Mastering Growth-Leanne Dow-Weimer on Building Resilient Marketing Strategies

Overview:

In this episode, Kerry Guard welcomes Leanne Dow-Weimer, a growth-driven marketing leader, to unpack the challenges and opportunities in today’s uncertain economic landscape. They dive into the impact of interest rates, seasonality, and shifting buying behaviors on marketing strategies. Leanne shares insights on why brand consistency matters, how to balance quick wins with long-term strategy, and why relationship-building is the key to sustainable growth. Whether you’re navigating budget cuts or looking for ways to stand out, this conversation is packed with actionable takeaways for marketers and business leaders alike.

Transcript:

Kerry Guard 0:02

Kerry. Hello. I'm Kerry Guard, and welcome back to Tea Time with tech marketing leaders. I am so excited for this show. Oh man, oh gosh, buckle up. I didn't have a plan, but now I have a plan, and I'm really excited about what Leanne and I cooked up for y'all. Leanne did most of the cooking. I was her sous chef, and so it's gonna be, it's gonna be a spicy one today. So buckle up before I get there, a little bit about our guest, Lee, Ann Dow Weimer. She is, I'm gonna reach straight out of her LinkedIn because it's too good. So thank you, Leanne, for doing my job. I appreciate you. She is not a gardener, but she's into growing things, industry agnostic, customer journey and outcomes obsessed. Growth driver is what Leanne is all about. She gets results for companies that she works with, combining full-funnel, customer-centric strategies with execution. It's based on eight years of experience in Online and offline Marketing involving brand demand generation and product marketing, and over 15 more in direct customer service, sales roles, strategically driven growth for B to B and B to C businesses, things like, Oh no, just over at 800% ROAs, no big deal. And a CAC, reducing, by 50% whatever. She works through problems by combining a macro level approach with micro level execution, she delivers decisiveness and prioritization to create clear roadmaps even facing uncertainty. Leanne, welcome to the show.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 1:38

Thank you. I need to have you read all of my stuff. I feel so much better about how it sounds. That was beautiful.

Kerry Guard 1:46

I love it.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 1:47

Can we have the Carrie audiobook soon?

Kerry Guard 1:51

I mean, this is what happens. You know, this right after reading to your kids for the last however many years you develop a voice.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 1:58

It's beautiful. Nine out of 10, I feel so complimented by my own words that I forgot exactly how I phrased.

Kerry Guard 2:06

They're really good words. I may have thrown a little sass in there because I felt like it was warm to it. But there we go. There we go. I'm I, you know, this was a beautiful write-up, and I just connect so much with how you approach marketing, because I feel so similar in thinking strategically, but then getting to the execution piece of it. And like being able to do both is so powerful in working with businesses, to really be able to get them going in such a powerful way. And I could talk about that all day, but before we get into any conversation, we need your story. Because as lovely as this write up is it doesn't tell us your journey of you know what you're doing now and how you got there. So light on us.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 2:47

Oh man, this is the hardest part. I am the mechanic that has a broken car. I love fixing things, and I'm so good for other people, and my story is one of just killing it at doing things for other people in their marketing and in their sales and any level that I can. And so when it comes to my story, my story is part hype girl, part, you know, mean mommy or whatever it is, adult in the room. That is the wine saying, I love your idea. Let's get this done. This is how we do it, and being able to just immediately see this is the steps we need to get there, because I know exactly what you said, who you are, and what your pain points are, and and that's kind of my superpower. So my my story today is that in September 2024 I am actively looking for my next leadership role in marketing, but I'm also taking fractional clients who just need a bite sized bit of quite a lot of what I am. I am a scrappy generalist. I struggle with staying in my own lane, because I don't see things literally incar, mentalized and siloed. I just don't see it that way. I know that that's going to doom us and I and sometimes that involves taking things from this, is how we say it in this email or the social post, all the way out to the global world.

Kerry Guard 4:17

Oh my gosh. I can so relate as a fractional leader myself. It is. I love the bite sized like you just see it a little bit of who I am. And believe me, you don't want more than Well, you do want more.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 4:32

You just, you know, maybe you aren't ready for more, and that's okay. We can start with the Halloween fun size bit, and then go to the king size bar later.

Kerry Guard 4:43

Yes. I Oh, what a perfect analogy for the time of year. For sure, it's hard. I don't know if you find this, but I find it very hard to hold back in terms of like, I know you only need a little bit, but I can't help. Keep like piling on, because I want this so much for you.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 5:04

Yeah, I very cringely describe it as pathological caring. I care I can't turn off. It's not going to turn off. It is definitely a strength and a weakness. I will keep trying and and that's okay, that's that's part of the chart.

Kerry Guard 5:26

How are you balancing I'm also having this the, you know, in the pathological caring of it all I'm having in that same struggle. How are you balancing multiple clients in that way, and being able to prioritize who needs blood at what time is there enough care to go around?

