The Consulting Growth Podcast
Joe O'Mahoney is Professor of Consulting at Cardiff University and a growth & exit advisor to boutique consultancies. Joe researches, teaches, publishes and consults about the consulting industry.
In the CONSULTING GROWTH PODCAST he interviews founders that have successfully grown or sold their firms, acquirers who have bought firms, and a host of growth experts to help you avoid the mistakes, and learn the insights of others who have been there and done that.
Find out more at www.joeomahoney.com
The Consulting Growth Podcast
Presidential Whisperer: Michael Kempner on growing his PR firm to 300+ people
Meet Michael Kempner, the mastermind behind MIKEWORLDWIDE. His is a story a narrative woven with tenacity and transformation moving from a solo operation to spearheading a leading independent PR firm, where embracing past hurdles has been integral to the company's monumental growth.
This episode peels back the layers on how valuing human capital has been pivotal to MWW's success, revealing that nurturing talent is just as crucial as attracting it. We discuss the importance of brand perception to consulting firms as well as learning from the journey of Michael in growing his own firm to over 300 people.
We explore some innovative strategies his firm employs, juggling AI and predictive analytics with human decision-making. Join us for this exploration of reputation, trust, and leadership—and how these pillars can chart a course to success in the competitive realm of PR.
Prof. Joe O'Mahoney helps boutique consultancies scale and exit. Joe's research, writing, speaking and insights can be found at www.joeomahoney.com
Welcome to the Consulting Growth Podcast. I'm Professor Joe O'Mahony, a Professor of Consulting at Cardiff University and an Advisor to Consultancies that Want to Grow. If you'd like to find more out about me and access some free resources to help your consultancy grow, do please visit joeomahonycom. That's J-O-E-O-M-A-H-O-N-E-Ycom. Okay, welcome back to the Growth in Consulting podcast. I've got the real pleasure today to have as a prize guest on the show Michael Kempner, who is, among other things, the CEO and founder of Mike Worldwide, which is one of the world's top independent public relation firms and has won lots of awards, has worked with some amazing brands and has achieved significant growth over the last nearly 40 years. Michael, real pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Now I've given a very brief summary, but of course you've had a long and illustrious career, so would you tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today?
Speaker 2:Well, sure, I mean, my story is a little unusual for the head of a PR firm. I grew up the head of a PR firm. I grew up, even as a small child, wanting to get into politics and I had a very strong desire to change the world. And so I picked a school in Washington DC to go to college American University with the idea that I'd get into politics. So I went there very quickly. I was able to secure my first job. Really it was running errands for the governor of New Jersey in his Washington DC office.
Speaker 2:But between working very hard in a variety of circumstances, very quickly I found myself working full time at 19 years old as a special assistant to the governor in Washington and going to school at night. I did that and then spent 10 years or nine years in US politics, helping to run President Carter's re-election campaign, working for the Democrat National Committee, running a campaign for Congress, then running a congressman's office, and that was all before I was 23. Wow, and I think now like who was that person? Because I don't think I could do it today, but that was a lifetime ago, so after. But I worked. You know, by the time I was 23, 24, I was a grizzled veteran and I was pretty tired so I decided to leave. And politics and government, you know, people often think that people don't work hard and they're, you know, a bunch of bureaucrats. You know you work very hard actually. So I had very few days off, including weekends, including holidays, for almost nine years and I loved every minute of it until I didn't.
Speaker 2:And so I decided to leave and go work for somebody I'd met through politics and help run of all things, a chocolate company. They were liquor filled chocolates and they were illegal in America. So I didn't know how to run a business, but I knew how to change the laws. But I knew how to change the laws. And so I went out and changed 30 state laws and a federal law to allow liquor filled chocolates to be in the United States. And then I learned how to create the packaging and the marketing and the advertising and the public relations, government affairs and frankly, and built two factories. So it was actually nothing I knew how to do, but it was an extraordinary experience. But after the excitement of changing the laws and doing the marketing and introducing the product into the marketplace, it was really just running factories and that was not what I was interested in. So I left with the chocolate company as a consultant. I had a small consulting contract, but since I was young, I had no wife, no children, no obligations, a small apartment in Hoboken, new Jersey, and all I ate was pizza anyway, and so I could live just fine on that small consulting contract until I was going to get a job.
