, more engagements
in market activity always and how do we get there?
(15:14):
Who's doing the work, who's creating the plan? How are
you finding partners? Do you have the right processes and
methods internally to actually build a marketing plan? Do you
have a budget? Do you need help writing job descriptions?
Do you need help recruiting? Do you need help onboarding
these new people into your business? So as Brave Co exits,
you have a pretty smooth transition for them to be
(15:36):
a full time employee. And by the way, that full
time employee is going to be very The way you
articulate who that person is going to be quite different
than how we started articulating when we started working together
three months ago. And so it is noisy, and it's
hard for me to articulate and define each one of
those different ways to describe somebody who can come in
(15:57):
and offer fresh perspective on how to grow your busines.
This I try not to get caught up in it.
I do think the fractional piece, in particular to me,
is a sign for folks now that it is over
a longer period of time.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Hey, there's going to be.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
A little bit more involvement and more than likely the
person's going to have more experience. Yeah, that to me
feels like the differentiator that is important and why I
do say fractional, but I also don't default to fractional CMO.
That's a level that a person may or may not
need and also frankly, a lot of consultants mayor may
(16:31):
not be able to actually deliver on. So it's noisy.
It's a noisy one on there.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It is a noisy one. Yeah, And I just asked
because I don't expect you to have the answer, but
I just I really enjoy getting the perspective of people
like yourself on how you're approaching it, how you're differentiating
yourself in a way that makes sense for other folks
to understand. Because again, in the end, like our goal
is to provide services to the clients, and if they
(16:57):
don't even know what to ask for, it's pretty hard
to sell them service exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I think you nail it, though, Kurt, if they oftentimes don't.
And this is not this is not a criticism, but
just like you and I in the moment might be
asked what problem you think we're trying to solve, You're like,
I think it's this. But oftentimes, even through discovery, which
I know is a thing that all consultants will do
and say yeah, but I will oftentimes scope discovery as
(17:23):
a very minute thing to say, we need to spend
time together to understand exactly where you probably need the
most help. I would prefer to be paid for that
if you're willing to do, and then I'll come back
to you with a very specific plan for what I
think you actually need. That's not super common based on
what I've seen and heard in the market, that is
(17:43):
built into a six month scope with a pretty expensive
price tag. But then the client is at risk of
rolling the dice to figure out, partner, can you even
solve the problem that they're looking to solve.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, it's scary to sign up for that. But again
I think on how you show up and you alluded
to this too, Craig, is that But if I'm showing
up and I'm not selling services and I'm selling impact
and I'm selling results because I have the confidence that
I can if I work with Brave Call, can I
expect a ten to twenty percent increase in re bottom
(18:18):
line revenue over the next year. Right, those are the
types of things that people will pay for versus yeah,
we can do some LinkedIn ads for you. Whould you
like clars? But that's the thing is that And this
is the challenge I've seen with marketing over the years
is the types of agencies that are more implementation versus
(18:39):
strategic and and the differences between them. Because as a
business owner early on in my career, I went out
and I found marketing people to come in and help in.
What I was shocked by is how many people were like, great,
what's your plan, what's your go to market strategy? And
I'm like, that's what I That's what I was hoping
you would help me with. And they were like, oh, no,
we will make your site SEO friendly to whatever keywords
(19:02):
you tell us it needs to be, and then we
will create marketing and campaigns around whoever you tell us
you should be going after. And so I got stuck
very quickly because I was like, oh, I don't have
all that information put together. And that's when you know, actually,
just for the audience, note, that's when we engage with
(19:23):
Craig and Craig actually helped us identify who that target
group was before we even talked about how to go
to market. And are you still seeing that out there?
Is that? Are people coming to Brave Code saying like
how much for an email campaign? Or are they asking
for help me define my ICP?
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Both? I would say some are many are interested in
to your point the ROI piece, so you said, I
think he said ten to twenty percent growth. If I
were to agree to that at the upfront, I'm set
up for failure. There are so many factors influence growth
for a business. I am one part of the leadership team.
(20:06):
I am tangentially involved in the product or service that
is being offered, in the quality. There are just so
many factors that go into business growth that I think
if someone does come to me and they're like, we
need leads now, Bravecode probably isn't the best place to go,
right sure, at least with me being more involved in
(20:27):
that situation. If I were to believe this potential client
could be a good fit for Braveco, if the answer
is yes to that and they're like, we do need
leads for this reason, we feel one thousand percent confident
in who we're targeting. Our messaging, the experience, the ability
to convert, the ability to follow up on sales, right,
(20:49):
assuming that's all true, which is rare, and I would
refer them to someone who's an expert in paid media
on LinkedIn as an example, and just refer them to
that person, and then I would get out of the
way and let that person do the work, because if
the expectation is leads tomorrow, that's probably what you should
be doing. If you are looking for higher quality leads
(21:14):
and you're trying to grow in a new audience or
in a different direction that you have not explored before,
that's probably where I can step in and at a
little bit more value.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, that's a different ask, right because if but that
goes back to my earlier thing is that if the
client even knows what they they need for sure, if
they're able to articulate it. And what I find is
that a lot of these, you know, i'd say mid
sized businesses, you usually have just that one marketing person.
