The Marketing Cycle - Creating Impact, Not Just Impressions

Overview:

In this episode, John Connolly joins Kerry Guard to discuss the intersection of project management, marketing, and IT. Drawing from his diverse background, John shares how businesses can create sustainable marketing strategies, build trust, and foster community-driven growth. Whether you’re in marketing, sales, or operations, this conversation offers valuable insights into long-term success.

Transcript:

John Connolly 0:00

You're not building equity when you rent. That's just a reality, and marketing should be a mortgage, not a rental.

Kerry Guard 0:11

Hello, I'm Kerry Guard, welcome back to Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders. Oh, I'm so looking forward to this conversation. We were supposed to have it the first week of January, but due to personal circumstances, John had to, had to make us wait. But we're here now, and we're excited because you not every day you get to talk to somebody who marketing really, truly found them. I love, I love a good story, and I love when people fall into marketing and wrap their arms around it. And I think as we look to the future of needing more marketers, it's nice to just understand and unpack what that's been like for somebody from going from one industry and career to another. John is drawing on more than a decade of experience managing projects and Software Information Management and other fields. He has trained product managers as they grow in their career paths as well an experienced instructor and mentor, he has guided hundreds of project managers as they prepare for their PMP certification exam. He has years of experience in engaging proactive training on a wide variety of tools and topics. He's passionate about sharing knowledge and information across experience levels. He believes that communal connections are indispensable assets to ensure teams avoid repeating mistakes and to truly develop and grow. John, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Happy to be here. I love this. This intro because I don't know if people outside of marketing truly understand how much project management and systems and processes have to be designed to get them to run efficiently? Yes, it's

John Connolly 1:50

a lot that can teach marketing, and marketing is a lot that you teach project managers, too. Just to be frank, we have this bad habit of kind of like getting on the treadmill and go, go, go, go, go, but that when we don't slow down sometimes and be intentional and take the time to re evaluate as projects proceed and end and start again, we have to make sure that we're not losing the knowledge that we've gained, that we're not making the same mistakes twice. Because if you make a mistake, that's that's one thing. If you make the same mistake twice, that's an organizational

Kerry Guard 2:27

failure. Oh, tough words. That's a clip right there. Elijah, take note. You know, we have a PMP on our team. Avery Davis, he just got certified. What an honor that he worked with mkg to make that happen, and it has been game changing. We've always been very structured in terms of our systems and processes in the background, but there's something about the way a project manager thinks that has just really leveled us up. Why don't you take us on your journey? I could talk about this all day. We're gonna get into it, but we're jumping ahead. We're jumping ahead. I do want to share your story of your career. So where are you now? And how did you get there? Oh,

