The Need for Leadership in Marketing

– So today we’re talking about business leadership, which June is our business leadership in house expert. Teaching extraordinaire.

– Well thank you very much for saying that, I appreciate that. And we are a little full of giggles today, but we are still very professional.

– It’s a Friday afternoon, so we can be relaxed.

– And it’s hot outside, and yeah, all of that. So yeah, a little bit about that. I’ll just give a brief synopsis here. The better part of my career I’ve spent in education. I think along with teaching what I really believed in, and this is even, and Ian is with us today too, Ian Crumley who will talk here in a little bit, but one of the first things he and I talked about the day is that it’s so incredibly important to not only be passionate about what you do, but to be able to exhibit why you’re passionate about what you do. And so that’s what I got to do. It was a time in my life to turn the page and find another chapter. But the segue, the connection to that, was that I just really have always had in my heart, speaking of passion, of developing leadership teams. I really see the real results and what happens with an organization when you have in place people who are willing to step up to the plate and to lead. Leading isn’t necessarily about, I think we call 20th century top down format, to put the concept of servant leadership. And really engaging people in what’s going on and encouraging others to be a part of, and to hear their… Hear about their strengths because that makes an organization that’s stronger as well.

– Well so it’s interesting too because people would probably be well why is a marketing company getting into business leadership. It’s not necessarily that we’re getting into business leadership, it’s just a facet. I found that if you struggle with your marketing, you may possibly have some leadership things to work on too that need, okay, let me rephrase that. It’s not necessarily the if you struggle with your marketing, it’s that I’m very committed to not doing false advertising. So if you’re going to market your company in such a way, you need to be able to provide those services or products to your customer the way that we’re marketing it.

– Yeah.

– And oftentimes that comes down to a business leadership issue that then having someone in house to help with that is very important to me.

– I think that’s, and I think the other part of that too Sarah is that generally a company that is excited or enthusiastic, or is even seeking marketing, the obvious reason for that is because they wanna grow their business.

– Yes.

– And so it’s also prudent to not look at okay, now we’re gonna grow your business, but okay, let’s take a step back here for a minute and let’s take a look at your operational excellence.

– [Sarah] Yes.

– Do you really have everything in place within the confines of your business so that your business is ready and set to take off and grow, and I believe that’s one of the thing that Banowetz Marketing really has to offer to other companies out there is our ability, our independent contractors who come in and are able to look at a business and ascertain, they’re able to see, hmmm, can we encourage you to tweak this area of what’s transpiring, what’s going on in your business? And oh by the way, we have the systems in place, and the personnel in place, to help you do those very things.

– Which it comes down to business development then too.

– Yup.

– Because, and I’m self-aware enough to know that your business does not grow based solely on marketing.

– [June] Right.

– It’s growing on the other things that you put in place too.

– [June] Right, right.

– Marketing at its very core is just communication. So do you have something to communicate that people want to hear? And so business development comes down with personal development. I could teach someone to, like if we just get down to brass tax here, I could teach someone how to present themselves, if themselves was their company, present themselves in a way that people wanna resonate, but if you don’t have the right things to say, if you haven’t developed personally to the point where you have things to say that people wanna hear, then the way you communicate is not going to be that important ’cause you’re just gonna communicate. Like if you’re self-centered and you’re just always talking about yourself, people are not gonna wanna hear about that, so that comes back to development, personal development and growth.

– And we need to realize, accept, and actually be excited about the fact that the world of business is constantly changing. And we can take one of two tax with that. We can decide okay that terrifies me, or that intimidates me, and we tend to shut down, or you can go yeah. Yeah. And I wanna learn about that. And oh, by the way, I don’t have all the answers. Each person has their own individual talents, and I can choose to be threatened by that, or I can choose to welcome that. And I can choose to say because I want to be a lifelong learner, whether I’m 18 or 80 or anywhere in-between, that I wanna learn from all of you, all of us should say that, because my knowledge base is going to be broader, and again, isn’t that what happens in a team? Isn’t that what happens when we are leading from a servant leadership standpoint?

– And really a changing world is just an opportunity for business growth really.

– [June] Oh yeah.

