Communication TwentyFourSeven
The Communication TwentyFourSeven podcast is a captivating and insightful show hosted by Jennifer Arvin Furlong, a communication expert and motivational speaker. With her warm and engaging style, Jen explores the fascinating world of effective communication, offering valuable tips, strategies, and stories that empower listeners to enhance their interpersonal relationships, professional interactions, and personal growth.
Communication TwentyFourSeven
From Madison Avenue to Brand Ambassadors: The Evolution of Marketing with Curt Tueffert
Do you believe that empathy and lifelong learning are the keys to success in a crowded marketplace? Curt Tueffert, VP of Sales Development for a billion-dollar industrial distributor, certainly does. In our conversation, we discuss the often-overlooked necessity of empathy in sales and marketing, the art and science of influencing others, and the importance of embracing lifelong learning to differentiate yourself in a crowded marketplace.
As we journey through the evolution of marketing, Curt shares his interesting insights on the changes from Madison Avenue's days of the 70s to the age of influencers and brand ambassadors. We also tackle the future of marketing careers, the advantages of specialization, and the strategic importance of thinking like an entrepreneur. To top it all off, we discuss the critical role of resilience in the sales and marketing profession, and how a little humor can be the perfect ice-breaker to start meaningful conversations and stand out from the crowd. This episode is packed with thought-provoking insights and real-world wisdom you won't want to miss!
Book on relationships written by the podcast host, Jennifer Furlong.
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In sales. We can't have an opinion that is so warranted on one side or the other that we don't get the opportunity to build enough trust from rapport to listen to the other person's perspective. Now I understand that's a business analogy, but it's not that different from somebody who is liberal or conservative looking at a social issue, an economic issue or even a religious issue, and being so loud you said that so properly, so loud that it just it bludgeons you to the point where you can't have a conversation to say you know what we may disagree, but that doesn't mean we have to hate each other. It just means that we disagree and that's fine.
Speaker 2:Who said sales can't get a little personal? You are about to delve into the essential role of empathy and sales and marketing. Kurt Tufert is an industry expert who explores this intriguing perspective that ties political and social differences into how we approach our sales pitches. That's just the tip of the iceberg, though. We also talked about the importance of lifelong learning and sales and marketing, the evolution of sales techniques, how to get noticed in a crowded field, and the debate on the necessity of a college degree for success in the field. Kurt is the VP of sales development for a $1 billion industrial distributor and has received a host of industry accolades, including earning a Stevi award, so this guy knows what he is talking about. So many golden nuggets packed into this episode I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Communication 24-7 podcast, where we communicate about how we communicate. I'm your host, jennifer Furlong, so we're going to talk about sales today. We're going to talk about marketing, and why are we going into this realm? Well, you know that I love to focus on communication skills, and one of my things that I love to do is talk about persuasion. How do we make connections, how do we influence others, and so, to have that type of a conversation. Who better to have that conversation with other than a sales expert? So that's who I have with me today on the show.
Speaker 2:I have a sales expert. He's also a marketing professor, so we have that in common as well and we're going to do a little deep dive into I don't want to say the psychology of it, but yeah, there's some psychology you know we talk about. There is an art and a science to this world of marketing, persuasion, sales, whatever you want to call it. So that's why I have my guest today, kurt Toofert. Thank you so much for being a guest on my show. I think we're going to have a fantastic conversation today.
Speaker 1:Thanks, jen, looking forward to it. Everything that we're going to talk about is absolutely applicable to every listening ear on this podcast.
Speaker 2:No doubt, no doubt. And so if you are someone who is just interested in learning how to strengthen your relationships, whether they're personal or their professional relationships, maybe you are in the marketing realm, maybe you are a salesperson and you're looking to learn how to strengthen that area of your skill set. Or, you know, you could be a student. Okay, I know I have some students who like to listen to this because they're maybe they're in a communication class, they're taking public speaking. You might be in a marketing class right now, so this is going to be applicable to so many different people. These are skills that will take you a long way, regardless of what your chosen career path is. So, kurt, before we dive into the deep stuff, would you mind just giving a quick preview for the listener who you are, what is it that you do and why is it that you do what you do? Excellent.
Speaker 1:Jen. So right now I hold a title of Vice President of Sales Development for a very large company in Houston, texas. We're a $1.5 billion industrial distributor and my responsibility is to create learning opportunities for the inside and outside sales professionals, as well as leadership classes for the entire company, and so I do a lot of work on that side. I do a lot of podcasts that are internal to DXP because of the a lot of windshield time that our people have. I am a professor at the University of Houston where I teach a sales and marketing class, and that's been a joy. I've been doing that for almost 20 years, and when I'm not doing those things, I do have a little bit of business on the side where I do some sales coaching and training and speaking to customers and clients that are not directly a lot of people that are not directly aligned with the industrial distribution space. So I am very busy at what I do and absolutely passionate about everything that I get a chance to play with.
