Episode 2: How Marketing Lost Its Seat in the Boardroom (And How to Get It Back)

Monica Spieles 00:05
I had an interesting conversation over the weekend with someone, and she was talking about, we were talking about how marketing just has such a bad rap. It ends up being the department that spends all the money just wants Pretty Things, has no care for what ends up happening in it, the results where it goes. I mean, we were just, we're talking about one in big corporate America, where that ends up shaking out, and then how that has translated down to what everyone knows marketing to be now. And it was just kind of a interesting conversation. I thought we could talk about that.

Randi Beth Burton 00:43
Well, again, I guess riffing off of that, I think we in prospect calls when we're talking to potential clients, one of the first things we need to get straight is, are we talking? Are you just wanting a particular tactic, like, what do they have defined as marketing in their mind? And their definition of marketing is often different than our definition of marketing. And so I think that's collectively as corporate America small business is that nobody's on the same page about what marketing really is, and that makes it difficult

Monica Spieles 01:23
even marketers. Even marketers aren't on the same page on what marketing is. Yeah, that's what's funny. It's like we even, even the marketers themselves.

Branden O’Neil 01:32
I think Mark marketing just came about as as a growth engine, right? So you have, you have a business, you have to grow. You tell people about it. That's marketing. I'll bet there was actually, we should look that up. We should have a

Monica Spieles 01:45
way beginning of marketing. I'll look it up.

Randi Beth Burton 01:47
That podcast to from Seth Godin, he talked about that the Flintstones, when people Yes, heisman's in the Flintstones, was that the first time there were commercials. That's the way he made it sound, is that you can buy commercial spots in the 50s, when the Flintstones was running TV.

Branden O’Neil 02:10
I think that's when, I think what he was making a point of, that's when advertising started to become a real big thing, right? And then, though you were, I think it was Marlboro. Was was even creating ads on on the Flintstones and everything. I think that's what his point was. But it was like, I mean, obviously the inflection point at some point in the beginning, I think marketing may not have even been labeled as marketing. It was just, how do we get our business out there? How do we how do we grow that was it, right? Which is not any different than today. The end, at the end of the day, all we need to do is to grow. All A company needs to do is grow. And then we've categorized it out into different things. Monica, you look like you have an answer.

Monica Spieles 02:55
It just is interesting. It's not really an answer. It just says it dates back. Evidence of these systems date back to around 6000 BC in Mesopotamia, where societies grew and marketplaces and bazaars became common, facilitating the exchanges of goods and services. And so there was something that was happening, obviously, like it just goes back to the basics of, I have a good or a service that I think that you could use, and I'm going, I'm trying to communicate that to you. That is the most basic form of marketing. Was just a communication. It was, it was a communication. And everyone chalks it up to well, did we have billboards do? When do we do commercials? When did we start advertising rather than thinking getting down to the How did I communicate to another person that I have a good or service they may, may want?

Branden O’Neil 03:48
And at some point, so again, Beth, you said, you said, we did it to ourselves, marketing, marketers did it to ourselves. Marketing did it to ourselves. And I wholeheartedly agree with that. At some point, what happened was it was moved from the boardroom, it was removed from the main business strategy and into a list of hopeful tactics, right and unicorn strategies. And in that that that movement from it being a real business strategy and in the boardroom to just a list of tactics, I think, is what's killed. It's it's killed the idea. That's just what gives marketing a bad name, because, and I think marketers did it to ourselves, right? So as marketers are trying to market themselves, what do they do? We typically tend to tell you about all the amazing results that you can give us for, that we can give you for next to nothing, right? No effort, all the money and all this stuff, right? And so you try to differentiate. There's millions of marketers out there trying to differentiate themselves, trying to be good marketers, but end up being good liars. And then you buy into some of these things. And all of a sudden you. Just kill the industry. And that's exactly where we're at today. I think that's where we're at is we're in an industry, unfortunately, that is dying of self inflicted wounds, right? Self inflicted wounds, I don't know. Those are strong statements. What do you guys think

