How B2B Buying Is Changing in Supply Chain and Logistics with Brian Ceraolo

Jen sits down with Brian Ceraolo, a long-time supporter of TMSA and a President & CEO at Peerless Media, to discuss insights from Peerless Media’s Annual B2B Marketing Trends Study. The research provides practical benchmarks for marketing teams across supply chain, logistics, material handling, robotics, and engineering to compare their strategies with industry peers.

The conversation also explores findings from Peerless’ recent Buyer’s Journey study, which revealed a significant generational shift in how B2B buyers research, evaluate, and make purchasing decisions.

Jen and Brian discuss what the data shows, what marketing teams may be getting wrong, and how companies in logistics and supply chain can better align their strategies with the expectations of today’s buyers.

Check out the Transportation Sales and Marketing Association (TMSA) website or engage with us on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Welcome And Brian’s Origin Story

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 0:22

Hello, everyone, and welcome to On the Move, a show where we share transportation sales and marketing success stories. I am Jennifer Karpis Romain, Executive Director of TMSA, a trade nonprofit, educating and connecting marketing and sales professionals in transportation and logistics. And today on the show, I'm excited to have Brian Sorello, president and CEO at Peerless Media. How are you doing today, Brian?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

I'm doing good. Happy to be here. Thanks, Jen.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 0:50

Happy to have you, so excited to catch up. For those of you who might not know you yet, which I think would be crazy because you've had such a tenure in this industry and at Peerless. But can you tell us about your journey here at Peerless and in the supply chain industry?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Yeah, we started Peerless back in 2010. I was a publisher for another publishing company at the time, and they were selling all the brands in the United States because they were afraid of the Great Recession. They didn't want to be in publishing anymore. So I acquired a couple of them and we launched Peerless Media. So from there, we introduced new brands and new products over the years. Now we have 10 brands in seven different markets. We have an in-house content creation agency, we have an in-house research firm, and we have a two-day live event called the Next Gen Supply Chain Conference that we've been doing for the last seven years. So we're a full-service B2B media company, lead gen branding awareness, ABM, traffic driving, and we still have four magazines as well.

Why TMSA Networking Still Works

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 1:50

That's a lot of content all around for the industry, which is great. And we've always um appreciated Peerless. You guys have been a longtime supporter of TMSA. Um, you were one of the people when I came in and took over, you were like, oh, hey, let's let's talk and keep things going. So what has kind of kept you engaged in the association and in this community over the years?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah, TMSA is a great organization, and I go back um a long way. Um I go back to TMCA, which merged with TSMA, which before that was the ATA Sales and Marketing Council.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

So I go back uh a little ways, um, but I always found it to be a great organization because the networking is fantastic with this event, uh with the with the organization in general, but with the event. I've made some career-long friends in uh TMSA, you know, 20 plus years, uh, that I can still pick up the phone at any time and just talk about business, talk about anything. I think it's terrific. For marketers, I mean, marketers always love this event. Uh, it's very educational, shows them what's new in their profession. And also, I've seen a lot of people who attend TMSA often get their next job with people they meet at TMSA. So go to that.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 3:06

I mean, that's what happened. That's how I got to TMSA. I got my next job literally with TMSA. Um but I think it's so true. And I love that you talked about the different names because um during 2024, when we were celebrating our 100-year anniversary, that was such like a okay, we've been here for 100 years, but we haven't technically been TMSA for 100 years, and there has been so many pieces. And it was a really cool, like I've been leaving the leading the organization for a couple years, but the history of the organization and the people that are involved, it was really cool to be able to take a look back and see all those people and connect with people who helped keep it up for as long as it has, and then being at the helm of that and like hopefully taking us into the next 100 years has been a cool process and appreciated your support through all of that as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Yeah, of course.

Inside The B2B Marketing Trend Study

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 3:56

And then, so you guys at Puralist actually do an annual B2B marketing trend study. And so that's part of what I wanted to talk to you about today, just because any type of research we can get as marketing people, of course, TMSA serves salespeople too, but today we're talking about that marketing side. What was the goal of that research? Who was it developed for? Like, who are you trying to get that information out to?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah, so we've been doing it now for three years, and our goal is um to give peer insight for our clients, which are marketers. So, like I said, we're in uh seven different markets. We have a lot of people that we can reach. And what this does is it gives uh them insight as to you know, are their habits, are their spending, are their products that they're using similar to what uh this audience is? Uh we we ask questions like what did you use last year? How did it work? Uh, what did you try last year that worked or didn't work? Are you spending more or less this year on marketing? What are you trying new this year on marketing? Uh, we have another section completely dedicated to AI and what they're using AI for. Uh so it's got a lot of great information for for marketers.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 5:01