Speaker 2:It sounds like it. You know, in order to be in this space and to do all the things that you do, I think you have to have a good love, you know for what it is that you do, or else you'll just kind of burn out. You're not going to get any joy out of it. One of the things that, as I was listening to you describe the space that you hold, whether it's at your company or whether it's at university or having conversations like this on different podcasts it seemed that lifelong learning, or learning itself, is a thread that kind of binds all of those different areas. So this is the skill that we have to continue to work on right. It's not just like, okay, take your marketing class and now you're done. This is something that goes on for a long time. So tell me a little bit about that, this ongoing leadership training that you have going on. Why is that important, once you get into the professional realm, to continue to learn about this?
Speaker 1:I love that. Thanks, jen, for setting me up for that. Thank you so much. You know, john F Kennedy said that the difference between us in the next five years are the books we read and the people we meet the books we read.
Speaker 1:I believe that there's something that I'm calling continuous learning, and so someone who has a hunger for learning would do it with all the mediums that we have in our current society. We have TED Talks, we have podcasts, we have infomercials, we have seminars, we have audio books, we have book books. We have all of these tools right in front of us. We also have social media and television and a bunch of junk that could distract us, and I'm not saying that it's just a magic wand that I can wave and I can move into a continuous learning environment. It's a discipline. It's like going to the gym to go work out. I have to go to the gym of continuous education and pick up a nonfiction book and getting immersed in that.
Speaker 1:I absolutely love podcasts because I can use that for what an old motivational speaker, zigg Ziggler, would call a university in your car Way back in the day, when you could put in an eight track or a set tape and listen to that, outside of listening to conservative radio or liberal radio or the crazy stuff. And so, whether you're listening to this as a professional or as a student or as someone in between, I challenge everyone to have some kind of a desire for continuous education or continuous learning, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a business acumen, it could be a hobby, or it could be listening to an autobiography on someone, anything and everything that would exercise your mind muscles so that they don't get atrophy by being consumed by the stuff that's around us, which is easy.
Speaker 2:I love that you have that continuing learning mindset. That's one of the things that I really push for, I really think, in order to continue to develop your skills as a communicator. If you want to continue to develop your confidence as a communicator, you never really reach expert level. I know in some of the descriptions that I'll even hold or some of the spaces, oh, jen's a communication expert, and I always hesitate to use that word because I learned something new every single day and you're so right.
Speaker 2:Whether it's the reading, whatever books that you're getting into, the podcast that you're listening to, the conversations that you're having, you can learn something from everyone at some point. So having that open mind and just being like a sponge, that's how we can understand different perspectives, how we can just really come together. I noticed you had said something about like conservative radio or liberal radio. That is an area that I absolutely love to talk about because it's so true you hear the worst and the loudest aspects of whatever hot button issue there is of that day and it's really not inviting an open and honest conversation when it's so loud on either side.
Speaker 1:So I really do appreciate that.
Speaker 1:It's so true, and then it deadens our curiosity to be empathetic and to basically find out in the middle. For instance, you mentioned that I do a lot of work in sales. In sales, we can't have an opinion that is so warranted on one side or the other that we don't get the opportunity to build enough trust from rapport to listen to the other person's perspective. Now I understand that's a business analogy, but it's not that different from somebody who is liberal or conservative looking at a social issue, an economic issue or even a religious issue, and being so loud you said that so properly, so loud that it just it bludgeoned you to the point of where you can't have a conversation to say you know what, we may disagree, but that doesn't mean we have to hate each other. It just means that we disagree and that's fine. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what. I want to approach this from an organizational standpoint. First, what advice do you usually give to organizations, this climate that we're in now? You have some organizations that really want to take a stand on certain issues. You have some organizations that are like no, I don't even want to touch anything because I don't want to somehow offend any of my audience base or my clients. How does one, if you own an organization, whether you're selling a service or you're selling a product, how do those conversations go? What type of advice do you typically give someone who is kind of? You know we're recognizing this is not an easy space to be in these days.
