Welcome to Affiliate Insiders Affiliate Marketing Podcast with Mimi Ann Johnston, your host. And today I'm very excited to be interviewing Diane Primo. She's the CEO of Purpose Brand Agency, an award-winning Chicago-based public relations brand and digital marketing firm. She's also the only African-American female CEO of a purpose-driven communications agency. Diane's focus on impact marketing stems from the belief that brands must be relevant, purpose-driven, committed to consumers to be successful today. She's also recently published a book about this called Adapt: Scaling Purpose in a Divisive World. Represents the most up-to-date cutting-edge thinking on corporate purpose. It's both a framework for mastering corporate purpose and a way to achieve a more resilient and prosperous business. The book not only provides the strategy, but the actionable framework to which any company can adapt. Diane, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on this podcast today. I know that was a little bit of a mouthful, but I'm sure we're going to break it down for everybody listening. It's an absolute pleasure to have you here with me because I am super interested in what you've been writing in your recent book that you've just published. Well, it's lovely to be here.
SPEAKER_03I'm glad to be joining you and talking to your listeners. Always wonderful.
SPEAKER_04Thank you so much. So I want to start by just getting you to tell us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your history, because obviously you're going to be a new fresh face to our audience. And then tell us a little bit about what led you to write this book, Adapt.
SPEAKER_03A little bit about myself and a little bit about my history. Let's start there. I'll talk about what led me to write the book. About myself, you know, I was raised in uh United States by a single mother, multiple siblings, always did things focused on volunteer work, etc. Went to an all girls' school, Smith College, went to a business school, Harvard Business School, and then started my career in business. And I always looked for things in business to fill my soul. When I wasn't as mentally challenged as I should be, I even did more volunteer give back work and actually applied my marketing craft to help those companies that I worked with. So I I've always been in a journey of filling my soul because companies could never quite fill my soul in the way they need it to, in the way I needed it to be filled. And so that's a little bit about my journey. Places that I worked, I was in CPG, but brand marketers out there, you know this, right? I was in CPG for 10 years, left as a general manager. I went over to telecom. I worked for one of the RBOCs here, Ameritech, and I was president of product management for them. Along came SBC, which is now AT ⁇ T, which bought Ameritech, and I was president of product management for them, running all of marketing, basically. So I've had a very interesting career from very established businesses to I did a startup for Kleiner Perkins for a year. I just failed, right? And then I also was CMO for another Fortune 500 company, CDW. And I always was on this journey to balance me personally, right? Some companies gave me a little bit more of it, others gave me a little less, right? And so when I left corporate America, one of the things that I did was I largely started to work on strategy with a organization that my family had founded on homelessness. They basically help homeless mothers and children and now homeless families, including men. And I really kind of worked with them on strategy for quite a bit of time, where I wound up interviewing probably 25 homeless people myself and say, what's kind of wrong here? We did, you know, one-on-one interviews, a lot of research. I brought in someone to help us who was more intimate with that particular universe. And I later I recruited her to be CEO, by the way, and she's still our CEO, and she's fabulous. But I recognized then that you could apply all the marketing principles to something to make people better. So, in essence, what I was doing is I was applying my own superpower, which was marketing, and trying to improve the world in some way.
SPEAKER_04And I just want to stop there quickly because I mean that is so awe-inspiring. Okay, because, you know, I know a lot of women in my industry in the in affiliate marketing, it's a tough gig. It's full frontal. You know, you're running your life, your business, your job, your family, the whole lot. And finding that that sense of purpose and that that sense of soul food is incredibly difficult in a fast-paced environment, which we work in in marketing.
