Michael Orr - Demystifying Marketing (#28)

This week in the Maximize Business Value podcast we are talking to Michael Orr, principal at point-Z marketing company and Mastery Partners’ resident Marketing guru. Today, we are demystifying marketing for business owners. You are going to want to listen to this one in the car and then at home where you can take a lot of notes as Michael walks us through clarifying your message, the difference between marketing and branding, how small business owners should think about branding and outlines branding process. There are so many schools of thought on successful marketing but the way Michael explains it makes it simple and doable.

Michael Orr is the founder and principal of point-Z marketing company.  Founded in 2005 and working to delight our customers ever since. point-Z marketing successfully creates and nurtures desire for client’s products to drive sales through brand positioning, strategically creative marketing, and productive communications.  A fast and flexible marketing company that does what they say they are going to do. They talk straight and work collaboratively.  point-Z is equally excited to work on a project with your marketing team or become your outsourced marketing department. They do what it takes to create productive marketing and make their clients look good in the process. Check them out at pointzmarketing.com.

Tom Bronson is the founder and President of Mastery Partners, a company that helps business owners maximize business value, design exit strategy, and transition their business on their terms. Mastery utilizes proven techniques and strategies that dramatically improve business value that was developed during Tom’s career 100 business transactions as either a business buyer or seller. As a business owner himself, he has been in your situation a hundred times, and he knows what it takes to craft the right strategy. Bronson is passionate about helping business owners and has the experience to do it. Want to chat more or think Tom can help you?  Reach out at tom@masterypartners.com or check out his book, Maximize Business Value, Begin with The Exit in Mind (2020).

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Tom Bronson is a serial entrepreneur and business owner. He is currently the founder and President of Mastery Partners, Mastery Mergers & Acquisitions, and the Business Transition Summit. All three companies empower business owners to maximize business value and serve business owners in different capacities to help them achieve their dream exit. As a business owner, Tom has been in your situation a hundred times and knows what it takes to craft the right strategy. Bronson is passionate about helping business owners and has the experience to do it. Tom has two books to help business owners on their journey to a dream exit: "Maximize Business Value Playbook," (2023), and "Maximize Business Value, Begin with the EXIT in Mind," (2020). Both are available on Amazon.
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Transcript

MAXIMIZE BUSINESS VALUE PODCAST - EPISODE 28 with Michael Orr Transcript

 Announcer

Welcome to the maximize business value podcast. This podcast is brought to you by mastering partners, where our mission is to equip business owners, to maximize business value so they can transition their business on their terms. Our mission was born from the lessons we've learned from over 100 business transactions, which feels our desire to share our experiences and wisdom. So you can succeed. Now. Here's your host CEO of mastery partners, Tom Bronson,

37s

Tom Bronson

Welcome to maximize business value. A podcast for business owners who are passionate about building long-term, sustainable value in their businesses. In this episode, I am so excited today. I'd like to welcome our guest Michael Orr. He's the principal at point Z marketing. And he happens to be the marketing master here at mastery partners. Now I've known Michael for probably 35 years. We first met when we were both young advertising professionals through the American advertising Federation. Michael was in the Atlanta chapter and I was in the Charlotte chapter. We met at conferences and have been very close friends ever since.

1m 17s

Tom Bronson

In fact, Michael and his wife, Pam were at our wedding nearly 30 years ago. So we know a lot about each other. We're going to, but we're going to try and keep this on a professional level today. So did you hear that Michael professional level? It'll be difficult. So welcome to maximize business value. Michael, tell us about yourself and about point Z marketing. Sure.

1m 41s

Michael Orr

Hey Tom. And yeah. Wow. When you said 35, it was making me feel kind of old, but, but it's true. Well, back that far, you know, if the shoe fits. Yeah. Well, so point Z marketing me, I guess my background a little bit is I, I cut my teeth in the, in the teeth.

1m 60s

Michael Orr

I cut my teeth in the ad agency business and it was, you know, it was a lot of fun. It was a great environment. They still are great environments. A lot of fun. Of course, they've changed a lot, which we'll talk about. I went from there into the client side and worked for a Kimberly Clark for, I guess I was there eight and a half years. And then I left there, pushed myself out the door during the.com boom. And I went into a technology company, which, which folded pretty quickly after I, I got there. I like to think it wasn't my fault, but, but, but I was a part of it and, but it was good. It got me out. It got me into technology, got me into doing some other things.