Leanne Dow-Weimer 5:45

There is a limit of caring, and I am very specific about good fit clients. For that reason, I will absolutely refer out if I am not going to be able to do the things that you're trying to get done. So step one is setting us both up for success. If it's not a good puzzle piece, it's not a good puzzle piece, that's not a judgment thing. That's a you need X, Y and Z. I'm really good at x and y and ABC, but you need that Z. Here's the person that's gonna get you Z. And that's counterintuitive, because especially during a recession, we're like, I need money. I you know, I need my stuff. Yes, that's valid, but I find that that that gets me referrals for people who are good fit. When I say, This is my bubble. As a generalist, very few things are outside of that bubble, and so it's really stage communication, opportunity, game plan, and then color coding and ruthless prioritization. It's the juggling of the balls and understanding and being okay with sometimes things are going to need to fall a little bit and where's too far and where's far enough, and clear communication and transparency, kind transparency, right?

Kerry Guard 7:07

Ah, so true. Because, yes, the kindness of it all my one of my clients, yeah, yeah, one of my clients actually said to me that he can handle anything, as long as it's up front. So like, I in, like, figure, you know, figuring out our working relationship and getting into the flow of of what we were, what we had going on. I I missed a deadline by accident. I had my dates confused, and I totally missed the deadline. He was upset, rightfully so, totally rightfully so, and it's just like, yes to what you're saying. He's like, I don't like surprises, right? But if you weren't going to meet this deadline, you could tell me ahead of time that we were going to meet it. I would be totally fine with that, but it's the surprise of it being the deadline and then it not being met that is not okay, and that Yeah, so it's so hard. I hate disappointing people, and so letting them down, of like, I'm not gonna make this deadline is like, heartbreaking for me, but it's so true the kindness. It's actually more kind to be transparent and upfront, and I've gotten a lot better at it, but in those early days of starting this off and doing the fractional stuff, that was like one of my biggest, my biggest hurdles, for sure, was remembering that actually kindness is the forecasting and the transparency of it all. So hats off to you for that. It's, it's a tough out there. It's, it's a tough one.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 8:37

It is, um, there's a book recommendation. It's, something about uncomfortable conversations. That's the one.

Kerry Guard 8:46

Yeah, yep, crucial, uncomfortable all of the things, conversations, how to talk to people. It's a tricky one. Always learning, always learning around that in terms of where you are right now, looking for your next thing. I hope everybody's yours have perked up, and you're all leaning in for what Leah might be looking for next, but in terms of where you are now, and with your fractionals, with looking for a job, what's sort of hard for you, what's challenged, what's in your way?

Leanne Dow-Weimer 9:16

Oh man, what's in my way? You know, I think that if you were going to ask me in July, what was in my way, it was that there weren't very many good fit opportunities open. And I think the world in July versus the world in September, two very different ones. And day to day, that changes is that I am not an entry level fit anybody in here, kind of talent, and do you have to have a specific type of role and a certain level of need that makes leadership level roles, first of all, a longer cycle, harder to fill, and it's just there's just different stakes than if you're. Hiring someone who is going to write something that, then you're going to edit 10 ways from Sunday that you're then you're gonna, you know, it's just a different puzzle piece. So I'm, I think that that's part of it. And I think the other part is that I need to be as brave as you were reading my story from LinkedIn. I need to be as brave communicating about myself that way. Honestly, that's hard.

Kerry Guard 10:25

It's so hard I agree. I'm happy to read and amp you up all day, because you what you're doing is awesome. And I love the way you think. And I, like I said, I think very similarly in terms of the approach to marketing. And so, you know, if you just want to take that clip and you know,

Leanne Dow-Weimer 10:41

I'm gonna plot that on my website. Do it.

Kerry Guard 10:44

it. I'm here for it. I'm happy to support you in that way. Because it is hard to talk about her. I find it hard to talk and I get all blushy, like when people compliment me, I'm like, Oh my gosh, don't say it out loud. My jinx it. Let's talk about what you mentioned it, of the world being very different in terms of what was happening in July versus what's happening now. And we talked a little bit about this. I had, I didn't have a plan, folks. And then Leanne came in and, like I said, spice it up, and we're gonna get into it, because it sounds like you're not the only one feeling this moment in time. I don't want to say New World Order. I think it's just a moment in time. And I don't normally subscribe to this line of thinking of like, well, the market's just having a tough time, and so our marketing is just having a tough time. I usually can find something in that toughness to sort of still eke out the people who are still searching for the thing that my clients are trying to sell. But I feel like we're all experiencing this moment in time of actually, no, there's it's a little harder to eke out, and that's okay. And so, yeah. So talk to me about the difference between the world in July versus the world right now that you're experiencing.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 12:17