John Connolly 3:04

man, we agreed before we got started. I'm not going back to my childhood, but my first job was do. It was like 17 years old. I was a collections call with a phone bank, like a call center for a mail order catalog company that focused in Christmas gifts. I was in the bowels of the Stevens Point mall in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and that's where I kind of got started. And from there, I worked a variety of jobs, right? I worked nights in a tile factory. I worked retail. I was the supervisor for the tent sale of a shoe store in the parking lot. There was just a lot of things, and just started to have work and explore that, and there's a lot of learning that went along with it. Went to college. I was I work study program, and I applied for the work study program, and they said, You go work in the kitchens, and you you've got a you got to work in the kitchen. So I went to the head chef, very kind of cranky guy. And I went in and he said, Where's your class schedule? So I gave him the Class Schedule paper. He looked at it, and he said, get out. I can't use you. I need someone for breakfast. And you got all morning classes. So I went back to work study lady, and I'm like, um, I got fired before I even worked the moment in the in the kitchen, so we had to reprocess me through the work study program. And it was several weeks, and I got a slip in my mailbox that said, report to the library for your work study program. So I went to the library, and I found that the head librarian and I, I handed him the slip of paper, and he said, well. Well, we've already given away all of the slots that we have for paging duty, just making sure everything's the right order on the shelves, and that's what we normally have work study students do. But he said, you know, since you're here, go upstairs to the second floor to the cataloging department and check in there, and you're going to work there. So for the next three years, during the school year, and then a couple of summers as well, I worked in the cataloging department of an academic library, and I learned metadata, and I learned data entry, and I learned leading indicators and punctuation and all the things that you need to know. On that side, I was labeling books. By the end of it, I was running special projects, I was arranging and cataloging everything in their rare books collection. It was a very informative and formative experience for me, and I graduated and I went to work for a newspaper, and I worked as a journalist for a suburban newspaper in Philadelphia, and I was there for a couple years, and and that paper went out of business two weeks before I got married, the owner of the paper came out on the newsroom floor. He said, Everyone go home. We don't have enough money to finish tonight's paper, so we were already late on pay, and I never saw that money. Yeah, so my wife was working as a teacher. We kind of scraped by. I worked in a bank as a bank teller to make ends meet. Still in Philly. No, no. We relocated as soon as my son was my first one was born, we relocate like within it was about a week after he was born, I had to come down to the DC area to start a new job, and then we kind of moved everyone down after New Job was cataloging again for a company that was subcontracted for a project at the government publishing office in Washington, DC. So I came back to I started, I started doing this job contract ended. Had to find new work. Long story short, I went to work for a software company that specializes in building software for libraries. I worked in the training department. I traveled all over the country, from Anchorage Alaska to Sanibel Island, Florida, and everywhere in between, training librarians on how to use their software, the new software that just purchased. So I was part change agent, part sales, part instruction, and just generally, like the shoulder to cry on during a during a it's usually a stressful process for people, and we, you know, I, I continue to just develop there. I finished my I went, gone back to University of Alabama and got my master's degree in Library and Information Studies, which is hanging on the wall behind me. 2012 was when this happened, and then I moved into the role as head librarian at the a tiny Art Museum and Library in a place called Middleburg, Virginia. And I was in charge of a collection of about 20,000 volumes, including about 8000 volumes in rare books like dating back to the 1520s we had to re catalog the entire collection, and I was building a rapport with donors and putting together marketing materials, you know, and this is where, like, the seeds that were planted at a newspaper, where I learned how to do layout and design, started to kind of like, grow and blossom, and I started to really leverage the skill set that I've developed in a lot of different fields and a lot of different perspectives here. At this point in the story, I was doing a little bit of everything. And after about four and a half years, we had a leadership change, and kind of changing of the guard. I left that role, went to work for a large ish urban public library, and I was again doing a little bit of everything. I was there for a few years. COVID came while I was there, I got battlefield promoted into a role where I was managing a team of 20 people. I managed the main branch, basically everything except the children's collections. Lot of rough stuff happening there during COVID and after COVID In the aftermath, burned out pretty hard and left for software again. I. Worked for a little while doing project management in software, got my PMP, really, leveraged my skill set there and and then went out on my own, worked independently as a consultant for about a year before landing where I'm at right now.

Kerry Guard 10:17

And you're sort of get to the end here of your story, I want to know what, because I when you went to, I'm going way back, sorry, folks, I had this question sort of back pocket, but I didn't want to when you went from university, when you went from college to the newspaper, was that, because you were, were you studying journalism?

John Connolly 10:35

I'm an English major, and I wanted to do something kind of closely aligned to that. I was at a I was, you know, 22 years old. I was kind of in this mindset that said, you have to kind of pick a track and stay in it. And I was like, Well, I studied English. I need to find something that's related to English. I can write. I better do that. And then so, like, I joined a newspaper in 2008 and they had a Bloomberg machine. I don't know if anyone's familiar with those. There's like, a big, big, almost like IBM machine, right? That's dedicated to Bloomberg News and all of the tickers for all of the stock markets. And my desk was literally right next to the Bloomberg machine. And then the housing crisis happened, and I got to watch it happen in real time, like the whole stock market just kind of slid off a cliff. And I watched everything turn bright red on the Bloomberg machine. And I was like, I don't know what's happening, but it's probably pretty bad. And three months later, the business, the paper, was out of business. So, yeah, so that's kind of where that shift came. But I'm writing, you know, and I'm I'm getting, I'm writing for a public audience, and I'm blogging, right? And I'm developing style, I'm developing a voice. And then when everything kind of got cut back and things were very shoe string, I start doing layout and design. I start doing, you know, proofreading. I start doing like, these are these end up being like, invaluable skills I was on. I forget what, what the software was we were doing, but like, eventually I said, I got to learn Adobe, because that's the that's the standard for the industry. So, you know, those are, it's like just building the skill set. And I like to tell people when I'm training them, I said, you know, project management, project work, whatever it's, it's field agnostic, but the goal is to put as many tools as you can into your toolbox, right? It's, it's to put as many and to have to know when to bring them out and use them. That's the wisdom behind it, right? That's the art, not the science.