They are the marketing department. Yeah, and and basically their
(21:47):
full time job ends up like running the blog total
something so.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Bravee seeds email all the work that is real, yes,
but at a very minimal level like there and so
and there's a challenge, and they're like, hey, we need
to step up in this area.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
That's when I see them outsourcing and looking for ways
to outsource, not necessarily to add people to the team.
But to your point, if that people they're bringing in
don't fully understand what the solution is, I think it's great.
Do you prefer coming into places where they have them
and some sort of representation versus they have nothing. Does
(22:28):
that make the job easier or is it still the
same challenges.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, it's a great question, and we've experienced both. To
be honest, I would say it is helpful to have
somebody on point to support, produce and project manage initiatives through.
So if we get really clear on a campaign idea
(22:58):
and we want to get it out into the market,
I certainly can lead clients through that experience and get
them the resources needed to deliver. There's a lot of
follow up, there's a lot of orchestration that needs to
happen on the client side that I typically can do
for the most part myself, but sometimes that can be
a place in which we find challenges. Is making sure
(23:20):
that everybody's on the same page about delivery dates. Who
needs to review what when? Because when you're working with
a small business, especially I usually work pretty closely with
the founder or CEO, he or she is not always
available at the moment in which I might need them,
and vice versa. So I think it is really important
to have somebody who can really champion marketing activity on
(23:42):
the client side. It doesn't necessarily need to be a
marketing coordinator per se, but it is helpful and also
based on the work that I do. If it's a
fractional situation, it's hard to it's hard for me to
work my way out of that partnership if there isn't
somebody there that can really be running the day day
as I off board, and so at that point it
(24:04):
does make sense to have a more focused or full
time marketing person there to carry the plant forward, make
sure that it's being executed, and then I might do
quarterly check ins or if they want perspective as they're
working through it, they can let me know. But I
try to build as much of the foundational pieces as
I can so the client then can remain again independently
(24:27):
sustained with how they approach marketing moving forward.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, I think that's I think that's smart. So one
last piece of advice I'd want from you, Craig, is
that if there's business owners that are listening, regardless if
they're in B to B, B two C, B to
B two C, would a student case may be ABC, yeah, X,
Y and Z. Is there things that you've been seeing
that tactics, strategies and things that have been working across
(24:52):
those groups over the past six months or year. Is
there kind of a go to sort of spot for
you or is it all always a completely custom Is
there anything that you've been seeing that maybe not throw
all your money at, but something you should be paying
attention to.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
To me, it always starts with the consumer and the
prospective buyer for the client, because they're always in different
place they are, and clients that I work with have
varying understanding, empathy or insights about their perspective, customers and
how they buy or engage with their product or service.
So to me, audience insights is usually a rich field
(25:32):
to explore. It's not meant to be a six month,
one hundred thousand dollars research. It's a check and frankly,
I have a new client who's in the bulking industry.
They know their clients and they know their prospects. They
just have never formally put it on vaper articated it
and built a plan to say, hey, if we were
(25:54):
to get more people like this, where are they, what
is the size of their business, and how do we
engage with them? How do we have pieces where Usually
there's work to be done too, right because they now
are talking about a customer who works in this types
of industry and they want to bring them in as
a banking client. The core problems they're trying to solve
are one, two, three, and as a bank we need
(26:15):
to show up and say we can help them solve
those and that can oftentimes be a big on lom.
So mostly clients we've co engages with there's usually a
good insight drawn from that experience, and then it helps
us kind of prioritize what else we do. So I
think further up the funnel with audience and targeting and
segmenting and understanding what makes them tick is critically important.
(26:40):
And then I mentioned priorities. I think prioritization is another
common thing hair on fire. You're a small business, it's
hard to figure out what you should be doing when
and why. And as I look across different clients in
different industries, I have a pretty good sense of where
we should be prioritizing our efforts and why, and we
(27:01):
can test and experiment our way to see if we're
right on those priorities. But priorities is hard because there's
a lot of stuff for a small business to do.