Speaker 1:No, jen, you're absolutely right, because it's almost like when you're watching the World Cup and the person is at least seven inches away from the other person and yet the fowl is on the field and you're clutching your knee and you're in agony. It's all fake. I think what happens is when you're trying to say something that may offend someone, you don't have to pretend that you're that world-class World Cup soccer player and be egregiously offended by all of these things. I would say to leaders and organizations you've got to communicate why, why are you rolling out this program and help us, as the field-based people, the non-management people, understand them. Why, why are we doing this Now? Granted, you could say here's a computer program, you have to log into this website and you have to take this training, you have to check the box. It's a compliance issue. But I don't understand it because I may come from a culture of we've never done this before. Now this is so radical again opinion radical that I'm very resistant and I'm very hesitant at taking it. And now my IT department has to chase me down for the 11th and 12th email reminder that you haven't checked the box and completed the compliance training on whatever that would be. I think we have to go back to what we know about learning styles. There's auditory, kinesthetic and visual and we have to figure out we may have to communicate that we're moving in a different direction in all three styles. To help the company understand it Privately, you can disagree with it and say, hey, I disagree with that.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk about that. It's just now. We don't know why. We at the rank and file don't know why we're supposed to take these courses. Well, it could be an insurance requirement, could be a board of directors requirement, could be a publicly traded company or a financial backing environment or requirement. So we in management, we just assume everybody knows what's going on in our heads and go do this, I did it, you must do it. And I think that worked in the 50s, 60s and 70s because there was a caste system I'm the manager, you're the worker B, I tell you what to do when you go do it. But we're all trained now to say stop, wait, why? And we are all having the ability to have that dialogue. It's an analog and we in management we have to remember oh, you're right, let me explain, let me expand, and then we might get a little bit more adoption into the why I have to do this rather than I just have to do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and maybe even be prepared. You will have some employees who, regardless, even after you explain the why, they're just not going to be happy with the decisions that you're making, especially if you're an organization that is taking a stand. This conversation is making me think of Netflix. Some time ago, there was this big brouhaha over the comedian Dave Chappelle.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And having his special on Netflix.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so there were a good portion of the employees who were like no, we don't want any of his stuff on Netflix. And Netflix basically just came back and said, well, I mean, too bad, you know, we think this falls under First Amendment. We're not going to do that. And so if you don't like it, basically this either deal with it or get another job. So do you do?
Speaker 1:you think that was?
Speaker 2:wise on their part. Do you think that was a good decision on their part?
Speaker 1:They have to do that. For that reason, back in my region multi state companies like the one that I work for there are certain states that require a certain type of training. It's part of the law of that state. So what do we do? Do we? Do we create different computer servers to just cater to that state? Or do we say we all have to take that it's mandatory in some areas and it's not mandatory in others? And so the challenges, without having me Having, I mean Netflix had to articulate and explain themselves on why did they did that. They made an educated choice to go forward with that and, um, I don't think their subscription base has gotten any any less.
Speaker 1:They seem to be doing okay, yeah their challenge right now is the pirating of the uh, of the logins, now that they They've market tested that in europe and other countries and now it's slowly making its way to the united states, where if you are on a contract for four logins, then for some, some way, they're going to be able to manage that. And they've articulated that. And I'm a netflix customer, so I've seen all of the communications. Get ready, get ready, okay, now it's coming. So by the fourth or fifth notification, I'm prepared for it and I'll have to tell all my family and friends you can't log on to my netflix account anymore because they're going to honor the contract in the beginning, which was we'll charge you x dollars a month and you'll have one, two or three Users, not 33 users that you've shared your login and password with.
Speaker 2:It's clear you love podcasts, or else you wouldn't be listening to this one and you may have even thought about starting your own podcast, but you just don't know where to begin. I would like to invite you to try a leatu. It's an online platform that uses very simple drag and drop tools designed specifically For podcasters. You can record and edit an entire show in no time. I know because I've done it. Don't worry about buying special equipment either. A leatu Automatically cleans your audio so you sound crisp and clean. So if you are thinking about starting a podcast, just stop thinking and start doing by clicking on the link in the show. Yeah, so there are multiple issues and challenges. I guess any organization is going to have to keep their eyes on it Any given time of the day, any day of the week. It's not like there's going to be one issue that you can just focus on. It's challenging.
Speaker 2:One question I have for you, since you've been in this industry for some time and I'm I'm sure you've been able to see a lot of the changes that have occurred over time within marketing and in sales. What do you think are some of the things that have gotten? I don't know if I want to use the word, easier in marketing, in sales, over the past years. Maybe that is the the word that I'm looking for, you know, versus things that have gotten more challenging in that area. This could this might be, you know, an interesting question for someone who is maybe just getting into, you know, the marketing and sales area. Would you mind going into? What are some of the things that you think have gotten easier or better versus what has gotten a little more challenging in this field?
Speaker 1:So Information is now readily available to the consumer, to the buyer, yeah, and so what I've seen is uh, many, many studies are sharing their research that says Maybe 65 to 71 percent of the buying decision Is already made in the minds and hearts of the buyer. They're just looking for a sales professional to fulfill the transaction, so it's easy, or for the buyer to Source it to check your pricing, to check the reviews, because we have all this new technology that lists all of that. Um, so what's more challenging is for a sales professional to stand, to have a voice, to be heard, to be significant, to add value. These things are so much more challenging because of the automation. Uh, the battle cry is how can I make it easy for you to do business with me? And we look at models like Amazon Prime. It's so easy for me to be on my phone. Click the dog food and the next day dog food arrives at my house. A little too easy, right? A little too easy.