Kerry Guard 12:57

I Well, this is the beautiful thing about the intersectionality of everything that you've learned up into this point. So where are you now? And how are those skills converging?

John Connolly 13:06

Yeah, I am director of operations for Queen consulting and technology. We are a small woman owned business in Front Royal Virginia. It's about 65 miles west of Washington, DC, and I am integrating a lot of things across the business, right, helping with sales, helping with marketing, helping with like processes and procedure and all kinds of like.

I'm getting I'm writing for a public audience,you know, proof. And I'm developing style. I'm developing a voice. And then when everything kind of got cut. politician, right there. things were very shoestring, I start doing layout and design, I start doing, you know, proofreading. I start doing like, these are these end up being like, invaluable skills I was on. I forget what, what the software was we were doing, but like, eventually I said, I got to learn Adobe, because that's the that's the standard for the industry. So, you know, those are, it's like just building the skill set. And I like to tell people when I'm training them, I said, you know, project management, project work, whatever it's, it's field agnostic, but the goal is to put as many tools as you can into your toolbox, right? It's, it's to put as many and to have to know when to bring them out and use them. That's the wisdom behind it, right? That's the art, not the science. I will This is the beautiful thing about the intersectionality of everything that you've learned up into this point. So where are you now? And how are those skills converging across? Yeah, I am director of operations for Queen consulting and technology. We are a small woman owned business in Front Royal Virginia. It's about 65 miles west of Washington, DC, and I am integrating a lot of things across the business, right, helping with sales, helping with marketing, helping with like processes and procedure and all kinds of like grow and structure and make the leap from what was a very small entrepreneurial business into a more established, kind of, like, organized structure inside as we're growing. And so it's just a matter of, like, harnessing the skills of everyone as best I can. So it's where I am now. I've been there for over a year. First I came on as, like a contractor consultant, and now I'm working with them full time. It's a 15 minute commute to work for me, which is great, especially here in the DC area. It's almost unheard of. I live about two or 3000 about 1000 feet, I think, from the banks of the Shenandoah River. We're out in the country. We're, you know, right where the mountains are and, you know, we're, we're getting along there, you know, I've kind of winded my way in the organization through like a sales pipeline. I was doing event management. I helped put on a conference in Boston. I would, you know, doing cold calls. I was doing events like outreach, events like going out and shaking hands and building relationships and all of those things as well. Kissing babies, kissing babies. It's babies taking hands. DC main Yeah, you have no idea I did serve. I was a local politician for four years. I was, I was, I helped. I was on the town council of our town for four years. So, recovering, well, there you go. I wasn't far off, yeah, recovering political, whatever on this end.

Kerry Guard 15:20

So perfect for sales. It's the same idea of importance of building relationships. You got to build that trust. You got to get out there and shake real hands. I love that. Yeah, I loved your journey specifically. And why I thought it was different than so many people that I've talked to is because normally people come out of school and then they end up in marketing, whether they went to school from for anything within the realm of business or marketing or marketing or not that's just sort of like they could make i so i, example is me, I went to school for photography, and I wanted to be in the advertising side taking the pictures. But lo and behold, the only way for me to get to New York in the time around the same time. So when the market crashed, 2008 I was at a digital marketing agent. I was at a marketing agency, and I saw our ad spend for print just go off a cliff. Yeah. So, yeah, good times, yeah, yes. So I became a media planner because that was my, the easiest way for me to get to New York in a stint. And that's generally how like marketing stories go. And so what I really loved about your story, and what I think gets sort of lost in the sauce of the for those of us who just sort of go straight into marketing, is the intersectionality of all of these wonderful skill sets that are now converging for you and that you are able to be in this unique seat because of All of those wonderful skills you've created along the way, from journalism to data management to leading a team at a library through crisis, I mean, and now you're in cyber, which makes perfect sense. Talk about leading in crisis. You are right where you need to be, sir, right where you need to be. So let's talk about what skill Do you feel like, from what you've from, from all the skill sets you've built up over the years, I'm sure you're using all of them, but for where you are right now, where are you like? Yes, I'm so glad I know how to do that thing. I'm