And the last thing I'd say is accountability. Sometimes they
just don't have enough resources on the clients and to
bring accountability to move this forward and show up at
(27:21):
a meeting or make a decision all those coming.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Or accountability to stay on track and not get stay
autum in every shiny tang, right.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah, So I think there's audience, and then the audience
piece too allows companies, whether they're a product or service,
to identify new audiences. That's the stuff that can ultimately
grow the business because they're finding new ways to enter
a market, to engage and see if there are incremental
customers that they can bring in an addition to the
(27:51):
market they're currently focused in on.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah. That's the other thing is that what I alluded
to there is the shiny object syndrome. I think that
a lot of folks suffer from everybody does worse. But
to your point, if they're not, if they're not a
very mature marketing or they don't have a very mature
marketing process approach philosophy that can take over very quickly, right,
(28:15):
Because AI looks very fun and I could just AI
all my stuff right and just send it out and
then why is that not working? Or told me AI
was gonna do all that stuff for me?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Craig, Yeah, And I think the example I just gave
can when we talk about outcomes and ROI go with
an ROI on being more empathetic with who we think
our customers are squishy For sure, I think it drives
you to more meaningful creative and messaging and ways to
engage and finding the right person at the right time,
(28:46):
all that on the in market side of the equation.
A common challenge I see for clients and for Brave
Coe included, is what are you measuring and why based
on where people are in a journey to purchase your
product or so. Using leads as an example, the proxy
for leads is people are interested, well, what about everything
(29:10):
else that has happened before someone who's decided to actually
engage in your product or service, through a form as
an example, or at an event to shake your hand.
They've been influenced in a variety of ways further upstream
or in a different place within the journey. And so
I've been working a lot with clients to help them
understand what metrics make sense based on where they are
(29:32):
in the consumer journey. Because if a client will say
I want leads, yes, and we really need brand awareness.
We need more people to know about our brand. If
that is what you think you need, there is a
different metric and measurement and proxy that we should be
looking at to show we have actually lifted brand awareness.
And by the way, that's not going to turn into
(29:53):
a lead in three months depending on your business, if
you're a service company, it couldn't be six to twelve
to eighteen months, and then you need to be looking
six to twelve to eighteen months down the road to
see if that person actually converted. That really flips people's mindset.
I think in a way to say there isn't yes
a leader. A sale is ultimately what hits our bottom line.
(30:15):
But thinking about the entire journey, the experience and measuring
accordingly can really help you unlock new opportunities to get
people through the journey in a more efficient and cost
effective way.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah, I think that's I think that's fantastic advice. Craig.
All right, so I can talk to you all day,
but we do have to cut it here. If I
want to get in touch with you, if I want
to know more about Brave code, where do I go
and where do I find out more information?
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Best place to go would be go Brave dot co.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
That's pretty easy. Brave dot co. Okay, and I'll have
link in the description for everybody if you want to
check it out. Craig, thank you so much for taking
the time to join me. I really appreciate it. We
got to do this again, you bet.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Thanks for having me. Kurt.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
We appreciate you taking the time to listen to this
episode of Schmidt List. The stories shared by our guests
are genuinely inspiring and offer insightful knowledge. It's important to
remember that success doesn't happen overnight and requires collaboration, learning,
and perseverance. If you want to broaden your professional connections,
(31:16):
check out Kurt's book, The Little Book of Networking, How
to Build your Career. One conversation at a time on Amazon.
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leave a review for the podcast, and join our community
of like minded entrepreneurs. Thank you for being part of Schmidtlist.
Keep innovating, collaborating, and chasing your entrepreneurial dreams.
Welcome to Schmidt List. Today's guest is Craig Pladsen from Braveco,
a marketing visionary transforming how businesses approach strategy and growth.
Tune in to hear his expert insights on audience understanding
the evolution of agencies, and navigating marketing challenges. You won't
want to miss this.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Craig, How are you today?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I'm doing well, kerk, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm so excited that you're here. I should have woren
my CP shirt, but it's laundry day, so it's in there.
I've got my old Craig shirt. But you're a Brave
code now. You're doing Brave Coe. Tell me about that
and what types of work do you do and who
do you work with.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Braveco is a marketing consultancy that guides leader is ready
for change, and we do that in two primary ways.
One is through fact fractional marketing leadership. Let me start over.
Braveco is a marketing consultancy that guides leaders ready for change,
and we do that in two ways, fractional marketing leadership
and project based advisory. I lead many of those engagements,
(01:02):
but I also work with a large group of collective
partners that will solve a variety of marketing challenges, whether
it's strategy and planning, UAX and design, media and measurement,
influencer and public relations, photography and video execution, a lot
of common things that you might get solutions from an
agency for. We do this in a variety of industries,
(01:24):
whether it's professional services, higher education, healthcare, CpG B to
B B two C B to B two C things.