Yeah, absolutely. So it's a couple things. In my last role, I was in banking, and when you're in banking, you really start to get very sensitive to interest rates. You might have been sensitive to them anyways, because of your own personal finance, but when your entire job is about marketing and how what the new interest rate is, is it going to change? Is that going to impact our campaign, and when's the Fed meeting, and what are the all these other volatility impacts. I am certainly not a finance expert. I have an MBA, but it was not in finance. I'm not that type of MBA. I'm I'll help you build a small business type. So when you start to see that the interest rates are changing, as well as layered on top of seasonality, all layered on top of an election year and all these different things. I think that there is a lot of stuff that impacts how we go about marketing. So the world in July had, you know, there was a little bit of hiring in that in that June, July period, which is kind of like a normal hiring time, but July and August, people are typically out on vacation. They're in and out. They're they're wrapping up a fiscal year, not ready yet to plan their next one. And then, you know, there's a lot of housekeeping that happens in July. July is notoriously a low sales month for many, many industries, almost like globally. And so when we start to get into September now, we're back filling roles. Now, those people that got that left their role in June and July. We have to refill those roles. We have to we saw what our last year's money was, and now we know what our budget is, or we're starting to get, you know, into budgeting season, and we're starting to be like, Oh, these are the things we think we want to do. We're strategically planning for the next year when the interest rates are cheaper. That means that it is so the Fed cut off half a percent, which is larger, it is actually pretty significant. It doesn't seem significant, but it is in comparison to a quarter. So by by cutting 50% which is 25% more than they were anticipated, to the that changes the margins within a bank. So the way that banks make money is, they lend you money. You pay an interest rate. They hold on to people's savings, and those savings, they pay you an interest rate, and that, that area in between those two rates is how they operate. That is their that is essentially their operating budget. Um, in their margin, right? So. When they have margins that aren't going to put them into debt or over leveraged, or, you know, concern for problems like big problems like potentially a bank run right? If people don't think the banks have money, they want to pull all their cash out, and then the banks don't have cash, but they have loans. And then that's really scary. That's why the FDIC exists. It's not no one don't run on your bank. It's not going to happen in the US. But when the banks have further space in that profit margin, they're a little bit more lax with their loans. It's easier to get a loan, to start up your new business, to grow your existing business, or your investments change. You know you're you're just the way that you're in, the way that a large or small internals finances look is is more optimistic when interest rates are lower, the cost of money is lower, because debt can be a very valuable way to grow your company in a number of ways. I'm the thing about economics, per the bankrupt concept, is it is hugely psychological. It is more psychological than it is objective data and and I think that people forget that. So when there's more optimism, because investors are like, Oh, well, you know, I can, you know the the rate's lower, so, you know, my my stock performances, you know, may not be doing as well, but you know, if I do this, then that it's just it signals an optimism of coming out of a recession, or just Different things that that make everyone feel like there's a we can breathe, we can buy houses again, or we can, you know, because Home Loans change, or, you know, all these economic drivers people's minds change how they perceive it, and so that I don't completely subscribe to a much larger thing that I am not qualified to to speak upon. But this is kind of, you know, a little taste of of part of how it works. It's never that black and white. It is not so simple as you know, this one type of economics that has been described, but it economics still is very, very psychological. So if a company thinks that they have more money or they have more freedom, or if something goes wrong that they can, you know, do x, y and z, then they're more likely to be able to hire, they're more likely to invest in their marketing. They're more likely to put up ads. They're just they're going to spend differently. That was a long, long answer.

Kerry Guard 17:44

So in terms of what's happening with the Fed cutting was a point 5.5, right? Yeah. Just so I'm so new to this, just so I'm sort of following along. It's now, it's actually it. I couldn't quite figure out if that's good for banks or bad for banks. If you just want to, like, oversimplify it for us, it sounds like it's not good for banks. Well,

Leanne Dow-Weimer 18:17

if they can, because it's complicated, right? Because when the the rates are higher, they have to pay higher on their deposits. So because, if you have the way that you attract people to make deposits, is by having is by paying them the interest rates. So, like a large bank, will automatically pay you the worst interest rates because they don't have to. They already have the leverage of investing in brand and advertising and stadiums and all of these things, but a regional bank has to compete on rates. So like they'll give you a higher rate for your deposit, so that means that they have to pay you more in order to get your dollars in the door, and that way that they can leverage out loans. And so, you know the it's, it's a it's good for banks that the rates are coming down, okay, it's good, okay. The last two cents that I know about this is that when we talk about home loans, people think that their 30 year loan, it means that it's going to come up in 30 years, but statistically, very few people sit through the entire loan. Typically, people either move or refinance every five to 10 years. So when you think about like, what happened five years ago, or what happened 10 years ago. That's part of, like, the the very complex cycle that I am poorly describing.