SPEAKER_03Totally, totally. And I the one thing I want to say is that it's been years since we put together that plan. We've gone on to be one of five best in class in the nation, according to the Basic Institute out of Family Center for Homelessness out of Austin. Jeff Bezos gave us his leadership award when he put up his homeless fund, right? Vetted us across the country and we got, you know, sort of a money with no strings because we knew how to use it. And we've won pitch competitions. But when the world was saying housing first, we said, no, that's not right. Because people have fundamental problems that need to be addressed in order for them to remain homed, housed, right? Because what we know about homelessness is that if you're homeless once, you're likely to be homeless again. So unless you start really getting the root causes, you can't really change that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. That's a bad thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, totally. I started to consult from a business standpoint as well, and got one very large client that kept filling my day-to-day and having me add more people, right? And then that client reached the stamp, the point where they wanted to consolidate, because we've been 39 countries, to one central location overseas. And we couldn't do all of that work. It didn't make sense for us. So we said, ah, are we in business? I said, Yes, guess we're gonna be entrepreneurs. And so we started to be entrepreneurs. As we continued that, because we kind of quickly brought up a name, made the name sound global, brought up a website. We did all that fast, fast, fast, you know, because we're like, okay, we're just gonna do this. And it just grew out of control where it was full-time work. And we decided to continue that. But in continuing that was this was actually very interesting. We kind of paused and we said, how do we align, you know, my personal values with the business's values? And that's how we came a purpose brand. So once again, I'm using what's the superpower, right, to help commercial companies, for-profit companies, uh, find their superpower so they can do better for people in the world, right? So plan it in people.
SPEAKER_04And you know what I love about this as well, is I love the fact that you're just one person, but your vision is that with your superpower that you are doing, which is marketing, you are able to change a little bit of the world around you. And I think sometimes affiliate managers forget that. They forget that they are one person in a big machine, and how they treat their partners and how their partners react to them can change, you know, the basis of the working relationship that they have. And I think that's a lot about what you're gonna talk about in Adaptive.
SPEAKER_03Yep. That that is absolutely the case, without a doubt. And that leads me to the answer to the question that you you asked. How did I decide to write the book? So this is how I decided to write the book. What I what I realized was there's tons of money being made and people helping companies really kind of define their purpose and figure out how to do it. And checks are being written from, you know, a half a million to a million dollars just to help companies come up with that simple statement that's there. And what's the expression of that? I had started to work with companies on their strategic platforms around purpose and you know, continue to read, be involved with other companies. And I thought, you know what? If I could make this transparent for everyone, then they could all benefit from that. Once again, how to use my superpower to help others. And and, you know, I'm a you know, a business expert, I'm a marketing expert, right? So, how do I do that to help more business experts and C suite executives? So I wanted to write a book, not like the books that have been out there, like there are a couple that are out there about they're about the purpose and and businesses doing better and the aspirations and the goals, et cetera. So I'm excited about, you know, my why, et cetera. But they we were still too high-end and not enough close to the ground. What I did realize is I was writing my book, Paul Poland was also writing one on purpose, thinking about the same things, right? And I've actually recommended this as a read, and I would recommend mine as a read, to be honest with you. And we were really thinking about the how to, right? And I was really focused on the US, as he was really focused on global, right? So my desire was to break things down simply so others could pick it up and use it and implement it. And so adapt actually is an acronym, and some acronyms are really catchy, but this one actually works. And one of our reviews said it works. Adapt is assess, define, amplify, perform, and transcend. Why is so that's so important in purpose? Because it basically paints the journey that you have to go through to become a purpose-led company. The assessment piece is about really understanding the marketplace that you're in, understanding the culture and where it's going, what the drivers are, what they care passionately about, understanding internally what your employees think, what they're passionate about, because you want that alignment to very important. Remember, I was out of alignment. Okay. Get an alignment. How do you get in alignment with your your employees? Okay. How do you fill their souls? How do you give them, I love it, soul food, right? I have to use, I'm gonna use that again. How do I give them soul food, right? And I really began to think about that. And that's what goes on to the assessment stage of do a lot of research. And you want to assess who you are, which is very important. Who are you? What are you really good at? And so you want to be really self-reflective and empathetic. And in today's world, that's really what a company has to be. They have to be very reflective because everything's changing all the time. Nothing is what you can expect it to be. So lean into that assessment stage, but it's not the first stage because it is in purpose, but it's an ongoing stage, which is really important. The second piece has to do with definition, which is define. And that is about what most companies see that as is, oh, what's that purpose statement? Purpose is more than a statement. And in that definition stage, I help companies understand why it is more than a definition. And more importantly, what are the other aspects that you need to put in place to bring it to life? Like, you know, you got to be credible. You have to align it, you have to put some metrics around it, you have to have a strategy around it. You have to be able to think about how you operationalize it. You have to be thinking about impact early on.
