Welcome to our Blue Margin Expert Insight Series. We're glad you've joined us. This series is for private equity and mid market executives who want to increase their enterprise value via data transformation. I'm Blue Margin's, Director of Consulting Kate Eberle. Today I'm hosting Richard Byrd of BlueByrd, a marketing and sales firm firm in market portfolio companies. BlueByrd helps technical companies sell complex things to complex organizations. Before founding BlueByrd in 2019, Richard served as CMO for numerous organizations in the technology life sciences. At an industrial oil and gas industries journey more than $80 billion in new revenue for his clients. He's successfully commercialized hundreds of technologies. He's also overseeing the brand and communication strategies for dozens of mergers and acquisitions. Here at Blue margin, we're passionate about delivering real value to our customers, both PE firms and poor co management teams. We've yet to meet a customer who isn't concerned about increasing EBIT da, we take both the top line and bottom line approach, and today we're focused on the top half of that equation. If you're interested in capturing more of your market and keeping getting customers attention, and growing your portfolio company using leading marketing strategies, you'll want to stay tuned to today's conversation. Welcome, Richard. It's great to have you here today. I've wondered if you just get started with maybe a little bit more about your career journey, how you got to where you are and what you love about the work you do.
Richard Byrd:Yeah, great to be here, Kate. So I am a lifelong marketing person. So I've started out in in agencies Awesome, would you maybe tell us a little bit more about working mostly in the business to business space. Then I got one day I got recruited by a oil and gas services firm called Schlumberger. Now they're called SLB. They recently did a rebrand. But back in those days, it was called Schlumberger. I was their global Creative Director for several years, and helped them to roll out all their amazing new technologies. And that's where I really kind of learned a lot about product commercialization, and all those kinds of things. But we're very commercially focused company and I was, you know, really leading the charge on launching our new offerings and helping to generate new revenue for the company. Then from there, went back to the agency side now Rana, a b2b marketing firm was the president of the company and kind of got that entrepreneurial itch and the size of the rollout my own company, and I started BlueByrd in February 2019. I don't necessarily recommend starting a company year before pandemic, but it worked out for us, and we've been growing ever since. BlueByrd, and what are some of your core offerings and your key markets. Sure, so BlueByrd is a marketing consultancy for the mid market. Our premier offering is fractional Chief Marketing Officer. And so we will supply a fractional or a Chief Marketing Officer on a fractional basis to mid market companies to help them grow their revenue. And essentially, what that means is we were, we're able to come in and put a, you know, a high level strategic marketing person inside of a company to help them you know, take their company to the next level, most of our clients are looking to grow, and especially the private equity backed companies, you know, they got a little pressure to grow the, their revenue. And that's where we come in is to put that said at the, you know, at the management table, with the other leaders of the organization, and really provide that customer centric view, and provide that voice of the customer, and then help them to plan their marketing strategies from an end to end basis.
Kate Eberle:Awesome. Are there any core verticals that you all go after?
Richard Byrd:Yeah, you know, we've mostly been business to business focused. So we've worked in the industrial sector, oil and gas life sciences, I always say we really weren't working a lot of nerdy businesses, so we help technical people. So complex things, complicated organizations. It's kind of been our legacy sweetspot. But we have some other fragile CMOs, who have worked in the consumer packaged goods space, some other betta B2C type of applications as well.
Kate Eberle:So when you're starting an engagement with one of these PE backed middle market companies, where do you typically find them? What is the starting point look like?
Richard Byrd:Every company is a little different in that middle market space, but our process, we try to be as consistent with it as we can, while meeting clients where they're at. But every engagement goes through a discovery phase where we're trying to understand that company, understand their industry understand kind of what makes them tick. And really, what are the goals of the company? Like I said, a lot of our clients that we meet with everyone They want to grow their revenue. That's kind of the, that's why we get hired. And that's why we get fired and company is, you know, they're looking to grow. And we want to understand what that growth looks like, what is the what's the long term and short term strategy for that company are they going to are they just trying to spin up and then sell that company as fast as they can, or this is going to be a company that's going to be multigenerational, and that they're going to want to hold for quite some time. And so that, because that's going to inform the strategy, and then from there, we can do an audit of what what have they been doing that has worked has not worked, you know, how, how engaged is the Salesforce? How connected are they what is their tech stack look like? All those kinds of things, and then we come in, and we build a playbook with our clients to help them to talk about their company, help them to, you know, show them what their position should be, understand what their differentiation is, and how to communicate that to prospects and clients in the market. And then to ultimately, you know, put the put together a budget and a marketing plan, that's gonna say, here's how we are going to attack the market, and get more than our fair share of market share in the future, and, and then once that playbook is in place, then we will help to, we will go ahead and oversee the, the that plan and to adapt as necessary, and, you know, communicate how we're doing, how we're progressing with the management team, and with the private equity back, you know, backers, and the partners and investors in the organization, and just oversee that growth and help them get to the next level.