Speaker 1:The COVID challenge allowed us to dine in dash door dash grub hub, online order from our Walmart or from our supermarket and then pull into a numbered space and have everything delivered. So it's easy to do that. One for a sales pro who wants to say, hey, I'm thinking about getting into that sales career, I would say it's easy for the buyer to make those decisions, but I'm not so sure the decisions are accurate. So our job in sales is to determine how do we add value to the equation you talk about marketing. It's easy now using social media, direct mail, direct email and different types of response, or omnichannel marketing. That allows us to move our message to the masses. It's also easier for the masses to delete the message.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So in sales, we have to touch our customer or our prospect almost 13, 14, or 15 times before they are actually thinking about the things we're doing, or we get lucky and we catch them at the end of their buying process where they made the analysis. Now they're out seeking a sales pro and our job is to understand. How would you come up with that data? How do you know that's the right data? If you've got a minute, I'd like to ask a few questions and maybe help make us both comfortable with your decision, and then we'll process that. So I love it. It's fun, but it's also so much more challenging than it once was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a crowded. It seems like it's very loud and crowded. There's a lot of messages that are competing. When you just said, maybe having a touch point like 13, 14, 15 times with someone before they might make that decision to go ahead and make the buy, are those touch points? Is that all email? Is it a good variety between email and then find them on their social media and reach out that way phone calls? What does that look like?
Speaker 1:That's a great question, jen, and I'm going to answer that question as it relates to the people who are listening to our podcast, as they are being solicited to.
Speaker 1:What does it take for them to approach and be approachable to that sales pro Right now? I live in a community and I cannot believe that people are still knocking on doors trying to sell you something. We are so much into the 21st, 22nd century. I am not buying anything from anybody knocking on my door, right. In fact, what I'm hearing is I'm not even answering the door. I go to my phone, I go to my ring app and I communicate through the app. No, thank you Leave. So the multi-touches are all about. Well, for instance, at DXP, the company I work for, social media is one way to do some type of lead generation Electronic mail, whether it's going to be a community or a tribe or it's a list that we've acquired and we're kind of spray and pray type of thing Direct mail, direct postcards.
Speaker 1:I use a phenomenal product that creates a dynamic QR code. So not only does the QR code land on a postcard, but when the person receiving the postcard scans the QR code, I know who actually scanned it. The QR code is tied to the address, so that next down the whole challenge. And then there's what we call lumpy mail. Lumpy mail is where you're putting in a product or a gift, or brownies or cookies or something that would add a little bit of differentiation. So we're still using those tools and techniques, but we have to constantly ask is it valuable in the eyes of the receiver? Will they be willing to open it, respond to it or at least give me the opportunity to articulate my value proposition?
Speaker 2:Remain audience focused. That is something that I'm hearing that is so similar to some of the things that I talk about when I teach public speaking or persuasion. To remain focused, Always think about the audience. Keep them foremost in your thoughts at every step of that process, because that's going to help you make some of those decisions along the way. Are they likely to respond to a phone call? Are they likely to respond to an email? Are they likely to respond to a card in snail mail? I think those are fantastic points that you just made. To keep that in mind, it really does depend on the audience and who it is your target audience and who it is that you're trying to reach out to.
Speaker 1:And later on, once you start getting a little bit of a traction, then you might want to ask a very bold question, jen. What's the best way for me to communicate with you and allow you to tell me Because it certainly won't be. It may be somebody who is under a certain age and they're like text me. Ok, I need permission to do that. I'm from an older generation. I would feel very awkward texting without permission to text, and people are listening to this going. How old is this guy? I mean, is he like over 100?
Speaker 2:I get it. I relate to that so much.
Speaker 1:I feel asking permission opening car doors sorting.
Speaker 2:So archaic.
Speaker 1:So archaic and people are just if you send somebody an email, they may never get it because they don't check email, or if you send somebody a direct mail, that's great, but it's going to their business address and they're working from a remote location. So, yes, it's OK to ask, and that will help not only in your marketing costs, because you're marketing the proper way, but it gives you another point of contact with the prospect or the customer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're a small business owner and you're really looking to increase your customer base but you have very limited staff because, of course, you're a small business, are there any tools out there that you recommend that could be helpful to someone? Because it's really difficult. All of this takes time and if you don't have a department that's dedicated to this stuff, it can become overwhelming for someone who is a business owner. So what would be some things that they could do to make this process a little easier? Programs that they might want to check out that could just help light the load a little bit.
Speaker 1:Sure, when you're defining a small or medium-sized business maybe they're too small to be able to have a full-time marketing or a sales manager type of department then I have to ask a lot of qualifying questions, because I live in the sales world. What is it that you're marketing? What is your product? What is your service? What is your average sale? What is your gross profit? What did your success look like to you? What does an increase in sales look like to you? I hate to have to ask those questions. I didn't. Then I would just be shooting from the hip and telling everybody we'll just go to this website and buy this downloadable list and so forth.