I think that's so important. And I know when we go into like forming our benchmarking, it you have to think about like what do people care about now? Because it might be different than what they cared about last year or the year before that, or or how does this change and how does this evolve? And it's really important to kind of sit through about what they're what they're looking for today because it can change so quickly, even from yeah, and not everything works.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

And in this particular study, it it talks about like what didn't work, um, which is interesting.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 5:32

Yeah, yeah, and I think especially like I like that you include that AI piece because how people are using AI can be effective or not effective, and you can definitely see, like, I was actually looking over something like this was so clearly written by AI, and not even proofed remotely. And that's not to me, that's not an effective use of AI. Like you can't just have it produce content without a human verifying that information or making it better. Um, there's still a human element of that, but you can definitely use it like I use it all the time to create starter content to then get me going into what I'm building.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Right, right.

What Benchmarks Reveal About ROI

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 6:15

Um, so what are some of the most important benchmarks or insights that marketing in logistics supply chain should be paying attention to in this year's study?

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Yeah, I'd say um primarily there's a lot of investment going into thought leadership and educational content, which matches the needs of today's buyers perfectly. Uh, I'm sure we'll talk about that at some point. But uh these younger buyers they rely on that type of information. They need to feel validated in their opinions of to move forward with a vendor. Uh so it's critical to them to know that the companies that they're looking at are experts in their particular field. I also noticed that uh the marketers are using this content and promoting it in digital channels to where they anticipate uh these buyers are, uh, which is smart because now it's very different. You want to be able to influence these people either when there's uh uh intent or even before there's intent. Because this is a very different uh different generation as to how they buy. The other thing that I thought was important that was kind of going back to what you were saying before, um, so lead gen again is important this year, no surprise there. But it seems like marketers are under a lot more stress this year uh to prove ROI. So when uh asked the question, you know, how were your lead gen tactics? How did they do uh last year? So I think it was 72%, so nearly three quarters of our uh marketers said that it was either the results were either average or below average, uh, which I've found to be very funny. Uh so anybody who downloads the study, pay attention to what worked because not everything did.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 7:54

Yeah, I mean, I think that's really telling when I mean the market's been tough, and so and that's we see that a lot at TMSA too. Like people are trying things, but that you have to really pay attention to all of the pieces of the puzzle because the market plays a piece of that too. Um, so what strategies are really successful, but what part of that may be where that ball dropped? Like sometimes it might be okay, like this is a pretty easy thing, but like if you're sending out an email, are you looking at the subject line versus the click-through rate? Like you can't be like, oh, well, that campaign fully didn't work, because if no one's opening the email, you don't really know if the content in the email was successful or not. And so marketers can understand that, but when you have to prove that ROI to a higher up or to a different department, especially if someone's like, oh no, we really need to be pitching this type of product or this type of route or whatever, having that language or having that backup or understanding that to help marketers explain those different pieces of the puzzle to the other stakeholders is really important.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yep, 100%.

Consistency And Measuring Early Influence

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 9:05

Yeah. And that's when you're when companies that are comparing themselves to these benchmarks and looking at those pieces, what are those biggest gaps you tend to see between the strategy piece and the execution?

SPEAKER_00 9:17

You pretty much just said it. Um, I would say consistency. I would say consistency. So marketing teams understand the necessity of branding and awareness. Again, especially to this younger generation of buyer and influencing them early. But what happens when budgets get tight or pipeline, you know, sales need more pipeline? What happens? The branding and awareness programs are the first things to get cut. It's been like that forever. Uh, the other thing I would say is measurement. Again, going back to what you just said, um, most companies need to prove ROI. Um, it's very easy if you did like a lead gen program or even uh attended a trade show, exhibited at a trade show, you could see all right, what was my cost per lead? What was my cost per ICP? That's very easy. But I would bet that most marketers are not capturing that early stage influence. So one of the things that I think is critical for marketers to do, if they could find out, um, as companies approach a certain vendor, ask them, you know, not just like, you know, how'd you hear of us, but like, you know, what was the what was the content that influenced you to want to work with us? Where did you see this content? Because you want to be providing the right content in the right places for these buyers.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 10:35