Randi Beth Burton 05:16
about that? Totally agree. I think one of, one of the things that we know to do as a as a strategy first company, is to ask the right questions when we're meeting with people. I think you guys probably echo this, but every time I would meet with a prospect, it's okay. What do you need? What are you looking for? More leads. Everybody needs more leads, of course. And so then when I ask and I learn about what they've done in the past and what other marketing companies have done for them, that their goals aren't clear, they can't tell you who that who really it is that they're trying to reach, or what makes them different. No one's rowing in the same direction, and what happens is, if you often this happened just the other day, I was meeting with someone, and they were like, our last marketing company told us that they would do X, Y and Z, but they haven't asked any of these questions. They promised the world and then didn't deliver, and they're frustrated, and that makes it that much harder for us to come in and do something, because it's like this. I feel like I'm supposed to be doing this, but it's a total waste of money. And because I don't think that most people have their expertise in the lane that they're in, and yet, it gets to be called Marketing. And so maybe it's ads, but that's marketing, and so I'm gonna I know a lot about ads and how to do that, but I'm not thinking about the rest of the journey at all. Or it's graphic design. I know how to make it look good. I know how to make your brand look good, but, and I'm gonna ask all the esthetic questions, but I'm not gonna ask you anything about who your audience is, because you get to define who you are. That's all that matters, you know? And so it's you can meet with people who are owning any particular part of marketing, the umbrella of marketing, but they're not looking at the big picture, typically, and it's up to the business owner to know, to ask those questions, when really they're like, Well, I thought I was hiring an expert. That's what's so

Monica Spieles 07:22
interesting about the I think the reason, well, often talk to people about what marketing is like. What do you do for a living, and what do you know you're like? And it's like, Oh, see, you sue social media or, you know, you you do brochures and stuff like that. And really, not real. I mean, like, that's a that's just a little dropping in, like, the whole world of what we can do. And it's and it's because I think it's gotten down to this where we are. So everyone knows we live in a society of instant gratification. And a lot of times what happens is a marketer comes in, or someone comes in to help your business, and they're like, hey, if I get you a new website or a new business card or a new brochure, it's that instant gratification. You're we're going to feel like we're helping your business get in the right direction. And then it but it stops there, and then it just becomes this laundry list of things we can do to kind of Spruce you up from the outside, not because maybe, I mean, it's very, very good potential you need it, or that something needs to be reworked or rethought, or that you need assets to help you. But that's the instant gratification feeling. And then it's like, well, I need more of that. I need more of that. As opposed to do what you're saying and going and pulling pulling way back, and asking the questions of where you need to start, because a lot of times you get into talking about pricing strategy or the way your products are structured, or the way you know what you've been doing currently in your lead gen efforts, and they're like, oh, that's, you know, I didn't, I didn't think you'd ask these questions, or I didn't think that, you know, trickled over into what ends up becoming the beautiful things that can be produced At the end, but everyone's so eager to get to quick wins, quick results, quick everything that they just we kind of just succumb to doing. What can we what's the lowest hanging fruit we can we can accomplish, and that that's kind of ruined us, I think, to have that mentality all the time, not saying we shouldn't pay attention to low hanging fruit, but that just becomes the base of what we are.

Branden O’Neil 09:26
Yeah, I mean, I think if, if, if we've taken our strategic credibility away, I'm just talking about us as an industry, if we've taken our strategic credibility away, then the only times that we need to really employ it is when we've got some cash that we're willing to lose, like we're going to Vegas, right? And so we show up to Vegas, we roll the dice, baby, and we hope for the best, right? And so it feels more like a crapshoot than it does an actual Strategic Growth methodology. And so when you're when you think about it like that, and it's, it's, it's, I'm not saying it's not about ROI, but it's usually about, like, dollar for dollar, week for week, ROI, right? I mean, it's, it's highly focused, like that, which some things, some tactics are, but good strategies, we know, are aggressive, well rounded strategies, they include long term plays, short term plays, and you know all that, and a methodology, a system within it all that's good strategic growth. But again, when you're going to Vegas, you're hoping for that first role to be the big one every time, right? It's a lottery, it's it's a it's a gamble. And so because we've done, because our industry has done what we've done to ourselves, of making it look like a gamble, then it, it's treated like a gamble. And so it's like it. I think, I think what's important for marketers to realize is, is that there's something if we don't like that, and I know we don't like that, but if we as an industry don't like that, then we've got to stop playing like it, you know? We've got it. We got to start undoing that. We have to start being strategic. We can't elevate our interns or our marketing graduates into cmo roles and calling them top level marketers, you know, I mean, if you can't do that, I was, I wanted to ask or paint a picture, or ask if we could paint a picture of what other industry is like we could liken marketing to, and what's happening here. And then, oh, gosh, that's funny. Ridiculous. Yeah, I have one, but there's plenty. It's like, what other industry is like, marketing, where, where you take I mean, there's two scenarios. There's no regulation on who calls themselves, what anybody can be a fractional cmo overnight. And then the other thing is, is you mentioned it earlier? Is we've got a bunch of fractioned out tacticians, which is fine, that's good. You need specialists. So like, where are specialists that can claim to be the whole