Speaker 1:Now shifting gears for a smaller business, who's got a product or service? That might be something that's neighborhood-centric. There's plenty of programs out there that can give you a very defined radius mailing list around that, with email addresses If it's more regional or national. There may be other things you can do as it relates to camping out with someone else's social media. Maybe, if it's a localized trade show, instead of having you sponsor the whole table, have two other businesses and you split the cost three ways and now you're all at the table at the same time. For whatever it is that your product or service is selling. Again, if it's a food-based product or a service in a neighborhood, you can do a concentric circle listing and boy, that's going to be a whole lot easier. That's more regional.
Speaker 1:Think about other ways of getting those lists, but they're out there and that would be for your direct mail, direct emailing. There's always the giveaways. Scan a code and get the top three ways that your product and service can solve the problem. If it's an HVAC company heating and air conditioning six reasons why a preventive maintenance is good. Fourth, you can do before the heat comes, before the cold comes. If it's automotive, it's this, it's that. If it's more like the things I do, then it would be top four reasons to offer your sales team sales training or is of that nature and, again, it's an art and it's a science, and they both go hand in glove.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really appreciate that you had the list of questions that you would want to ask in order to be able to qualify what the more appropriate answer would be, and I also like how you were thinking differently about approaches, because I think all too often we think of marketing or sales as just this one thing. I've got to reach out. I'm just going to throw whatever I can out there and I'm just going to see what hits. I'm just going to see what gets responses. But it sounds like there's a lot of intentionality that's going on. There's a lot of planning that's going on with this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And again, whether it's planning a sales and marketing campaign or an approach, it's the same as your expertise with the speaking and the persuasion and the negotiation and the critical and the crucial conversations. We have to plan those out. If we don't plan them out, then we've got the stakes are high, the emotions are high and we might not get the outcome we're looking for. And so right now we're in the middle of.
Speaker 1:Some industries are having a wonderful year. Some are a little bit nervous about what's coming across the horizon and so they're kind of guarded and maybe not so sure of how they want to invest their energy for any kind of sales and marketing promotion. Two things is the customers you currently have. How much money did it cost to secure that customer? You got to continue to love on them with top of mind awareness to allow them to remain to think about you for their third, fourth and fifth purchase. In addition to getting all the net new. If you neglect the customers who already love you and they leave you, you have to spend all that new money all over again to bring them back into the fold. So you've got to look at both sides of that and you've got to prepare and of course you coin that well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is making me think of maybe some of the students that would be sitting in your class. I think you mentioned before we started recording that you've got a new class that's starting in a month.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, june, yeah, july July.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, as those students, they come into your class and they're getting ready to take this course with you, is marketing a career path that you think is as viable as it once was? Because I'm thinking in terms of we've got this younger generation coming into the classroom and along with that is coming a lot of influencers. I guess they call themselves influencers now and and you know, brand, brand ambassadors and whatever, whatever the title is that they they're calling themselves now how? I'm just curious as to how is that impacting the career path itself? Whoo.
Speaker 1:I Feel like there's a noose on the floor. I'm about to step in, but I'm gonna sign. You know, when you say that, and Jen, you have this amazing way to articulate a Very, very great conversation starter. I'm thinking of madmen, the show that was on in the 70s.
Speaker 1:Yeah that was Madison Avenue mad madmen. So a company would hire these slick guys to do all this this radio or print advertising, advertising. So marketing was hot and you had to be this creative person who could think out of the box. And then we evolved into Different ways of looking at marketing. It wasn't so much Madison Avenue and now we've moved into influencers and youtubers and Social people who are basically carrying your product, recommending your product at a party, and that's gonna go viral and that viral nature might land them on a website where they can acquire your product.
Speaker 1:I Would say to my students in 30 days from now that marketing has become very much like a Specialist being a doctor.
Speaker 1:Marketing can be the doc in a box that you get at your local Walgreens or your local supermarket or your you know that's yes, those are wonderful ear, nose and throat guys that do that magic right.
Speaker 1:You've got that marketing person who can be digital, who can be social, who can test and tweak your, your SEO Optimization so that you can blend in some AI Kind of logic so that you can then look at trending analysis to say, stop spending money over here, start spending money over there. That marketing person, that guru there's no age limit to that. It could be a young person, could be an old person, but that's where we're going with marketing more than the freelance Graphics person who can do this or such or that or such. And way back in the day we could design our own web pages using a product from Microsoft, call front page. I remember then we could evolve into going to these wonderful sites like WordPress and others, or we could buy a template and we could template our website, but then it looks just like everybody else's template at work website now right a place we're back to the specialist Mm-hmm tap into.
Speaker 1:So marketing has gone fragmented and that's okay. The large company and for us we have you know 1.5 billion dollar company we outsource a tremendous amount of our marketing to experts. Mm-hmm because it's more cost-effective To outsource and hire than the in-source and bring a bunch of giant people into a marketing group.
