Communications Hopscotch w/ Khaner Walker | Ep. 202

This week we’re joined by Khaner Walker, Founder and CEO of ArcSense Communications — a builder who’s grown two companies by understanding something most brands miss: people can tell when you’re faking it.

Khaner digs into the real work behind positioning your brand, the part that happens before the messaging decks and taglines.

We talk about showing up as your actual voice, why authenticity lands better than polish, and what it takes to build a brand people trust instead of one that just sounds good on paper.

LINKS:

Khaner on LinkedIn

ArcSense on LinkedIn

ArcSense Website

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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] David: Have you ever seen an Ember Mug? You ever use one of those?

[00:00:03] Khaner: No, in my mind, it's like from Jurassic Park though. I'm sure that's not it though.

[00:00:09] David: No

[00:00:13] David: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Biz Dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, and I'm joined per usual, by Mr. Gary Voy. Hello, sir.

[00:00:22] Gary: Hey, how you.

[00:00:23] David: I am. Good. I'm good. Had a nice long weekend. Ready to go. Let's do this. More importantly, we are joined by Khaner Walker, who is the founder and CEO of Arc Sense Communications and Arc sound both very interesting. I have lots of questions, but I wanna start out with something fun that we've been doing last little bit. Tell me we do a little this or that. Coffee hot or iced.

[00:00:49] Khaner: It depends. Mostly hot.

[00:00:52] David: What's the, depends.

[00:00:54] Khaner: It's a latte. I like an iced latte or like a fusion. I like that to be iced.

[00:00:59] David: Nice. Gary, you strike me as the hot coffee guy.

[00:01:03] Gary: Yeah, but I'm the same as like morning's. Definitely hot coffee, but not really flavored coffee. I prefer just black coffee, but once you get into the afternoon, evening, or like any kinda like flavored. Coffee or I call 'em dessert coffees. I prefer those iced.

[00:01:21] David: Nice. I have a rule that unless it's freezing outside, I get iced. Anything I don't like hot drinks. That is a rule. It's 32 degrees and below. I might consider a hot coffee.

[00:01:33] Gary: I have this wonderful amber mug that I got from you guys that I use every single morning.

[00:01:39] David: Have you ever seen an Ember Mug? You ever use one of those?

[00:01:43] Khaner: No, in my mind, it's like from Jurassic Park though. I'm sure that's not it though.

[00:01:49] David: No it's a self heating mug. My wife lives by 'em. So you set the temperature you want. It keeps it that way for a couple hours. Very

[00:01:56] Gary: Yeah, you have an app where you could program the temperature and the color of the little sensor that flashes for when it's warming up

[00:02:02] David: We are not being sponsored anyway.

[00:02:05] Gary: So Amber, if you are listening, I'll take the newest model.

[00:02:08] David: guys will take a sponsorship? Sports cars or SUVs, which you prefer.

[00:02:14] Khaner: I am approaching six, not approaching. I'm near six foot seven it

[00:02:18] Gary: Sports cars Miatas, Yeah, no

[00:02:21] David: in a miana.

[00:02:21] Khaner: No, just the low clearance. I, it's, unless you want to see me like literally roll into and out of a car, it's gonna have to be an SUV or kind of Jeep sort of thing

[00:02:31] David: I have a friend who's six foot eight, and he found he could get inside of a Camaro, but he could not get inside of a Corvette.

[00:02:40] Khaner: that tracks. Yeah. I have. Had Suburbans and GCs and, so that's tracking with with where my head's at now.

[00:02:47] David: Okay, one more for you. Are you an early morning guy or a late guy? Late night guy.

[00:02:52] Khaner: I am both, I, kids and dogs sort of thing. I'm up around 6 20, 6 15 ish. I'm normally the one that's getting a house rolling, and then I like to stay up late and work and do Netflix things until about 1130. That's. I don't know if that qualifies as both, I'd say from six 30 to 1130, I'm normally awake.

