Marketing Differently

– People will ask me why do you have young adults on your team? Why don’t I have a ton of 30 year olds on my marketing team? It’s because what we were just talking about. This is the way marketing is going and you guys are incredibly talented. I’m gonna say this, they are incredibly talented so we’re gonna dive into each of their roles, everybody. I’ve been very careful about pulling together a really unique, cohesive, well working team of people.

– [Woman] The Banowetz podcast.

– Oh yeah so we were talking earlier about the conference that was gonna be held on May 2 at the long branch. The conference that was gonna be held at May 2 at the long branch and so this is kind of like taking the place sort of of that.

– This way we can get business leadership and marketing and just relationship building on a more evergreen platform than just a one time thing. Evergreen meaning it’s continuous.

– You kind of felt like too that it was gonna get good traction that way too.

– Yeah, yeah. And people then don’t have to come physically somewhere.

– [Trent] Is that kind of why we didn’t end up doing the event?

– Yeah. I really wanted to focus on our current clients and I thought we were gonna just spread ourselves way too thin and then also we were going to record the conference so that we could turn it into an evergreen thing but the cost of running a conference is so high that I was like, well wait a second. Why don’t we just make it evergreen just to start off with?

– Like kind of starting a podcast.

– Plus I think people really resonate with this method because it’s more relaxed. I really want to hear June’s, I really want the community to hear June’s input on business leadership and stuff and to do it in a relaxed atmosphere is where you get more of June’s personality than just okay we’re standing up, we’re listening to her for 20 minutes or 40 minutes and then this is people can join us on the podcast.

– Which is great and I think people are interested in doing that, they feel comfortable doing that. And I think the other part of that is you guys know what you know at your age but who owns a lot of the businesses right now in Cedar Rapids? People that are older and the whole concept of social media and what we’re doing today is a foreign language to them and they’re intimidated by that. I know even when my husband and I were talking last night about what marketing is, he says, I always kind of felt like what are people doing? I pay them money to do things and are they just sitting at their computers? What’s going on? Where is the dividend for the expenditure? And so I think there’s still an awful lot of people out there not only in Cedar Rapids but elsewhere that are like, okay I’m gonna hire you to do this. What’s the payback for me?

– And so then kind of having us on the podcast and having us speak gives those businesses the perspective, our perspective, what we’re doing kind of like.

– And that’s really important.

– Yeah exactly.

– That’s so important, Trent because we realize, I guess one of my favorite sayings is that in many instances, I am an alien to a lot of this. You guys are natives. That’s in your DNA and if we are incredibly wise, we are going to look to you for that advice when it comes to any kind of technology but by the same token and I’m speaking for my husband Bob and myself that the experience that we’ve had, the inter relational skills as well as the business concept, it becomes a really beautiful relationship kind of thing.

– For the last couple of months I know Ian’s been editing these podcasts and he has a lot of know how with sound mixing and editing audio files and everything and then I’ve been writing the ads on Facebook and on Instagram and on other platforms and everything. And so like you said that your husband said, are they just sitting at their computer? Like I don’t even know what they’re doing. And so this kind of gives that older generation I guess the perspective of what we’re doing on a day to day basis to provide that new age marketing and advertising for businesses.

– ‘Cause that’s where it’s going and we would be foolish not to not only, not to embrace it.

– And I think this is a good time to jump in and just let our viewers know, so who we have on the podcast today is so we have June Schmidt, she was just speaking and then Trent is the one that was asking the questions so hey Trent.

– I’m Trent, yep. Hey Trent. And then Ian.

– Hello.

– And so this is part of the Banowetz marketing team and so what you’re gonna be hearing from us in these first few podcast episodes are the Banowetz marketing team put together and I do wanna address that people will ask me, well why do you have young adults on your team? Why don’t I have a ton of 30 year olds on my marketing team? It’s because what we were just talking about. This is the way marketing is going and you guys are incredibly talented. I’m gonna say this. They are incredibly talented. We’re gonna dive into each of their roles, everybody. I’ve been very careful about pulling together a really unique, cohesive, well working team of people.

