Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Be the Giraffe. I'm your host and guide, Chris Jarvis. Perhaps you're wondering, why Be the giraffe? The giraffe literally evolved to be more vulnerable. But the truth is that giraffe gets to see things others can't and reach heights and reach food others won't.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: If you are looking for ways to stand out and reach higher in business.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: With money and in life, then you are in the right place.
Welcome to Be the Giraffe.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Welcome to Be the Giraffe.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: I'm your host and guide, Chris Jarvis.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: This is the show where innovators share how they stood tall, broke free from.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: The herd and reached higher in business and in life.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Today's guest is the brilliant and fearless Courtney Kiel.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: A marketing powerhouse who worked on some.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Of the fastest growing tech companies in Silicon Valley.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Courtney launched expert marketing advisors to help.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Entrepreneurs build marketing strategies that scale fast. If you want to create crazy buzz.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: And then Buzz Lightyear your business to.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Infinity and beyond, get out your notebook.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Because it's time for a master class in branding and business building. Courtney Keel, welcome to Be the Giraffe.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: Love it. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Good.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: So we talked about so many things. People are so excited about branding because like that branding you and your business and making connection is so important.
What I find is that for a lot of people, they're driven.
If they're driven to something, it's because there may be an absence of something in the past. For me, my big pain when I was a kid was not being understood. So my parents got divorced and I got bullied and there was a lot of stuff. So this need to be understood is really important, which is why I launched Be the Giraffe. For people to understand you and who you are and what you do, you have this branding thing which is all about connection.
[00:01:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we cover expert marketing advisors, covers end to end. So not just branding, but it is an essential piece. It's not just a shiny star. It's not just like, oh, okay, we've got some colors.
It's actually telling the world a bit about yourself and what you represent.
And then of course, it grows from there. I would say the most successful branding experience is when you can drop the name and just have the logo, as in Nike and the Swish. We all know the Swish. We don't need to see Nike, just the Swish or Apple, you know, think different. So those are good examples to aspire toward.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: So for you though, this, like, where I'm going with this is, as we talked about this before yesterday, that the conversation about sometimes the things that we say and do have unintended consequences. And those things drive us right into a certain place. So, like, the people who love us the most are our parents.
[00:02:43] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: And, and, and they care for us. And until somebody has a child they don't know, it's hard to understand the love and the pain that you feel when your kids struggle.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: Sure, sure.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: And so you know this giraffe story of the giraffe breaking free from the herd, when you leave the herd and you go somewhere else, you're in this interesting space between.
You've just poo pooed on somebody else's existence because you don't want to be there anymore.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: But you haven't gotten somewhere that's exciting to draw other people in.
[00:03:15] Speaker C: Right. Somewhere different.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: So.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Somewhere different.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: And so you're moving through this individual journey and whenever you go to do something different, you know, I know for me, every time I would fly, I would call my mother and she would. The last two words she would say before I got, before I hung up was be careful.
[00:03:32] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: And it wasn't because she didn't think I knew how to navigate an airport. I had 2 million miles. It was just. She just wants me to be careful.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: And for a lot of people who want to do, who want to do amazing things, sometimes they're getting messages from other people that are sending them in the wrong direction. And I think you have a really interesting story for anybody who wants to do something, but it might be something holding them back. Well intended. But having a negative.
[00:03:59] Speaker C: Right, right. Well, and with you as well, with your parents and kind of navigating that divorce and being sort of that middle between them.
For my parents, when my dad got older, he developed dementia and late stage cancer. And I took him into my home and he was on hospice. And growing up with him, I always wanted his approval. And he was always no, because I said so, but never gave me the reason.
And so I think that drove me to always push for that. Yes, I support you. And I just, it was really tough to get. And then of course, I always wanted a business on my own. I always saw opportunities. And when I had this last one for expert marketing advisors, it was about a month after he had passed. And I think looking back at that, it's almost as if I didn't need his approval anymore and it was okay for me to go forward.
But I always say dreams are so fragile when they're small and young and Just beginning. And he meant well, but he really wanted me going in the direction of a big, safe corporate job with all the benefits and 401k and all that. And by breaking off and doing my own thing, of course, that made me more vulnerable and wasn't as secure.
I always look at that as sort of that pivotal moment.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: So people who want to do something else, you did the thing that you were intended to do. So people who want to do something great requires you to step away from what everybody else does.
[00:05:29] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: So I like to say, if you look at this normal distribution of people, where most people are around the middle, most people want to be outliers, but they're afraid to be outcasts.
I want to do.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: I want to be one of the guys.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: I want to be just like you and just like everybody else. But I want to end up with 10 times as much money.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: And it doesn't work like that.
[00:05:45] Speaker C: Right, Right.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: You have to take risks and do things differently.
[00:05:47] Speaker C: You do, you do. And in marketing as well, being that outlier is what's going to have you stand out as your brand, as your company grows, et cetera. Because there's. I mean, I work with a lot of executives and CEOs out of Silicon Valley. And of course, you know, for lack of a better way of saying this, everyone thinks they're a snowflake.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: They all one of a kind. Right? Yeah.