I think that is so important. And it's one of the biggest pieces of advice that I give to marketing people is like, when you get a customer, ask them when was the first time they heard of you. And I bet you there's a lot of times that the first time that you reached out to them and they received something won't match that answer. But you can then also then go into your CRM and you can start doing that comparative analysis and be like, okay, we can see that what our customers are saying is the first time they heard about us is actually the fifth time. So it also helps propel that like how many touch points did you really have with per like with prospects and stuff. Like, I always, I mean, I'm I'm possibly a terrible marketer in this way. I hate emailing people 18 times, but like sometimes you know, you have to email at least five times. Then if someone's saying it's the first time they've heard of you, and really then at least nine times, because then they're like that first that fifth time is really the first time they're paying attention to you. And so really thinking through that. And I do think it's so important because you can also then track to see if your CRM or wherever you're collecting that marketing data is pulling the data that the customers or your prospects are actually seeing. Because what if they then reference something that you don't have in your system? So then where did that fall through? And really paying attention to that. And then the other piece that you said that I completely agree with is like consistency. Um at TMSA, that's we see all the time these marketing budgets, the professional development budgets, the sales um skill budgets being cut and slashed when the market goes bad. But then where are you in development, business development, team development in three years when the when the market hasn't turned back the way we thought it would? You're missing all of those opportunities. And the reason why marketing people are stressed and feel like they have to do more, improve more ROI is because every dollar they're spending then is being looked at. But you're making your teams then do more with less without developing them, without giving them the resources and then asking them why they can't produce. And that to me is the biggest like gap between that execution and the strategy because you're giving them all the things they have to do, but not the resourcing to be able to do it, you're kind of setting them up to fail.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

You're 100% right. That's that's the frustration of today's marketers because they know how to deliver. It's just the if you don't have the support um and you're still expected to provide ROI, it's very difficult.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 13:17

Yeah. And I think too, like now that technology kind of has this more all for one feel or everything's connected, which is great. I think technology should be integrated and technology and connected, but people can see stuff more that they don't know what it actually means. So, like if you have somebody operationally or sales that can then see look at your open rates for emails, they can be like, well, why don't we close all these sales even though your open rate is 80%, which would be a great open rate. But you know what I mean. Like it it allows people to have a bit of visibility into things that they don't understand. Right. And it can put so much pressure on marketers because they don't they don't understand what those stats mean or they don't understand what that correlation should be or could be. And then they have to then take time to explain it when they could be taking time to do the work behind it. And so it can create, I think, some friction if you're not careful because people can see more, but they don't understand it more, and it it can be complicated.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

The Digital First Buyer Shift

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 14:20

Yeah. And so I know last year Pierless also released a buyer's journey study that highlighted a big generational shift, which you kind of alluded to a little bit in B2B to buyers. So, what are those biggest differences that you're seeing between the younger buyers and the previous generations? I know you talked a little bit about getting them earlier before that intent stage or like right at it, but how do we actually do that? And like, what does that actually mean?

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah, so this is critical uh for marketers. Uh, and it's not just this study, there's other studies that were out there that uh allude to the same thing. There was a study from Factors, I think earlier this year, uh, that was about the same uh subject. And the study that made me want to do this um was done by the Winterberry group about maybe three years ago now, and it focused on the consumerization of B2B, which, if you're not uh familiar with that, you really need to be as a marketer because things have changed dramatically in the last 15 years. 15 years ago, it was people like me that were buyers. It was uh Gen Xers and boomers, and the way we buy is very different from today's generation. We bought, you know, we'd reach out to four or five vendors, we'd talk to a sales rep, we get the spiel, we get the pricing, maybe we'd haggle a little bit, pick a vendor, and we're done. This is a completely new world. So two years ago, Forrester did a study, uh also a buyer's journey study, and they said that 71% of all buyers were millennials and Gen Z. That was two years ago, so that number probably climbed. They buy very differently than the older generation. They are a digital first type uh generation. So they don't want to talk to a sales rep first. Our study showed that 96% of the buyers, our readers, said they didn't want to talk to a sales rep first. They prefer to do their own research, and that is very important for marketers because they're forming their own opinion long before you even get in touch with them, long before you connect with them. And if you're not getting into their what they call mental availability, uh you might be on the outside looking in.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 16:32

And I think it shifts how we approach sales and marketing. And I I have one perspective of my own thought, and then would love to hear yours. So, like for a long time in marketing, it was all about the gated content and that all the goods need to be behind that paywall of the person's information. And then it was like, okay, well, we can't guard everything, we can't get all of their information, so we have to decide what should be behind the paywall. But as you said, 96% of people don't want to really talk to you, they want to make their own opinions about you. So if you're still putting everything behind that, if you're still saying everything good that we will produce or all the information that we could provide for you, that you could learn about our company, what we do, our products, why we're better, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, we'll only give that to you if you're giving us your email or your phone number, you're missing 96% of people. And that's just a huge shift in how marketers are doing things today. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