– I mean if you think about just recently, social media advertisements, it allows companies like ours to experiment and come up with our own ways that will be better than other companies and propel us forward in our own way. Well one actually kinda interesting thing is that for my freshman year of high school June was actually my teacher. It’s kinda weird calling her by her first name.

– I was gonna say is that weird to call me June and not Mrs. Schmidt?

– Mrs. Schmidt was actually my choir teacher. Just recently actually, I’ve been interested in the sales side of things of business, and June actually taught me and showed me how to go about it, which is a funny full circle there because now she’s my teacher again.

– Yeah, so this is really, well and number one, going back a little bit, is it your mom, I heard this from multiple sources, and June will get embarrassed here, but has your mom said, listen, something about you were a shy kid and June helped bring it out?

– I’m not really sure.

– Were you pretty shy in elementary school and middle school?

– I mean I was definitely…

– ‘Cause you’re not shy now.

– I’m not sure. I don’t think I really did anything throughout years of school until about sophomore year. I guess halfway through freshman year is when I really started to actually do stuff, but I didn’t really do anything, so maybe that’s, I was reserved I guess.

– Okay, so tell us about that. So you were reserved, because you were the lead in the Linn-Mar High School production of Beauty and the Beast. I went to see it, I know what, but anyway. Beauty and the Beast this year, this past year.

– Mmmhm.

– And you are a part of Gold Revere with Arkosh.

– Yeah.

– You were Homecoming King?

– Homecoming Court. I was a candidate, yeah.

– You didn’t win?

– No.

– I thought for sure you would’ve won.

– Well thank you.

– That’s terrible. I don’t know who won, but you should’ve won.

– A really nice guy won.

– Yeah, he’s a nice guy.

– [Sarah] Okay. Well it still wasn’t Ian–

– Not as nice as Ian, but nice guy.

– Okay. But still, obviously you’re not reserved now.

– No.

– So what happened freshman year?

– Well I guess I just, I was the kid that didn’t, I didn’t hang out with people, I just sat at home and played video games and then went to school and complained and then went home and played more video games. I suppose my freshman year I did show choir and June was my director for show choir. That was the first step that introduced me to more a social world, a social environment with friends and activities and stuff. So that was the first step, and just the way we went about it with our different bonding stuff and all the activities we did prior, even before the show choir season even started, really helped me actually get out there.

– So what, June had you do bonding activities?

– Yeah, so we, one of the things was, it’s been a long running tradition, but it’s called initiation. So one morning, early early morning, about 5:30–

– She put, what is that, pillowcases over your heads and beat you with sticks or something?

– Oh no no.

– [Ian] Not quite that.

– I wasn’t even there, I was in Colorado when you guys had that actually, so yeah.

– Well so members who were in the group previously come wake you up at 5:30 in the morning into your house, they come into your room. I think the people that picked me up either did an air horn or they dropped ice cubes down my shirt, I’m not really sure.

– These are things that probably are pleasantly forgotten, yeah?

– Yeah. We just have, they take us all to one place, we all just meet each other, play some games. Just get familiarized with the faces you’re gonna be seeing every week for the next six months.

– So Ian, I have something I have to tell you.

– [Ian] Yeah, what’s that?

– So as Ian just intimated, I had him only when he was a freshman in high school because I retired that year, I “graduated” the kiddos, that was our terminology because, yeah, you don’t grow older. So for me that year, the show that we did was a very personal show for me ’cause it was the last one I was gonna have the privilege of conducting. So as part of a show choir show, you have choreography, dancing, fast energy. Pace of show, whatnot, kind of thing. The show that, and subsequent shows that Ian’s been a part of, those shows have all done very very well. For a lot of reasons. Yeah, the groups at Linn-Mar have done very very well. The song that we did as our ballad that year where they basically stand and sing is called This is Not Goodbye. So that was my to them because one of the things that I’ve always said as a teacher is that if I couldn’t find something to like about somebody as a student, I had no business teaching them, but I just really loved the kiddos that I taught. For me that was my core love letter to them. That last crew of kiddos that I got to teach with. There were some solos in that, and Ian auditioned for a solo and he sang a solo in that song. And Ian I have to tell you.

– Yeah, what’s up?

– I went back last week, I went back to a YouTube video and I watched you singing that song.