SPEAKER_04I want to stop you there because actually what you've just said is what a brand should be doing to launch an affiliate program. Assess, cover, define. And some of those steps are always missed. It's, oh, we're gonna go and launch an affiliate program. Yeah, no, no.
SPEAKER_03No, no, no, no, you can't do that. And you you really cannot. I mean, it's sort of the basics, right? And you can even launch affiliate programs that have some kind of, you know, you know, you could have some targeting around it. What are you gonna do, right? You could have some kind of bigger goal around it. You might have a gift back program for the things that the money that you you make, right? But what I would what I would say is to affiliate, you know, marketers, affiliate partners, how do you feel your souls? How do you do that? That's really important too, to think about that, that you are more likely to have others resonate with you if you indeed do things that they care deeply about. It could very much be a competitive advantage for you. And you got to think about it that way.
SPEAKER_04I love this conversation so much because only now are affiliate managers starting to realize that they are not just an employee, they're actually part of their brand because people buy people, first and foremost. And that is why it's important that businesses build culture around their people, that they include their people in terms of what it is that they're building, that those people are passionate and fired up about it. Because otherwise they cannot be effective salespeople. If you don't believe in what you're selling, you're not going to be able to make somebody else feel it, feel it and believe it too. So everything that you're saying can be plugged and played into affiliate marketing in so many ways. Yeah. And let me just build on it one more, one more layer, right?
SPEAKER_03Especially when it comes to affiliate marketing. You know, one of the things that is, you know, core to every affiliate's success is the trust they build with that end user. How do you build that trust and maintain that trust, right? For them to see what you care about, the passion that you have, that you're not just looking at the bottom line that you care about other things holistically, right? That helps build trust. This is a country where people are like, whoa, I'm not up on that trust thing. I don't trust you. I don't trust what you're you're selling, I don't trust what you're representing, you know, you're promoting, it's advertising, you know, you're getting money from that. So how can I, right? What you do, how you do it, and how you express it becomes very important, even from an affiliate point of view. You can communicate a lot quickly in your day-to-day activities. And you need to think about that. It's not just from, you know, maybe the blogs you do, the advertising you run to, you know, now social media that you're you're using, right? It's all of those things been wrapped up, but what is your center? Is what I would ask you. What do you want to bring people home to? And how do you make something that they care about more than what you sell core to your proposition? Okay, and that's what we're learning. What we're learning is that we've done a lot of research in this area and we've looked at multiple segments of the marketplace. We've looked at gender, we've looked at generation, gender, race. Are you a Republican? Are you a Democrat? Male versus female, like we've looked at it all, right? When we look at it, what at least struck us is that this whole idea of things that are purpose related have sort of reached a tipping point where they've sort of crossed over. And so when we look at our research, we're saying, wait a minute, people care more about like some of these philanthropic things like social justice, the environment, giving back more than they care about professional sports, fashion, video games, and tech. That is like, are you kidding me? Do they really care more? Yes, they care, they care deeply about these things. They care about the other stuff, but they care more about these things. So if you can sort of hijack that, I want to say it's hijacking authentically, you gotta mean it. It has to be a bias toward action, right? If you can hijack that and attach it to what you do with how you do it, you are gonna be a step ahead. You're you're gonna create a competitive advantage for yourself versus other affiliates that are out there, right? So as an affiliate, you need to get really, really, really, really good at what you do, really, really good, and then say, what added value can I bring that people care deeply about, where I have to believe in it, but it's one more link in the tent that I have that somebody doesn't.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And that is about finding your voice authentically, as you said. And especially in some of the industries that we work in that are highly competitive. I mean, e-commerce, for example, you know, you've got multiple products that are the same, they're just a different price point. How do you position your program? How do you make those affiliates promote you versus somebody else? This is what you need to tap into is tap into what is your purpose, build that purpose around affinity, get those affiliates to be loyal. And it's not loyalty, it's it's a step further than loyalty because you pay somebody to be loyal. You don't pay them to believe in your purpose.