Speaker 2:Now, this was the first month of my life. I was actually applying for a job. Since that first internship, every job had led to the next job and I had no idea what I wanted to do, but it felt like my skill sets were closest to something around public relations. Well, I had worked for the government of New Jersey. I'd worked for the Congressman from New Jersey. So, oddly, at a young age I knew a huge amount of the kind of socioeconomic infrastructure of the state.
Speaker 2:And before very long people were calling me up and asking me to do things for them, stuff, and they'd pay me, and I didn't call them clients. I didn't really know what a client was, but I had all these people paying me to do stuff for them. Now I couldn't be, and so I started to think you me to do stuff for them. Now I couldn't be, and so I started to think you know, I can do this. So I never actually looked for a job. And now I could. After six months, and I had all these clients and we're doing all sorts of work public affairs and public relations and a variety of things Just me. I decided I can't be a stuff firm. I have to be a, I have to be something. And it felt like I was closest to a public relations firm. So I started myself one room in jersey city.
Speaker 1:Uh, and here we are today wow, ok, and that was that was what 19,. Was that 1980, early 1980s?
Speaker 2:1986. You know, so I understand this is. You know, people often joke because I tell the story about one man, one desk, one room, one red IBM selector typewriter. I often ask my staff when I tell them the story have you guys actually ever seen a typewriter? Not in the movies, in the flesh. And you know, there was no internet. There was no, there wasn't even. There wasn't even beepers, let alone cell phones. And, and you know, fedex was just becoming popular and we had a fax machine, but I don't know if you recall, they were seven minutes a page. They came out in this silver, yeah, and it didn't even cut the pages, it was like this yeah, long roll, and so that's where technology was, um, when we began the business, so it was 1986.
Speaker 1:okay, gosh, and and so I'm going to dive in a little bit about about that journey, but tell us about where you are now now, because you're obviously a lot bigger than that now and you're international and you're clearly very you've got some great clients.
Speaker 2:So today we're one of the largest independent firms in the world. We have close to 300 people in a variety of offices, close to 300 people in a variety of offices. Our core offices are in Manhattan, los Angeles, london and then in New Jersey, where we were founded. We represent some of the biggest and most important brands in the world, but we also represent many entrepreneurs and growth companies, represent many entrepreneurs and growth companies. They, you know, are were I don't know exactly the number, but we're probably, you know, in the top 25 globally. Independence means not owned by, you know, an advertising agency or public or, et cetera.
Speaker 1:And you know, we truly believe we're fiercelycely independent and we and we truly believe that a midsize independent really run by this one P&L philosophy is a better Firm to manage and, frankly, a better firm to work for and a better firm to hire, sure, ok. So I mean, you bring so much to the table for this, for this um, for my purposes, and there's three things I I'd love to um delve into. One is around your the growth journey of mike worldwide um, and any of the challenges um and and lessons that you learn from that um. One is you know you're you're dealing with some very high profile, some of the highest profile sometimes people in the world and brands in the world and how you go about influencing them and working with them.
Speaker 1:And the second is the use of PR specifically and I'm specifically interested in consultancies and professional service firms which traditionally haven't done much in the PR space and in the branding space. Even Some of them are just getting into digital marketing, let alone anything more sophisticated. So, if it's okay with you if we could start with the growth of Mike Worldwide and just really reflect on any challenges, any learnings that you had and any successes that perhaps, even if you were going to do it again, how you might do it differently.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't have many regrets about how I did it and that doesn't mean I didn't do things wrong, but they were all learning experience. You know, michael Jordan, you know once said you never lost. I'm paraphrasing here he's never lost. He's either won or learned a lesson, you know. So I look at it not that I'm comparing myself to Michael Jordan, but I look at it that way. So, without the risk and without the failure, I would have never learned and not been here today.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean the failures were fun, it doesn't mean that I was happy about them, but it does mean that they all become part of the whole of who you are, and I think that's very important. They brought us here today, you know, and one of the frankly the hardest things to do, I try to teach people to take risks, and people most people are not accustomed or not programmed to be okay with failure, and if you're going to take risks, you're going to fail sometime. But I would argue that failure is required if you're going to grow. The the you know, to me the biggest lesson I learned to take a step back. We were very successful, very quickly and, and for kind of an odd reason, I didn't have I never been in a PR firm in my life.