John Connolly 17:15

gonna back my way up a little bit on that question, because really, it's not like a hard skill, it's a mindset that has helped me tremendously, especially when it comes to everything about growing a business, that everything is like, if you drill down far enough, it is sales, yes, but sales comes from marketing, yes. And then marketing and sales and relationship building, community building is really what you're talking about. Can you build a community around a product or a brand? Can you build a community around a service? Can you build a community around an organizational flavor? That's the name of the game, and the Internet and the rise of digital media has dramatically shifted that landscape. And since I entered the workforce, it's like night and day. You know, used to be like television commercials and print ads, and you were looking for that identity. Everyone's like, like, digging for that identity or that message, or whatever is going to do it. Now we dig for authenticity, and there's a reason for that, but before I dive like, too deep, I'm going to geek out a little bit. Okay, so I'm working for this museum, and my mentor and leader at the time, her name is Melanie Matthews. She's like, Aces. She's like, a tremendous leader, and she is currently, like, directing major gifts for the Wexner Center of the Arts at Ohio State. But she was running our little museum at the time, and she kind of got in into in her younger years, a guy named Michael Kaiser, who was the president of the Kennedy Center. He was, he was, you know, the executive director for the Alvin Ailey Dance Troupe. Like, he's a huge arts mind. And he was known as the turnaround king. He would take troubled arts organizations and turn them into thriving, successful arts organizations, and we're an arts organization. Then she's like, we need to start doing some of these things. And she actually got Kaiser to come out and give us a lecture to our board of directors. So I got to meet him in person, get him to sign his book. And I That's amazing. It made a big difference. I've got, I think, three of his books on my shelf behind me over there. And Kaiser is, he's he's very straightforward in what he does. He calls it the cycle. And his first, the first Maxim, there's four maxims, four parts of the cycle. The first one make great art. This is translatable to everything. Everything be excellent. Great product, wonderful service, have identity, authenticity, like be real, something that makes a difference in people's lives, great art. And that's that's that's followed by what he calls institutional marketing, which is different than like, technically marketing. Yes, you need to technically market. You need to have, like, print materials or ads or, you know, social media and the stuff, right? The technical nuts and bolts of how we market. But he says you also need institutional marketing, which really boils down to everywhere your target audience looks. They need to see you. You need to be in front of them. That means all the soft skill stuff. It's like going on podcasts. It's, you know, doing guest posts on blogs. It's, it's all it's, it's, it's everywhere you look. You know, he was getting up at four in the morning to go on local news hits for morning, morning local television to help these, like troubled arts organizations he was leading. You know, he was in charge of the London Opera House. He was in charge of, like, the Kansas City Ballet. And he's, he's turned around these tremendously troubled organizations. And his background was in, you know, I think he's a finance guy, right? He's an investment broker or something like that. This is the second step. Is institutional marketing got to be everywhere. You got to be everywhere. And the the third step is you have to find your people and invite them into your family. There has to be a family. This has to be their organization too. They need to understand that they're welcome, that they're they're part of your success. This is a different paradigm. Now, we're not selling a product to a customer on a shelf. We're building a community around a brand and an identity. Apple does this tremendously. Well, yep, so then you have a family, and your family has grown, and when your family grows and they feel good about what you're doing, they feel like this is their organization. Too. They give, they give their time, they give their energy, they give their focus, they give their attention, and they give their money. And that's the fourth portion of the cycle, is the giving. But that follows that the most critical component, the most critical element of the cycle is the last step. You don't take the money and sit on it, you re invest in great art, and then you're doing more art, and people are more excited, and they're coming in. Your family's getting bigger, and they're giving more, and you have a community that's growing. It's a positive cycle, and this is tremendously exciting for me as I'm reading this, because we're a small arts organization, we start doing things to build our identity and to build our community. And we started doing these, like summer concert series. I mean, we had nobody coming to our organization. There's no one coming in the door. Everyone said, that's a that's an that's a building for the rich people on the board of directors, so we started doing a summer concert series. Admission was free. There was wine and beer and food trucks on the lawn. You get a glass of wine for five bucks. Don't bring your own bottle. Is the only real rule. If you want to use the restroom, you got to go inside the museum and see the art. We were going around to the local schools, all the private schools, although we said we want you to be a sponsor, they're like, Oh, boy. How much do you want? Like, we just want you to put the flyer in the backpacks of your students. That's it. Any money from you? This is your or this is part of yours, your event. We're bringing in local bands, bringing in regional bands, like people are showing up. We have 400 people on the lawn. Every time we do one of these, it becomes like a phenomenon, and the town only had 600 people in it, like people are driving in from out of town to attend this concert on our lawn. That's free. We've built a community around it. That organization continues to do that concert series today, and I haven't even been there in six years. That's amazing. Yeah, it says lasting, staying power, and after a while, you just have to maintain it, keep the cycle going, keep the organization, keep the brand growing.