Monica Spieles 12:11
Well, the one that's coming to mind is just like, if you were to be one, you went to med school for a day, and you're like, All right, put me in. I'm gonna glove up. I'm ready. I'm ready for surgery, like, right now, or you went to school for the 15 plus years that you needed to. You're, I don't know, ENT, and you're like, you know what? Today I'm gonna do heart surgery, like, I'm I'm just gonna switch modes, like the that's the only thing I can compare it to being honestly dramatic.

Randi Beth Burton 12:50
But I agree. Well, Monica, you're about to build a new house. What if you hired your roofer to help you draw up all your plans?

Monica Spieles 13:01
Exactly, you know what? Like, I'm kind of like in this field, like, I kind of deal with houses, but just the roof. So I'm just gonna take a stab at the whole thing. Let's just see what happens.

Branden O’Neil 13:15
You're basically a builder, yeah, yeah. You're an architect. Surely, you understand homes?

Monica Spieles 13:24
They're like. Well, I understand the top of homes. I'm sure I could figure out the rest between, why not? Why not? How hard could it be? What's another funny one about like,

Branden O’Neil 13:38
about like artists. I don't know why that came to mind. Like, like,

Monica Spieles 13:45
you can do anything actually. I feel like that's actually where it works. You could be like, overnight, I'm an artist because I put paint on the wall and this speaks to me. And then you're like, today, I'm not an impressionist. Emma of whatever. I don't know. You just go from one to the next and call it, call it art, really offensive to all the artists out there, because I definitely know there's a difference, but

Monica Spieles 14:16
for listening, I clearly don't even know the difference and eras.

Branden O’Neil 14:24
What about, what about you should hire, hire me to, you know, pave your driveway because I've driven on roads my whole life.

Monica Spieles 14:34
Yeah, that's now. You're just being obnoxious.

Branden O’Neil 14:47
But, you know, like, it's just, it feels like I'm sure that we could come up with, actually be fun to do. We come up with a 20 or 30 or 100 examples of why, of just the ridiculousness that

Monica Spieles 14:57
way too. I'm going to be a professional. Real donut maker and sell donuts because I know, I know what I want in a donut. I love donuts. I've eaten them my whole life, almost every day. Yeah, maybe not every day. So I can definitely serve up the best donut, because I've been frustrated sometimes with my day old donuts.

Randi Beth Burton 15:19
You can also ask chat GPT how to set up a good donut. Get moving

Monica Spieles 15:24
and get moving. You actually could. That's a, that's a whole nother conversation. Let's save that from it's a whole nother conversation.

Branden O’Neil 15:31
That donut for later. Yeah. Let's do Yeah. So anyways, I think that the point is, is that we are, we've been disgruntled here for the last 15 minutes. No, well, I mean,

Monica Spieles 15:51
it's just, you know, what's important is, it's the reality. It's the reality is that we this is the this is the world we live in, and it's the industry we live in, and it's the industry we live in, and it's really difficult to communicate that it's not all this like that the picture is broader and it's bigger. And not just because we want that to be known, but because it's like, there is more for you. And most businesses just they need help, and then they're like, they they know to get a marketer, maybe, or someone in growth and or in sales, and they're so they kind of have a general direction. But I was like, who's there? They're hoping and expecting that they show up and they start pointing them in the direction. They can be held accountable, they can do like but the problem is that doesn't exist. So, or at least not as much. I know I'm going on a rant again, but it's like, that's the reality, that's the reality. And so it's, it's, it's frustrating for us to sit in that spot, but at the same time, there's businesses that it's just as frustrating for them, because they just have to go higher and higher and rehire and then give up. Because no one has has been able to shake out to be what they expected or hoped for. Yeah. So then what do

Randi Beth Burton 17:06
you do? So sort of hiring Atlas rose, because that's a that's on the table. That's an option. What are, what are the questions the two of you and I'll chime in too, what are the, what are the questions that a business owner should be asking? If they say, Okay, I hear you. I want to be strategic with my marketing, so I need to answer what? What are? What's the first thing I should ask myself,