– Yeah, that’s funny.

– Yeah, so, you know, he had a great voice. As being only his teacher one year and only getting to have just a very small thumbprint in his life, it’s been really rewarding to watch what Ian is doing and I know will continue to do. That’s really exciting to me.

– Well and it’s exciting to hear that things like that, so obviously with our business leaders what we do is we, I’m waiting for you to nod yes, we worked with our business leaders right?

– Yes.

– So what we do is we have all of the bosses wake the employees up in the middle of the night at their house with an air horn.

– Of course, yeah.

– And then go and do activities together.

– Yeah.

– Right?

– There’s gotta be people out there that’ll wanna be part of Banowetz Marketing just for that reason right?

– I am completely joking.

– No, that’s not what goes on.

– But we do do activities together.

– [June] Yeah.

– And I can see how they tie in, yeah.

– Well and I think, and Ian has already been part of different kinds of organizations. Sarah you have, as well as I, and we can certainly attest to the fact that when you’ve got a cohesive organization, whatever that looks like, and that can take a lot of different, have a lot of different faces, it’s just ultimately gonna be more successful. And the side part of that is it’s just more fun to come to work.

– Well when you have people that you like being around and that you get along with and that you work together and have similar goals and desires and stuff, just like a show choir team, it’s very helpful because it helps you put on a great show.

– And those goals are very clearly laid out and that’s of course one of the things that I talk about as I spend time with leadership teams is the concept of seeing and shaping the future.

– And you have a background with Chick-fil-A because your husband was the owner/operator of the first Westdale, and then Coral Ridge, and then Lindale Chick-fil-A.

– Correct.

– And so when you look at Chick-fil-A, it is not just marketing, it is a lot of business leadership.

– It is.

– It is very strong, in fact I would say that it’s more about business, it’s a strong brand that they hold their brand standards very closely and highly, but it’s a lot of business leadership that makes Chick-fil-A the way that it is.

– It is, and before Ian and I go back to what we did the other day, let me just give, just a real brief, one of the biggest aha moments for me and learning that I have experienced was about 20 years ago Chick-fil-A determined that they needed to study and thus create an innovative leadership model. And so–

– And it definitely is, I mean they succeeded.

– Yeah, absolutely, and the books and the materials that have been written as a result, and of course presentations and whatnot, have been invaluable, and it’s interesting how other companies study Chick-fil-A, what are you doing? We need to study you and we need to be like that because it works. I think for me it’s been such a privilege because these gentlemen and women who were at the forefront to doing this, I know them personally. And have sat down and had one on one discussions with them, so not only read their books, but know them on a professional and personal level. So thus it just gives so much credibility to the materials I get to use. So yes, my husband was a Chick-fil-A operator, yes I worked in the store for two years, but as a result I was privy to a lot of information and thus a lot of people that has allowed me to craft the concept of leadership that I now present to people. Which I truly believe in and used in high school with the leadership cadre of the kids that I worked at, so did that with high schools who we know are brilliant. High school kids are brilliant. They know in a New York minute if you have no idea what you’re talking about. That always made me be accountable that I was always studying what I was doing. And then to take those same principles into working with companies and adults while we’re talking about, in some instances, a bit of an age differential, the principles remain the same and equally as effective. So hey Ian, let’s talk about what we started to do with the wholesales project and where we are with that, and yeah, what you and I have done is we’ve sat down and talked twice together.

– Yeah, so I guess so far you’ve ran me through a few examples and different situations and what answers I would have for potential clients when we’re pitching our idea for them to come and be on this podcast?

– Mmmhm.

– Yeah. I mean it’s very informative. Not only am I learning how to communicate with businesses in a professional role, I’m also learning more and more about this company actually and what we stand for. Why we are able to compete with other marketing companies and why we’re actually sometimes better in other departments. It’s really informative. It’s extremely interesting for me.

– It goes back to the passion thing too, doesn’t it Ian? Again, back to the servant leadership thing. One of the things the servant leadership does is that he or she embodies the values.

– [Ian] Yup.

– And if you recall, as we sat down both times, that we talked about what are the values of this company.

– That’s right, that’s right.