I think a lot of that is is timing. So if you can, if you can influence this group, and so when they're now uh top of funnel, let's just say, they probably do exactly what you said. They probably do want to not talk to a sales rep. They probably would love to go to like a demo on a website um and and try to get their own information that way. But as they approach mid-funnel, that's when they're willing to give their contact information to download things like a white paper or thought leadership type content. Um, but you've got to get to them first. You can't just hit them in mid in mid-funnel because odds are they're not gonna respond.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 18:08

Right. And then especially too, like if you're in that earlier process and you're like getting information. No, I don't want to be called 18 times. I'm a millennial, I don't want to be called 18 times because I downloaded a white paper for more information. Like I don't, I'm going to ignore your phone calls, and then it's going to have that reverse effect where I'm like, no, I don't want to work with you because you didn't mind your business, like you didn't like give me my space to make those choices or to follow up with you when I was ready. And I agree, like as you get down that funnel, then I am more inclined. Like, yes, I would now I don't know how to figure out this information by myself. I need your support to get there.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Right.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 18:46

How do you think marketers can kind of shift that and know when it's time to put the paywall up or to give the information? How do they shift and how do they explain that to their higher-ups who are probably still in that old way of thought?

Content That Earns Trust Faster

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Yeah. So the first thing I think um uh that you got to be thinking, and this is this is important, what is the type of content that these younger buyers need? That's the content you want to produce in your marketing. So, number one is peer testimonials. That's critical. Um, I know not at not every uh company can get testimonials, but if you can, it's very important for this younger generation to see that people like them are also happy with their investment. That's what makes them feel validated in their decision. The other thing, like I was saying earlier, is thought leadership. That type of information shows that you are an expert in the industry, which is also uh very important to uh to the younger generation. And you you have to be where they are. So our study said 79% uh uh form their opinions from information they see on trusted industry websites. Um, so that's critical. You gotta be there. Obviously, you'll get emails from that trusted industry website, but you also gotta be on social. So I know for us, we we have all of our subscribers uploaded into LinkedIn. So you can hit them in social, you can hit them also in uh on the website. But I don't know how many people are also utilizing things like YouTube. Video is huge uh for this younger generation. And Instagram is also, I think, uh important for a lot of markets. Uh so you you gotta really have a well-rounded approach to really uh be effective in reaching this audience and influencing them uh earlier. Once they have a couple of vendors in mind, it's very hard to change their minds.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 20:34

I agree, and I I really like that the video component because if you think about like Doom scrolling, are people sitting there reading articles or are they looking through videos? And so if you're not publishing content and think about those peer reviews, especially if you can get people to actually talk about it, and even if you can't get them like visually, um, have some type of audio component, and then you can put like information or demo pieces on to because not everyone wants to be in camera and they just won't, um, which is fine. But A, there's like cool things with AI you can do to make them AI level figures now and stuff. But like that's I've done that where someone just did not want to be on camera, but they would um they would talk, and so I would just overlay the audio on whatever we were talking about because cool, or even you can do that with like a pull-out quote and have somebody at your company then talking about it. Um, the thought leadership piece, I would agree too. Um, some of our best sessions at Elevate are the ones that have like a vendor and a practitioner presenting together, because then the vendor can be like, this is what we did, and then the practitioner is like, Yeah, this is how it actually helped us. Um, that type of correlation together is really powerful because then it's not just the vendor like doing a hair toss and saying that they're awesome. It's like, no, this is like proven. Creating those case studies too. Um, sometimes people don't want to do an exact quote. But they you can write the case study and they can sign off on it. That kind of stuff is always really powerful.

unknown 22:05

Yep.

Trade Show Spend And The New Reality

unknown 22:06

Yep.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 22:06

So then when you're looking at both of those studies together, a lot of content, a lot of information you guys are providing your subscribers. What marketers, what are marketers doing? How are buyers behaving? Where do you kind of see the biggest alignment between what you got from both of those studies?