Kate Eberle:Yeah. Are there any consistent challenges that these companies are facing? I know, it can probably vary drastically, but any common pain points?
Richard Byrd:Yeah, so in the middle market, we see a lot of consistency in, in the inconsistency of the way they attack the market, it's what we see a lot of times is the, their tech stack has, you know, maybe not where it needs to be, or isn't, or they maybe they have a you know, the salespeople are not as disciplined as they might be with these in the CRM are some of our clients don't even have a CRM when we first come in, also, you know, the, the, the messaging has not been clearly you know, laid out for that company, you know, and a lot of times they have not really thought about their, you know, the, the position of the company and who they're going to target and what makes them different, and all those kinds of things, you know, they've kind of gone to market, and the salespeople are out selling in, but they're, but they're really relying on muscle memory and their existing network, and haven't really reached out outside of that network at scale. And we call that talking to strangers. And so basically how to talk to strangers, if they're really going to grow, you know, a lot of our, our clients are really ambitious, and they're like, we're gonna grow 10x, or we're gonna grow, you know, 20% year on year, or whatever that number is that they have in their head. In order to do that, you've got to, you got to talk to strangers, and you're gonna have to add some new logos and, and all that stuff. And they, and they have not really considered that. And also, you know, a lot of our clients, when we first come in, they've maybe tried some tactics here, and there, just a handful of different things, or, you know, we tried social media, we've been, you know, we're all in on LinkedIn, or, you know, it's all about email marketing, or whatever the the thing is that they have have tried, but they really thought about it end to end in how they're going to, you know, start and guide those customers down through the buying through their buying process in order to bring on those new logos. Yeah, it's almost like,
Kate Eberle:you know, they've probably experienced success up into that point doing what they were doing. But if they want to grow, to the level of certainly most PE backed companies want to you're gonna have to add something else to the mix, just to accelerate and actually take control of your destiny versus rely on your neural networks.
Richard Byrd:Yeah, exactly. We say, you know, that when you tell the salespeople go sell harder, that's not a marketing strategy.
Kate Eberle:Yeah, yeah. Do what you're doing just harder. And I like that. Well, you mentioned the tech stack your what are some of the common technologies that you either do or don't see in these spaces? And where do you typically recommend people go?
Richard Byrd:Well, you know, that's a really interesting question, because I think a lot of our clients and you know, they come in and they are there, like I said, some of them have a really, you know, a lot of tools in place, and they're just not fully utilizing them. And then other times, they just don't have enough tech in their stack, right. And so Um, so they might be, they might have a CRM, or they might have a CRM. So you go well, you know, when we ask questions on the marketing side that we need to understand, like, what's your deal velocity? And, you know, what's your revenue cycle? What's the lifetime value of a customer and all these kinds of things? Well, we can't, they don't have that data. And it's hard to, it's hard to really come up with a marketing plan that is going to, you know, we can, you know, feel comfortable is going to yield a return on investment without knowing some of those things. And so lifetime is anecdotal at that point. And so, a lot of times, what we're trying to do is, is just get something in there, that makes sense. And also, one of the things that we see, and I know that you guys probably see this a lot on your side is, there's always some sacred cow in that tech stack, right. So maybe they have an ERP system that is, you know, outdated, or maybe it's homegrown. Or maybe it's just a very industry specific one that it's going to have to tie in, and you're going to have some API's to connect to the other items in the technology stack. And so we have to kind of work around that. And, you know, to, to figure out something that's going to make sense and provide the data that we're going to need from a sales marketing perspective, to really see if what we're doing is working and how well it's working. And I think the big thing about that is, it enables customers to see that, hey, we're getting some quick wins here. And this has been a good return on investment, we need to invest more here, we need to invest less there. And so in order to do that, you got to have data.
Kate Eberle:Yeah, you're speaking our language here, for sure. So as you're imagining those first 100 days or so that maybe a PE firm has acquired a new company, it's interesting, because with a lot of the partners we've worked with, marketing is rarely the first thing it may be is two to three cycles down the line as we work with them to implement reporting get their data in order. I suspect you may have some other recommendations for most P firms as had just how they thought should think about their commercial go to market strategy in the first 100 days. Any any thoughts you'd share?