Kerry Guard 19:49

So in terms of the the economics of what's happening right now, how do you see that impacting marketing? It sounds like since it's since the interest rates are coming down, it's going to. Give companies a little bit more breathing room, and essentially allow them to be able to invest more into their organizations, versus feeling the crunch like they may have had, may have been

Leanne Dow-Weimer 20:15

Yes. Much better side effect thing,

Kerry Guard 20:17

okay,

Leanne Dow-Weimer 20:18

that that's okay, you get, like, really big answers from me that are a little bit of a no,

Kerry Guard 20:22

no, no. That's why I'm here. No, that's why I'm here. I'm here to decipher you're going to give us all the details, all the goody, gooey goodness, and then I'm going to oversimplify it. And you know, because I am not the expert and you are, so that's why you're here. And I really appreciate all of that lovely detail, because I think what's been happening for some of my clients, is that everything's feels like it's kind of slowed down, I don't want to say to a screeching halt, but it it has drastically slowed down in terms of the lead volume and and people really buying right now, across the board. And so I'm curious now with this, you know, interest cut, are we going to start to see things pick up a bit more, or is there other economic factors that we still need to take into consideration, such as the election, such as, you know, just the uncertainty of, you know, how AI is going to impact things. There's just sort of a lack going on right now, and I feel like everybody's tightening, tightening their belts a little bit.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 21:27

Yeah, I don't think that we're ready yet for, like, a gross exhale. I don't think that everyone's really ready to like, Oh, that was such a crazy right? We're not there yet. We're not I'm the election is, is is going to play a big part on how a lot of things go down. And I think that there's a lot of people that are very nervous AI, and I'm and that's, I resonate with that. But moving on from from the election being a big part of it is that q3 is typically not the type of spending kind of shifts, right? There's there's two kind of buckets that I mentally think of when I think of q3 and q4 and that is shifting from budgeting season to we're not going to buy today, but we're going to buy in January. We've done our homework. We're doing all of our calls. We're sitting through all the stuff. It's the planning season. It's the how is the year gone season? It's the nothing, net new season. And then it starts to move into consumerism. And oh, Halloween starts in August. Oh, Christmas stuff in September is up at Costco. You know it's, it's been up for weeks. Why is there a tree when it's like 90 degrees out? I would love to know, but, you know it's, it's that, that consumer push, where our we're, we're not really thinking in a B to be sense, or, you know, putting our ducks in a row. Since that ducks in a row, seasonality happens in January. So it just, it's very industry specific, and it's very emotionally driven. And it's also, it's, it's back to that seasonality is that, you know, people are preparing to make choices, but I don't think they're quite ready to make all the choices. And the people that are making choices today, which is growing a lot, are the ones that like are very definitive about needing those needs and and being that definitive we need this need. I personally, as a job seeker find reassuring, because I don't want to join a company that is seeing all the same things I'm seeing and then have them lay me off three months later because they couldn't afford me. So I think that right now, the companies that are hiring are much more definitive and strong in their choices than they would have been six months ago, because six months ago, because six months ago is still a little bit more of a gamble. It was like, Are they or won't they cut rates? Are they or what's going to happen next? It's much more okay. This has been painful for us. We have a pain. We need a painkiller, not a vitamin.

Kerry Guard 24:14

Yeah, I have seen from a hiring perspective that the more executional folks, the more the managers, even, maybe even VPS, are being hired. But it feels like from a higher level, and you mentioned this too, from a leadership standpoint, it feels like everybody's sort of holding their breath just yet, especially because there's such high turnover in those roles that people just don't want to make any of those tough decisions at this very moment. So it does sound like some companies are hiring, but, yeah, I'm not seeing a lot of job postings around the top levels at the at this very moment, across the board, across the board.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 24:58

Yeah, which reminds me of something. I left unsaid was that when money's tight, companies are going to choose to pay the cheapest person to do as much as they can, and that's going to be those very entry level individual contributor jobs, not all individual contributor ones, but entry level individual IC jobs. And that's because they're like, Hey, we can't afford someone who knows more. What happens is, is when you try to get the intern to do cmo work, you get intern level results, and it blows up in your face and but you got to let people make that mistake. You got to let them see, hey, you know you're not going to get the results of your marketing because you invested in this revenue driver like it was sprinkles, instead of the ice cream, it's the ice cream. You've got to invest ice cream money into things to get ice cream results.

Kerry Guard 25:51

I love ice cream. I actually just had a really good conversation with a potential client who is a CEO, and he's basically acting as the CMO, having never done any marketing, and he's hired a bunch of agencies, and he's like, they don't deliver. And it's like, and the great conversation we had was, well, what metrics are they coming back to you with? And he's like, Well, you know, like leads and cost per lead. And I'm like, that's because that's all they can see. So you need a bridge which is that marketing leader, which isn't an intern, which isn't you, sir, who can build that bridge and help them see further down the funnel, and give them the information they need to make smarter decisions on their side of what they can control, which is very little in the grand scheme of the full marketing funnel. So it was such an aha moment for him, of like, oh my gosh, yes, I do need that person. And what I loved about his aha moment of whether it's me or somebody he was he was talking about potentially hiring internally, which could make a lot of sense for him. I'm not bothered either way. I just want him to have that person. Was that he could actually hire full time that marketing leader and then get fractional for everything else, right? Which seems to be the reverse of what people do generally. And I'm really glad he's thinking about it from that perspective, because you need one person full time or or even you know, for us as you know, from a fractional standpoint, but in that seat of seeing the full picture end to end, pulling in the right experts and those levers to get to the Zul the results, but you, you can't just skip over that person. Is what we're saying. To have those people execute stuff when they don't have, when you don't have somebody in the seat seeing the full picture, like,