[00:06:09] Speaker C: You know, you kind of have to bring that down a little bit. We jokingly will say bring them out of the clouds and feet on the ground and kind of put expectations a little bit more, manage those. But then, of course, push that marketing envelope to show the outlier of it.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: The differentiator, maybe work backwards. So people want to be outliers, and that's the goal of branding. Right. Is to become the swoosh, is to become.
Think different, think differently, whatever that is.
To be the giraffe, I hope. And you want people to get to that place. What are the challenges in. In the challenges of asking people's opinions about your idea, about your marketing, about your colors, about your brand, about for people who want to stand out?
What are the challenges in actually trying to turn that process into a democracy?
[00:06:56] Speaker C: I mean, it's one of those.
There's no right path, otherwise everybody would be doing it.
It's a lot of trial and error. It's a lot of. You don't know what you don't know, and that's a real thing. I didn't really realize how much that meant until I started My own company. And I was like, oh, I didn't know that. Like, I needed this or I needed that. And there's different hurdles at each stage, but I think ultimately you just need to have that courage and that bravery and be willing to try and fail and learn and get back up and keep going.
And it doesn't matter whether it's brand or whether it's, you know, what have you with the color of your house or whatever you might be doing.
Yeah, I think that's real important. And then, of course, having mentors, having folks like yourself, you can kind of bounce ideas off of.
Respect the opinion and the feedback, but stay the course with your own determination.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: So what do you tell the people who have ideas?
And people hate it.
Not all people, necessarily. Or maybe it's all people, but how do you handle this need? When I did the TED talk, Surviving Ain't Thriving, it talked a lot about it was trying to encourage people not to be afraid of the negative.
[00:08:04] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Because for you to get no negative feedback means you put nothing out there. Yeah, yeah, we're all gonna get. The more you and I do, the more people aren't gonna like what we do or how we do it or how we say it, who we do it with or where we do it. There'll always be somebody.
[00:08:19] Speaker C: Right? Right.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: So what's your advice on that for people trying to find creativity?
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. I think the.
If negative feedback is not necessarily negative, you can learn a lot from it.
Take it with a grain of salt.
Don't let it deter you as you continue down your different goals.
But I think it is important to take everybody's different opinions into account. Just as part of a culture. I like to practice that same culture within my organization.
So much so that I'm really no longer needed.
Everybody just kind of weighs in and supports each other and empowers each other. But the negative can actually be.
To me, I always say, I want to know the good, bad, and ugly. And most importantly, I want to know the ugly. The ugly allows me to really get in front of whatever it might be. The good is great. I mean, people love hearing how wonderful they are, but at the end of the day, it's that ugly that's going to help you kind of crack the code and move past it and not get stuck in it.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: So what about really knowing your customer?
For example, like my. You know, we talked about our parents and the feedback they gave us. And my dad would come to see me speak, and it annoyed him to no End how much I'll curse on stage.
[00:09:33] Speaker C: Oh, sure, sure.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Which we're on television, so I don't. But it's, but it's actually work for me. People don't know that because unless they see me live, it's different. Right, but you've seen me live and you're here and I'm a different person.
In a live room where there's interaction.
[00:09:45] Speaker C: Oh, you pay attention.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: It's a complete.
[00:09:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: So like how does that realize in the advice you're getting it. Who is it coming from?
How important it is to realize is this coming from someone who is my target audience?
You don't filter all, you don't filter every piece of feedback the same, do you?
[00:10:01] Speaker C: Right? No, no. So mentors I kind of hold in their own box. I've noticed that throughout my life. I've always had, I've been blessed with amazing mentors at different stages. And the points in my life where I've kind of just been flailing or just kind of putzing along, when I look at it, it's actually the points where I haven't had a strong mentor in my life.
So I really look at that as its own unique feedback.
Icps or customers is very important because it's their experience.
And at the end of the day, people are doing business with people. You have to have that trust, you have to have that goodwill, you have to have that energy, that good vibes.
So the client in particular, I take that to heart right from the get go, presales all the way through post sales, through actual engagement to expansion, you can't lose that connection. So we do a pretty active loop on feedback and making sure they're working with the right people.
Yeah, I think that's probably where I really make sure the team is leaning in because it's not my work, it's the work of the team that's very experienced and they're the experts. So. Yeah.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: So how often do you have your clients reaching out to their, their clients and customers for feedback? How important and how frequent is that one?
[00:11:17] Speaker C: Yeah, it should. Well, I mean, I think anyone would tell you it should be more frequent than what it is.
We're not as involved on the customer side. We're more on the marketing side. Marketing to sales enablement side.
But with that said, all customer feedback, good and bad is.
And the more frequent you have that connection, the stronger the relationship.
During COVID and 2020, we work with a lot of VC companies, so of course all the VCs came down Sandhill and They slashed their marketing in half.