Richard Byrd:Yeah, sure. So you know, it's interesting, because I think when private equity, you know, comes in and acquires a company, you can count on a few things happening, you know, they're going to professionalize that that financial side of the business. And they're going to be really looking at ops to say, hey, what, what's going on here? You know, can we get some efficiencies? Can we, you know, how do we, how do we tie this in with the other companies on our platform, all these these types of things. And that's really, I think that stuff is super important. But I think one of the things that is important to also is at that point is that, you know, they're gonna want to grow this company. And so to think about how you're going to understand that market, how you're going to attack that market for growth is really important, one of the things we see a lot is, you know, companies will say, Well, we're going to, we're going to do an add on to our existing platform. And so we're going to get these guys to, you know, to cross sell, and so they were gonna get the Salesforce to cross sell all of our offerings, and, and what happens is, that almost never works. In the spaces that we're looking at, just because, you know, the lot of times in the technical spaces, we work in technical people don't feel comfortable selling to things that they're not really knowledgeable about, and they don't feel like they have a certain level of expertise on. And so. So you have to be able to say, alright, well look here, if this is going to be important to how we're doing it, we're gonna have to really work with the sales team to build a process for this, to help them feel comfortable talking about this, to know when to hand it over to the other, you know, the other side of the fence to to make that cross selling opportunity and come up with a plan around it. And also, you know, one of the things that's really interesting to us is, you know, that day one communication to the market is really important from a from a sales and marketing perspective. And just general public relations is well, right, because anytime a company gets acquired, you know, what happens is, you know, the, well, and this happened to us a lot when I was when I was working for Schlumberger, right is we were quite, we were very inquisitive, in our time there. And you know, our salespeople were very, very honest, technical people are probably the most honest people in the world, right? And so the inevitable question is from the customers, when the salespeople go out and talk to the customers say, Hey, you guys got acquired? You know, how's that? Well, do you want to you want to have you want to tell give people a heads up on what they should probably say in that situation? Right, because technical people always will just be really honest, you know, it's like, well, I got this new French boss, and, you know, they don't know anything about this business. But you know, and by the way, your prices are about to go up. 20%. Well, that's not what we had in mind in the acquisition. And so how do you tell salespeople about that, because customers are going to ask, right? So all your frontline employees, they need to have a script for that, and they need to be ready for that. And they need to say, look, here's why this is gonna, this minute awesome thing for me, as an employee of this company, and here's why it's gonna be great for you as our customer. Well, you know, people aren't going to come up with that on their own. And so that's where, you know, helping working closely with the sales team to do that. And, you know, also thinking about the what information goes on the website, day one, you know, what, what's the plan for that? You know, what's the technical plan for that? Are we going to have two websites? Are we going to have one? One website? You know, how's that gonna? How's that gonna work? And I think, you know, that's where your marketing team, whether you're working with an outside company, like ourselves, or you're working with an internal team, you know, we had that when I was, you know, an art when I was running the brand for for Schlumberger, it was really, we got surprised by a lot of acquisitions. And we're like, oh, man, we got to come up with a plan for this, like, what is our what's our day one communication going to be? What all hasn't been placed in that? What about the what interesting events are going to come up? After that, we're going to need to talk about, you know, if there's a trade show coming up shortly after an acquisition, well, what are you going to say at the trade show? People are going to ask, you're going to be curious about it, right? And if they're not curious, then you need to make them curious. And you need to tell them what why this is good, such a great thing for the market, and how you are going to differentiate what that message is right? And almost
Kate Eberle:seems like, and I think we do see this as well, in those highly acquisitive companies, you almost take it for granted, your acquisition is good, this will be good for us, it will be good for our customers. But it sounds like really being articulate about the why, here's how this has benefited our employee base, how this will benefit our customers. And the new opportunities, this opens up for you just getting ahead of that messaging, so that there isn't uncertainty so that everybody knows what to expect, just really helps smooth that on ramp.
Richard Byrd:Yeah, exactly. And I think that is, is really important one I had that we worked with a private equity firm, and he told me, he said, Richard, there's no guarantees in m&a. Except for one, when you acquire a company, you're guaranteed to have some disgruntled employees, on your hands. And, and I always thought that was a funny way to think about it. But he but he has a good point, right? Because most employees don't want to be acquired. And they didn't set out to work for a private equity firm or, or this company that just acquired them, right? They have this rich culture and heritage and all these things in their, in their, you know, current job. And that's what they signed up for and and signed up to be acquired. And so you know, communicating why this is going to be a good for them and their families is really important aspect of it. Especially if they're going to the for the frontline employees that are going to have that customer access.