SPEAKER_03And but but what people have to with affiliates have to remember is that those affiliate partners are people. They are people, and the most successful usually today are considered micro influencers, right? Right. And when you start leaning into that world, you really are leaning into a consumer understanding that's very public, right? And so you need to think about what you can do to help them understand that what you do, you do with a sense of purpose. And it is about helping people in some way. And if you do that, I really believe those partners will start to carry that story for you, right? Because they're happy to, because it aligns with their own story and the things that they are passionate about, right?
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. And it's a step ahead of selling because everybody hates selling right now.
SPEAKER_03Oh, they hate selling.
SPEAKER_04And we're in a sales led role. Like the role of any marketer is to increase sales at the end of the day, whatever channel it is that they can find those niches. But we need to find a way to do it as authentically as possible. And and that is human connection. And I think that has come out also post-COVID. I don't know if this if that impacted your thought process into delving deeper into writing adapt.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it did.
SPEAKER_04When when did you actually start?
SPEAKER_03Like, how did you start to we started we started like um believe it or not, like a year and a half ago. And we started at almost at the the start of COVID, right? We did it because a couple of things. One, we were looking at the world and all the uncertainty that was out there. And then think about we had elections going on and we watched the divisiveness too, right? Everything going on. And there was a lot, there was a big outcry in the news and say, oh, is this purpose thing gonna stick? Remember that? Like all these kinds of there, are they they really gonna, is it really gonna stick? Or is this the time, the moment, where we're it's a crisis moment, we're just gonna see them abandon, right? It's the reverse that happens. So when you get to the book, you'll also see we have an entire chapter in part five, and part five is on transcendence, that really demonstrates what companies actually did at that time and how they went beyond and above and beyond at that time. Even those companies who were basically closed. If you were in, we have Hyatt in there, you know, like think about anybody going to a hotel. They did some amazing things as a company at that time, given where they were. And everything they had to do, they did with an inordinate amount of compassion and caring, because at the heart of their purpose is this sense of caring for human beings, right? And so I looked at that and just listened to their stories. It was phenomenal. I'm just gonna close on what the adapt stands for, though. A is for assessment, D is for definition, A is for amplification, that is alignment of your stakeholders, you know, with your employees, your board, your suppliers, your partners. It's all about alignment. It's also about the narrative. What is your narrative? How are you gonna express yourself and how are you gonna use that narrative to get people to engage with you, right? P is for performance and you got to have metrics around it. And T is for transcendence. And transcendence means like you can go on this purpose journey, but how do you know when you really hit it? You know when you really hit it when you've got a culture that lives purpose. You know you really hit it when you have a culture that has a bias toward action, when you have governance in place, right? When you are able to survive and thrive through periods like COVID. And so that's what transcendents is about.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I I love the fact that, you know, the narrative needs to because you can say anything, but it's what you say and how you say it. You got it.
SPEAKER_03It's what you say and how you say it. And remember, it's all about credibility and believability as well. So you need to be putting in place that demonstrate and provide evidence that what you say is actually what you will do, what you be, right? It's it it's all about intent as well. Intent and action.
SPEAKER_04The other thing about transcendence is that we're already seeing it happen in the affiliate. Oh, yeah. So only a a couple of episodes ago, I did a a really great episode with Diablo Media from the US. They're in Colorado. Oh wow. And they actually moved their entire business to a four-day working week because after COVID, they needed to retain their talent. They wanted to change the way that they did business because they had transcended through and adapted to the changes that are happening around them. And it's an incredible success story to see that these businesses are changing their corporate culture that has been there for the last 40, 50 years of I go to work nine to five Monday to Friday. And in this digital world that we're working in, it's become easy to adapt. But I don't even think that people realize that they're doing it. You know, it's just happening organically. Absolutely. But this framework that you've put together in your book that can actually help people to identify these stages and then implement them with the framework of how to actually get the team mobilized behind it as well. And I think you hit the nail on the head at the beginning of this podcast. It's all fine and well to talk about concepts and to talk about, you know, things that are happening and changes that are happening. But how do you help people to actually do it? And I think that's what's special about your book. Absolutely. I think I mean, how how do you see the future of business, you know, kind of moving forward as we're progressing and navigating the complexities of digital that we're facing right now? I mean, we're You know, as you said, we're heading into recessions. We we've got people coming out of, you know, COVID, they're kind of rethinking the way that they're living their lives and what they want for their purpose. And that's something else that companies need to understand is that they're working with people and we're not just another number and we have needs and wants and there's diversity and inclusion and all of these things happening at the same time. Do you think that it's gonna get harder to include all of these things into everyday business life? Or do you think that people are going to adapt? Here's what I'm gonna say.