Leanne Dow-Weimer 28:00

yes, yes, yes, exactly. I've seen too many times where the first in house person that the smaller organizations hire is someone that they don't empower to do anything strategically. They use them as a as a workhorse. And if you're listening and your boss is saying, Oh, you're such a workhorse, I'm so thankful for you. You need to have a frank and honest conversation about what your next steps are into like promotion or forward progression. Because if you're in workhorse mode, that means that you are on the hamster wheel. You are just putting out like you're putting out line items, and you're doing a checklist. And while I love checklists, I will speak all day about project management and how wonderful and beautiful we can make that if your entire first hire in house is only executing on tiny deliverables, you're going to get tiny results. You need to have them in a place where they can impact strategy and they can see and be informed enough about business, needs to say, hey, here's, here's how we get more with less. Here is the, the highest priority you really need to do, like XYZ, so that we can do that if you are empowering your in house person, the person that that you should trust the most, that is accountable to you and your organization for like their livelihood. If you can't trust that person with the strategy, then you are, you are doing yourself a disservice that you can quickly change into being a much more powerhouse for revenue growth.

Kerry Guard 29:39

It's a very important hire that first marketing hire. And in my experience, the people I've seen thrive in that seat have been sort of the Swiss Army knives, like yourself, who can be more of that T shape, think strategically in high level, execute on certain areas. Is and then bring people in to support. Would you in terms of that and your skill set? Let's talk about that for a second. In terms of your skill set, what would you say like when you come in? Where do you sort of start? And the things that. And then, like from a so you start strategically. What does that mean for you? And then where do you start executing before you bring people in? Or do you immediately bring people

Leanne Dow-Weimer 30:32

in? Um, well, I That's a great question. So the there's, there's a couple things that came through my head as you're speaking was one is learning. One mistake that I think too many people make is just making assumptions about thinking that they know and you don't, you know the you gotta you gotta give credibility to the people that are there, and you have to earn their trust. Just because you are hired does not mean you walk in with the keys to the kingdom. You have to earn that and in different size organizations that looks completely different. Now here we're talking about a small organization, the the amount of time that you have to learn in a small organization that has one marketer, very small you have 3060, 90 days of actions that you need to start to like, hit the boots, hit the ground running. Things that you can do that are just quick wins social. All you have to do to get a quick win on social is bring the customers along for the investing investigation of the organization. What I mean by that is you want to bridge the gap not just between the leadership and the execution. You want to bridge the gap from the customers to the culture and the personality and brand. And so the quick win there would be, hey, what if we start a live webinar? Okay, you, you put you, you, you set your leadership up for success. Or if they're not ready for that, and that's going to take more buy in. You say, Hey, can we record a conversation, and then when you say something really smart, I want to use that that sound bite, and I want to put it on social so people can see your specific genius, and that way it's recorded, we can run it through compliance. You aren't on the hook for saying something you shouldn't have said, But when people hear you passionately caring about this thing that you said that you're a genius about, why wouldn't they want to work with you? And that's that quick win is bridging the gap from the inside to the outside. So I'm very much a social first, and analyze a social first. I mean organic channels all as well, because those are the cheapest, right? In order to get that conversation with that CEO and make it look nice and put it online, that's gonna cost you 30 bucks. 30 bucks, yeah, you know, that's not a huge campaign. That's not like a large commitment. That's a test the water. That's a did they even know that you were like this? Because I'm impressed. This is amazing. Let's chase this thread and then be willing to be wrong and being open to the feedback you get. So so it's a little bit of a and b and and really playing that 4d chess. And that sounds so cliche, but you have to get wins. You have to get quick wins, and you have to go on this journey. And when you realize that it's a journey instead of a checklist, it starts to feel better, and it starts to build relationships, because at the end of the day, your critical role in any department is to build relationships between other departments, between higher, higher level people and lower level people, and and you can't progress unless you're willing to play nice in the sandbox.

Kerry Guard 33:49

That's the adulting of you. I love that we can't play nicely in the sandbox. Y'all gotta go. We all gotta get along. I love this because I'm actually experiencing something very similar that I'm doing with my fractional clients of where it's it's two pronged of like giving yourself enough time to learn the business and understand how people are buying and what's the flow of that and what's important to the customer, while trying to find those opportunities of quick wins. And those are actually two things that I immediately did, and like, so for one client, I did an interview with him, and I said, we're just going to tell we're going to go through your process and your story and like, who you are and why you and why you're different, because he's a coach, and we're going to record it, and then we'll take sound bites from it. And so we have already done the recording, and now we're getting everything ready for social. And it's like, it it's so impactful, like to hear from him of why him, and the customer stories that he has to tell all day, every day, is just, it was so much fun, too. I was like, I could do this all day. This is awesome. And then for another client, we actually. We're doing a 20 minute podcast every week. So before we do our our our weekly check in, we have 20 minutes where we just unpack a topic, and we get to show his side, right as a lawyer, like you're buying his expertise. And so you need to get to know him as a person. And so it's just a great way to be able to do that. And so I'm looking forward to setting that up too. So it's yes, I totally agree that these are wonderful quick wins you can do for pretty much any client, while also taking a minute to understand that funnel and how to bring customers in, and what the nurture sequences are going to be and how data is flowing through from one end to another, and understanding where people are coming from, whether it's organic or if you are doing paid what paid channels are working or not working, and the longer game stuff, while getting those social quick went I Yes. Thank you for validating me. Leanne,