They let go of any sales guy who was not making their number and they doubled down on customers and customer retention.
Don't lose the customers you already have. Marketing, bare minimums, keep the lights on. And sales, you're not making your number, you're out.
So it really forced us to be creative and really lean in and do absolutely everything with anything we had.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: So anyways, I want to pick up that after the break. Courtney's going to talk to us about talking to your customers, the most valuable asset you have. We'll be back after the break. Don't miss it.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Hope is not a strategy. If you're ready to engineer your wealth differently, apply to have a complimentary financial diagnostic done on your business. Let's discover what's currently missing and more importantly, what's possible. Once you're making millions of dollars or you're worth tens of millions of dollars, you have outgrown conventional thinking. So stop buying off the rack and get something custom made for you that's going to help your family meet all of their goals.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: Welcome back to the marketing Masterclass with Courtney Kiel. We were talking, you said something brilliant at the end of the last segment about when Covid hit, which most of us can agree that that's probably the most disruptive business thing that's happened in our lifetimes. Yeah, that the big names, the big venture capitalists, PE firms, investors in Silicon Valley up on Sand Hill Road. When that happened, you said they slashed budgets, which everybody did. Right. They stopped spending money. They got rid of all employees who weren't going to great cancelled events, canceled events, did all of that. I had a world tour with Jack Canfield. I canceled, which was no fun.
Things happened.
But then you said they doubled down.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: With customer success and retention.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: Customer success and retention. So keeping the customers that they currently had, keep the customers you currently have by doing anything you needed to do.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean it became really obvious that everyone was taking a close look and sharpening their pencil on every line item. And if a software company was one of those line items, they had to really fight for that position and hold that line item.
So yeah, the customer success piece was huge.
I think there was a lot of learnings because folks realized how important that is, how valuable it is. It's not just sales and direct sales. It's the post sale experience and the loyalty that's created and those champions that can come from it. And then of course that expands into referrals and other expansion within the customer itself. So there's a Lot of takeaways from that.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Now companies pay your firm millions of dollars to help them generate leads for all kinds of businesses, mostly big companies, but lots of different clients. They pay you lots of money because you deliver clients to them.
And so for people who are small who can't necessarily afford you, right.
If they can't afford you right now, everybody. The problem I see is that people are chasing the same thing everybody else is. Everybody's bitching and moaning about the increased cost of meta ads or whatever it.
[00:15:36] Speaker C: Is, AI tools and get an agent.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: And you know, the all doing the same thing.
[00:15:41] Speaker C: There's a lot going on right now.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: What can people do who don't have a huge budget, right. And who are willing to be a little more giraffe like, be a little more Courtney like. And what can they do with their existing customers? What steps can they take to learn what people actually need to help them generate leads?
[00:15:59] Speaker C: Great question. We work with a lot of earlier stage companies as well, which I find are just so much fun. There's a lot of passion when you're still small and everybody's a contributor, but that's when you most, when it's most important to listen to your customers. Those early adopters are the ones that will shape what direction you go. Do you go vertical, industry specific? Do you go buyer Persona, focus? Do you stay in this? You know, we've seen those early pivots take place and it really helps with your messaging. You know, at the end of the day, if you hear your messaging come back to you from your customer, you've nailed it. Don't keep it there. Keep it there for a year.
But there's a lot with those early adopters that really, when I find that those early stage companies, the founders are so engrossed in their own company that it's very hard for them to see it from the outside in. And those customers will give you that outside in point of view, which is truly what matters most, the external perception of your company and your value.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: I got kicked out of a company that I started. So I had gotten divorced. Attorneys took all the money.
The previous year I had made $750,000 running this financial firm.
And I got kicked out of a company that I owned.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: Ouch.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: And walked out with 10% of what was owed to me.
And then there was a lot of self doubt. Sure, what the hell happened? Maybe I don't have anything left in the tank. Maybe I don't deserve to be here. I'm 40 years old, I'm broke, and I Can remember somebody gave me the advice to go talk to my clients and ask them, what is it like to work with me? What do you learn? What do you come away with? What do you lean to me for? And the birth of the giraffe came from those conversations in 2011, which was, you give me a different perspective. When I get done talking to you, I'm looking at things differently.
[00:17:54] Speaker C: Right, right, right.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: So important to be because you think that I sell things, units, I do something, I sell time. But ultimately what do you make people feel? Or someone's like, wow, you completely framed the way that I look at things.
And it was like, oh, now the next consulting thing became okay, how do I work that in?
[00:18:10] Speaker C: How do I model that? How do I make that an experience for others and those connections. It's your superpower.
And I've had people ask, what's your superpower? You can't do it all. And I'm like, okay, okay.
But there is something to it. Everybody with my team will run an exercise, Love like hate.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: So it's called love like hate.
[00:18:30] Speaker C: Love like hate is what? Just simplify it.
So everybody on the team will what do they love doing?