So to me, it's an industry agnostic discipline that we
really hold true. And there's a variety of reasons for that,
but in a nutshell, that's what Brave Co is and
what our focus is today.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's great, thanks for sharing that, Craig, because to your point,
I think a lot of industries can learn from each
other with that. I think that having that ability to
take ideas from B two C put them to be
to be because it's all people in the end, right yep,
it is it.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Is, and I draw from a variety of different industries
where they can learn from one another. It's nothing proprietary
that shared client by client. However, when we engage clients
at the very beginning, the problems they're trying to solve,
may not be the same, but they oftentimes are trying
to solve the same problems, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
It might be in a different.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Part of the marketing and brand experience. It might be
further upfront where they're really trying to better understand their
audiences and who they should be targeting. It could be
all the way on the back end where they're trying
to better measure and optimize performance of the campaign. As
an example, the common problems that exist in marketing are prevalent.
(02:45):
Where people need to focus and get a starting point
for how they solve their individual challenge is where it
becomes a little bit more customized and unique. And if
you look at the different industries using a professional services
and higher education is examples, the leading time is significant,
as there's a way oh yeah, it's double trick, TI, Yeah,
(03:05):
so much goes into it, whereas you're in the CpG
world and you're on a day to day, hour by
hour e comm basis and pivoting and iterating. So I
just think there's a lot to be learned across industries
in different areas of business and different business models.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, it makes sense, and speaking of those challenges, Craig
I want to hear some of the interesting ways that
you're seeing people and some of the things that maybe
have changed over the last couple of years in the
way that people are maybe not executing on marketing, but
maybe how they're approaching it.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
It's a great question, and I think each time we
get asked that question, our answers might be a little
bit different. And honestly, and I've always been curious about
another way to make marketing work, whether it was working
for advertising agencies, working on the client side at General Mills, Yeah,
it just always felt like there was a better way,
and there was a different way, a more efficient way,
(03:58):
a more fulfilling way. And I continue to spend a
ton of time thinking about that and trying to figure
out the best way to orchestrate marketing teams for small businesses,
in particular because I do think they have some unique challenges,
of course, and also related to that, based on how
many more people are independent out in the market today,
(04:22):
has really honestly been inspiring to me to have more
validation even that there is a more flexible, adaptable way
to staff, build lead and create marketing teams and support
and resources for small businesses. I always had a hunch
that was true because working for agencies, you'd want to
(04:42):
work with a small business, and very quickly it became
too expensive due to overhead, sure the amount of people involved.
If it's an integrated agency, you kind of have to
default to doing everything. Whereas, again, as we talked about previously,
the very specific problem might be about audience insights and
creating a journey map that allows a client to understand
how should they assess the experience that they're designing for
(05:04):
a client. And now that there are so many more
independent people out in the market that are very honed
at their craft right, so they might be a ux
designer awesome, a writer, a media strategist, a measurement analyst,
an influencer in PR person. Those are all incredibly valuable
(05:25):
skills that small businesses need. They just don't need them
all at the same time. And I do think that's
a big difference. And as you think about the people
who are out in the world who are independent, whether
they're new and just getting started now, or they've been
at it for five years like me, or they've been
at it ten plus years like many folks that I've
been working with, it's really understanding their craft, but then
(05:46):
also the types of work that makes them tick and
the projects they're most fulfilled by. What is a really
important part of the equation that I think oftentimes gets
overlooked because you can find a not a lot, but
there are some really stellar designers out in the market, yeah,
but they can't articulate the type of work that fulfills
the most. And that's where I have a hard time
(06:07):
potentially building a partnership because I want to help them
find more opportunities where they're feeling best about the work
that they're doing. And then you add a client on
top of that that I become more keen to finding
that I have a really good sense that they'll be
a good partner. That's where things get really fun and interesting.
I can find an opportunity the client genuinely needs help
(06:28):
in a particular area that I believe Brave Co can help,
and then I will find a couple people who are
best fit to solve that problem, who I know have
passion for the problem that's trying to be solved, the
industry that it is in, or the type of leader
that we'll be working with. That's five years in, but
that's been a huge unlock for me, I think is
(06:48):
sure in really figuring out how Brave Co can do
more meaningful work for the clients that we serve.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, I think it's great because again you look at
the different business models when it comes to providing professional services,
and since the fifties and the sixties all the way
into the eighties and nineties, you had this idea of
the agency of record where basically Marlborough Cigarettes would be like,
we have a million dollars a year for our budget.
Whoever wins our agency of record, they get the million
(07:15):
dollars a year and then it's up to the agency
to just deliver on whatever that budget was for the year.