2m 44s

Michael Orr

And from there I went into my, my big consumer experience, which I was director of marketing for a motorcycle manufacturer, ProLiant, Moto Guzzi, Italian bikes. And I was telling my daughter the other day, I, when I put it on one of my old I'm like, I still miss that job. She goes, I know you do that, but it combined hobby with work, you know, and it was just pinching myself every day. When I would go to work, they were bought out by Piaggio. I had no designs or going into New York city where they were moving and the new guy they sent over from Italy to manage the business. Didn't like being told that you also have to invest in marketing to get volume and margin.

3m 25s

Michael Orr

You can only pick two of the three, right. I was like, okay, I to do something else. So I went out on my own at that point and worked with a friend on, on launching some products with Serta and then made a few phone calls. And that was 15 years ago. So I've been out of my own sense with my agency. And I'm a, I'm a virtual agency, which means it's just me. These are the point Z towers. You're talking to us from the point Z corporate office. And I bring in a lot of, you know, top line professionals in their own disciplines when we need them, some of them almost on a full time basis.

4m 9s

Michael Orr

And so I have the advantage of bringing senior people to the table and, and not, you know, beginning with a senior person and then, and then get football to the, you know, to the college graduate, no disrespect to them, but there's a difference in, in experience. So I do that and I guess why and why I enjoy it, you know, point Z, the name I, I kind of came up with because usually people want to do something and they've only fought, you know, point a to point B you know, a lot of times my favorite is we need to do branding. I need a logo. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, let's talk a little bit more and maybe push it out to, you know, at least at least talk about point Z so that we can get to be now.

4m 58s

Michael Orr

And so that's the Genesis of the name. And I think, you know, I found myself in meetings at Kimberly Clark and other places enough times where I was connecting dots where other people weren't weren't and it might be in strategic things. It might be in communications or, or it might be in functional areas that I had no part of, but I really liked, you know, sort of bridging the gap in those kinds of things. And so the combination for what I do now, between strategy strategic things and creative things is, is, is a good fit for me. And that's why I do what I do.

5m 39s

Tom Bronson

That's awesome. We're going to talk about your point of being able to kind of see things that other people don't and just a second, but so what kind of clients does point Z work with big clients, small clients?

5m 53s

Michael Orr

My, my, my normal answer is anyone with money, but,

5m 58s

Tom Bronson

Or they can pay their bills, right?

6m 0s

Michael Orr

No, we, we know we fit in from being the, be all end, all, you know, marketing resource for some, some customers to, you know, big, big projects within massive companies that have big national agencies and all of the likes. So we work with, you know, companies like ups and Carlisle's a big chemical company, Cardinal health care, different, those are bigger companies and, you know, mid, mid tier ones as well as small startups. So it kind of runs the gamut, probably a bigger focus in, in B2B, which I actually, I actually tend to enjoy more.

6m 47s

Michael Orr

I think it's more difficult than B to C. It doesn't have as many zeros in the budget, but it it's usually infinitely more complicated. So it tends to be more fun, but we have a consumer products company now as well, which is bullet bullet liners, liners for trucks and different things like that. So. Okay,

7m 7s

Tom Bronson

Cool. So it's one of the things I love about you is your ability to see kind of all those points, right. That are, that are around sort of the ability to be able to say, demystify marketing, if you will. I kind of call you the marketing whisper, right. Because you have a way to explain it that it makes sense. So, so what is marketing and why is it important if you could go back to that moment with the, the guy that bought out the new CEO of a Prolia, what would you tell him about what marketing is and why it's important?

7m 44s

Michael Orr

I've never heard of whisperer as a descriptive term for me, but that's what I'll say. You know, I think that, I always think about sort of demystifying marketing because certainly in the agency days, and even, even now I think the industry likes to make it more complicated than it is. And I mean, I guess there's a, you know, there's, there's reasons for that. I suppose it is. It's not totally simple, but it's not as complicated as things as people try to make it. And we also have all these marketing trends over time, you know, where, you know, I mean, if I think in the old, in the old days we were talking about integrated marketing, what did that mean?

8m 35s

Michael Orr

Making sure that your same message was on all your marketing, all your ads. Wow. You know, that's like earth shattering, right. And we should still be doing that. And there was account based marketing. And that was, that meant talk to your customers before you figure out what your what's, your message is another great brainstorm. And then, then we came out with whatever guerrilla marketing, well, that's how to do it cheap. Okay. If you got the people and the time you can do it cheap, you know, and the, and those kinds of things, and, you know, as time goes on, all those things are still valid, but it's the same thing with a new label. At the end of the day, marketing is trying to create an environment where you sell more stuff, that's it, you know, and, and all the pieces and parts, you know, that, that add to that.