Referring to different marketing, different areas of marketing. Do you love branding? Do you love messaging? Do you love web dev? Do you love operation? So the love part and then the like part is really, you know, you enjoy this part, you enjoy messaging, but you don't necessarily love it. Or to social. We typically find people that whatever is in that like box is stuff that they are interested in but they don't have confidence in and they would do really well swimming with an expert that loves that area and so then they can really learn and get that confidence. And if you hate it, we're not going to. If you hate messaging, which can oftentimes feel like paint drying on the wall and you're just sitting there like, okay, that's a good example. If you hate. For me, operations is a tough one. I mean I love it because my brain gets but getting into the back end of tech stack and mapping everything, after a day of doing that, I feel like I'm cross eyed.
Just knowing where people's strengths are and putting everybody, empowering everybody to do what they love and be passionate. I find if you're doing something that you're passionate about, the results are going to be great. If you're doing something you hate, you're probably going to keep putting it off or it's not going to be as good. It's going to be the minimum.
So That's a big. That's a good exercise for us.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: I love the love, like hate exercise. That's an internal exercise.
[00:19:57] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: What do you suggest for people as an external exercise to figure out?
[00:20:03] Speaker C: I mean, you can do the same thing with your customers. Oh, I like that. Yeah. I mean it's going back to the client retention and building that loyalty.
Just, you know, I find people are really open with me. I'm also very open with them oftentimes telling them things that they may not want to hear, but they need to hear.
So it's a fair amount of kind of putting that structure and saying, hey, there's no judgment here. Just tell us all the good, bad and ugly. What are the things you love?
The results were driving. What do you like, but we need to do a little better. And then what do you hate?
Maybe we have the wrong person paired up with them or maybe, you know, our graphics are too cartoony and they need to be more authentic. So things like that I think give strong feedback and actionable.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: I love that. Do you find that similar exercise is good for market assessment? You're trying to get an idea of what people. If you have somebody going into a space, basically what are other people doing?
I remember back in the day when Saturn took off, which is maybe a little bit before your time, maybe you remember it, but Saturn and Tesla does the same thing now. But it was. People hated about car buying.
They hated the haggling for the price because no one wanted to walk away and say, look, I bought this car for $36,000. And then your neighbor says I got the Same car for 34. You feel like a fool. So people hated the haggling because they wanted to win, but they hated the idea of losing. So they went in and said, let's go ahead and make it. Let's make it go from a hate to a. Like we'll just get rid of.
[00:21:37] Speaker C: Right.
The pain point that they're to be common denominator. Sure. Yeah. I mean that's a great way of looking at when you're putting your product market, even if it's just in beta and you're doing those tests or soft launch and you're testing some messaging pieces.
Absolutely. That would be a strong way of. Even on email is an outbound for sure.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: What do you find works on email? So people do a lot of.
We talked about this too. That human connection is such a big deal is email. And what's the new thing? What are we finding?
[00:22:11] Speaker C: I mean it's founder led sales.
It's the founder being, if I reach out to you, you're going to respond. If you reach out to me, I'm going to respond.
If a BDR or somebody in your company reaches out to me and I don't know the name, I don't recognize the name, I may disregard it quicker. It's having that initial connection that kind of brings back events.
LinkedIn. When people reach out to me on LinkedIn, a lot of it is cold and then there's every so often one of my connections that I truly know. And of course I'm gonna respond to that and the others. It can be a bit overwhelming with outbound email.
It's having a sense of urgency and of course personalization.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: So if you're talking about the founder led, how much of that is authentically founder led? How much of it is an assistant or an ops person working your email? How much of it is an agent?
[00:23:08] Speaker B: What are you seeing?
[00:23:09] Speaker C: You're digging for all the secrets.
I mean, I'll be honest, I am, for lack of a better way of saying this, I'm the queen of outsourcing.
If I can get it off my plate and onto somebody else's. Garbage in, garbage out.
Actually, as I was growing my career, I realized the more I did that the more my boss would come to me and give me more. And so I was just like, so then I kept getting these promotions and so on and of course now it's like, I mean, I just bought a house a year ago and my brother was helping me look for it and he's like, courtney, you need a turnkey house.
We're not doing a fixer upper. You're like, why would you think that?
I mean, that being said, of course I love doing projects and such, but I hire experts and I get out of the way, empower people to do what they do.
So for LinkedIn and for what part of that is actually me versus we don't use bots. I don't recommend bots, but people can see right through them and that's the quickest way to turn someone off.
I'll reply to people randomly like, okay, cost question mark. And then they reply with some generic answer and they're not being direct and that's immediate, like no disconnect. Yeah. And we were looking at one gentleman we were going to bring in to help with outbound and just some BDR work. And it got to, he did the follow up email and, and it was really clear that he had copy and pasted it from something else. And there Was. I think there was even a typo. And I was like, oh, like you just can't. I mean, no matter how great the person is, if you've got a typo or if you look like you were not authentic or it was a, you know, copy paste, it's. It's not meaningful. And I moved on.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: That's great. We have so much to pick up in the next segment, but for now, we love having Courtney on this. We'd like you to come back, and you'd hate it if you miss it. We'll see you after the break.