But we've moved into this MRR sort of world where
where we've got these retainers that are monthly retainers that
are driving I think in some cases bad forecasting for agencies,
bad forecasting for clients right, because it's no and even
(07:39):
the clients know that you can't just hire a marketing
team and then in a couple of weeks you're seeing results.
It takes time and everybody understands it, but we still
we still pretend sometimes that we bill by the hour
or by the month, or by the sprint or things
like that, when we all know these things are going
to take time. So I think there's I feel like
(08:01):
there's some unmet expectations because it's also hard to go
to a client and say, here is what six month
is going to cost you, and that's a big price
tag compared to showing them what a month looks like.
It looks more digestible, even though and they know this
is going to take six months to see any results.
But we don't have those conversations because the world hasn't
(08:22):
been built around that. We've been built into these smaller,
bite sized chunks. And I don't really have a question
or quig, but I just want to get your reaction
to their perspective.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah, I understand what you're saying, and that's part of
the traditional way in which the agency models have been built.
And there's nothing wrong with that. By the way, I
have to be super clear, I have learned an incredible
amount in my career working at a variety of different
shapes and sizes of agencies. Yeah, the intention and the
(08:53):
work that they do can be remarkably great, and it
can be for sure a great investment for the client
to get return on what they're looking to accomplish. I
just believe that to your point, trying to forecast needs
for a client six twelve, two years down the road,
which oftentimes agencies are looking to get engagements agree to
(09:16):
play for that claration is really challenging, especially again for
small businesses. And the other thing that I would say
is one of my biggest frustrations working at any organization,
but just let's use agencies as an example, is you're
stuck with the cards that are dealt to you. You
(09:37):
have full time employees, and the default alleys for an
agency is going to be, how do we get as
many FTEs, build as much as possible at this percentage,
whereas the brave co model does not work that way
at all. Again, we've tried to figure out what is
the first thing we should be doing together, let's scope
for that, Let's start making progress there, and then as
(10:00):
we progress and we start to uncover new things where
there's opportunity, we'll then enlist talent, write another scope, and
be on our way. And the motivations are also different.
In that situation. More than likely I'll be serving as
a fractional marketing lead where I can identify these opportunities
over time as I bring people in to support Brave
(10:24):
Co whatever we're doing at that moment. They are independent
business owners. They I do not mark up their rates.
I do not take a commission off of the work
that they do for the clients that I may have
initiated in the first place. I've gone back and forth
on this a lot. I have a lot of people
opinions about how to monetize that, in particular as a
(10:49):
business owner. But when I start having that conversation with
my partners, and I've experimented with it on a few
projects and it just doesn't quite feel right, the conversation changes.
Whereas what I realize now with the collective that I've
built and have partnership with is there's a sense of
abundance and if we can work together and share work
(11:11):
opportunities with each other as they come, the equity for
Brave Co goes up substantially because they are outstanding at
what they do, and any time I put them in
front of a client, they deliver outstanding work. And so
I remain convinced that while it may not be the
most efficient business model and leaving money on the table,
(11:32):
it feels right because My motivation with Brave Co is
to make me and my family as comfortable as we
can be. It isn't to scale it, it isn't to
sell it. We're living in the moment that Braveco currently
is and to me, it's taken a while to get there,
but it feels very settling and fulfilling. And I think
I feel most comfortable and confident as I going to
(11:54):
new business conversations. That is our motivation. And if you're
really upfront with people, I think they're kind of taken back.
Really you don't want to sign up twelve month retainer
right now?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
No?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I don't. It's not the best thing for your business.
Your work won't be right. And I feel a responsibility
and accountability, especially in a fractional role where I'm involved
with the leadership team over a period of time, that
conscious decisions need to be made because it's going to
impact the sustainability and long term impact of their business.
When I'm gone, okay, like when I make sense is
(12:24):
a really important moment.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, what's your opinion about how clients should be looking
at because it can be confused on am I hiring
a freelancer, an agency or a fractional person, and these
terms seem to get bantered around in the last year interchangeably.
So do you want to give me your definition of
how what your advice would be for people that are
(12:48):
seeking these kind of services should be thinking about it?
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Honestly, I don't mean the punt. But when I started consulting,
I was doing fractional marketing leadership, but it wasn't even
called that then. Yeah, I would find a client that
needed help over a period of time that did not
have leadership or the capability to do it with a focus.