Speaker 2:No not in the lobby, not in the, in the bathroom, not in the elevator, and and so it was all about just coming to work every day just to do the right thing, just coming to work every day just to do the right thing, and coming to work every day to win, and coming to, and coming to work every day just to do what makes sense. So I was not bound by convention and all. So we did many things that people would say, and again, these are all legal and ethical. They just weren't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, check the box strategy.
Speaker 2:You know people would say, and again, these are all legal and ethical, they just weren't. Check the box strategy. People would say you can't do that. I'd say, why not? Because you can't, why not Because you're not supposed to? I said we're going to try it and we could try and fail and then finally succeed five times in the amount that they were debating whether you can do it or not. So we brought this philosophy to bear for our clients and we were just going to do what makes sense. You know how are we going to get this done and we were able to win for our clients very quickly, on a very regular basis, and that allowed our reputation to grow and to, obviously, clients, clients, staff etc.
Speaker 2:But I would say early on, coming from US politics, us politics is not necessarily the kindest employer, and so I never came from a place where people mattered when I started, but they were fungible.
Speaker 2:That was how I grew up, and so I would listen to all of the great, read the business books and listen to the brilliant business minds of the era, and they all would say it's about your people, it's about your people. And you know, I'm not sure I really believed it at the time, and so we were really successful and we are a hard driven place, but I would argue, too hard driven and I quickly learned that, wow, these people were right that this business is pretty simple but very hard. That is if you can attract talent, help them grow, motivate them to stay. This business is simple. It's as simple as that, but that's hard. We're dealing with people. To find, motivate, attract, retain people is a full-time job, but I soon learned that the most important job of the CEO which is still my job today is human capital, and so I often say that I don't run a public relations firm. I run a human capital company that help that happens to sell integrated um communication services.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's um. It's a really good reflection because, um, I always say, consultancies or agencies operate in two markets. One is to get to get the clients, but what? The one that's forgotten about most but can help you with the first is the people side of things, and I've lost count of the number of mid-sized firms that really struggle with finding good people that are prepared to work hard and want to work in that sized firm, because obviously some people want to work for the big firm. So you've got to really have a solid proposition, haven't you, for your employees.
Speaker 2:I think it's a solid proposition and a solid culture. So there are people that like all different cultures and it doesn't mean ours is better or worse than anybody else's, it just means it's ours. So how do you find people that will thrive in your culture and that's so? You can meet somebody who's brilliant at what they do, but you don't believe that they will be successful in your culture? Now again, culture evolves. Each person that joins adds something to the culture. But you still have a base foundation in your soul, in your, in your gut, that uh are your, are your core principles, and you need to find people that will thrive in that. So I found, each and every time, each and every size we've been how do you find people that are the right kind of people for your size, culture and clients? But, but again, it has to be very intentional. If you're not intentional about culture, if you're not intentional about, um, how you're going to attract and retain people, you're not going to succeed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So just I mean I'm very interested in this because obviously it's a challenge that a lot of my clients have faced, even if they have a good culture and employee proposition, if you want to call it that, at the size of 30. Once you get to 130, it's hard to know everyone, it's hard to talk to everyone, and you need systems and processes and all the rest of it. So how did you manage to maintain your core values whilst bringing in that layer of process and formality that allows a firm to get to 300 plus?