Kate Eberle:Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. One of the things, it's crazy, here we are in 2023, that's been top of our mind, a lot of our clients minds top of mind for PE is Gen AI, I think your initial guesses for that marketing would be particularly affected by the onboarding of these new tools. Just curious, and what are you seeing out there and in the wild of the impact of Gen AI so far?
Richard Byrd:Yeah. So I definitely would not call myself a den AI expert. But but we've we've been, we've been working with it at our company, and internally, and you're trying to improve our efficiencies and things like that. And we've been trying to see how we can incorporate it with our clients. And we have, you know, we talked a lot about our mid market clients, they're a little more bullish on Gen AI, and our enterprise level clients are are terrified of it. And it's, you know, they have a lot of they have a lot of concerns about about trademark infringement. And can they own this stuff? And where did this come from? And one thing that we've seen in and I've heard about, or, or what we call AI hallucinations? I don't know if you're familiar with that. But sometimes, you know, the AI will take this information over here and this information over here and mash it together. And when you do, it is totally inaccurate. And so when they've seen those kinds of things, like where did this come from? How can we cite this. And so a lot of the very larger enterprise clients that are engineering focused companies are very, they want to, if you put data in front of them, if you put a statement for them, they want to know where you came up with that. And sometimes you don't know with DNA. And so for them, they're like, Hey, let's hold off on this and be a little more cautious about it. But we've seen it as a way to, to really help out with market research and desk research. That part has really been helpful, especially, you know, as you as you do the prompts, and we're working with the prompts, you know, we're always saying include our include the, the source for this, and, and these kinds of things. So we've been able to put that out there and go Well according to you know, McKinsey and Company, you know this As you know, this data happens, or According to Forrester Research, you know, this happens, right. And so that's kind of where we were able to, to help out with that. And then the other one we love is one AI tool that we love. It's, it's called fireflies AI, and it's a note taking tool. And it is really, really helped us a lot. Just because it, you know, transcribe the whole conversation, but then also, the thing that is really great, it has a little summary. And that's helped us with a massive efficiency gain on our side, just to, when we onboard a client, and or maybe you couldn't get, you know, a member can attend that meeting, they can read that summary, and it's very accurate about what happens. And if you have any deeper questions about it, then you can go and playback that part of the footage of the conversation, so that those kinds of little efficiency things are really important, especially for, you know, we're not a massive company. And so, you know, we're, we're trying to be as efficient as we can, and you know, how does, you know, there's not enough hours in the day for anybody these days, it doesn't seem like So using those tools is really, for efficiency has really helped us, you know, a lot of our clients also on the, the technical side, you know, some of the stuff that comes back from from Jack GPT, or whatever is very generic, and it's kind of a imagination of a lot of different things coming together. And all our clients technology is very specific to them, and are very specific to that industry. And, you know, it's just not maybe for some social media post or something like that, you know, a certain amount of the social media post or what have you, it actually can be helpful. But, but it is difficult, I think for for that another tool, I guess, that we're using in that it's not generative AI but uses AI is, is Account Based Marketing. And so that's when that's when a lot of our clients are very interested in Account Based Marketing, just because they're very, you know, vertically market focused. So they, you know, putting a billboard up on i 25, it's not going to help them, right, because the chances that people that are selling to drive in paths that are, you know, are so small, and then taking action on that are in smaller, but you know, they their account, sales team are focused on on growing their existing accounts. And they're focused on acquiring new logos, like I were talking about earlier. And so using Account Based Marketing Software to to understand if that company has intent for the stuff you're trying to sell. And if they do, then this will serve them ads, you know, when they go check the baseball score, or go see how the Broncos did on ESPN, right? Well, they'll see your ad, because they know that you've your organization has been has that intent, that search intent, you've been searching for the things that that we sell, we're going to show that and then also it helps to show the sales team, hey, these accounts are spiking, they're looking for our stuff, they're engaging with our content, let's call them first before your chase this rabbit that has no interest in buying, buying anything from us right now. But these people are maybe farther along in their buying process. They they're aware of what we sell, they are interested and engaged with what we're doing. They're looking at what our competitors are doing call them. Right. And so that's where AI can really, really help to keep those kinds of important things on the on the forefront for our clients. And so that's really been where we have seen the greatest input, you know, impact with AI machine learning in this kind of earlier stage of things.