Kerry Guard 24:25

So how do you bring people to the building? By meeting them within their interests, and then and tying it to the brand, right? Music is still art, and making great art through music. And then you know that I just so smart. So how has that transcended into what you're doing today, which is in more of a digital realm?

John Connolly 24:50

It's all the same, it's all the same. It's, it's, can you, do you have something worthwhile, great art, right? Do you have something worthwhile to sell? Do. So if you don't, you're gonna really have a hard time, regardless of how many fancy marketing, slick marketing, things you do. There are, there's, there's a million, a billion ads for team. I'm not impressed with the service. That's just me. It's my opinion. And so it's like, it doesn't matter how many ads you bombard me with, after a while, it becomes a negative cycle for me, right? Because it's not, it's not great art, it's not great product. So you need something worthwhile to sell, but then everything else, digital, physical, it doesn't matter. Find the people, make them care, invite them into your family. That is marketing. There's 100% in my opinion, the totality of marketing and everything else is just details. You make it sound so easy, but we all know what's not that hard. If you kind of, if you good at finding people and talking to them and getting them to give a damn about something like it's it's not that hard. Like Trevor. Trevor van Warden is here on the he had a little problem here. He's created this, right? He has the hottest unleasher podcast series. He's been doing this for a couple of years now. He's built a community around it. And he has always just, he's just invited people in. He's just inviting people in. And you got to give up something to get something, right? If you build it, people will come. Well, kind of you've got to find them and get them in, but you'd have to have something built too, so it's both hand, right? If you can balance those and go back and forth, bounce it back and forth. People are hungry for authenticity and equality. I'm starved in the digital landscape for authenticity and quality. There's no getting worse. And you know, with the rise of AI, I think that gets worse. I think that exacerbates that human longing. Totally agree. And so what I'm doing right now, I'm helping, like, redevelop and refocus an organization that has grown by relationship. Right? The client base is based on relationship, and we want to make sure that's not lost as the organization grows. And that means focusing, we're an IT firm on, you know, human centric use of technology, right? The communication aspect of it tremendously important to me. So how

Kerry Guard 27:26

do you do that in such annoyed like the it The IT Crowd, if you haven't seen that crowd, it's amazing. Go check it out. The the it audience, is inundated, absolutely inundated. So I think authenticity is super important and helps break through the noise. But in terms of being able to develop that story in a very noisy world for that audience, how are you using that framework, yeah, to meet this audience where they are in a way that cuts through all that noise,

John Connolly 27:59

yeah? So first off, you have to have good product, right? Part of that is brand promise. There needs to be technical things that we offer that are reflections of that authenticity. And so one of our brand promises is, when you call, we pick up the phone. Well, your antenna go up with your IT firm, right? Because, like when you, when I call you, you actually answer. Now many people have the pain point that they live with in it, where they open a ticket and it's like firing a snowball through the gates of hell, right? There's like, no response, and it's days before, and like, I can't do my work over here, and you all are, I don't know what you all are doing. It's totally opaque. There's no transparency. So that's one thing, right? You have to have a good brand promise, but then it's institutional marketing time, and that's not designing and buying Facebook ad time. This could be part of it, for sure, but it's like, Are you writing valuable content that people have you giving something to get something. You sharing the love, sharing the knowledge, right? Have a blog, have a newsletter. Have these things that go out where you're sharing you. You give the farm away, give the expertise away. This is what you need to know. On the IT side, I'm like, Hey, did you know that 50% of ticket requests for an IT firm are password reset requests. It's a huge waste of time and resources. Huge Password Manager. We sell that, but here are the options that you have out there. Here. Just give that away for free. You can have this. People sit up and they care why, because it's an invitation into your community. You're giving them something of real value, and you're not charging them through the nose for every last shred of it that makes you stand out in our subscription based like hoarding of knowledge type thing and. That's but that's a world we occupy like you got to be able to cut through that. But institutional marketing, are you going to live events, in person, events, online events? Are you showing up? Right? Are you writing speaking? Go to speaking engagements, ask to speak. There are lots, if whatever it the world's awash in organizations, right? Nonprofit organizations that help people with technology, help people with cybersecurity, help people with this and that just ask, look, I'll come and speak to your people for free. I'm not asking for anything. Here's the topic, here's the PowerPoint. That's marketing. Some people like, no, no, no, that sales. It doesn't matter the sales and marketing. They're like that. You know, they have to. If they're not simpatico, you will fail. So that's your percent. That's kind of where, like, my answer, it feels like maybe I'm being a little too emphatic here. But like, this gets me excited, like, and this is this holds true for nonprofit organizations and and for profit organizations at the same time, you will not cut through the noise in today's world if you are not authentic and building a community.