Speaker 2:So let's start with the fact that we didn't do it well every day all the time. Sure, a lot of this was learning and a lot of this was trial and error. The one thing you see with a rapidly growing small company is that your infrastructure never keeps up with your pace of growth, and that's always a tension. So, until you understand and become intentional about it. But when you're small, you can't afford to spend a lot of money on non-billable employees. So, and then you get to a certain size, you realize your non-billable employees become some of your most important people, your CFO, your chief people officer. So it goes back to intentionality. Because you're right, I talk to many of my friends that 30, 40 people they're there, it's a cause. Once you get to 50 plus people, it's a job. And it doesn't mean it's not a good job, it doesn't mean it's not the best job they've ever had. They could love the job, but it's a job. It's no, don't so. But so you have to, and if and and, since you're not touching everybody every day, uh, you have to depend upon your layers of management to also buy into your culture and to um, push that down from top to bottom, bottom up. And if you just have one person that's off, it has a massive disruption in the force, so it's always very.
Speaker 2:I spent a disproportionate my time, as I said, on human capital, so I meet with my most junior employees up to my most senior on a regular basis. Frankly, I meet with mid-level to junior much more than I meet with senior, because these are the people that are in the trenches that actually have to do all the things that sound like great ideas. In my office, you often find that many of them are not such great ideas. But so, and I'm always pleased when, when I hear two things when they talk about our culture and it's the culture that I want the agency to have, that means it is working up and down our employee base. And then when I interview people and they tell me the reason they're interviewing with us is because of our culture, and they describe our culture in the way that I'd like it to be described, that means it's also it's real. That means that it is. You know that it's happening from inside out, not outside in. And then I know that we are um, that we are managing our culture right, with the right intentionality.
Speaker 2:But again, it's never just a straight line. There are times and there are people that have a negative impact and you know, I would say one of the lessons you learn I don't know if you've would say one of the lessons you learn, I don't know if you've learned it. One of the lessons that I think every CEO would tell you is you know, we don't fire fast enough. I'm not talking about firing people who work hard or even try and aren't successful, because it's our job to put people in a position to be successful. Help them be successful, help them. But the people that are damaging your culture and the people that will not evolve into your culture, those people should go. We tend to hang on to them because they're smart or they're particularly in a particular service offering or vertical, but we eventually have to make that change and none of us, you know, fire fast enough.
Speaker 1:It's those kind of employees thank you, and just just one final reflection while we're talking about the firm. You seem to have been able to tread a line that a lot of ceos who have grown their own firms struggle with, which is balancing control with allowing people to fail, and it was quite interesting that you talked about risk taking early on, and the fact that you've got to the size that you have done with the firm to me would indicate that that seems to be working. Now a lot of founders really struggle with letting go of the reins and sometimes will be peering over the you know, the consultant or the analyst shoulder saying no, no, I would do it like this and that, of course, inhibits risk taking more than anything else and damages the culture sometimes, especially if you want to grow. But it seems that you've managed to balance those.
Speaker 2:Well, I would hope so, and since the day we started the business, I have truly tried to hire people that were better than me in what they did. So people tell me they're bad at delegating teams, and the fact is that if you don't trust your people and you don't believe they're as good as you, if not better, it's very hard to let go. So I've worked very hard to hire a team that I truly believe is better than me in what they do. It doesn't mean that my years of wisdom and advice and experience does not come to play and help them to even be better at it, but the fact is they're great at it and so. But the most painful lesson you learn, and the hardest one, is that there's more than one way to accomplish a goal, and they may do it differently than you, but as long as they're doing it well and we're getting to the same place and they're doing it.
Speaker 2:You know, I often say you know. So to me, you know, getting something wrong is not really the issue, is not really the issue. I mean, if you make a mistake, but for the right reason, you fail, but for the right reasons, then what can you say? You know, try something else. You know our job isn't empirical. Things happen but it's really, you know, the wrong decision for the wrong reasons that are difficult to stomach, even that. You know they're teaching moments and you work on it.