– Like you and I talked about during my hiring process earlier this year is you said one of your big things was hire slow and kind of feel out each applicant I would say and I sent in a lot of my writings to you and a lot of my work so you could just be sure that I was good at my craft and I’m sure it was the same for Ian as well. Kind of a feeling out process and hire slow and didn’t you see him through one of the school musicals?

– Yeah, Shrek it was.

– Is that how you did it?

– That’s how I actually, this all started is I went to see the Shrek musical at Linn-Mar that was the last spring’s musical and I saw the teenagers, I saw you guys up there and I thought, man. And this is Linn-Mar so I’m letting the cat out of the bag here that I actually, I am actually pretty disappointed in our community because I asked Solomon Grodhaus I said ’cause I, what happened is I’m watching the Shrek musical and it’s you, Akash, Nina, Solomon, Molina. Yeah, I was like wow. These students are incredibly talented, we need to do a commercial with them because I already had my marketing company and so we did, we did do a commercial for Warehouse Auto Company and I asked Solomon, I said, well you weren’t in, no wait you weren’t in that musical, you were in the most recent one.

– I was in Shrek but I was a very minor role.

– [Sarah] What were you in Shrek, I didn’t.

– I was like a little pig. I had like 10 scenes but I did sing, I did but.

– But yeah I asked Solomon. I said, did anyone ’cause I took everyone out for dinner and I said, hey will you do this with me and they loved the idea and then Akash said I know a guy who can do audio and that was you, Ian. Which was such a, it’s been such a huge, the young adults in this company June and you know this, the young adults in this company have made it what it is today. I mean your creativity in the past it’s probably been 10 months since we made that commercial.

– And we would be wise to embrace that. Very wise to embrace but Trent, I’m also gonna speak to something that you just said. I’m a big reader. I’ve always been a big reader.

– Yeah, so am I.

– Awesome, we need to talk more. Yeah we do, yeah.

– I think we are okay but there is a book and at some point I really do wanna talk about this book that I’m reading currently and I’m actually reading it for the third time because it’s a deal breaker. It really really is and it’s interesting that you brought up the fact that Sarah interviewed you so much because this particular book talks about a theoretical company and what’s going on and how they’re able to begin to establish what’s going on with their team and one of the things that the president of the company said when I interview people, I interview them four times and in turn that this person in this company gives the interviewee his resume. Call my references. Maybe you don’t wanna work for me and at the last interview what he does is he tries to talk that person out of being part of the company. Are you really sure you wanna do this and goes into all of the warts along with the beauty marks because then a person has a real clear depiction of what the company is like so that when they form that partnership I think we know having my husband having owned a business and Sarah as well that the biggest investment an owner makes is in his or her team.

– Exactly. And I think the other thing that we’re doing well, really well here at Banowetz Marketing already is it’s kind of a small team but I think it’s quality over quantity. Like you said earlier I think.

– Yeah there’s seven of us working together plus contractors as needed but seven W2 employees and just being very slow and steady and careful.

– We’re all talented in our own individual.

– In everyone’s own right.

– Yeah exactly and then you can kind of like you and I at one of my earlier interviews talked that Annalise is really good at what she does making videos and I’m good at writing and so we can put those pieces together to make really coherent, really high quality.

– Well and then you forgot Ian over here with the music and the audio.

– Woo hoo.

– I mean and Ian’s fantastic at what he does and so it’s kind of like we’re all really good in our own right and that’s kind of what makes us a really good team.

– Yeah and today I had a meeting with a client, not Warehouse Auto and I showed them the Warehouse Auto video and I said, this is ’cause we’re heading into another summer. I like doing these creative video projects in the summer because you guys are off school. Well now you’ve graduated but I think it works really well because it makes it more of an enjoyable experience and so as we go into the summer, it’s like well what big video project can we do? And so I was starting to pitch it to a client today and showed them the Warehouse Auto video from last year and I said, do you like this? Because it’s unique, it’s different and if you don’t it might not be for everybody and he’s like, no I do really like this. I would like you to keep working in that direction because I’ve been having Annalise storyboard it, so yeah. Okay so let’s end this podcast and we will ’cause we got to, we’re gonna grab some food. And then we will be back for more in a little bit.

– Awesome.

– All right, perfect.

– Bye.

– Bye.