Kerry Guard 31:17

So for you to be able to make that brand promise of always picking up the phone is huge, because in the world of it, when shit goes sideways, you need to talk to a person. I actually left one product and for payroll for going back to so Zenefits did. We started with Zenefits, who did just the benefit side, and we used gusto for just payroll, and then benefits got payroll. Gusto still only did payroll, and we're like, cool, we'll merge and do one thing in one place, but they moved to a ticketing system, and then gusto got benefits. Yeah. And when you call in Augusto with a problem, there's a person on the other side, yeah. So made my decision pretty easy, yeah. And the costs were were pretty awash. I was like, well, that's a no brainer. So understanding that pain and being able to actually put promise behind it. And the other thing that you said, that I love too, is that all your other communication around the marketing efforts that you're doing lead up to that brand problem, yeah, around how you show up for your customer, the freemium model. I mean, talk to me about that, because there is a lot of like, Yeah, little bit that's a little taboo in like the marketing world, free trial, sure, but free

John Connolly 32:44

period? Well, that depends on what you're selling. Okay, I guess the most important thing to remember to my mind, and you know, I've been to school for any of this, it's just my experiences and what I found that works. I know it's what's great about it. You don't have to give away the you don't have to give the cow away for free, but you gotta give the milk away for free. And if people want milk, and if people want to be have reliable milk, or people are looking for cows, and they know your cow gives good milk. Where are they going to go to get the cow? They're going to go to you. This is a differentiator, right? If you have no differentiator, right? If you don't have a community or authenticity, it's a race to the bottom. People you are, you're, you're, then marketing. Our services are the cheapest, right? Our services, they're the bargain. And if everyone's doing that, and most people are, it's a race to the cheapest price point, and then they cut what service delivery features, answering the phone, and they're outsourcing, they're offshoring, they're they're tearing everything apart that they can to try to be as lean an organization, as lean in operation as possible. And is that where you want to be? Or do you want to be in a place where people seek you out because you're reliable and you have expertise that people actually care about your brand for you, and that you can charge more because of the trustworthiness factor. I tell my boss all the time, I said, we're not selling it services, we're selling trustworthiness. That's true of every organization, anything of any value that anybody wants to buy, they have to be able to trust it. Sorry, Trevor, I know you bought the temu dog ball launcher, and it's you're stuck with it, right? And it sucks, but that's like, again, teemuz, teemuz. And I'm just bashing Teemu here on the call, right? But like, teemuz mu. Model is the race to the bottom model. Their, their value proposition is, will give you crap for the lowest possible price. And that that, what is Apple's value proposition? What is what? What is, you know, right? Everyone knows what's the most famous Apple commercial of all time?

Kerry Guard 35:25

Well, there's think different. Think different. Think different. Put

John Connolly 35:29

them on the map as an identity based, community based brand. This is the life, right? This is the goal. This of what marketing is about,

Kerry Guard 35:40

and they still lean into it. Absolutely

John Connolly 35:42

they do. And then there was see, and they were like, if the cool person is the Mac and the like, stodgy guy with the suit who's like, overweight and balding is the PC and like, there's, there's constantly, once they have that identity constructed, once they have the authenticity, reliability and trustworthiness, all you have to do is touch it. All you have to do is ping it and it. It's builds on itself. It's a cycle. Apple does the cycle. Apple does the cycle. That's my argument to you, is that Apple does the cycle and it works. But it only works if you sell something good

Kerry Guard 36:21

and you they do live up to their brand promise that way, right?