So I had a few clients that were ahead of
the curve as it relates to how they were thinking
(13:12):
about staffing their business. But I would say, if you
want to call it a consultant, a fractional, a freelance,
and independent, they all kind of mean the same thing.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
They are.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Contractors who are going to come work on your business,
probably for an hourly rate or a project fee. The
mechanics of it remain the same across all those different labels. Yeah,
that's the part I want to get at. It is
because is it just nomenclature?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Is that? Because is it? Freelancers have rebranded themselves as
fractional because it just sounds better, just like we used
to we changed time the story points for development because
their managed time. Because again, I think it can be
confusing if you're an h VAC supplier in a mid
(14:03):
size city and you're looking for an agency to you've
been told like, go get a marketing agency, they'll help
you out or whatever, and you're seeing all these terms
marketing consultant, fractional, CMO, marketing agency, all these things. I
think it can be confusing for these people to understand
what should I be buying when their NBA basically tells them,
(14:25):
like find an advertising agency or something. Because it's it's
curriculum from the eighties, right.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, it is confusing, it's noisy, it really It's challenged
Brave Co in a way, but it's also pushed me
to think more clearly about the outcomes. What sort of
outcome can I imagine the perspective client is looking for?
And I will try to shift the conversation earlier in
the conversation to be like if we were doing if
(14:53):
we were a partner together, or if you were to
find a solution for whatever problem you're trying to solve,
what is the best outcome that would happen, and there
will be obvious ones, more leads, more sales, more engagements
in market activity always and how do we get there?
(15:14):
Who's doing the work, who's creating the plan? How are
you finding partners? Do you have the right processes and
methods internally to actually build a marketing plan? Do you
have a budget? Do you need help writing job descriptions?
Do you need help recruiting? Do you need help onboarding
these new people into your business? So as Brave Co exits,
you have a pretty smooth transition for them to be
(15:36):
a full time employee. And by the way, that full
time employee is going to be very The way you
articulate who that person is going to be quite different
than how we started articulating when we started working together
three months ago. And so it is noisy, and it's
hard for me to articulate and define each one of
those different ways to describe somebody who can come in
(15:57):
and offer fresh perspective on how to grow your busines.
This I try not to get caught up in it.
I do think the fractional piece, in particular to me,
is a sign for folks now that it is over
a longer period of time.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Hey, there's going to be.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
A little bit more involvement and more than likely the
person's going to have more experience. Yeah, that to me
feels like the differentiator that is important and why I
do say fractional, but I also don't default to fractional CMO.
That's a level that a person may or may not
need and also frankly, a lot of consultants mayor may
(16:31):
not be able to actually deliver on. So it's noisy.
It's a noisy one on there.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It is a noisy one. Yeah, And I just asked
because I don't expect you to have the answer, but
I just I really enjoy getting the perspective of people
like yourself on how you're approaching it, how you're differentiating
yourself in a way that makes sense for other folks
to understand. Because again, in the end, like our goal
is to provide services to the clients, and if they
(16:57):
don't even know what to ask for, it's pretty hard
to sell them service exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I think you nail it, though, Kurt, if they oftentimes don't.
And this is not this is not a criticism, but
just like you and I in the moment might be
asked what problem you think we're trying to solve, You're like,
I think it's this. But oftentimes, even through discovery, which
I know is a thing that all consultants will do
and say yeah, but I will oftentimes scope discovery as
(17:23):
a very minute thing to say, we need to spend
time together to understand exactly where you probably need the
most help. I would prefer to be paid for that
if you're willing to do, and then I'll come back
to you with a very specific plan for what I
think you actually need. That's not super common based on
what I've seen and heard in the market, that is
(17:43):
built into a six month scope with a pretty expensive
price tag. But then the client is at risk of
rolling the dice to figure out, partner, can you even
solve the problem that they're looking to solve.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, it's scary to sign up for that. But again
I think on how you show up and you alluded
to this too, Craig, is that But if I'm showing
up and I'm not selling services and I'm selling impact
and I'm selling results because I have the confidence that
I can if I work with Brave Call, can I
expect a ten to twenty percent increase in re bottom
(18:18):
line revenue over the next year. Right, those are the
types of things that people will pay for versus yeah,
we can do some LinkedIn ads for you. Whould you
like clars? But that's the thing is that And this
is the challenge I've seen with marketing over the years
is the types of agencies that are more implementation versus
(18:39):
strategic and and the differences between them. Because as a
business owner early on in my career, I went out
and I found marketing people to come in and help in.
What I was shocked by is how many people were like, great,
what's your plan, what's your go to market strategy? And
I'm like, that's what I That's what I was hoping
you would help me with. And they were like, oh, no,
we will make your site SEO friendly to whatever keywords
(19:02):
you tell us it needs to be, and then we
will create marketing and campaigns around whoever you tell us
you should be going after. And so I got stuck
very quickly because I was like, oh, I don't have
all that information put together. And that's when you know, actually,
just for the audience, note, that's when we engage with
(19:23):
Craig and Craig actually helped us identify who that target
group was before we even talked about how to go
to market. And are you still seeing that out there?