Kate Eberle:What are some examples so far of that account based technology?
Richard Byrd:Yeah, so there are a lot of platforms out there. You know, six senses, one that we looked at some really good for the enterprise level for the mid market, we use one called Roll works. And we're big believers. And in that and in the reason we like it is because also we you know, we're talking about the tech stack. We really like HubSpot as a marketing automation tool. And so that in railworks, works really hand in hand with with HubSpot. And so we like that disconfirm a technology integration standpoint, it's really good. And also, you know, a lot of our clients, the sales team is not, you know, they're not really interested in getting into a very complicated CRM like Salesforce, right? It can be an onerous one for for companies that the sales team has not been very disciplined in working in CRM CRMs. And so when you had something's a little easier to use, like HubSpot, and you know, they just have to move the deal down and put some notes in and they can do it from their phone. Right, that makes it really easy. And then when you also are in HubSpot, and you see a one of your accounts is spiking, and you've got notification of that And you know, you need to call those people? Well, it makes, it's all in one system. And so that also is going to make it easier and create less friction for the sales team.
Kate Eberle:One of the ways that I think we're seeing Gen AI start to impact sales in particular is, you know, as far as emailing cold contacts is concerned, the noise is just getting pretty astronomical at this point. Yeah. So if you could, you know, I identify those folks who are actually engaged, who may be willing to hear from you, and actually making a phone call, and seems to be a pretty differentiating action right now in the market, being able to pick up the phone, knowing that, that just seems...
Richard Byrd:Wait, the phone does not use text on words and actually have to talk into it.
Kate Eberle:Yeah, but it that makes complete sense that a tool like that, that really, it's almost generating a better list. That's not just cold names, who aligned with demographics, but people who are actually taking actions, that sounds like valuable,
Richard Byrd:oh, my gosh, you know, if I get another cold outreach, email, you know, that's I spent, that's been like the first 20 minutes my day clearing out, you know, bad, really bad and annoying, you know, cold outreach emails from my inbox and in my, in my InMail, on LinkedIn, too, you know, it's like, and so I think, you know, your will a lot of our clients, salespeople get a bad name these days anyway, for being too pushy, or what have you. And, and I think that, you know, that can really send a wrong message for your brand, if you're, if you're sending these high pressure, kind of cold outreach emails, especially depends on the, the the industry, you're selling, right, we had a, we had a financial services client, and they really, they really struggled with that, because we're gonna send all these cold outreach emails, we're gonna send a million of these things out. And you know, we've got this big list of people who don't know about us, and I'm like, Yeah, but if you're saying, like, you're a wealthy person, and I want to, man, I'm gonna manage your email. And that's like, cold outreach, and they have never heard of you, they're gonna think this is a scam guy, your open rate and your, you know, click through rate, and, you know, appointment setting isn't going to be so low on the, you know, maybe you're going to, you know, even a broken clock is right twice a day. So maybe mathematically it can add up, but, but you can also create damage, right, because I'm like, these guys are, you know, are, after my money, I'm looking to trust them for this, right? So, depends on your business, right? How successful that can be,
Kate Eberle:won't even with the automation, that still takes a lot of time from your team who could be using it much more or in much more effective way. So,
Richard Byrd:you know, that's the cool thing about Account Based Marketing is that he is very focused on, on, you know, the key accounts that you really want to, to add to your, to your portfolio, right, and add to your customer base. And sometimes those are very long sales cycles. And so, you know, using marketing and sales, working hand in hand together to shorten those sales cycles and, and generate awareness, and then help me meet, you know, lowering the guard for the company and, you know, pointing the salespeople to the right people to talk to and then that organization really makes a lot of sense. For those for those vertical vertically integrated, or those vertically focused b2b firms.
Kate Eberle:Yeah, and I think there's age old, maybe not competition, but certainly little friction between marketing and sales. And it seems like if you can really smooth that out, but the tool like any of those account based tools, along with good lead gen, you've got a much better scenario on your hands.