Speaker 2:But you know you try to get people to make the right decisions for the right reasons and if you can do that and you hire remember, part of this is the hiring process who are you going to help? So you have to hire like-minded people and it doesn't mean they have the same personalities, it doesn't mean it's, you know, flat. I mean you have, it's an orchestra, you have to. You know it's staging you. You need different kinds of personalities for different kinds of jobs and different kinds of roles. But you know, but teaching, it's okay to fail for the right reasons. You know, to me it's like okay, you know, I mean you tried, you did your best. If you truly did your best, you did your best. You know, learn from it, move on. Yeah, you know I'm a big fast fail person. I don't spend a lot of time focusing on on failure. You know I spent a lot of time on much more time looking forward.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:I learned early on. I had some pretty tough bosses that you can't look forward when you're looking over your shoulder all day long, and so I chose to let people to move forward and not look over the shoulder, not have them looking over the shoulder to find out what was wrong all day long.
Speaker 1:That's great. That's really, really nice insight. Thank you, ok, so I wanted to move on. You know I have a pet obsession with US politics, not just because it affects everyone in the world. I find it a much more exciting place than British politics I'm not sure why place than British politics, I'm not sure why, but you have had the pleasure of what you mentioned, carter, earlier, and I know you've worked with some very senior and also presidential people more recently. Now that, to me, is slightly mind-blowing, if I'm honest, because I've spent 30 years reading about some of these people. I'm interested in the influence side of things. So how do you? How do you? There's so many questions going through my head, going through my head, but how do you best um communicate with people that are that successful and that powerful as a trusted advisor, um, or confidant or whatever, um, without having the imposter syndrome that I would? I would definitely have?
Speaker 2:you never fully get rid of the imposter syndrome, but you learn to manage it. You know, you learn to. How do you put it in a compartment in your back pocket? So that's a skill you learn Because when you start, you know.
Speaker 2:I remember the first time I spent time with a president was President Carter, I was 19. And remember we talked about how I was working full time as this lobbyist in Washington DC. My boss sent me over to meet with the president about an issue that the governor was working on on behalf of the president and she didn't come. So she was she. This was going to be sink or swim. She wanted to succeed. So I remember going into the cabinet room and just me and President Carter at 19, and briefing him on this topic. And I don't even know what I said. You know it's a. All I remember thinking about is I have to steal something. No one's going to believe I was here. Can I put a saucer, you know, in my pocket or something?
Speaker 2:But you know it's like anything else. You do it enough. It just becomes second nature. And so you know I had the pleasure of knowing. And so you know I had the pleasure of knowing, you know, every Democratic president since then. You know Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, joe Biden and Hillary Clinton Well and you know, and just senators, congressmen, governors, and you soon learn that they're just people.
Speaker 2:And so, once you get past the awe, they're just people. But don't get me wrong. You know it never gets old to and it never gets completely comfortable in sitting down and talking to a president. Um, but it's like anything else, it's muscle memory. You do it enough and you do it long enough. All of a sudden it's just what you do and um.
Speaker 2:But in every situation you have to be confident. You have to know your facts. Don't say something you can't back up. It's OK to have an opinion, but understand that the final arbiter is them. But you know, I've always said, whether it's a client or a politician, you know my job is to give you advice. Job is to give you advice. Now you don't have to take it.
Speaker 2:The fact is that it's about. I hope you will consider it as part of your decision process. But at the end of the day, as long as it's legal and ethical, it's my job to carry out your decision. But I have been known to have strong opinions over the years and I'm not shy in expressing them. But I also understand that at the end of the day, you know I can make the decisions for myself or for my company or for my family, but my job, whether it's a politician or a client, is to give them my best possible advice and when I feel very strongly about it, you know, maybe argue it out a little bit yeah, yeah but at the end of the day you know it's their company, it's their decision, and then it's my job to figure out the best, most strategic and successful way to carry it out and and how do you manage that process of influence?
Speaker 1:Because I've, you know, on a much smaller level of course, you know I've been in situations where I'm talking to a CEO. I'm absolutely convinced that I know I believe they should do X. They don't see it and I've seen this, you know, 20, 30, maybe 100 times, and I'm pretty sure this is the way to go. They don't see it and are tracking off in a different direction, and any trusted advisor has, as you said, a responsibility to say give their opinion. How far can you go down the line of trying to persuade someone, especially someone who's very successful? You know, the most powerful person in the world perhaps. How far can you go in attempting to persuade people, and does it depend on their personality?