SPEAKER_03I what I would say about that is that you said what's the future for business, right? The future for business is to be a business of purpose, but what does that mean? It means they have to prepare themselves for the unexpected. That's just the world we live in today, right? We believe that purpose makes the business more agile and it makes a business more uh resilient as a result. Because one thing that is huge in purpose is the assessment stage. This assessment stage that you're the self-reflection that you're constantly doing, where a business has the opportunity to build in its ability to pivot, its ability to listen closer, to move faster, right? I love Nike because Nike is a company that demonstrates that over and over and over again. When something hits, they're there. And they're always there in the right way, right? Because they're they're incredible listeners in the marketplace of culture and what people care about. And for that reason, they are able to bring their agencies together to speak on their behalf about things that they care about, you know, so very important. So the big thing for business in the future is to prepare yourself for the for the unexpected. The way you do that is to develop mental muscle skills in looking at culture, forecasting culture, moving with it in the right ways, but staying true to your purpose. Like all this stuff will move, the purpose stays here. It's okay. But things underneath will need to change, will need to adjust, will need to the purpose is there, the values are there, right? And so that's what we would say about hey, what does the future look like? What does it mean? What it means is build your company to be agile, build your company to be responsive, build your company to be proactive, build your company to look at trends, interpret them, and move on them in an authentic way, and one that is aligned with your purpose, right? And don't get out of alignment with that because people won't let you now, you know? People walk out like, okay, I'm a I'm a Google, I'm walking out. That DNI thing, I'm not cool on that. That gender, what you did there. No, I'm walking out on Amazon, I'm what Wayfair, I'm walking out, right? So your employees are activists. And what that's really says to you is that you know, you don't own them, they're loaning their services to you. And they're loaning their social footprint for you. Yeah, yeah. That's they're loaning it to you. And as they loan it, they're going to be, you know, payments that are made and they're gonna be withdrawals, right? And you have to keep that in balance. So net, it's profitable. How do I say that to business people? Net profitability, you gotta keep it in balance. So yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Diane, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on this podcast and to talk about Adapt the book that you've written and the frameworks that you're sharing with businesses that want to move into purposeful business. I think it's very interesting what you're doing. I think a lot of the affiliate managers and heads of affiliate programs that are listening to this podcast are probably going to take this away and go think about how they can utilize their teams because there are some pretty big affiliate teams, you know, 15, 20 people. And I'm pretty sure that they're not thinking about how their culture, how their business culture can actually impact and be authentic in bringing partners into that story and amplifying it, which is exactly what you're explaining. So it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on this podcast to hear a little bit about purpose business, about how businesses are adapting to change and to be more authentic with their customers, their audiences, their affiliates, their partners. And yeah, it's just been an absolute pleasure to meet you and talk about this very, very interesting subject that's emerging in our digital world. Oh, Leanne, it's been a pleasure to talk to you and talk to your listeners. And uh, it's been fun. Amazing. We'll have a copy of the link to purchase adapt if you're interested in reading more about the framework that Diana has come up with. And I'm uh pretty sure that you can reach out to her on LinkedIn as well if you've got any questions. But it's it's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.
SPEAKER_01And that's a wrap for this week's Affiliate Insider Affiliate Marketing Podcast. If you're loving what we're putting down in this series, head on over to Apple iTunes and give us a five-star rating and subscribe to our podcast channel so you never miss another insightful episode. Tune in next week for more digital marketing insights and traffic driving tips, tricks, and strategies to keep your digital marketing fresh and your affiliate program driving consistent sales.
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