John Connolly 36:24

Yeah, you have to be authentic and deliver Absolutely. And

Kerry Guard 36:27

then 1984 I was very much think different sort of mindset as well, so, but I just love this. I don't hear people we talk a lot about problem solution, right? Find the problem and talk about why you're the solution, yeah, but the brand promise in aligning to that, I feel like we've never really called out in such a clear way that's just so incredibly helpful, and to build a community around that brand promise, We have that at mkg on the employee side. It's so easy to hire. Yeah, we're a people first organization. We believe that if you have what you need right to do your job to the best of your ability and to live your life that you want by design, then you can have both here, right, like and everything we do ladders up to that, right? In terms of the promises we make to our employees, yes. And so it's easy to people take pay cuts to come here because they want the stability, they want the work life balance, and they're willing to trade that for a higher salary, which agencies just it's really hard for agencies to compete with the in house folks, right? So, different, different stressors, right? So what's hard to what's hard about the other side of the coin, when you're from an external standpoint, when you're a dime a dozen, agencies are a dime a dozen, right? And we try and talk about these soft, squishy things all the time about how, because we're people first, we have less turnover, and we talk to that pain, but it's still squishy, right? So we are working on what our brand I haven't called it a brand promise, but I'm going to now, like, we're trying to define now, like, what that promise can be from a client perspective, and then how do we come back to that every single time? And what we're working around? And we haven't totally defined it yet, but it's this notion of a proactive communication, right, right? How many agencies have you worked with where you are telling them what to do, or you're finding out about it afterwards, or you're trying to, like, get them to move right? We're ahead of it. We're looking at data all the time. We know what's coming, what's going on, and we are, we are a one step you know, in terms of the chess pieces, we're one step ahead, right? Because of that, so that proactive communication is something we're thinking about from a brand promise perspective. And you're just created so much clarity for me here, John, and I'm so grateful we have created such a journey in this conversation, from your career path to be able to bring with you and share with us. Because I don't know about you all, but I have taken some serious notes. There's gonna be some serious action coming from this. Is there either another skill that you think, wow, I'm really glad I had that, or is there anything else you'd like to double down on in terms of this notion of the these four pillars you've laid out for us, and how you are using those today,

John Connolly 39:29

skill wise, kind of to separate those two? Right? We have to remember that marketing at its essence is not technical. So skill wise, the ability to speak, and, you know, I love talking, because I've done most of the talking here, the ability to look at people in that way, the ability to shake a hand, and the ability this, unfortunately. I think, needs to be said now. The ability to pick up the phone and call someone, the ability to go to a room full of strangers and try to make friends with them, is a difference maker, right? More than anything else, like those are skills. They can be learned, they can be taught. But we are. We're in an environment now where like people my age and younger, I'm 40, people my age and younger are becoming allergic to the live interpersonal interaction. That's the death of marketing. That's the death of sales. You can't, I don't think you build a brand promise or adequately communicate a brand promise through a LinkedIn ad. I don't I think that you build a community by having real interactions with real people. And in so far as that goes, if you have a, if you have a a strong community, your your sales will grow based on the community growth, people will want to invite you, their friends and their colleagues and their family into your community as well. So that's what I'll say, is the kind of, like the biggest, most important thing to double down on here, build

Kerry Guard 41:30

community, yeah and do it. Yeah. Referrals are definitely, I mean, how we've grown as a company for the last 13 years is, is, you know, having a client meeting. We had one client called VMware. Mike did, my business partner did a million cold calls to get into that door, and then lots of lots of relationship building to finally find our footing. But then, like 80% of our clients, can go back to that one, because they left and went somewhere else and then brought us along, and then left and then left and went somewhere else and brought us along. And it's been this wonderful journey of, you know, these long term relationships that we've had with those clients, and then the community that we sort of built out over the years because of it. It is it? Yes, referrals are, are the ultimate marketing and sales motion, if you can make it happen.