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Uh on the alignment side, I would say, like what I was saying before, uh, thought leadership, content creation, hitting them on digital channels on trusted industry websites is exactly how to reach these folks. If you wanted to say misalignment, uh, I would say that um we did ask a question about what piece of their overall marketing budget goes to each function. So trade shows, lead gen tactics, etc. And it's not a massive misalignment, but it was uh it was a little surprising to me that trade shows were still number one, uh, 30%. I think lead gen uh tactics were 25% number two, but it did come down, uh trade show investment. Nothing against trade shows, by the way, but it just makes sense because the people that come to trade shows, they're mid-funnel, you know, they're interested, and that means they probably already have a few vendors in mind. So what I've heard from a lot of uh marketers this year is they're cutting back on trade shows, not the main ones that have always done well for them, but like the ancillary ones that were like, eh, because they're not getting the leads that they used to get. And that's because I think a lot of these younger buyers, they already have their mindset on specific vendors and it's harder to penetrate then. Uh so I wouldn't be surprised at all if the next time we do this study, if that flips a bit.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 23:48

I'm curious of your perspective on that. So one of the biggest misalignments I think about trade show strategy is people just think about what they do at this show, and they miss so much of the the pre and the post of their strategy with trade show. Because if yes, your booth could be pretty, and you might get some people to come to your booth that didn't know about you, obviously, through your your research, not as many people are going to be doing that, but you should already have let your booth guide the people that you have meetings with to your booth so they can see you. You should be scheduling those meetings and making those contacts ahead of show. And so I think people forget that more than they should, and that's one of the biggest errors. And I think intentionally, I can see why the number of shows will be coming down and more intentional, because then you have more time to do the proper pre at and post. If you're going to eight shows over a span of 12 weeks and it's two people that are your trade show team, how are you doing that successfully? Do you think that that's part of the misalignment?

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Yeah, I I think I I think it's obviously very important to be doing that, but I think the biggest misalignment is expecting to find a lot of uh people in need of discovering vendors when they're attending uh these events. I mean, yeah, it's it's a hundred percent important, I think, to to do as much as you can with the time frame that you have. Uh because you gotta figure if you're looking to influence an audience, trade shows are probably not the place to do it, because a trade show will go two or three days and then it's over. You need to be in a consistent place all year long with that message so that it resonates uh with these buyers, like I said, even before there's intent, because they do remember it. As long as they're saying the content that they need to feel good about their decision, they'll they'll remember it and they'll move forward with you when uh when the time comes. But yeah, I do think that um I I won't say the name, but I do think that it's important to um do whatever you can to make a show successful. There was an event that took place uh earlier this year. No one's on the trade show floor. Uh everybody's out in the sessions. And there were the the smart exhibitors were saying, yeah, we set up a whole bunch of meetings ahead of time, all of our customers are here, we got the sales team here, they're whining and dining them. Um, but we get nothing from the show floor. And then the people who didn't know that were like, the show's terrible. We're not getting anything at the booth. So if you don't do your preparation, yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be a a bomb for you for sure.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 26:33

Yeah, I mean, that's one of the biggest reasons why TMSA stopped doing a trade show floor, is because education and networking is such a huge part of elevate. Yep. And I mean, so this was a bit when I came in, I was a vendor before, and I said, Yeah, my friends visited my booth, but I already know them. I can sell to them anytime I want. If I'm investing in a booth and standing at the booth and seeing that I'm missing the organic conversations in the hallway, that's a problem. So we restructure how we do the whole show to create more opportunities for our partner members, our sponsors, our sponsors to have those one-on-one engagements or to be leading those conversations so that they can have more thought leadership opportunity, not take away because we have sometimes people will come in and try to schedule all these meetings with people while they're in the education sessions, and our attendees don't like that. They're like, No, we don't want to talk to you then. So building more intentional meeting time, things like that. And I think as an event planner, you have to think through those things. Like, what are people coming to your conference for? How do you get the most value for everybody? And then when I saw how much a trade show floor costs on the event side, I was like, no, thank you. So, but there's ways to do that to kind of meet all those markers. And then to the other, when you're talking about consistency, I would say, like, if you are investing in trade show booths, make sure that the messaging and your booth matches what you're putting out digitally. I know it seems simple, but I've seen that a lot. And you're like, I would have not known that this was your your booth because I see something else in your brand all of the time. So making sure you align your strategies so all of those pieces kind of fit together.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Yep. I think TMSA is lucky to have a millennial guiding it.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 28:17