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Speaker 2:So for these students, do you think it's better for them to Try to decide on that specialty area? You know, like I'm, I'm really good with SEO. I'm really good with websites. You know I love analytics. I like doing that deep dive. You know I like looking at the numbers and helping the numbers tell the story. Or Maybe you're someone who is more into the graphic design. You know aspect of it and you like to create Marketing materials. Do you think it's advantageous at the beginning, like now, for them Like hey, go with what, what do you enjoy doing, and then just let that be your guide as to how you go through this Career path within marketing, because it does sound like there are a lot of different ways that you could go about developing a really great career out of this there there are and I see this as being To these students think of a generalized area that you might want to land in.
Speaker 1:I think marketing is now a team event, whereas before you could have one person do the graphics and maybe shoot the video and do the voiceover lay and maybe do some background sound. But now I see you're you're fragmented in this giant gig economy. You might outsource the, the visual design, to this person, you might outsource the digital design of that person. They may work together through zoom or some teams invent or sharing files, and that collaborative effort moves into that space. I see those small marketing boutique firms being able to Create a small group of people, some of them working them by the W2, some as a 1099, and when the sales guys land that as a client, then they all go to work to kind of put all that stuff together.
Speaker 1:Think of a professional athletic or a college, a college university, where you're trying to promote their athletics, their football, their baseball, these two major basketball, three major anchoring sports. I need to outsource to make sure I can have my digital marketing collect revenue on the internet. But I need to follow up to make sure I create a tribe. But then I want to make sure the people who aren't so interested they do this and such and and you start building all of that loyalty and that brand awareness. That's all fragmented and it all comes together for the project, almost like your independent film or your Hollywood production Multiple producers and directors and graphic artists and stunt people and costume people and sound people. Instead of just being inside a corporation baked. It's now outsourced. So I'll tell my students hey, if you're better with a pen than a paintbrush, maybe you should be in the writing side. If you're better in front of the camera than behind the camera, maybe that will be an avenue for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it sounds like it's. It's there's an opportunity there for them to start thinking as an entrepreneur, you know, rather than just looking for that Position in some large company, maybe there's an opportunity. You start branding yourself and Then looking for those, those opportunities, the outsourcing opportunities that exist out there.
Speaker 1:Which departments seem to get cut first during a recession. Let's go to marketing, right. Then let's go to sales and then let's go to an overhead operations. So I would not want to be that person who who would have my hat hung on one rung. I'd rather have it hung on multiple rungs and be able to have that creativity plus. That person brings so much different Awareness. It's the diversity of their experience in marketing that they can bring into to a company. Wow, that's some fantastic advice.
Speaker 2:That's some food for thought for for anyone who is thinking about getting into this industry to really approach it from that entrepreneurial mindset and really think about your own branding now. And you know what? What would your logo look like? What would your tagline be? How would is this going to look on your own resume? You know, if you want to go out there, I think that's um, that's actually pretty exciting and also scary in a way, because there there can be some level of comfort, I guess, when you're a w2 and you know you're getting that paycheck you know weekly or bi-weekly when you think about becoming an entrepreneur and now you are responsible for how successful you're gonna be. You got to get out there. You got to become the salesperson right for for yourself.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And with this post-COVID and with this post-COVID Remoteness, right where we're, all these employees went away and went to their home offices Uh, the ones who aren't coming back. Or maybe the employer says I demand that you come back. You know, I think I'm going to stay and I'm going to be the influencer, I'm going to be the youtuber, I'm going to be the person who fragments and, and I'm a contract person. Now that might be more advantage of them, because they have a freedom of their lifestyle.
Speaker 1:It's just, it's, it's as radical as Gee. We've never done this before. I mean, we're we're only 10 decades into this modernization, and so COVID accelerated the entrepreneurial bug for the people who want to outsource and be freelance, and it also allowed us who are not comfortable with that, to get real comfortable with that, and so we're seeing so much more of that. Yeah, of course, you know, if we were, if we had enough Affluence, we could hire out our pool cleaner and our lawn care person and our gardening person and our daycare. But now, and to be a b sales, we're saying now I can outsource my sales, my marketing, my hr, my payroll, my legal and now, as a small to medium business, I have the power and the strength of a multimillion dollar corporation, because I'm using all of these fragmented tools. It's yeah, it's not going backwards. That's, that's my message to the people who want to do that is I don't think it's going backwards, and I think you're gonna have to Really open up your mind to what would contract work look like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so is there still? And I, I, I know the answer is going to be yes, of course, gen. But for somebody who is making this argument, you know they they are Thinking about marketing and sales and they see what can be accomplished through social media, you know, and they're familiarizing themselves with different tools that are available out there. Really, do they even need to take a marketing class anymore, Like what, what are they gonna get out of it? Because I know you get that question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. I think that, too, is changing. I know you didn't set me up for the answer to this, because we are seeing we being corporate america are seeing being an argument pro and con a college degree Mm-hmm, yeah. And so what we're seeing is we're seeing people who are getting college degrees in not directly work relatable majors, and yet they're asking for the great big salaries. And so we're also saying, hey look, the talent pool is getting hard to find and it's not gonna get any easier. Maybe we should grow our own, maybe we should have our own instruction to get these people there.