Leanne Dow-Weimer 35:56

I've seen it work time and time again, and the reason why is because people want to know who they're working with and per your point earlier, about the person who was like, I don't want to be surprised by disappointment. No customer wants to be caught off guard thinking that a company is one thing when it's really another. And the more that you can like, build that organic. Hey, I saw this ad, and then I went to the website, and oh my God, not only is it the same thing I thought it was going to be, it's even better. That's the feeling you want. That's the the gold. But when they see your ad, and they get to your website and it's a ghost town, they're they're like, I don't, I mean, if anything, it brings doubt. And so while many companies can get by with just like, one really spiffy, like, small website. You do have to have some sort of digital proof. And if you don't have a website that have reviews on g2 or have like, you know, just you have to decide where you're gonna build your castle and then create roads that lead into it.

Kerry Guard 37:04

The social proof is so key. It's that, it's the it's the surround sound that you got to build. It's no longer a single thing. It's when people do research, they end up it's a rabbit hole, right, right? So I, actually, I for one of my for my coaching client. We we completely pivoted. We were trying to go after one area where he can go and facilitate, like a team building activity, and then from there he can get a couple clients, which is really great, but it's such a harder sell. And at the end of the day, he needs coaching clients. And so I was finally able to pivot him to say, like, listen, we're gonna go after we're gonna go after coaching, executive coaching keywords. We're gonna build your brand around executive coaching, because that's really at the heart of, like, what you do. And this is more people are looking for this thing than they are this thing. And he trusted me, and we pivoted. And within the first week, we had somebody come in see the ad, and then they went down the dark rabbit hole. They went to LinkedIn, they went to Instagram, they read the website, and then they, like, had one discovery call and immediately hired. Like, it was that quick, because, to your point, it all synced up across the board of what we were saying in terms of his messaging and what this potential client was looking for too. I so that surround is isn't just to, like, bring people in. It's also, to your point, that validation piece of even once they get hooked, they're gonna go search for everything else. So it all better be buttoned Yeah.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 38:33

I mean, there's too many scams out there, and there's too many like, people in a time where we're all feeling a little squeezed financially. People aren't just throwing their money at anything, but also this is just how business is done. Now it's just, it's how the buying journey looks. Now people aren't just being like, yeah, I poked over the cubicle and Joe Schmo said that this was the guy. They're still going to go home and Google you, they're still or chat GBT you, whatever they're going to do, they're going to look on multiple platforms and see that you are who you say you are, and that you fit their specific needs. And if they can't find out if you fit their specific needs, they're going to try to reach out to you. And then if you are sucky, very proud of my word choice there, if you are not wonderful in how they reach out and how you communicate back, or what, how long it takes you to provide an answer to their query, they're just going to look somewhere else, because there is a somewhere else.

Kerry Guard 39:37

Yeah, there's always a somewhere else. Let's go back to talking about the difference between what was going on in July in terms of it being a slower month generally, just because that's it's just summer, and that's just where it is. And it's totally true, it's slow across the board in July and August. I do think there's this push. That happens. And there's generally this push that happens in September, between September to Thanksgiving for the US folks, where there's like this last hot try from a marketing perspective, and and then there's that planning phase through the rest of the year to gear up for January. Because, to your point, it gets very consumery. But I will say to my point earlier, and I want your thoughts on this, that it does feel like this particular q3 and q4 is cool, right? People aren't spending so yay that interest rates got cut. But the same time, I don't see anybody being like, Yay, go. Because, to your point, there's no exhale. There's no exhale that's happening. Do you see the exhale coming? Like, do you think, like in January, things are going to pick up and people are going to feel better and there is going to be an exhale? Or are we in this for the are we tightening our belts for a while here based off of your experience in the finance industry? I don't ball.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 41:03

I'm not I'm not expert enough to have a crystal ball. All I have is my anecdotal personal opinion. And once again, I am not someone that that you should ever make your investments according to I am not qualified to tell you about you know where you should put your money, unless it's in marketing. I can tell you that, but I am not like someone that tells you where you should invest or buy or get a loan or anything like that. What I can say is that it's a very complicated answer, and what instead I would encourage people to do is, instead of trying to read the crystal ball, I would encourage them to make the choices that they know they wouldn't regret either way. And I would encourage them to say, hey, no matter what happens six months from now, this is a choice that I need to make today, and I think that is that that when you mitigate any of the possibilities you're like, look, no matter what, as a marketer, I need to do some brand ads, because no one's going to know about me in six months if I totally cut this off. You have to make those decisions that are business choices, instead of trying to predict the future, and you can make your best models, you can do your best forecast. You can listen to all the pundits, and you can switch TV channels all day long. But your business is not reliant on what it might be reliant on quite a lot, right? But at the same time, you have to run your business today, and you have to make choices today they're going to make it so that you exist tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. So is today, day when you should grow at all costs. God, if you have a trust fund that has no limit, sure go for it. I don't know if I would ever really say that that's the best way to go, even if it wasn't a tight economic situation. You should always be able to say this is a choice that we're making, because it focuses and it is accountable to these objective, known results based on data, based on revenue, and and then make those choices and and go full force. You you can't you have to be brave with the choices you make in marketing. If you half ass it, or you're wimpy about it, the customers are going to feel the wimpiness, and they're going to like, be like, Look, if you don't even believe it, why should we?