[00:03:14] David: All right. Let's talk about your companies a little bit. So you have two that you run. How did that come to be? We'll get into the specific in a second, but running two, that, that would give me hives.

[00:03:25] Khaner: One is an offshoot of the other. It, I'd say at the core of both are. Marketing services. One is perhaps more packaged and tailored for a specific industry or quote unquote, vertical. There are some other services to the music side of the business that namely booking, that have no bearing whatsoever for our corporate clients.

But it really started off with kind of the understanding, hey, this one group of. Clients and customers, they need marketing. They just need it very specifically for them and they need a couple other things that are added to it as well.

[00:04:05] David: That seems very specific. Music is always, is an exciting kind of a cool industry to be in. How did you guys dip your toe in the waters? That's, 

[00:04:12] Khaner: I would say we all have a background in it. I used to do, handle music booking for Lenovo's events. When we needed a band, right? I was the person that oversaw that and booked that. Working with our agencies and then working, with the bands themselves. Started there.

We went on to sponsor. Raleigh's big multi-day music festival called Hopscotch. So Lenovo, I oversaw that sponsorship for many years. And then just as the team grew, people kept on getting added to it that have the backgrounds in music as well.

[00:04:46] David: Very cool.

[00:04:48] Gary: Do you find yourselves like cultivating the local music scene? And bringing them up to artists that you can then promote on a bigger stage, or are you also finding like national artists that don't really have a place yet and try to fit

[00:05:01] Khaner: It's more, yeah, it's more the former. It really, I'd say one of the founding ideas of the company is that so many companies and even artists go outside of Raleigh Durham for their agency support. That kind of made me mad, and it was one of the ideas is hey, can we have a kickass B2B agency that's headquartered here in Raleigh?

There's no reason why the Red Hats, the Pendo of the world should. Be getting agency support out of New York or wherever. And then for the same thing for musicians, where do they go once they start making it, they leave here and go do something else. So it really was, I'd say Arc sound very purposely was focused on the.

The Research Triangle Park slash Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill, whatever moniker you want to give to it. And it's very much our love letter to the local music scene here, which we, I'm a huge fan of. Everyone that I work with is here, is a huge fan of, and we think, pound for pound is one of the best scenes in the nation.

[00:06:09] David: So Arc Sense is your marketing firm, right? That's, but you call it like, the name of it officially is Arc Sense Communications. So is that mean something special to you or did you just not wanna call it marketing? Or is communication something unique to what you guys do?

[00:06:24] Khaner: I would say I I myself am better at communications than I am marketing. When I think of marketing nowadays, I think the wor the thing that pops to mind or. Google ads, advertisements on Facebook, running that. I'm not saying we don't do that, but that's just not our strengths. That's not where we excel in.

Whereas I think of communications, it might be more of a coordinated campaign that comes to mind a little bit more of kind of the overall strategy behind it. What actual words are we using? Why are we using those words? What is the thinking behind all of these things? Connecting that.

So it really, it just started from there.

[00:07:05] David: When you say communications, is that like just a synonym for PR or is that something else that I'm just don't know anything about.

[00:07:14] Khaner: It, the answer is yes. I mean it, yes, PR is definitely a core service that we provide. I would say at the end of the day, it is the thinking behind what are the words we're saying. When are we saying them? Why are we saying them? That sort of thing. If we were to align these words up to actual audiences, where are those audiences, right?

And what you know, which specific words you know are gonna trigger pe trigger people, to some sort of. Engagement slash call to action, that sort of thing. So I think of communications as being all of that, right? The thinking behind the strategy, that strategy. Then going in between 50 to 500 different, actual tactical deliverables.

[00:07:57] Gary: So that seems much more specific than just marketing buzzwords and sales copy for people. It seems like you really are crafting specific narratives and specific, like you said, words and choices of words for a bigger meaning than just to, be seen in a social media feed.

[00:08:15] Khaner: That's right. I'd say we're at our best when we're thinking of when we're asked to come up with a comprehensive campaign and a strategy. You know that a business informed strategy, and then the campaign stems from that. We're literally choosing the pathways, the mechanisms, the levers and the buttons and all that other sort of stuff.