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[00:28:23] Speaker A: Welcome back. I'm here with the giraffe Courtney Keel.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Who'S teaching us everything.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Marketing. It has been a masterpiece class. And there's so much more.
We talk about authenticity.
Lots of things off camera that are so important and there's so much automation going on too. AI AI is a big deal.
We were talking at the break about the human touch or in the last segment you were talking about founder led sales and that real people actually reaching out to real people with real messages.
How important is that?
Everybody wants to.
There's been such a push toward the watch and the plane and the car and all the other stuff on social media, all the big glitzy stuff.
[00:29:06] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: That people seem to be. A lot of young people seem to be afraid to post anything that isn't super success.
[00:29:14] Speaker C: Perhaps. I mean, I don't have my finger on the pulse of what young people are doing, but I could definitely see that being like, hey, I have to be careful about what I put out there.
I think that's coming full circle.
Just in the last 10 years. People are sharing a lot more and it's okay to share the negatives. It's okay to. Your life doesn't have to be shiny and perfect.
One of our mentors told me that Our biggest differentiator is our integrity and the trust and. And from there, because you can find somebody to do what my company does, that's not hard. There's a thousand of us.
But having somebody that is truly a partner and that you trust to carry your business forward and get those results and have that integrity, that I think is probably the most important for anybody when they're establishing a business relationship. Do I really trust this person? And how do I feel about us being on the same page and being able to be candid?
[00:30:17] Speaker A: So what about.
So there's the posting, but the other side of watching stuff when people go online is there's a lot of imposter syndrome, a lot of people suffering from imposter syndrome.
I did it the other day. I literally was watching something from that Dan Martell was doing and I saw something Darren Hardy was doing.
And I is this real?
[00:30:37] Speaker B: This is like I was actually planning.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: To do something very similar and I had the moment seeing them do it and thought, oh crap, they're already doing it and doing it well.
[00:30:47] Speaker C: Well. So I think that there's a lot to learn from folks. I mean, in Silicon Valley, there's definitely a push to get to market first.
A lot of AI tools are a good example because it's kind of become this playground of AI tools.
And it's all these folks that even Microsoft and Google were doing it to push to get to market first with their AI pieces and the AI components.
But what's happened as a result is now there's all these different. You know, it's like whatever one person is doing, a dozen other folks are offering the same thing. And then it just kind of becomes a matter of, well, which one is truly user friendly.
And I think those will be the ones that stick, the ones that just have no friction and can just really become adopted very easily. But if you're pushing something to market too soon, you'll have glitches and that will immediately discredit your brand, immediately discredit your users will move on to the one that doesn't have glitches.
So that's an important part of sort of that authentic experience and being careful about what you do put out there.
That being said, what were you saying with the posts?
[00:31:56] Speaker A: Well, I was thinking about the I get the race, I get the first mover advantage reason.
And you don't want to put a product out with flaws. But I'm talking about people putting them out with flaws.
[00:32:12] Speaker C: I would look at those people as almost inspiration. They may be competitors, they may Be doing something that you also wanted to do or are thinking of doing or kicking yourself for not doing first. But actually look at those folks and all competitors as these are your inspiration to then take that and do it better and just keep elevating.
To learn from those actually is a really good moment.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: And how important is.
I like that you don't need to be as good as the other people. You can do it. But how about the idea of doing it your way?
Or even though you have some nicks and some bruises and some imperfections. How important is it for the founders to embrace the things about them that they might be.
They might be afraid of people to find out. Like, is there power in actually sharing things that otherwise might.
[00:33:04] Speaker C: Yeah, it makes you real. It makes you human. We're all human. We all, at the end of the day, have, you know, baggage. We all have different things that have happened to us. We all have things we should have done different, or we think back and regret or if we're only talking about the things that we're proud of, it almost makes it a little suspect. It's almost a little like, well, hold on.
I don't relate to you because every person out there has these bumps and bruises and they're gonna relate. And I'm not saying just only talk about your bumps and bruises, but just be transparent and you'll be actually welcomed and received with the same amount of transparency.
So that's really powerful in my.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: So you seem so polished and everything that you do, appearance, communication, everything has always been so fantastic.
Were there some bumps along the way for you?
[00:33:57] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. And I'm sure there will continue to be.
And I was listening with your podcast the other day and living sort of in the extremes or experiencing having everything, experiencing having nothing.
You know, I mean, I used to joke that I've lived more in 10 years than most people in their entire life. And it was just, you know, through everything, like being homeless.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: You were homeless.
[00:34:24] Speaker C: I was homeless for a.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Not. You were looking for a home. You actually.
[00:34:26] Speaker C: I was homeless. Yeah.
So it definitely gives you that point of view of, you know, what all different folks are going through. Four walls and a roof. I'm extremely grateful.
And then I've also had, you know, multimillion dollar homes.