Kerry Guard 43:28

I have so much unpack there. Let's first talk about brand no even better, let's pull up from that and talk about the things that you as marketers in your position, like, from your experience, Leanne in marketing, what are the things that you would recommend that people pay attention to when it comes to making this decision? She mentioned brand, so that's why I want to go there. But before we go there are there other things where you're like, consider the importance of this thing, and not immediately just feeling like it's got to go because things are a little tough or really tough. Um,

Leanne Dow-Weimer 44:14

I mean, there's, there's, there's core concepts that you should always do no matter what, and, and I know that that sounds like it's a paradox, right? Because you should never just take a playbook and that be the playbook and you're doing it just because it's a checklist and it's a core concept. You should never do things just because someone said you should do it. You should do it because it's right for your business, because it's right for your customers, but that's the core concept. You should always do, do what's right for your customers, do the things that your customers want you to do, so that they know who you are. They have the opportunity to fall in love with you, and then it's really super duper easy for them to just give you the money they want to give you. Those are the core concepts that you should do, no matter what your playbook is, no matter what your strategy is, no matter what levers you're pulling you. Your customers need to know you exist. They need to fall in love with you, and then they need to give you money easily, in a way that makes them feel good about having done it.

Kerry Guard 45:10

Now you're making it sound so simple, and it's so hard. It is so hard, I feel like building brand, and that's why people don't do it, because it's so hard, it feels it feels so hard, especially when you can't see the immediate impact of it. But what I love, what you're saying in relation to that and about and and why I thought talking about brand was so important, is because when things get a little bit tough and people aren't willing to spend money, the one thing you can do that's actually not at doesn't have to be I love your two cents. I would more than your two cents. I love your opinion on this brand doesn't have to be this big, splashy, expensive thing. It just has to be thoughtful, in line with what your customers need, and consistent cons.

Leanne Dow-Weimer 46:07

And there's me is, is it?

Kerry Guard 46:11

And there's lots of ways to do that, right? We mentioned social, I'm going to mention one, and then I want to hear what else you got. My other one, in terms of consistency, that I think is really easy as a newsletter. I think they're underrated. I think there's a lot you can do with a really thoughtful newsletter that can go a long way for your customers, if you have a good database to work with. I just found out that one of my potential customers doesn't even have a CRM and like my heart cried a little in that, because I know that they've done a lot in terms of building a customer base. So that's one that I'm thinking of. What's What are some that you're thinking of that are sort of this low hanging fruit of brand building?

Leanne Dow-Weimer 46:53

Um, when I think of brand building, I think of the people who have a brand but don't have a brand, right? If you look in your community, there's somebody who's always like the like, unofficial, unelected mayor of the community. Everybody knows that person. Everybody does. And you're like, how do you know that person? Like, how do you know every it's because they they build relationships one by one, thoughtfully and caringly over time, consistently. And so when I think of a brand, I'm like, how do we do that? How do we become the mayor of of this, you know, niche? How do we become the mayor of estate planning in this region? Who can come see us? How do we become the mayor of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and and so, you know, to your point, a newsletter. I, at one point, I wasn't in charge of the newsletter, but they and they didn't have, like, a great CRM. They were still building other CRM, but they had a huge list of over 20 years of customers. And I was like, You need to send a newsletter once a week. It doesn't have to be great. It just has to be like, this happened. This happened. Here's how to get flights. And they got leads like, immediately from the very first newsletter, and then consistently, one to do leads a week for free. I mean, it's, it's really, you know, if you take the cost of the labor of putting together newsletter, okay, that took, what an hour like you aren't reinventing the wheel. It's not like a brand new concept that no one's heard of. It's a newsletter. And then how much did you pay for your email software? Okay? 30 bucks a month. Once again, we're back to the cheap, scrappy ways of building relationships, because people don't care how much you spent to make that relationship happen. They care how you made them feel. They care that you cared. And if you are caring by doing, like having, if you have a list of people that were old customers, and you just pick up the phone, you're like, Hey, how's it going? What do you care about? How are things? What could we have done better? Hey, that's a great feedback. Is there a way that we can partner on this and I can share that publicly? Okay, that's that's how you build a relationship. You make the one to one connections now that doesn't scale forever. That's really great. If you have an existing customer list, if you do not have an existing customer list, or you don't have a community, or you have something that's grown stale, then you start to be like, who's my ICP? Who are the people that I think my hypothesis is that they're gonna like our stuff, and that these are the people I'm actually chasing. And you find 20 of those people, and you pick up the phone and you have a conversation with them, or you invite them on a podcast, or you you bring them in and and the the very first thing I would say that no matter what size organization you have, you need to have a path flow of having one to one conversations that are a part of your your marketing foundation, whether it's as a product manager, marketing manager, and that's you. Know your competitive analysis, that's your research, that's your persona, modeling, whatever it is somebody in your organization needs to be having these conversations on a recurring, regular, intentional basis, in a way, to evolve alongside your ideal people. And from there, you can do so much with it. It's it's content, it's feedback, it's, you know, and it's it's anecdotal. And so what I'm not saying, because there's always a disclaimer, what I'm not saying is, you change your entire business model because one guy that bought from you 20 years ago said one thing. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you take another grain of salt, and then you test that and you see if a lot of people feel that way too.