– And you’ve just intimated that those values set Banowetz Marketing apart from other companies because of the things that we can offer. So we even talked about, one of the very first things yesterday that we talked about was I said to you I commend you because you were…

– Oh gosh.

– On time.

– Oh yes, that’s right, I forgot about that.

– Just how valuable that is when you’re gonna meet with a client that you are on time. It’s the little things. It’s the I had you practice your…

– Handshake.

– [June] Your handshake, yeah.

– We did a lot.

– Yeah, absolutely. What else did I have you practice for me?

– Essentially just… I mean introducing myself. Making them feel like they’re comfortable in the conversation and they’re the ones in control and we’re the ones that are here to serve them and give them an opportunity.

– Exactly, yup.

– I love this. This is the first time I’m hearing this because I was at Ohio for a conference all week and left these two to work on this, and so this is exciting, this is, yeah, very nice.

– But not only as we talked about at the very beginning of this cast did we talk through these particular things, we got ready to go, and we had materials and talked about, look at the materials and whatnot and what each, the value and the significance of the materials, but then it was as we’re going out the door Ian says to me so you’re gonna make the presentation and I’m gonna watch right? And I said sure. With the thought that it was gonna be a collaborative effort on this. Talk a little bit about that Ian.

– Yeah, so how’d that go?

– Yeah, it was actually, I mean going into it I was extremely nervous just ’cause, I mean–

– Understandable.

– It’s a limitless playing field, you never know what they’re gonna ask or what’s gonna actually happen. How they’re gonna react to what we say, but I mean we went in there and June introduced the idea of them being on a podcast, but then had me explain really what the podcast was and had me explain all the materials in the folder and I felt like, I mean once I was in the situation it became 10 times easier just to talk about I guess what…

– What we are.

– [Ian] Yeah, what we are.

– What we represent. And I think finally one of the things that we talked about yesterday that I think is comforting and gives one confidence is you are going to be asked questions that you don’t know the answer to. That’s not the expectation here. So what did we come up with that was the important thing to share with a client when that comes up?

– Yeah, it’s good and valuable to them to admit that you don’t know the answer and not try to make something up on the spot that doesn’t actually answer the question, but it’s also just as valuable to let them know that you are gonna find the answer for them and let them know.

– [June] Excellent. Exactly.

– And not leave open-ended.

– Well and what’s really amazing about this, and this goes down to business leadership training, and everyone working together, is the fact that I had communicated that with you but I’m not a good teacher, and you’re the teacher. So you were able to compile this, and because I know that Ian now, the way he’s talking, he had a better experience in learning how to do this coming from you than from me.

– And I learned from you, so you’ve given me that information.

– So you, with your teaching skills and everything, you took that and then you were able to pass that off to Ian which I can tell just by the look on his face and the way he’s communicating this is that he, it sounds like you had a really strong foundation.

– Yeah.

– Talking about the, well I wouldn’t have even thought to talk about the company values and goals at that point in time because Ian’s already been an employee of Banowetz Marketing for a year now, and so I wouldn’t even have considered that, but that was key, that is actually key, because as he goes out he needs to be able to communicate that with other people very well. I wouldn’t have even thought to do that. That right there is an example of the business leadership that we’re talking about.

– We need to tell our story, and we need to let our clients tell their stories.

– [Sarah] Yeah.

– ‘Cause we want to be able, it’s very important to all of us to connect with our clients.

– [Sarah] Yeah.

– It’s huge.

– And before we end this podcast, I do wanna, this is a big topic and we’ll just touch on it, and if anyone wants to learn more they’re gonna have to reach out and talk to us because this is really exciting. So June and I actually did a business leadership mini conference for one of our clients recently. It’s essentially taking what she’s helping Ian with here in his one area, but really it’s not just sales. It’s just in general what are the needs of the client and how can we help train them in that area. So that was really exciting. So it was a four hour mini conference that we did just for the leadership team at one of our client’s businesses. We did it during a period of time when they had the ability to get together and be together as a leadership team for four to five hours.

– That was amazing wasn’t it Sarah?

– [Sarah] It was exciting.

– It really was.

– I worked on providing the hospitality for that, and June worked on the teaching for that. So we brought in food for it. We actually had Biaggi’s drop off food so they had a full meal from Biaggi’s, it could’ve been anywhere, but that’s where I chose.