They start there and they get integrated into everything that we're doing. I'd say you're dead on with that, Carrie.

[00:08:44] David: lemme go back a minute. So you had a really good career and. Successful credit at Lenovo. You mentioned you worked there earlier. What made you say, Hey, I'm gonna do this on my own? That's, that's a big jump.

[00:08:56] Khaner: Sure. Yeah, it really was just getting my MBA, it was at the end of the MBA program. I did an evening program at chapel Hills, Kenan Fler School of Business. I remember turning to my then fiance, now wife I was saying, I think I wanna do this on my own one day and start an agency.

I think that would be fun. And the discussion we had then was she asked me if you were to hire you, what would you want to see? And I said, the reply was, a healthy career tenure at Lenovo. I worked there for 10 years and then, probably another three to five year stint with another publicly traded company.

And then I worked for a farmer services company called Ineos Health and I was there for four.

[00:09:36] David: I'm intrigued about an MBA, I think you're the first person that has. It said that was such a pivotal thing for you. What was it about an NBA? What was about getting an MBA? That was such a pivotal moment for you where you're like, you know what?

Now it's time.

[00:09:51] Khaner: It is one of the so again, I'm a calm slash marketing person. I write words for a living, and I would say the MBA demystified things like accounting for me and it MBA is very, you are a you're very expensive leatherman. Coming out of that, you could start a fire. Not great. You can open a bottle of wine, not easily.

You can, unscrew an engine, but it's gonna take a long time. So you're a, you're finally honed, multipurpose tool that knows enough about each of those things to do the task at hand. It may take you. Three x longer to do it than a specialized tool. But you're pretty competent in all those areas.

And I definitely left Kenan, Flagler feeling like, Hey, I know enough about hr, I know enough about, again, accounting, I know enough about, cash flow or whatever, all this other stuff, right? That it made me feel comfortable in thinking this way.

[00:10:50] Gary: I was gonna say that makes sense because a lot of times we'll have people on here that we're interviewing that have started their own business and some of 'em started for passion. Some of 'em started because it was just a great idea they couldn't ignore or something like that.

But a lot of times people will say that if they were to do it again. They would hire people that were experts in fields that they weren't, or in specific areas they weren't. And a lot of times they'll say stuff like accounting and HR and things like that. So it seems like getting your MBA kind of took those needs away from you, that you could focus more of doing it on your own instead of worrying about having to hire out for.

[00:11:25] Khaner: I'd say that's right. And I I'm not gonna say jealous, but I admire people who just jump straight in and feel entirely comfortable on doing it on, day one, they didn't, they went straight to doing their own thing or what have you. I didn't have an entrepreneurial background.

My parents were both in the airlines. It was more of like a. Service profession really. And so I just wasn't brought up around that. And I'm not gonna say that it scared me by any means, but it was something I wanted to do when I felt comfortable doing it, and I didn't feel comfortable doing it until a few years ago.

[00:12:03] David: So what, so was it a, you just felt a gap in your skills? What made you want to get the MBA in the first place? You're at Lenovo, you're having a great career. What was missing that you're saying this MBA is gonna fill that gap?

[00:12:16] Khaner: Yeah, it's a great question and it's a, there's a very finite response to it in that I was writing a lot of earnings communications. So you, if you think, if you ever dialed into an investor relations call. Somebody somewhere is writing that script for the C-E-O-C-F-O, the heads of businesses and that sort of thing.

I was doing a great fine job at it, but I would say the, I didn't really understand the decision making and the thinking behind it, and so I wanted to deepen that. I realized, can we marry these things together? And then, the NBAI remember a light bulb moment. This is really not wonky, but everyone else ha probably a bunch of others can go.

Yeah, of course that's a thing, Khaner, but when I discovered, the weighted cost of capital equation inside, my NBA class oh, it's this is why we build a plant here and invest billions of dollars into that thing, right? It's, and all of a sudden those things, and this is why we don't.