Kerry Guard 50:45

Yeah, it's definitely a qualitative multiple conversations thing. You don't want to just talk to one person and then change. You want to definitely get a sense from multiple people. It's why I love podcasting, because I feel like I get to hear a bunch of different perspectives on where marketers are coming from and what's hard right now, and how they're tackling some of these issues, and I get to hear it firsthand, and I get to take those anecdotes to your point and then find the data within those of them, testing my own marketing to see okay, based off of multiple conversations I've had, let me see what I can do with this and how that resonates with my audience, and that's really been super wonderful and powerful in my own journey with podcasting and building relationships. I think it's podcasting is definitely a wonderful way to do it, if you can do it thoughtfully and in a relationship building way that doesn't there's nothing worse than somebody on their podcast and then immediately after them giving you a catch slap. So that definitely needs to be the intention of the journey of to your point, building those relationships and getting the feedback in a really thoughtful way, and being able to then use it that betters your your efforts, not necessarily for the people that you talk to, but for the people you want to engage with in the future. And yes, yes to that I could talk to you all day. Leanne, I loved this journey that we went on from talking about where the current climate is and how the world has changed in just a few months, to how that's impacted how we market, to thinking about what can we do in the next few months to not have any regrets in terms of how you know what's best for our business right now, working within that and then paying attention as we get more data to then iterate on our marketing efforts as the world ah, terrible saying, but as the world turns so thank you. Thank you so much for for your insights. I recognize that you're not a financial expert, but when do you know a lot, and was it so helpful to hear how those interest rates are going to be, you know, will be helpful. The time will come, and while it might not feel right now, it's a little glimmer of hope, and I'm grateful for it. So thank you. Thank you so much. Before we close out, Leanne, you are more than a marketer, and I would love to know it's September. We got four months, three and a half months left of the year 2024 personally, what are you most looking forward to as we close out the year?

Leanne Dow-Weimer 53:30

Man, I, I am looking forward to so much, and I, despite all of this uncertainty, I have no doubt that there is a bright future for all of us, what I am looking forward to most in the next few months is all of those silly, mundane things that I enjoy every single day. I love walking outside and hearing the wind and the palm trees I love even when it's foggy, I'm like, oh, that's water from the ocean. I'm so lucky to live where I am, and I get really nerdy about, like, trees and like the cycle of life, and like nature and stuff. So like, I love fall as much as I love summer or spring, maybe not spring. It's got too many allergies. But I just, I would say that I'm just always looking forward to tomorrow. I'm as much as I look forward to today or this afternoon. I'm just,I'm your friendly golden retriever, little marketer over here, just loving life

Kerry Guard 54:32

in the moment. Oh, what we all could take from that of just stopping and smelling the roses and living in the moment. Leanne, I'm so, so grateful. Thank you for joining. Where can people find you? They're looking for a marketing leader. They need somebody who's a Swiss army knife. Where are you? I

Leanne Dow-Weimer 54:47

am on LinkedIn. Far too much. It's the best way to find me is on LinkedIn. I'm you know, just to clarify, L, E, A N, N, E. Yeah, last name D, as in dog O, W, or like Dow Jones, except it's Dow Weimer. So LinkedIn is the best way to find me.

Kerry Guard 55:09

We'll have if you're on LinkedIn. Just click on her name and head on over there and DM or do it right now. Just you, yeah, always say hi. Just say hi. Do that. And if you are not on LinkedIn, then head on over there and send her a message. She also has a wonderful podcast called Marky G, which is so fun. Definitely check that one out, and we'll have those links in the comments below. Thank you for hanging out with us as always. This episode was brought to you by MKG Marketing, the digital marketing agency that helps complex brands like cybersecurity get found via SEO and digital ads; hosted by me, Kerry Guard, CEO and co-founder of MKG Marketing, Music Mix, and mastering, done by Snappy. And if you want to be a guest, slide into my DMs, I'd love to have you on the show. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Leanne,

Leanne Dow-Weimer 55:58

thank you. Applause.