Speaker 2:Totally depends on the person, it totally depends on the construct around that person. But you know, but you really have to. You have a couple of um, uh. There's only a couple of options you have when you're giving advice. Sure, either, you know, you can fall on your sword and if they don't do it and you're that committed and that convinced that by not doing it they're really making a decision, bad decision, it might be a disaster your only recourse is to quit, you know, or to stop. But you know most decisions are not empirical, you know so they're not math. So you know I could have my opinion and I could strongly have my opinion, and my opinions are usually backed up with data and analytics and other things. But again, you know I don't.
Speaker 2:One thing I learned over the years is put your ego aside. As long as you're doing your job honestly and giving them the right advice and the right opinion, it's their decision and so you learn that over the years. But there are times where you so disagree with the decision and you're so concerned that you know you'll just bow out. You know you don't want to be part of the implementation, but for the most part, I've learned over the years that again, my job is to come to you with. You know data-driven, you know both kind of art and science, instinct-driven, experience-driven. Instinct driven, experience driven um plans, ideas, suggestions, strategies.
Speaker 2:But it's the clients, you know I. But it's up to the client or up to the politician or whoever the principal is, to consider that and make a decision. But I, I would say that you know, the vast majority of advice one may give is not empirical, it's an opinion. And so you know, and again, I kind of look at it, I think my opinion is right. But who's to say that my opinion is right? Maybe I'm wrong, and so I take a look at that, and I think the key is to take your ego out of it. And as long as a decision is legal and ethical, the responsibilities is on the principal, not on you.
Speaker 1:I mean this. This is a really a personal question. It's not. I mean, for me it's not really to do with the business side of things, but do you find has PR got more difficult in this sort of I don't want to use the phrase post-truth world because I think there are limitations to that description, but clearly, what's happened with social media and you know, even AI and deepfakes, which we're going to probably see a lot of in the British and US elections Is PR becoming much more. I guess it's becoming much more crucial as these alternative realities get posed. So I guess my question is around the truth how can you communicate the truth of any situation, whether it's to do with immigration or global warming or whatever, whatever the PR campaign is about, in the face of very highly weaponized social media and perhaps, in the next year, ai influence pushing the other direction?
Speaker 2:Well, I heard it. Actually, I read a great quote this morning that truth isn't dead. Just nobody believes it. Yeah, yeah, agreed, yeah. And we live in a marketers and people who have to make decisions about communicating. They have a crisis of confidence, because Bud Light is the most perfect example. It was barely a campaign, you know. It was one influencer on a limited edition can of beer and and and one or two. A handful of people said something and it blew up, and so part of it is how do you really spend time on the risk mitigation side when you think about what you're going to do? Part of it is we use a lot of AI predictive analytics here to try to get as close to certainty as possible, but you can't ever be certain.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's the smallest thing. You know, whether you drink red soda or blue soda, you know someone could extrapolate your politics, you know, and so the so the fact is that we live in a crisis of confidence. So part of it is, and that means people, marketers in particular, are afraid to take risk, and often not taking risk is the biggest risk of all, because you can't move forward, you move backwards. So how can we, as a consultant, using data analytics, other tools we have, get as close to certain as possible to give marketers more confidence? The other, and that leads us to, we live in a reputation economy. I mean, the fact is, your reputation is going to decide the value of your business, whether you're going to have brand loyalty, whether people are going to buy the products, and it just doesn't mean a bad reputation. You know people we all can understand about defending reputation. You have a problem. We have a very large crisis communication reputation defense practice here, and so that's stopping bad things, and so that's stopping bad things.