Speaker 1:If I was hiring a marketing person, I would look at their portfolio, I would look at their digital footprint on social media. I would make my decision based on that, not the marketing class they took at the University of Blank, because I'm looking for real world experience versus theoretical, and again, I'm in the space. So I'm kind of going help me to understand the value of a master's degree in marketing or a bachelor's degree in marketing. Most corporations where you wanna work with a W2 has one or two marketing people and 15 to 30 salespeople. So what does that look like? It looks like I'm not hiring any marketing people, but I'm looking for four salespeople. Do you know anybody? Mm-hmm, like, ooh, no, I don't wanna be in sales. Ooh, yucky, yucky, yucky. And so it's a challenge. It's almost like wanting to be a bank teller.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's like mm. I don't know if that position is really gonna be there One month. The last time you actually went into a bank, yeah, so there are some professions that are being just completely reevaluated, almost deconstructed and then reconstructed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I can. I still see the same thing, you know, with the types of classes that I've taught, I still see value in coming to the classroom because it does provide a space where you can have these types of conversations, you know, rather than just watching a bunch of videos online. There's some type of magic that happens when you're able to have conversations with other people and you can kind of learn from their perspective, from their experiences. You get that, you know, more of a team type of mindset where you understand that, wow, like none of us are as smart as all of us, you know, together we can come up with some pretty outstanding solutions to some really difficult problems, while at the same time, yeah, is the degree itself absolutely necessary, you know, to be successful in this field? Probably not, but it doesn't take away from the value of getting into a space with others, you know, to be able to have the learning occur. Sometimes that's really what you need. It'll be interesting to see you know what happens.
Speaker 1:So, jen, capture that in a bottle, because that is the articulation to fight for that position employment space. Why should I hire you versus the other person? Well, because I went to college and in my college I was divided into teams and one of us is not as smart as all of us and I apply what I've learned in these areas.
Speaker 1:But again, everything I just said, everything that you teach, is all about communication and articulation. And now we have to sell ourselves again. And you know, for some of these spaces like, for instance, an engineer, a mechanical engineer, yes, please, I need a degree. A mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer, an accounting person, a CPA there is a foundation that is laid at the feet of education, that helps them to become proficient in skills that will be used in their career.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree, but, boy, when you're on that margin or you're looking at a degree program and you're like you need to articulate and fight for the right that say the team works, and we're doing the same thing. We're launching a leadership class in August and there'll be 60 employees in it and we'll have breakout sessions and we'll have chats and surveys and homeworks and teams, because you just, this is going across all of North America. It'll be tech based, like Zoom or Teams, but I want to be able to have iron sharpening iron, so one person sharpens another and I want them to sharpen themselves during the down times between the classes so that they actually can contribute and build those skills. So there's an argument for that and I think we've got technology that can help bridge that gap, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what do you think is the most important quality for someone who is in this area to have? I've heard a lot of different answers to this question. Some people will say it's personality. Some people will say that it's the level of education. There's so many different answers, but I'm just curious what do you think is the most important quality if you're going to be successful in this field, whether it's marketing or sales?
Speaker 1:I believe the most successful quality is resiliency, the ability to bounce back because life is going to take us out of the knees. It's going to be a financial setback, a relationship setback, an economic setback, and regardless on your chosen field of endeavor, that ability to be resilient will help you to press through. And you can't buy it at Walmart. You can't buy one, get one free. They don't teach resiliency at school. It's a life skill that you learn and there are some assessments that can help determine to the degree of how much resiliency a person has.
Speaker 1:But that's always an interview question I ask is give me an example in the last three to six months where something knocked you off course and give me an articulate sentence as to how you got back on. That really helps me, because I mean, if you're working remote, gotta be resilient, because you don't have a manager. If you are working in a corporation and somebody gives you a nasty look, gotta be resilient because it wasn't about you. If somebody wants you to take some online computer training that you disagree with, gotta be resilient. And this resiliency is something that you can. It'll charge your course throughout your entire career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that really is a great life lesson right there. I agree 100% resiliency, that is something because, look, you have no idea what's coming down the pipe, right, we cannot predict the next thing that's going to cause us to trip up. So you gotta have that strong mindset you really do and you have to just be prepared Like something's gonna happen. Now, how are we gonna react to this? How are we going to move forward?
Speaker 1:I totally agree with you on that Totally, and you'll hear me preach it for the next four Saturdays during my class. These poor students have me from nine till four. They're giving up four of their Saturdays and resiliency is all about what I'm doing. Yes, there's gonna be exams and there's papers and there's teamwork, but it's a sales class, it's a marketing class. Someone's gonna call you and say if you come knock on my door one more time, I'm gonna rip your arm off and beat you over the head with it. You gotta knock on the door and say were you just kidding? Which are you? You just gotta be resilient, because that's just where we're at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So it does seem like. It feels like it's a very serious business. You know this marketing and sales like we're representing the company or I'm representing my brand and this is all serious. But you do have to have somewhat of a sense of humor, right? You really do have to be able to integrate some levity into it, because otherwise you could probably go insane for my business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how do you interject that sense of humor or that feeling of levity in your everyday life? You know, at work Because I know I mean your VP, so you got a lot of responsibility on your shoulders you know you could easily just kind of get into that, that mindset of, oh, everything is serious and everything matters, and blah, blah, blah. So how do you, how do you maintain that sense of levity, that sense of humor?