And actually that was the most stressful time of my life. It was the. Brought the most anxiety and very quickly realizing money truly does not buy happiness. It can buy a lot of things, but not necessarily happiness. Some of my happiest times were just living on the river and there'd be a rainbow in the redwoods.
So just taking that time for sort of evaluating the ups and downs. And they actually craft who you become as a person.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: It's interesting.
So many things in my life when I went to a state school and then I went to grad school with people who went to the Harvards and Stanfords and Yales and Dukes of the world, and I would just say I went to school back east and hoped. They just assumed. They thought I went to Harvard or Yale or Brown, and then parents are divorced or they don't have money, or the things that I feel thought would make me seem less.
Or the challenges or losing a sister or having a parent be sick or having a divorce or whatever those things were that are all badges of.
Not necessarily honor, but things that.
[00:35:44] Speaker C: The scars.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: The scars that were actually the things that caused you to connect with people.
[00:35:48] Speaker C: Yeah. It's what makes you most interesting, having those battle scars, being able to relate the humility that comes with it. If you want to be humbled, start your own company.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Yes, I agree with that one.
[00:36:01] Speaker C: You will spend the first year of your life eating humble pie, if not two years of your life eating humble pie. And I was not a fan of humble pie, but now I'm like, all right, bring it on.
With flavor. Blueberry, cherry.
Yeah. There's definitely, I think, a grounding that comes and more meaningful sort of intent on life.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: How do people go about figuring out, from a marketing standpoint, how do they figure out?
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Because it's a big thing.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: I've done it. So I'm already at this place where I've shared the scrubs and I've seen the positive. And now I also. I write a book and host a TV show about being vulnerable. So it would be very hypocritical if I didn't do it and share something on every episode. But for people who are afraid to do it the first time, how do you learn?
What advice do you give to people who, again, for marketing is about getting a message out and being sure.
[00:36:50] Speaker C: I mean, so just bringing it actually full circle back to personal.
The more you share whatever it is that maybe brings you fear or share, you know, a story that you think is something to be ashamed of, it actually takes that power away.
An example, I was abused, and the more I talked about it, the more I recovered and the more it took away the strength that that person I had given control to. And by the end of it, I was very open. It's just like, here's my heart it's on my sleeve. I'm not going to give up on humanity. I just always believe in the better side of folks and I'm not going to change.
My mom, actually just about a month ago, she's like, Courtney, you live very simply and you trust very openly or something of that sort. And it was her first full sentence that she had said in a year. She had severe dementia and passed shortly after. But I was like out of nowhere. Courtney, you trust very easily and you live very simply. And I'm like, I guess that's true.
And she just really stuck with me. But yeah, by talking and sharing with others, you find like minded people, you find folks that have gone through similar experiences. It takes that fear away and it takes the power that it holds over you away.
So even those that are just for the first time kind of exposing this more vulnerable side of themselves, I encourage you to push yourself into that space because you're growing as a person. Anytime you're uncomfortable, you will grow. You're pushing your brain into areas that actually you become more comfortable with and you're growing as a person. I don't know if I said that right, but you know what I mean.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: No, it's fantastic.
[00:38:39] Speaker C: Great.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: I mean that, that whole pushing yourself and the thing that you don't talk about actually is, is the thing that's holding you back, right? That's you put yourself into a cage.
[00:38:50] Speaker C: Right.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: You gotta lean into it, say the truth is like, is like a lion, it doesn't need to be protected. You can just put it out there. It takes care of itself, right?
[00:38:58] Speaker C: Right, yeah, kind of a thing.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: And it's, it's just put it out there and see what happens. And when does, when is it okay? And how do you take some of the failures and move it into some of your business messaging?
[00:39:11] Speaker C: Great question.
I mean, I think failures are always okay. Coming from Silicon Valley, it's like, gosh, I'm probably dating myself. But I swear about 15, 20 years ago it was like, fail fast and get up quickly. Or something along the lines of just.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Keep, you know, home runs matter, strikeouts don't.
[00:39:28] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Just keep big wins, it doesn't matter how many you lose.
[00:39:31] Speaker C: And it was like the 5x and then the 3x and then it was, you don't have to have something 100% perfect. You can put it out, which is, I agree. If you're always waiting for it to become 100% perfect, you're never going to actually get it out there.
So it's like, okay, get the cicd. Continuous Improvement. We used to joke about that acronym. Continuous Improvement, Continuous Deletion.
That's not actually the acronym, it's more of a tech jargon. But anyway, so, yeah, I think a big part of entrepreneurs and business owners requires courage and just, it's okay, like don't overthink it and just have those conversations or put those posts out and just be vulnerable and you'll find others that actually take strength from that.
[00:40:20] Speaker A: I love it. So be courageous, but be patient. You have to come back after the break. Will be here for more.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: Ever feel like you're meant for something bigger in life? I'm Chris Jarvis and on be the Giraffe. We ditch the herd, stick our necks out and find a better path in life, in business and with money. It's time to disrupt the ordinary and build an extraordinary life. Laugh, learn, leap. Join me Friday, 7pm on NOW Media TV.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: Chris Jarvis here with the masterclass Courtney Kiel. All about marketing. We're learning so much. So last segment. Now I have to try to figure out the hundred questions I had. How to ask them all to you in 12 minutes.