Speaker 2:But you know we have a saying here that a good reputation gives you license to operate. A great reputation gives you license to thrive, and so when people often think about reputation, it's just how can we stop a bad one? Yeah, sure, today people don't really buy products and services based on feature sets. They do it based on a company's reputation, how they treat their employees, are they responsible stewards of the environment and so many other factors. But given the choice between two products that are comparable in price quality, you're going to go to the company or you're going to buy the product or service with the reputation that aligns with your values or you believe is higher quality, and the opposite.
Speaker 2:If you have a poor reputation, it's not even that people will stop buying your products. You're going to get punished. They will come after you. So to me, it's all about. We live in a reputation economy and brands need to focus on reputation first, but reputation is also quality of product innovation. There are so many things that make up reputation, but it is a company's most important asset and determines the success or failure of a brand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a really good insight and it leads quite nicely onto the third thing that I'd like to talk briefly about, and that's that's the use of PR for people, businesses or B2B or consultancies agencies. Now, I specialize in the consulting world and you know there is this there is always the saying that you should invest as much in PR and your brand as you do in, you know, digital campaigns and your CRM campaigns and all the rest of it, but most firms don't. Firms don't and I'd say 90% of even midsize consultancies that I deal with have never used PR. They might do a bit of LinkedIn, they might do the odd podcast, but that's about it. So what are the benefits of focusing on brand and using PR to help you with that?
Speaker 2:for people, businesses, so we have represented people, businesses, since our start for 37 years, and today we represent some of the biggest in the world Deloitte, dla, piper, hedrick and Struggles and so there was a sea change that happened in a more sophisticated level with larger firms not all larger firms some do pay at lip service, but it goes back to brand and reputation.
Speaker 2:So brand and reputation matters a great deal about clients hiring you. But what really changed it for the better was the people wars that each most of these large and even midsize professional service organizations. They're in a constant war for talent. They hire 5, 10, 20, 50,000 people a year. And so how can you be the employer of choice?
Speaker 2:So this term, employer brand, became very popular. We were one of the early practitioners of it, one of the early proponents of it, and so so, so much of the brand, or the initial brand work professional service, came in. How are we going to be the employer of choice? And because their most important asset was people and all competing for the same people for the same people. So, even like a secondary or a tertiary size firm, they may not be competing for the students from Cambridge and Oxford or Harvard and Columbia, but they're all competing for the students in their category, maybe from a Fordham or a Tufts or maybe this kind of the next tier.
Speaker 2:So how are they going to be the employer choice? Or TOPS, or maybe, you know, that's kind of the next tier TOPS. So how are they going to be the employer of choice, and they also understood that thought leadership is now a critical component and if you are not seen as a leader in the category you want to dominate or in the verticals where you're an expert, you're not going to have any clients. So the firms we represent understand that they need to invest and invest fairly heavily in important thought leadership programs yeah, yeah, I, I agree completely.
Speaker 1:I think thought thought leadership is and a lot of people do it badly, um, to be honest, and there's so many opportunities to do it well with you know decent research and outreach and copy editing and all the rest and it tends to fall in.
Speaker 2:When people do it badly, it's either because it's been written by the technical experts and hasn't been touched by anyone else, or it's just been written by the marketing people and there's been no technical expertise but you know, take the thing that in most professional service firms, the people are very smart and highly compensated, which often leads someone to think that they're good at writing a press release or they understand PR, and those are the companies that don't succeed as much they let their egos get in the way, or they let their confidence get in the way more than their egos, where the ones that succeed do.
Speaker 2:What you say is that you need both the vertical and horizontal expertise to make sure that you're hitting your target markets, that you're spending your money effectively to hit your target markets that are driving the results you need and want. So you know too many people, just you know CPR is putting things out there in the ether again. You know we come in with data-driven predictive analytics, ai use programs that are very measurable and we can tell you whether or not these programs are working. Um on certain metrics, certain KPIs, and, it's interesting, there's so many tactics from consumer marketing that are now making their way over to B2B audiences. So B2B influencers, which is a practice that we were again one of the first practitioners, and it's a very important practice you can use influencer campaigns very effectively to have big impact on B2B organizations. Really.