Invest here as a company, right? And so all those things, when it just got down to a foundational formulaic approach, really helped my thinking and it helped shape the context with which I write with. So again, I think that goes back to what is communications, right? It's understanding that thinking, That process that the business leader, the CEO and the consumers and everyone that's involved in that relationship has, and then being able to apply that context into. Three to five words.

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[00:14:20] David: So I wanna change the subject a little bit. I want to think, so using your, you're an expert in communications and marketing. What is it when you're working with, and I'm thinking of our audience, so you're an aspiring entrepreneur. You're a new entrepreneur, you've been doing it for a couple, few years.

What is it that those kinds of people typically get wrong in communications?

[00:14:40] Khaner: I would say first. A lot of startups and companies, whether they know this term or not, they're thinking product market fit. I would also say to pair that with language market fit as well. What again, what are spend time thinking about? Not yes, what you do, but the lens of your customer or target customers are going to view you and your product with.

And be comfortable with that. The way that you need to talk in getting funding, whether that's VC or at the bank, or with a rich uncle or what have you, is gonna be entirely different than the way that, you talk in the marketplace, but because you've done some round of research or whatever, so many times that way that you're talking with that initial group of people, sh maybe shouldn't be the way that you talk with your customers, right?

And so understanding that from the get go, I see a lot of people, I'm not gonna say, wouldn't say spend unnecessary time, but a lot of times you can recoup that time by doing both paths at once.

[00:15:51] David: Yeah. Language market fit. That's so interesting. I've never heard that phrase, so I'm noodling. That's interesting. Yeah. I'm, I've always, is that just a fancy way of saying know your audience.

[00:16:01] Khaner: That is a very fancy way of saying no. And it is. Also know your audience. That's right. It's, it is know your audience. It's think you, again, you know your audience, but have you thought about, where does Gary get his coffee? What does he read at the coffee house or listen to or watch, how many kids does Gary have?

Does Gary have kids? Like all those sort of things, that if you're just able to clock that and run that instantly, then you immediately understand, oh Gary listens to, the state of things podcast. And then, from there I could use that cipher and construct an entire marketing plan.

Aimed at the Gary's of the world. And be able to speak to them in a way that they want to be spoken to, right? And that they understand right.

[00:16:48] David: Yeah. No, that's good. I think that is something a lot of new companies skip over is how to frame. Knowing your audience is one of those things that's, it's a powerful statement because you can do a lot of things wrong if you choose the wrong audience, but I guess you gotta know it first, right?

The ICP ideal customer profile, that's step one. Step two is how do you talk to that person? I like that. So what? We've had clients in the entertainment business and I, and so there's part of me that wants to ask, what crazy stories have you heard? 'cause I know musicians are nuts. And they're exciting and hectic to work with.

But I'll ask it this way. What's the biggest difference between your music clients and your corporate clients?

[00:17:28] Khaner: outside of the services, I would say, it is much more into it. It's much more feeling. It's much more is this, am I, is my feeling, capturing your feeling right. Which is something that we do a lot for corporate clients as well. We just got off a call that was all about feelings. But, I would say understanding the intent, is something that our music clients they like that when we under, when we're feeling. What is this song about? Or what is this album about? And I'd say that also just helps with knowing where to put that. But again, that, that's why these two businesses are so similar because our corporate clients are just as interested in that as well.

It's just instead of a song or an album, we're talking about services and products. And understanding the intent behind these services. So it, but I would say maybe the sensitivity levels are a little bit more dialed up.

[00:18:23] David: I was, I would imagine, yeah. One is super personal and one is for lack of a better word, corporate. And that's gotta be a really different approach, I would think. But it's also gotta be a lot more exciting, right? If you get someone a really big deal in music, that's gotta be almost personal.

Is that, is this more of a personal relationship when you're working with these musicians?

[00:18:41] Khaner: That's right. Yes. I very much think so. I think it's, what I would say is that for musicians, they're very much focused on their art. They're probably just as good at social media, if not better than we are. I would say though, they don't want to be doing their own social media, right? They want to be focusing on their art and their, playing and, performing and or writing and being creative.