[00:41:25] Speaker C: Uh oh.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: Uh oh is right. So buckle up, everybody. Here we go. So, biggest mistake small business owners use in marketing. What is the biggest, the biggest mistake in application or attitude or expectation?
[00:41:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I've seen companies implode from the inside, so that's an important one. Make sure whenever I, I can always tell you.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: What does that mean?
[00:41:44] Speaker C: Well, companies that are going to go the distance, you look at who's on that leadership team, who's the executives, are they experienced? Have they been there, done that? Can they do it again?
Are they right out? Are they green? Which isn't necessarily a bad thing because that brings passion, but that drives a lot of success internally.
The VCs or who's investing in them, are they tier one? Are they experienced enough to also know that they'll be various exit plans. It's not just one track.
And then, of course, the product. You can put lipstick on a pig and I've done that plenty. But at the end of the day, it's still a pig.
Does the product actually stand and speak for itself? So those are real strong things for a company to be set up for the long haul.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: How about a small company or somebody who's starting early? What are the things that cause people to not even get to that place where they can even get financed?
[00:42:35] Speaker B: Or where do they get, where do they.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: Here's one.
Where are people spending too much time on marketing that they shouldn't be probably just overthinking.
[00:42:46] Speaker C: So we'll do basic programs as a foundation for folks to then scale. And we've had customers that get stuck on themselves and overthink. What do I put in this webinar? We need to have a dry run. We need to do another recording. And it's like, just record it. We can do these with our eyes closed.
Just turn on the camera or turn on zoom, and we'll extract all sorts of nuggets from it as we're doing here. I mean, I'm speaking your language, but getting stuck.
And some folks we've seen where even just the name of the company.
So just tackling that messaging, we'll do a bake off like attorney bracket. Here's all the list of different ideas and names and it's all the decision makers get together.
Choose A or B, Great A moves on. Choose C or D. Great D moves on. And then it's A versus D.
Just keeping that momentum and the speed and not getting stuck.
I mean, there's plenty of companies that have gone public with ridiculous names. So it's not always the name, but it's sort of the thought and intent behind whatever you're building and is that representative.
But at whatever point, you got to just. Just do it.
You just get things out there and that makes a difference.
[00:44:02] Speaker A: So from a marketing standpoint, trial and error is the more trial and the more error.
[00:44:07] Speaker C: The earlier stage. Yeah, that earlier stage for sure.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: Just put the stuff out. Don't worry about it being perfect. You just got to get stuff out there.
[00:44:14] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you want to. I would definitely. I don't want to over sell that because it is important to be conscious of the impression that you're making. You only get one chance to make that first impression.
But having those close sort of comrades or people that you can really confide in and bounce things off of them.
For customer messaging, we'll do a lot of testing. And we do testing with advisory boards, we do testing with analysts.
You want to hear that feedback before you fully just.
You don't want to spray and pray. But some of that we're seeing a lot of this in AI is all these different tools coming out, and then you actually go and you do the free trial and it gets all stuck and clunky and you move on.
But that's a big part of it. It's just having those close connections that you can just put it out there and get that feedback.
[00:45:07] Speaker A: How important is it to figure out who that ideal customer is? That Ideal customer profile and how open and how quickly should people be open to changing that?
[00:45:18] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great question.
We work with primarily B2B tech companies that are selling into enterprises.
So there's always going to be more than one buyer in the earlier stages. Those first few wins actually really determine what direction you go. So the first few customers you get, they might all be in the financial sector or they might be in manufacturing. And so then you really start getting your teeth into. Into having content that speaks to that industry.
Or they might all be CMOs or they might all be certain line of business. And then you start speaking to the operations manager. And in that regard, not necessarily it's more industry agnostic, but it's really those first few wins that then give you that foundation and then the confidence to repeat it in another industry or build out more buyer Personas. Of course, enterprise is five to seven different decision makers. It can, it can end up being a little daunting, long process. Yeah, exactly. As we all know.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: So what advice do you have? I coach a lot of students at and I see a lot of slide decks for a variety of reasons. And younger people tend to always have a B2C business, a business to consumer.
[00:46:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: Because they've only been consumers.
[00:46:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: And I've heard you mention B2B which is business to business, which is different.
What advice do you have for people who might have a B2C idea and to kind of get them thinking of how does this become a B2B2C of business to business? So you can sell it to an individual who's. To a company that's selling to individuals. It seems like that's a.
[00:46:52] Speaker C: It can be a difficult jump.
I mean, I don't know if I have a one magic bullet for that.
I think looking at the individual use cases that could, that where it could be applicable like health care supplies.
So as a business, if you're selling healthcare supplies, you can sell them to individual consumers. You know, individual homes can, you know, get Ozempic or whatever it might be or their, you know, their night sleep patch or whatever it might be or selling those products into a healthcare driver.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: Provider or CVS or somebody who's already knows.