John Connolly 42:19

It takes, it takes organizational buy in and patience. That's the other thing. If there is, if there is priority for speed and bulk, this approach is probably not going to work very well, right? If your organization says, no, no, no, we have to either saturate the market, or we have to grow at tremendous pace. You're not giving time for people to dial into a community. And I think that is the need for patience. Is actually the primary marketing need across the country or internationally, like in our in that field, the need for patience, and that's that, I think that every marketer ends up preaching that inside their organization is like, this takes time, right? You don't just, can't just go viral. I can't make that happen for you. Okay, that's like, yeah, okay, you can shoot way up the chart here. You'll come back down afterward. No one wants to talk about that, but like, yes, it's like, this job takes patience and it's, it's an art, not a science. It's not, this is not a this is not a vending machine. You can't say, put dollars in, get views out right. And even that, you can't say, put views in and get sales out. That doesn't work, because people are more messy than that. People refuse to be a vending machine. If they were a vending machine, we would need to worry about it is you would need marketers at all. You just need people to stuff views into this thing and get sales out, right? Anyone can do that. But the art isn't in the design work. People say, Oh, art of marketing. They think, like layout design, or, you know, these, these things. And that's true. That's all art too. But I mean this kind of in a more holistic sort of framework, kind of way you have got if you want to sell to people, you've got to build relationships, and that takes time. You can't just get married. You have to, one, get married to a specific somebody, and two, get to know them in advance. You can just kidnap someone off the street. That's not how this works. It's not how this

Kerry Guard 44:40

works, slow, is smooth and smooth is fast, and in marketing, you cannot. We are no longer at an age where we can throw spaghetti against the wall and do random box marketing and hope is not a strategy like wait, those days are gone, folks. We need to be thoughtful planners, because the buy. Cycle is longer because it takes time to build that trust. Yes, and the platforms are big, giant black boxes that don't like us to make big, sweeping changes, because it sends them back into the learning cycle. So we have to slow down, yes, we have to take thoughtful action, and we have to do it in a way that is towards that brand promise and builds that trust and community all day, every day. So thank you for

John Connolly 45:27

efficiency. Is investment. Efficiency investment that's been less money if you take, if you have a strategy, rather than paying if you're if you're not investing, you're spending your money inefficiently. It's like the difference between paying a mortgage and paying for rent. I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not, but like you don't, you don't build equity. If you're renting, you could be spending the same amount of money, and maybe it works for you. And there's other factors that balance that out in your decision making, but just in in the abstract, you know world, you're not building equity when you rent. That's just a reality, and marketing should be a mortgage, not a rental.

Kerry Guard 46:13

Eliza clips, for days, for days. I am so, so grateful for this conversation. John, where can people find you? They want to learn more. They want to keep following your story. Yeah,

John Connolly 46:27

I've been on and off LinkedIn intermittently. I've been like posting whatever for the last month and a half or so. I've had some personal stuff happening and some professional stuff happening, but LinkedIn is the best way to get hold of me. If you want to shoot me a DM, connect with me. There it is John Connolly, M, L, i, s, p, M, P, that's me. That's and you'll see my face with slightly different classes, but that's me. So I'm out there. I know you all are going to link to it on the post, whatever, but happy to connect with people, happy if they want to learn more or just exchange ideas. I'm always about that

Kerry Guard 47:01

John was also on a wonderful podcast called Phoenix forged. It's by a good friend of ours. Yes, so we are dropping the link into that as well. If you would like to hear more about John's story and how able to think the way that I know but that shapes us, it does that shapes us. So thank you for sharing and for being so vulnerable. We'll all be definitely checking that out. Last question for you, John, outside of work, yes, I know you're having a nice storm right now, and kids are home, so this might be a tricky question for you at this very moment, but what is currently bringing you joy? I

John Connolly 47:37

am a watercolor artist. So I paint, and that is a huge boon in my life. I always wanted to do it, and then last year, I just said, You know what? I'm gonna try it. When I try, I was afraid of the commitment. I was a trade, afraid of sucking at it, and I still kind of suck at it, but it does bring me joy.

Kerry Guard 48:00

I'm so grateful for you, John, thank you so much again for joining me. If you liked this episode, please like, subscribe and share. This episode is brought to you by mkg marketing, the digital marketing agency that helps complex brands find skeptical audiences and build trust over time through SEO and digital ads. It's host. This episode is hosted by me Kerry Guard, CEO and co founder of mkg, marketing Music Mix and mastering done by the my podcast psychic Elijah drown, and if you'd like to be a guest, man, I'd love to have you on DM me. Let's, let's hang out. Have a wonderful conversation, just like this one. Just like this one. Thank you all. Have a wonderful evening.