Is that? Are people coming to Brave Code saying like
how much for an email campaign? Or are they asking
for help me define my ICP?
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Both? I would say some are many are interested in
to your point the ROI piece, so you said, I
think he said ten to twenty percent growth. If I
were to agree to that at the upfront, I'm set
up for failure. There are so many factors influence growth
for a business. I am one part of the leadership team.
(20:06):
I am tangentially involved in the product or service that
is being offered, in the quality. There are just so
many factors that go into business growth that I think
if someone does come to me and they're like, we
need leads now, Bravecode probably isn't the best place to go,
right sure, at least with me being more involved in
(20:27):
that situation. If I were to believe this potential client
could be a good fit for Braveco, if the answer
is yes to that and they're like, we do need
leads for this reason, we feel one thousand percent confident
in who we're targeting. Our messaging, the experience, the ability
to convert, the ability to follow up on sales, right,
(20:49):
assuming that's all true, which is rare, and I would
refer them to someone who's an expert in paid media
on LinkedIn as an example, and just refer them to
that person, and then I would get out of the
way and let that person do the work, because if
the expectation is leads tomorrow, that's probably what you should
be doing. If you are looking for higher quality leads
(21:14):
and you're trying to grow in a new audience or
in a different direction that you have not explored before,
that's probably where I can step in and at a
little bit more value.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, that's a different ask, right because if but that
goes back to my earlier thing is that if the
client even knows what they they need for sure, if
they're able to articulate it. And what I find is
that a lot of these, you know, i'd say mid
sized businesses, you usually have just that one marketing person.
They are the marketing department. Yeah, and and basically their
(21:47):
full time job ends up like running the blog total
something so.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Bravee seeds email all the work that is real, yes,
but at a very minimal level like there and so
and there's a challenge, and they're like, hey, we need
to step up in this area.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
That's when I see them outsourcing and looking for ways
to outsource, not necessarily to add people to the team.
But to your point, if that people they're bringing in
don't fully understand what the solution is, I think it's great.
Do you prefer coming into places where they have them
and some sort of representation versus they have nothing. Does
(22:28):
that make the job easier or is it still the
same challenges.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, it's a great question, and we've experienced both. To
be honest, I would say it is helpful to have
somebody on point to support, produce and project manage initiatives through.
So if we get really clear on a campaign idea
(22:58):
and we want to get it out into the market,
I certainly can lead clients through that experience and get
them the resources needed to deliver. There's a lot of
follow up, there's a lot of orchestration that needs to
happen on the client side that I typically can do
for the most part myself, but sometimes that can be
a place in which we find challenges. Is making sure
(23:20):
that everybody's on the same page about delivery dates. Who
needs to review what when? Because when you're working with
a small business, especially I usually work pretty closely with
the founder or CEO, he or she is not always
available at the moment in which I might need them,
and vice versa. So I think it is really important
to have somebody who can really champion marketing activity on
(23:42):
the client side. It doesn't necessarily need to be a
marketing coordinator per se, but it is helpful and also
based on the work that I do. If it's a
fractional situation, it's hard to it's hard for me to
work my way out of that partnership if there isn't
somebody there that can really be running the day day
as I off board, and so at that point it
(24:04):
does make sense to have a more focused or full
time marketing person there to carry the plant forward, make
sure that it's being executed, and then I might do
quarterly check ins or if they want perspective as they're
working through it, they can let me know. But I
try to build as much of the foundational pieces as
I can so the client then can remain again independently
(24:27):
sustained with how they approach marketing moving forward.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, I think that's I think that's smart. So one
last piece of advice I'd want from you, Craig, is
that if there's business owners that are listening, regardless if
they're in B to B, B two C, B to
B two C, would a student case may be ABC, yeah, X,
Y and Z. Is there things that you've been seeing
that tactics, strategies and things that have been working across
(24:52):
those groups over the past six months or year. Is
there kind of a go to sort of spot for
you or is it all always a completely custom Is
there anything that you've been seeing that maybe not throw
all your money at, but something you should be paying
attention to.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
To me, it always starts with the consumer and the
prospective buyer for the client, because they're always in different
place they are, and clients that I work with have
varying understanding, empathy or insights about their perspective, customers and
how they buy or engage with their product or service.
So to me, audience insights is usually a rich field
(25:32):
to explore. It's not meant to be a six month,
one hundred thousand dollars research. It's a check and frankly,
I have a new client who's in the bulking industry.