Branden O’Neil 17:34
and they are doing marketing now

Randi Beth Burton 17:37
or not, good question. Maybe, maybe they know they're not doing it the right way. So potentially they have a internal marketing person who's not senior level, who's managing some things. Maybe it's not working. They've tried, or they've tried things, and it's been the Vegas trip, it's been a crapshoot, and it feels like I've got to I'll wait till I have a little bit more excess income so that I can gamble again, and until

Branden O’Neil 18:09
I don't know what to do. Yeah, I mean, one, I would just say, if you don't love that, then, then you should, you should try actually bringing on having a strategic plan, just the same way as you do a sales plan and a business plan and all that stuff. You know, these things, these things are just boxes to check. This is your freaking business. I mean, this is your livelihood. And so why would you leave up? Why would you leave your major growth engine, your great your major growth lever, to just chance it's just silly. It doesn't have to be that way. And so, you know, I don't remember what your exact question was, but all those things to me, I mean, I'm a business owner, that's super frustrating to me. You just touched on a bunch of things on me. That would be very frustrating if, if I was in that situation. Obviously, we work with clients every day around that same situation, and it's your business and your family, and you are worth and your employees and your clients, and everybody is worth more than that. It's worth more than that. And so to approach it strategically. And I guess maybe your question was, how do you know if you're not being strategic?

Randi Beth Burton 19:21
Maybe that's a good question. It's just okay, I want to, I want to approach it strategically. How do I do that?

Branden O’Neil 19:27
So how do I approach it strategically? I There are, there are methodologies out there. There's ways of doing marketing, obviously. Atlas Rose has a methodology. We've got a method, like a holistic methodology on how to run your marketing and how to build strategy and all that stuff, and so, you know, that's, I think it's, whether it's us or one of the others out there, you have to have a framework to think that you're a small business owner with even. Some marketing experience to think that you're going to go and create your own it's just difficult to do, and we've dedicated our entire careers to marketing. Atlas Rose has been around for 1314, years now, worked with hundreds of clients, and that's how we've gotten to a methodology, through reps and pain and failing and failing forward over and over again, right? You don't have that at your disposal. You've got kind of like a one or two shot, you know, and, and so just adopt a methodology, a framework of doing business, of doing marketing and and follow it, right? And follow it. But it has to be, you have to actually have a strategy to sit down and actually build a strategy or have someone do that for you.

Monica Spieles 20:46
Well, you said something interesting, though, Brandon was like, this should come from your business strategy, but there are a lot of times I have I have met I'm shocked. I'm shocked at the many amount of times I've talked to business owners that don't have a plan for the year, like they're just operating. They're just operating, they're moving forward. They're hitting the next thing. And mean and right? I mean, a lot of times it just comes from there's just no time. There's very little time to stop and pause and think and reflect and figure out, what do we want to do this year versus last year? And like, Sure, from a number standpoint, you usually have an idea. But I actually think really challenging yourself to pull it back a little bit and think about your your plan for the year. Like, what is your just we always say, start very simply with the goals. Like, what, what's your goal this year? What's your goal personally, what's your goal for the business? And then like that just starts, like, it's a really simple roadmap to start driving the continued train of thought of like, well, then how am I going to get to that goal? Okay, if I do, I need, you know, to do 20% more this year over last year. Well, that's going to come from these sales. Well, that these sales are really struggling. Well, how do we fix that? And then it's you're not creating your own marketing plan, but you are at least driving in a direction that makes sense and is aligned with the whole business. Otherwise, you show up to a meeting with a marketer and they're like, you know, what are your what do you want to do in marketing this year? And they're like, Well, I don't know, our website probably needs help, and our this probably needs help, and they're pulling their strategy from you, where you're like, Sure, our website needs help, but maybe that's not where we get any where we get any of our leads. So what does it matter? You know, we got to do some things, but this takes priority. I really think, like starting in that lane of just the very simple questioning, line of questioning of your goals as a business as it pertains to you and the rest of the business that year. How does that begin?