Speaker 1:That's something I haven't heard of before. That's really interesting.
Speaker 2:We use it a lot. You also can use. There's a variety of technologies out there where you can really focus in on individual people, not just organizations. You know you can go after specifically a CEO or a managing partner or the CMO or the CTO. You know you can ring. You know that's to that person. You can ring if you want to influence Walmart. You can do campaigns and ring fence Bentonville, arkansas. You know the point is that there's a variety of things you can do today using technology and taking programs from and taking lessons from consumer marketing and then with the explosion of LinkedIn, that can have a very meaningful impact on your business success on your business success.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree completely. I'm a big fan of using LinkedIn strategically for marketing and networking and brand building as well, but again, a lot of firms do it piecemeal or they simply don't know what the capabilities of the tech is out there. It's very reassuring for me to hear you talking about this, because I'm a big fan of the capabilities of the tech is out there. It's very reassuring for me to hear you talking about this because I'm a big fan of the use of tech and the wraparound knowledge that you put around it.
Speaker 2:We can tell you which content is going to work, what is more likely to get engagement and with who, by using a series of tools and ai and predictive analytics. Um, so you can get down to that level of science. Now, some people can't. You know, there are companies that don't have those kind of budgets, but with experts like yourself, you know, I mean, there's a lot. There's also a lot of just um to it, not just science, right, and so having a good LinkedIn artist like yourself can drive very significant business outcomes.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I think that's the key is having that know-how. I tried this before, know-how, it's all, but I tried this before. I've said to you know, you know marketing directors or partners or you could use this piece of tech because it's really useful with outreach or targeting or whatever, but without showing them how to use it and how to craft the word, and you know all that stuff that we, you know. We, as consultants, we do day-to-day understanding the client. What type of person are you talking to? The tech doesn't work. You know it's, it's not, you know people are busy.
Speaker 2:It's very hard for them to take the time to do the marketing when you have a client screaming on the telephone. So it's it's so it's understandable that people don't get to it because they just don't have time to do it. However, if you can carve out the time and take the time, or you have a team underneath you that understands your voice, your point of view, and then they have the ability and they have the authority to go ahead and do it, you're going to be successful. You know, we actually one of the things we've done here is using AI. We've established, we created, you know, chat, ceo, ceo bots.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So one of the issues is it's very you know, it's very time intensive to get copy approved, and so by establishing these bots, we have everything that executive is in that CEO's voice, in topics he likes he or she likes to talk about, and the approval process goes from a week to two hours.
Speaker 1:Yep, I've done the same with my own content. I've written around a million words on the consulting industry and it's quite remarkable how good this stuff is, and it's only going to get better. Of course. Maybe we're not going to need the CEO. Maybe you'll be doing PR to AI bots in 10 years' time.
Speaker 2:I'm still not convinced that it will replace us. I think it's going to. Let us do better, faster, cheaper, and a lot of the things we do today that are really not value-added will go away. And I've always said I would love to get that part of the business, to eliminate that part of the business. Why charge clients for things that are not truly value add? They're just, you know, they're just administrative work. So if we can get, we can take those budgets and focus exclusively on the value add part of the business. It's better for our industry and it's better for our clients.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, michael, thank you so much. I don't think I've learned so much in such a short space of time before. It's been a real pleasure having you on, and my key takeaway, which I hadn't thought about before, is the importance of brand when you're talking to employees. Apart from my jealousy of you being at the cutting edge of of american politics and having met so many, you know, presidents, um, that, that's my major takeaway and I would tell you the other takeaway for your listeners is reputation, reputation, reputation, um.
Speaker 2:If people focus on that in a modern term, not in a traditional term, they will have materially more value for their brand and their companies. Yeah, listen, I loved it. So anytime I can listen to myself talk for 45 minutes, I'm a happy person, so I genuinely appreciate it. You're a wonderful interviewer. I enjoyed it and please get in touch anytime.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Thank you so much, Michael. Take care.
Speaker 2:Thank you Bye.
Speaker 1:Bye Good, thank you, right, let me just stop recording.