Speaker 1:A couple of things. One is I don't take myself too seriously. My personality style is very extroverted. Using a disc profile, I'm a ridiculously high. I am a 100 on the eye scale, so I don't take myself so seriously. Because everything we do here can be serious, because that rub shoulders with the operations team. The operations team is they're they're kind of like E or sometimes they've always lost their tail.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm like Tigger and everything is an opportunity, and so so you got to not think that way.
Speaker 1:The second is that I have a band of men that I, that I meet with periodically, that are part of a group and we just kind of, you know, using that same iron, sharpening iron, so we sharpen each other with that.
Speaker 1:Otherwise it's too easy to get to the dark side and agree with oh, you're right, we don't have budget. No, my gosh, we got a presidential client pain and what's going on here, and you, just you just start spinning out of control. You just can't do that in sales and marketing, and the best sales and marketeers are resilient and they have a bit of that sense of humor that you're asking for, and it shows in our work. In fact, one of our, one of my colleagues just did a direct mail campaign to 2000 people about a show that they're doing and in that show they're offering free beer and I, I think we're going to be able to do that. I think it's going to be a little bit of a little bit of a challenge to really understand it. So now we've got that and two, three, four days before the show, nice little reminder email looking forward to seeing me at the show, do you like?
Speaker 2:draft Do you?
Speaker 1:like this Take this quiz to find out which beer you like the best, or whatever it is. But it's that kind of stuff that's like oh, that was clever, that was cute. Somebody else might say well, you can't do that because you're offending the people who don't drink alcohol. No, it's not. It's just a booth between three and four, 15. Or I always say 302 to 427. I use goofy things like that because it sticks in your mind.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love not being afraid to have that sense of humor. And you know, yeah, what kind of beard do you drink? Hey, you know it's, it's. It is a conversation starter.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:You know and and having that conversation really is, is that way to be able to build that, have a meaningful conversation, even that we can laugh about it. But at the end of the day, that is something that they're going to remember, that they're going to remember that question. They're going to remember, you know, that, that communication that they had with you, that's that's so important to be able to, to have that sense of humor and just kind of go with the flow. I'm so glad that you you talk about resilience and it sounds like you probably talk about that a lot in your class as well, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, kurt, this has been a wonderful conversation. I have really enjoyed just listening to your perspective. You know talking about maybe some of the challenges over time, some of the shifts, what has happened. You know, in the field, what some of the students can look forward to in marketing and in sales. Is there any final words that you would like to say, before we wrap this up, to anybody who's listening regarding this area that you're in and in marketing and in sales, and you know just the importance of it.
Speaker 1:I would say let's go back to the beginning of our conversation, Jen, when we talked about continuous learning or continuous education. That's where it all starts and stops. It starts by picking something up. It stops when you don't pick something up. One of the interview questions I asked to a sales pro was what was the last sales book you read or podcasts you listen to or seminar you attended? If I've got a guy in front of me or a gal in front of me that hasn't picked up a book, listen to a podcast or gone to a seminar, they're not making it to the next round. Yeah, I just, I just can't, I can't afford it. The person who has the want to and the drive and they're straining on the chain, if you will that's the coachable person I want. So be coachable, get the continuous education. My goodness, if you're listening to this podcast, you have the tools right available to you and you should be, and you're doing it. You're on this podcast, you're listening right now, so you're already well ahead of the pack on continuous education and learning.
Speaker 2:Here here. I love that. Yes, all of it, 100%, and thank you for sharing a couple of those questions that you typically ask in an interview. I think that's going to give some people some food for thought. Whether they are, you know, already in the industry or they're brand new to the industry, I think those are some very important questions that they should be prepared to answer, so anyone who's interested in getting touch with you. How do they do so?
Speaker 1:My website is up and running If all one word peak sales strategy. Peak sales strategy, all one word. You get to my website, you can click on the little information box and then you can connect with me that way. It's about a week old, brand new. It's just out there. So that's my placeholder on the internet.
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome, we'll make sure that that's available in the show notes. Thank you All right. Well, thanks again, kurt. So much for sharing your wealth of knowledge, all of that information, and I just really enjoyed this conversation. I think the listeners got a lot out of it as well.
Speaker 1:So did I. Thank you, jen. You've given me a lot of food for thought, so I really appreciate how wonderful of a podcast host you are.
Speaker 2:Alrighty, y'all take care now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and a review.