Richard Byrd:That that's huge. And I think that we see a lot is you know, you get sales and marketing pointing the finger at each other in the marketing or the salespeople are saying these leads suck in marketing people are going those salespeople can't close anything. And so you know, you will, you know, that's not a that's not a conversation we get in with our clients because we're in there because we're, it's two sides of the same coin are all working in the same you know, for the same effort and to generate that revenue and it's really important for salespeople because they're a lot of them are commission based and it's really important for the marketing people because if revenue is not growing and marketing people get run off too, right? And so that's what we're just say, let's just get in there and solve the problem and not point fingers at each other and if the leads suck, tell us why. Let's look at it you know, maybe they're just not ready to buy right now. But maybe they could buy later so how do we nurture them? Right or these people were totally wrong right? That was a you know, that's a student or that's a competitor or what have you. You know, marketing people could call him that a marketing qualified lead. Let's get that out of there. And in eventually, there should be no such there should be no difference between a marketing qualified lead and a sales qualified lead. If you're all working together in the same to the same goal which you shouldn't be right and you're on the commercial side, and you're trying to grow revenue. And so that's where we really think that working closely with our clients, and especially in an Account Based Marketing approach really helps. Right?
Kate Eberle:Yeah, that's great. All right. Well, any parting thoughts, Richard, and things that you'd want your audience tonight?
Richard Byrd:Yeah, I guess, you know, one, one thing that, you know, we seem we're working with private equity firms is that, you know, they're kind of in a in a tight spot right now in that, you know, with interest rates the way they are, and, you know, the that's going to that affects the, the valuation of the companies. And so that gap has caused the issue. And it's what we've heard a lot from the private equity firms we've worked with. And so, you know, if you think about it, you know, adding value to an organization through add ons and other acquisitions and other things like that. It's kind of where they've been focused over the past few years. And well, for longer than the past few years for forever, right? And that deal cycle is slowing down, like we've seen it over the last couple of years, or at least the last year, then how are they going to add value to those organizations? Well, our answer is, organically, right? The old good old fashioned way of going out there and proven the commercial side of the business to help grow, right. So maybe you can't, you know, quadruple a company through an acquisition over the next three years, but maybe, maybe you can grow it 20-30%. But just by taking more disciplined and strategic approach to your sales and marketing, and going out there and taking more than your fair share of the market. And so that's what, that's what we would suggest to these these companies is while the deal flow might not be what you would like, you can still add a lot of value to those companies in your portfolio.
Kate Eberle:That's fantastic. I think it's so interesting to reflect on the last 2030 years of private equity. In the beginning, it was financial engineering, how are we going to structure this in a way that we're just immediately generating value, then definitely heavy m&a fees, getting into that operational efficiency, but it truly seems like you in the last two to three years as the things have gotten more complicated. Going back to basics, grow the company with organic growth is definitely seems to be top of mind. Well, Richard, thanks so much for joining us today. One of our favorite ways to wrap up, we believe that leaders are readers. So anything that you've got on your bedside table that you're enjoying reading right now that you'd be willing to
Richard Byrd:So I just finished 10x is Easier Than 2x, then we share with us. read as a company. And, and so it's really helped us with our, with our thinking, as to, you know, how are we going to scale our company? And how are we going to scale help our clients scale their companies. And so that was a really interesting read. And then there's another book that we just finished called the boutique. And so that's been that was really good. So it's about running a professional services company, and how do you how do you take that company and, you know, make sure that you've got a good offering, and then scale that offering, and then eventually sell it. And so that's been something that we've really been interested in. And then the one I'm reading right now is your future self now, also by Ben Hardy, and it's been a really interesting book, you know, to think about how, you know, most of the time people think that, you know, you're formed by your past, and that has informed who you are today. And he's his the premise of this book. So that's a fallacy. And so you need to think about, you know, who you want to be in five years, 10 years from now, and then make that reality happen for yourself. So it's been a really interesting business book that also kind of taps into a little psychology, but but also really interesting.
Kate Eberle:I'm about blend between "what are we doing as an organization?" and then "what am I doing?" That's such a good, good way to keep those in balance. Great. Well, if our listeners want to find you, what are some of the best ways to get
Richard Byrd:Well, I'm on LinkedIn. So Richard Byrd: in touch? B-Y-R-D. And our website address is the BlueByrd.com. And you can check out our we have some content that might just be useful for people, if they want to understand a little bit about more about marketing strategy. So that blog post that we have is really, we have a lot of blog posts, I guess I should say, that can help you know, people inform their marketing strategy and how they should be looking at things. And, yeah, that's the best way to reach us.
Kate Eberle:Awesome. Fantastic. Well, it's been great chatting with you today, Richard, and hope you have a good one. We'll talk soon.
Richard Byrd:Alright, Kate. Hey, thanks so much. I really enjoyed being on the show!