– We had some team bonding experiences–

– [Sarah] We had team bonding, yeah.

– That was particular to them. I think–

– And not stupid ones. I think everyone had a lot of fun with that too.

– Oh they did, and I got to participate in an ad.

– Yeah, I made you ’cause we had an odd number, so I was like June.

– It was great, yeah, it was great. I’m so glad I got to do that. Yeah, I even mentioned that in a meeting with this particular group yesterday and they smiled. And the other part of that is, Sarah, because we, in this instance, we’re so attuned and are so attuned to their pain points, the areas in which they need to grow as a company, that we were able to tailor what we presented that was exclusive, maybe not exclusive, but it certainly was applicable to them.

– It wasn’t a general, like this week I was at a conference, it was a general business marketing conference or whatever. This wasn’t that, this was very much four hours of a shot in the arm of things that we, ’cause we’ve been working with this client for a while.

– Right, good takeaways.

– Good takeaways that they could directly apply at this point in time in their business.

– And I think the biggest thing for them, as we’ve noticed as we’ve met with them too, is they’ve become more verbal. They are now interacting more, just going back to what I talked about initially, was that they are taking more of a personal stake in what’s going on and feeling like their voice is being heard. That’s just crucial to all of this.

– That was one thing that I did notice because we do, June works and does about 15 to 20 minutes of business leadership with them at each one of their weekly meetings, but having that four hour block of time that was just focused on it, it did give more time for communication to open up the door and just talk.

– Absolutely, and if I can just also interject here too Sarah, having again going back to the having come from the educational field, I am all about application. I am not about going to a meeting, or presenting a meeting, and people walking out and gleaning nothing from it. I always wanna make sure that I tailor those presentations, interactive or whatever it happens to be, so that that leadership team, those individuals, have material, have concepts, they can walk away and they can say okay, tomorrow I can implement this into what I’m doing.

– Well I can see that with what you did with Ian because I knew that you guys were gonna get together for one meeting while I was gone, but the fact that you got together for two and then you guys went out, ’cause when you first told me that a few minutes ago before we started podcasting I was like wait, you already went out? I was surprised by that, that was, but the fact that you did it and then you’re just right away let’s go out there and meet with someone was excellent. That was…

– Well thank you. We enjoyed it.

– [Ian] Yeah.

– And I’m gonna let Ian talk here, but I know from a personal standpoint it’s very rewarding to watch people grow and do. So go.

– I mean it feels rewarding to be able to grow. Especially, I mean I think going out and immediately acting on what I’ve just learned in a textbook sense, like this is what you do, this is what you do, you can learn so much from that, but actually going out and doing it is completely different. I mean you learn so much from actually doing.

– And you get more scared don’t you?

– You do, but I mean it helps you, I mean–

– And you have experience with June, Mrs. Schmidt, even from high school too because this isn’t just something that happened the past week or two. That did happen yes, but also because you have a longer history, ’cause he just graduated, Ian just graduated, and so four years ago she had you guys going out and doing right away. You had to get on stage, you had to do the show choir, so it wasn’t just textbook. You actually had to go do the stuff, and as a result, I mean I had no idea that you were more reserved in elementary and middle school because to me I’ve only known you from that period onward and I’m like, I think June mentioned or something you being reserved, or your mom saying you were reserved or something and I was like what? That wasn’t, I’m like that’s not the Ian that I know. When did that happen? But to have, so not only can we see the impact of leadership from just the last week or two, but the impact of not just June, but your parents and everybody too, the impact that leadership and mentors have on someone to the fact that you were able to go on and be on the Homecoming Court, be the Beast, be the lead in the production, and have Gold Revere, which you told us, Gold Revere has what, 30,000 listeners a month?

– 30,000 monthly listeners.

– 30,000 monthly listeners. That’s pretty cool.

– And so you’ve just heard a snapshot of what we do here at Banowetz Marketing. And those are things that we would love to be able to do with and for you.

– Yeah.

– Yeah, yeah.

– So definitely reach out to us. If you wanna know more information, if you’d like to be on our podcast, reach out to us for that too, you can schedule online actually at BanowetzMarketing.com and we will talk to you later. Thanks for listening. Bye.