Well, thank you. I do my best. Yeah, I mean, it's all it's just kind of thinking through what's coming next and how how are we doing that and how and listening. Like, that's to me when people are like, Oh, so I was never a leader before I took over TMSA, so I'm still learning my leadership style, if you will. But I think the number one thing we can do is listen and not talk. And so, you know, I feel like I've talked a lot on this podcast, but I like I like to have a collaboration with that and like then brainstorming together and not be I told them if I ever say, Oh, like, no, this is the way we've always done it, so this is the way we're doing it today, like just show me the door because that's not what's going to get you to the next level. Of course, there's tried or true things that are always going to work, and you should not just get rid of them right away, but really think through how to do it better. And uh being more intentional, I think, is really like, and I think that that's what your your study shows. Like, people are still investing in trade shows, it's still important. I would be curious too, like you were talking about the dinners and winning and dining, like that's such a bigger piece now. Like, I think people would be like, let's, which as an event planner, of course, I hate because I'm like, You're spending money outside of the show, not out of the show. But I understand why that's beneficial to the people. They're like, hey, hey, we get more benefit to sitting in a room, having those dinners or whatever, than exhibiting. So, of course, like I said, another reason why we don't do booths anymore, because if that's not a value for you, that's not going to be a value for us.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Yeah, you think about it like TMSA's event. You know, it's a two-day event. You always have some kind of networking thing. You advance the relationship by just you know, bring breaking down the walls and not letting anybody feel uncomfortable in any certain situation. It's the same thing. You take people to dinner, you don't really talk about business, you just want to get to know them on a personal level so they value you and and and trust your opinions.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 30:08

Absolutely. I think that that thought leadership piece, going back to like the beginning of this conversation, is is so important. And like you don't have to sell to people for them to understand the value you bring and how you could help them developing those relationships and letting that happen naturally will get you so much farther than doing the hard the hard sell every time.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Yep, no one likes the hard sell anymore, especially especially younger buyers, they don't want to hear it.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 30:37

They don't, they don't. That's like when I have new partners coming in. I'm like, do not try to hard sell them. Please do not become a member, go into the member portal, copy and paste every email and set a mass email. Like, first of all, we're sales marketing people, we know all those tricks and we hate them. So, like, don't do it. Um, but yeah, like they don't. It's it becomes inauthentic and they want to work with real people, and so getting to know them on that level is going to go farther any day.

Where To Start And Career Advice

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 31:04

So we've talked a lot about different trends, where things are going, how to do it. If a marketing team is listening, hopefully they are, and they wanted to press or test their own strategies against the trends and what you're seeing. What's the one place that you would tell them to start to get going?

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Yeah, I would say ask themselves, where are they investing to hit buyers when they're forming their opinion? Uh, if you can answer that question and you have consistency in that place, then you're doing a good job. If you can't answer that question, you got to really think about it because you might have a nice marketing budget, but if you're not utilizing it in the right places, again, I think you're gonna be missing opportunities.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 31:46

I agree. And I think too often people think they need to be everywhere and you don't need to be everywhere, especially because marketing, like we said, small budget, small teams, you got to be in the places that your buyers are and then show up hard in those places. And so if you don't know where those places are, definitely missing that opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Yep, with the right content, exactly.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 32:06

Yep. Cool. Well, here's the last question I ask everybody who comes on the show. If you could go back in time and advise your younger self anything, personally or professionally, when would you go back to and what would you say?

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Uh I would I don't know, go back to either my 20s or 30s. And honestly, I'd say this to anybody who's in their 20s and 30s and ask me. I would say if you have the opportunity to take a chance uh to improve your career, take the chance because the worst case scenario is you learn something. You learn more from failure than success. But you don't want to be older and have regrets about not taking that chance.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 32:51

I think that's great advice. So I think people should go check out your studies, learn. They should come to TMSA. This year's Elevate is June 7th through 9th in Denver. Educate yourself, network, get to know people. It will help you grow and succeed. Like we said at the beginning, this this industry, these communities, you meet people that you take with you for years and years and years. And having that ability, I think, really, you know, takes you into that next step and helps you improve all the time. So I think that's great advice.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Anybody watching is interested in getting either of these reports, DM me on LinkedIn or send me an email and I'll make sure you get it.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 33:32

Perfect. Thank you so much. We will put your um the link to this the studies and stuff in the show notes. So if people want to go check out where to find and get more information about it, that is great. We can put your linked in there so they know how to contact you. We appreciate all the support you give TMSA and for coming on the show today. It's always great to talk marketing. And I love talking about like the studies and the trends and what's coming next because it helps us all realize if what we're doing is heading in the right direction, and that's all we could ask for.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Yep. Yep.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain 34:01

Thank you so much for your time. Catch you guys next week.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

All righty.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Take care.