Randi Beth Burton 22:41
You know, so much clarity comes from that question. I'm thinking about a client that that I have, and Brandon, you were there, we were doing some strategic planning, and we set a goal for five years from now, and as we backed away for actually three years, as we backed away from that and looked at our market and the available customer set that's out there, the clear answer was, we can't get there doing what we're doing right now, just asking that goal question and setting when it was a stretch goal redefined all of our plans for the year, that the plans for the year were really more or less just optimize on what we're already doing, because we've been successful so far, and then recognizing that we can't do what we've been doing to hit where we want to hit, launched so many good ideas. Oh my gosh, the room was was full of, well, we call them blue ocean ideas, like we had not thought of these things before because we hadn't asked that question, and that that's what I would say,

Branden O’Neil 23:55
yeah, yeah. And to and to be clear, the things that we were doing when we when you say that statement, it wasn't tactic, marketing tactics. It was business strategies. The way our business is formulated, the things that we are selling in the way that we're selling them today, are not going to get us to where we need to go. And so that's, again, an example of marketing, marketing coming alongside business and within business to to really help shape and achieve business goals. And I'll frame, I'll finish out that teaching there marketing goals only exist to fulfill business goals. That's why Monica's answer was perfect. That's 100% where we have to start. We have to start off with understanding what our business goals are, before we ever talk about anything from a marketing perspective, right? Strategic or not, we need to understand our business goals, and are these things going to help align us with our business goals? So if marketing goals only exist to fulfill business goals. Goals, then also business goals only exist to fulfill personal goals, right? So if your if your business and personal goals are misaligned, you're going to create an inauthentic person. If your business goals and your marketing goals are misaligned, you're going to create an inauthentic and and an ineffective business brand, right? And so in either case, there's a major gap. And so when you're not, when you have no personal goals and no business goals, but then you all of a sudden, start throwing marketing tactics out there. It's a disaster. You're gonna waste money. Be efficient. It's chaos. It's it is chaos, right? So the most simple, simplest of plans you could possibly have is to spend 10 minutes and come up with your personal and your business goals. And then you can start talking about marketing.

Randi Beth Burton 25:54
I think we can call it there. I think that there's more for us to discuss, but thankfully, this is an ongoing podcast.

Branden O’Neil 26:01
Actually, I do want to say one thing. I think we're gonna spend another podcast on this. Sorry. Sorry, yeah, one more thing, one more thing on this subject. And I think we're this could be a topic for another time too. But um, so let's say you've done your personal goals, your business goals, and it's and you're ready to sit down and start doing marketing goals, and that you talk to has marketing goals for you that are in alignment with their capabilities. Run away. Red flag, red flag, run away. Run away, because they're not being strategic. All they're doing is they're selling you services, right, whether that be an agency or a fractional CMO or whatever you know, type of marketer, if all they are putting on the table are the things that they're actually good at doing themselves, they're just being a one trick pony again. And that's you do not need that.

Monica Spieles 26:49
That is, that is a whole episode, and also a really good game for like, what are parallel. The thing that came to mind this, I'm sure you can relate to this Brandon. The thing that came to mind is when you had, when you go to, like, the makeup counter at the mall, and they're like, let me give you a little trial. And they're like, I can, I can do your makeup for free. And like, they're going to, they're just trying to sell you what they have, right? So they put it on you, and it's this color doesn't match in this cut. Like, I just remember doing this and being like, this stuff is awful, and you're just caked on, and it's this whole inauthentic person actually is what it comes to be. The colors don't match, the texture isn't right for your skin, whatever it is, you look like a clown. But they're like, You look great. You look great. This is right for you. You should spend all $500 on this. Estee Lauder, you're like, No, I can't this doesn't make any sense, because it's not you're just telling me what you have, and that is like a funny clown picture. Way of saying, run away. Don't stop at the makeup counter.

Randi Beth Burton 28:02
Definitely spent $500 in Vegas one time because

Branden O’Neil 28:06
they got you and got

Randi Beth Burton 28:09
me with skincare, and they they were talking about my eyes, and they put right here. And then they held up a mirror, and they were like, look at the difference between the two. Amazing. It's there.

Branden O’Neil 28:24
It must be. It was actually a mirror that was like, trick mirror, yeah. Podcast, yeah. We'll save that topic for another podcast. In the meantime, maybe we can wrap up and thanking our sponsor, Estee Lauder,

Monica Spieles 28:42
unofficial, official sponsor by Estee Lauder, also unofficially. We knew

Randi Beth Burton 28:49
at the beginning of this episode that we were gonna have to weave Estee Lauder somehow into the topic. You just did a fantastic job.

Monica Spieles 28:59
Monica, I'm a good marketer. We'd also like to thank our unofficial sponsor, Mesopotamia, just in introducing us to the land of where marketing started. That's where we're going to take our next

Branden O’Neil 29:21
retreat, the Italian Yes, can't worry the Italian smoke wagon and smoke wagon, if they want to send more bottles.

Monica Spieles 29:32
Cheers, we will unofficially sponsor them and God's water, we will. How do you know what I'm drinking? That's all folks.