I think there's, if you were to extrapolate that I want to find them a big deal. I want to sell a song to season, whatever, six or seven. We are on Stranger Things, I want to do those things. They wanna do that too, but I really want to do it.

I think that's fun, cracking that code and kind of making those connections and going through meetings and yada yada.

[00:19:25] Gary: It also seems like with musicians, they've already created a voice that they use on social media, not just through their music, but also the way they talk to their fans or whatever. So it's like they already have the language for their audience, like established in a sense.

[00:19:40] Khaner: Yeah, I, yes, we help for our clients at least we help them establish that. There are a lot of musicians that are very audience forward with their followers, like they're doing their own social media. I would say for our clients, many of 'em just, there aren't, they're not that phase right. Just yet of 

[00:19:59] Gary: Okay. 

[00:20:00] Khaner: Of having the time.

You think of, the big the big guys that are talking straight to their fans they don't want to put up, they don't want to make a poster about their show in, Brooklyn or their show in, Raleigh or Chapel Hill, that sort of thing.

So we're earlier in the life cycle than we are, say with Bono or whoever. 

[00:20:18] David: So fun. All right, Gary, close this up.

[00:20:23] Gary: Khaner, in your experience and now with your MBA we usually ask every guest what their top three pieces of advice would be for a new startup. But I want it coming from your lens since you do have that degree and you. Went through and figured out a lot more than most people knew before they started.

[00:20:41] Khaner: Yeah, I would say one thing is really understanding cash flow is first. Is what I would say. I had a professor who said, something like, sales are reality, profit is vanity, cash is sanity, man. Is that true? Just because I'm billing 50, 60 grand or whatever for the month does not mean that I have 50, 60 grand in the bank account.

I might have $5 or 50. I may have $55,000, but, I would say just really understanding cash flow would be tip number one. Two, just jump, just figure it out. Like, when I started doing this, I was trying to save like all of my pennies and figure out what's the best accounting service to be using, and, splitting hairs between TurboTax and, other tools, zero and all that stuff. And then when I had a friend ask me like, how much time have you spent researching this? And they're like, and you bill your time at what? And okay, think about that math and think about the savings. That you're just wasting here, right?

So I would say just just jump, if something feels right, go with that. And then third is, man, go with the flow, go with where, the people in the business are taking you. Like arc sound like it, it was really just a thing where we just realized that this is an opportunity for us.

We have some people that can work this. We have clients that like us doing this for them. It's an underserved area and it. It just seemed like fun too. I'd say, go with the flow.

[00:22:21] David: Very good.

[00:22:23] Gary: Now, if anybody wants to learn more about arc sense or arc sound, where's the best place to fight you?

[00:22:28] Khaner: Yeah you can google Ark Sense communications ark sense consulting.com Instagram, whatever you wanna do. LinkedIn, we're out there. That I, we are not on Twitter or TikTok. We do set stuff for our clients though, 

[00:22:41] Gary: we'll put the links in the show notes for everybody 

[00:22:43] Khaner: no. I don't do any dancing.

No.

[00:22:45] David: Fair enough. Thank you so much, Khaner, for joining us. This has been a lot of fun.

[00:22:49] Khaner: Likewise. Thank you guys.

[00:22:51] Gary: All right,

[00:22:52] David: on that note, we'll be back next week.

[00:22:54] OUTRO: That wraps up this episode of the Biz Dev Podcast, and this time you get me, Scott Bailey. I'm the lead dev over here at Big Pixel, and I know what you're thinking. I thought David did all the work. Well, not exactly. We have an awesome team of people to back in both. Biz Dev is a production of Big Pixel, the US based provider of UX design strategy, and custom software.

This podcast is edited by Audio Wiz Matt McCracken and Christie Pronto marketing guru for Big Pixel. Want to connect? Shoot us an email at hello@thebigpixel.net. Or you can find out some Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.