[00:47:31] Speaker C: Then you really opened up this whole other.
But the magic bullet to it I think is just thinking it through in that use case.
Okay. And then you start thinking more of it a lot of times. So for the first couple years with expert marketing advisors, a lot of it was direct sales, but we utilize partners. And then I realized we can start selling into partners.
And it's the same conversation, but just kind of the other side of the coin as far as growing your channel and partner deals, but getting your head around a partner deal. And that sort of the language does take a minute to kind of flip that coin from direct sales, but it's very powerful. I would definitely.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: I love that you said partners, because I was actually. The next question I was going to ask is, how do you feel about partnerships? Because it was when we first launched the financial firm, we actually had a publishing company and a financial firm, but we were selling financial services to doctors. But we were going through pharmaceutical companies.
[00:48:28] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: And going through medical.
Medical device companies and going through medical.
[00:48:33] Speaker C: Magazines, which I'm sure provided incredible value.
[00:48:36] Speaker A: Immediate access. Just immediate access and not saying no. I can remember when we wanted to write, we didn't have cardiologists yet. And I remember contacting people at Today in Cardiology. And I sent letters to. To 12 people.
And seven told me seven or eight ignored me. One told me to go do something I couldn't physically do.
And then I actually one person did say to me, somebody gave some more kind answers. But then one said, oh, my goodness, thank God.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: I need.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: Do you have 1200 words? I need something by five o'.
[00:49:09] Speaker B: Clock.
[00:49:09] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:49:10] Speaker A: So I just found the person who needed what I had.
And so they're just saying, I think so.
[00:49:16] Speaker C: Saying yes is really powerful. I always kind of jokingly say, in your 20s, you say yes to everything because you're just glad to be invited to the party.
And then, of course, 30s, you learn the power of no, which is great. And you don't have to do business with everybody. It may not be good for your business.
But the early days of expert marketing advisors, the team, I was like, guys, just say yes. We'll figure it out later, like, whatever. And you're hungry and you don't really know what you have. And so we're saying yes.
And so then came in partners. Because if we didn't have that skill set or the ability to execute within our core team, pulling in partners allowed us to say yes to everything. And that's actually a big part of how we got through Covid. We can inhale and exhale together. We all see what's coming when that wave is going to hit the shore. If it's happening to one, it's usually happening to all of us.
But the partner piece is huge. A lot of folks don't realize that that's not a secondary channel.
It can hold just as Much power, if not more than direct sales and such.
I highly encourage it.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: So partnerships go both ways. Partnerships are you have a client and you hire someone else to deliver something you can't deliver because you already have the client. So now you have greater share of wallet.
It's just you can help solve more of the problems of the things that your people have and you can go the other direction, which is you can partner with people who already have the clients you need.
[00:50:38] Speaker C: Right? Yeah, it's a two way street, 100%.
I can't tell you how many partner agreements we have out there. I have no problem signing partner agreements because actually the partners that truly become valuable, you don't know until after you've started the relationship. And so I'd say, look, give more love than you're going to get and hope for it to come back around. But you've got to give, give, give, and then you kind of stand out and folks realize, well, wait a minute, maybe we can do this in return.
And that's when this like sort of strength starts. We're actually at this point looking at buying one of our partners because we've worked so closely with them since day one. And it's just a natural fit.
Our team knows their team, their team knows our team. We know each other's strengths, we lean in. I mean it's just a very logical acquisition and the merge and the integration would just, it's basically already done.
So there's a lot, there's a lot to be found in partnerships.
[00:51:36] Speaker B: So what should be the big takeaway.
[00:51:37] Speaker A: For somebody thinking about, well, where can people find you, where can they find your company? Where can they find more of this? Where do you go for knowledge? What can we give people in the last minute?
[00:51:48] Speaker C: I mean, expert marketing advisors, very simple. I mean we're the expertmarketingadvisors.com really easy to find us. We are global, but we are primarily US based. So we do have folks all the way on the east coast with a majority in California, again centering around tech.
I myself am in Austin, but we do California East. I used to be California.
And in preparing to exit, I feel like Texas was the right choice.
We got a little ways to go on that. But as you said, the more you talk with different entrepreneurs and such, eventually they're like, let's talk about taxes.
So that's kind of where my brain goes from time to time.
But yeah, you can find us online.
LinkedIn is always pretty active as well.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: Since it's a B2B audience and you have no bots. So Courtney is there on LinkedIn. Look up Courtney Keel on LinkedIn. She responds herself. When she responds no, she responds, as long as you're not a bot. So, Courtney, thank you for being here. The marketing masterclass is fantastic. The connection, the authenticity.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Make sure you watch this again.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: Share it with your friends. People who want to elevate their perspectives.
[00:52:56] Speaker B: And see a better path to more.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: Marketing, more clients, more revenue, and more joy. I'm your host, Chris Jarvis, and we will see you next week.