They know their clients and they know their prospects. They
just have never formally put it on vaper articated it
and built a plan to say, hey, if we were
(25:54):
to get more people like this, where are they, what
is the size of their business, and how do we
engage with them? How do we have pieces where Usually
there's work to be done too, right because they now
are talking about a customer who works in this types
of industry and they want to bring them in as
a banking client. The core problems they're trying to solve
are one, two, three, and as a bank we need
(26:15):
to show up and say we can help them solve
those and that can oftentimes be a big on lom.
So mostly clients we've co engages with there's usually a
good insight drawn from that experience, and then it helps
us kind of prioritize what else we do. So I
think further up the funnel with audience and targeting and
segmenting and understanding what makes them tick is critically important.
(26:40):
And then I mentioned priorities. I think prioritization is another
common thing hair on fire. You're a small business, it's
hard to figure out what you should be doing when
and why. And as I look across different clients in
different industries, I have a pretty good sense of where
we should be prioritizing our efforts and why, and we
(27:01):
can test and experiment our way to see if we're
right on those priorities. But priorities is hard because there's
a lot of stuff for a small business to do.
And the last thing I'd say is accountability. Sometimes they
just don't have enough resources on the clients and to
bring accountability to move this forward and show up at
(27:21):
a meeting or make a decision all those coming.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Or accountability to stay on track and not get stay
autum in every shiny tang, right.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah, So I think there's audience, and then the audience
piece too allows companies, whether they're a product or service,
to identify new audiences. That's the stuff that can ultimately
grow the business because they're finding new ways to enter
a market, to engage and see if there are incremental
customers that they can bring in an addition to the
(27:51):
market they're currently focused in on.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah. That's the other thing is that what I alluded
to there is the shiny object syndrome. I think that
a lot of folks suffer from everybody does worse. But
to your point, if they're not, if they're not a
very mature marketing or they don't have a very mature
marketing process approach philosophy that can take over very quickly, right,
(28:15):
Because AI looks very fun and I could just AI
all my stuff right and just send it out and
then why is that not working? Or told me AI
was gonna do all that stuff for me?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Craig, Yeah, And I think the example I just gave
can when we talk about outcomes and ROI go with
an ROI on being more empathetic with who we think
our customers are squishy For sure, I think it drives
you to more meaningful creative and messaging and ways to
engage and finding the right person at the right time,
(28:46):
all that on the in market side of the equation.
A common challenge I see for clients and for Brave
Coe included, is what are you measuring and why based
on where people are in a journey to purchase your
product or so. Using leads as an example, the proxy
for leads is people are interested, well, what about everything
(29:10):
else that has happened before someone who's decided to actually
engage in your product or service, through a form as
an example, or at an event to shake your hand.
They've been influenced in a variety of ways further upstream
or in a different place within the journey. And so
I've been working a lot with clients to help them
understand what metrics make sense based on where they are
(29:32):
in the consumer journey. Because if a client will say
I want leads, yes, and we really need brand awareness.
We need more people to know about our brand. If
that is what you think you need, there is a
different metric and measurement and proxy that we should be
looking at to show we have actually lifted brand awareness.
And by the way, that's not going to turn into
(29:53):
a lead in three months depending on your business, if
you're a service company, it couldn't be six to twelve
to eighteen months, and then you need to be looking
six to twelve to eighteen months down the road to
see if that person actually converted. That really flips people's mindset.
I think in a way to say there isn't yes
a leader. A sale is ultimately what hits our bottom line.
(30:15):
But thinking about the entire journey, the experience and measuring
accordingly can really help you unlock new opportunities to get
people through the journey in a more efficient and cost
effective way.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah, I think that's I think that's fantastic advice. Craig.
All right, so I can talk to you all day,
but we do have to cut it here. If I
want to get in touch with you, if I want
to know more about Brave code, where do I go
and where do I find out more information?
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Best place to go would be go Brave dot co.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
That's pretty easy. Brave dot co. Okay, and I'll have
link in the description for everybody if you want to
check it out. Craig, thank you so much for taking
the time to join me. I really appreciate it. We
got to do this again, you bet.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Thanks for having me. Kurt.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
We appreciate you taking the time to listen to this
episode of Schmidt List. The stories shared by our guests
are genuinely inspiring and offer insightful knowledge. It's important to
remember that success doesn't happen overnight and requires collaboration, learning,
and perseverance. If you want to broaden your professional connections,
(31:16):
check out Kurt's book, The Little Book of Networking, How
to Build your Career. One conversation at a time on Amazon.
Please stay connected with all things schmidt List on social media,
leave a review for the podcast, and join our community
of like minded entrepreneurs. Thank you for being part of Schmidtlist.
Keep innovating, collaborating, and chasing your entrepreneurial dreams.
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