9m 25s

Michael Orr

And to me, it's more of a process than it is, you know, magic, but we have that creative element in there. Right. Which is how do I get my message out in a way that'll stop people. And that's, that's something I think we've lost now, but we'll probably talk about that.

9m 47s

Tom Bronson

Yeah. It seems to be more volume than anything else. So you're definitely your simple definition of marketing is to, to make people stop in their tracks and pay attention to the messages.

9m 58s

Michael Orr

So you can develop more sales, more stuff, sell more.

10m 3s

Michael Orr

He's not doing that. Then it's, it's not doing what it should be doing. Right.

10m 7s

Tom Bronson

A lot of business owners kind of think of sales and marketing as the same thing. Yep. What's your take on it?

10m 15s

Michael Orr

So my brother and I have this argument all the time, because he is a sales guy. I mean, he's one of the best sales guys I've ever seen. And you know, of course, except for you, but yeah. And, but you know, in a lot of, I argue because now a lot of like job titles are called, you know, marketers or market marketing representative, but it's really sales. Right. So they've kind of been conflated and I think that's contributed to the perception, but marketing. And here's the other thing, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said sales and marketing. Shouldn't we be talking about marketing and sales.

10m 57s

Michael Orr

I mean, marketing should come before,

10m 59s

Michael Orr

Right? Yeah. You have to have the marketing before you get the sales. Right.

11m 3s

Michael Orr

You can have sales without marketing, but there's really no reason to do marketing if you're not trying to sell. So, so not a lot. I hate to box myself in, but if you don't want to sell stuff that you shouldn't do Mark. So yeah. That's, you know, I think that's the, the difference is marketing. It, it creates that environment that should make sales more plentiful, easier, more active, something, move people further down the funnel and sales is actually where you're, you know, you're more on the ground. You're making the pitch, you're closing the deals. You're, you're bringing the money in. Right, right. Marketing's also accused of being a, you know, just a cost center.

11m 46s

Michael Orr

And I don't, you know, I don't look at it as a cost center. It's, it's really a piece of sales, you know, to me, but it's a totally separate discipline. And if you do even a, an okay job, but you do it consistently with marketing, you're going to have an effect in sales.

12m 5s

Tom Bronson

You know, it's funny that especially in big companies, you and I have both worked in, in big companies before, but when times go bad, a lot of times, the first thing to get cut is the marketing budget, which is always shocking to me. Why, why would you cut off the spicket? That's supposed to bring leads into the funnel so you can make more sales. Why would you cut that off? That just has never made any sense to me at all.

12m 30s

Michael Orr

The other piece is true too. When, when times are good, they spend more in marketing, you know, and it's like, what you, what you should do is just pick a level and keep it. And you may adjust for new products or market conditions or whatever the case may be. But if you pick a flat level in your investment and your, and your effort, right. Then when the market goes down and you still go, right, you're there. When the market comes right back up, when it comes back up, you're still there. You're still in people's minds. And when the market goes up again, you're still keeping in front of people and getting your share. But if you do this, like you say, when, when sales go down, you cut it.

13m 12s

Michael Orr

It's all backwards. So you're not getting, you're not getting the, in the maximum value for your end, for your investment. Right.

13m 20s

Tom Bronson

Well, that's it. I look at marketing really as an investment than that. And you should be able to measure the return on that investment. I mean, it shouldn't be a simple matter of math, right? How many leads are we generating? How many of those leads are, are moving through the pipeline into a sale? You know, you should be able to articulate what your return on marketing dollars is and good times and bad times. And so, so I've never considered a marketing and expense and you brought up an excellent point. There are a lot of people do think of it as an expense, but if you, if you kind of retool that thinking and thinking about marketing as an investment in the future growth of the business, you know, it kind of reframes that whole, that whole question for you.

14m 5s

Tom Bronson

I do you, before I forget, you know, I do have an answer why it's sales and marketing and not marketing and sales, because even though the marketing has to number four, you get the sales it's because S and M sounds so much better than M and S right.

14m 20s

Michael Orr

I mean, well, tell that to bill Gates. Right?

14m 23s

Tom Bronson

True. So you and I both have degrees that we earned back when we chisel our messages into stone tablets. Right, right. Right there beside Moses, how has marketing evolved over the last 40 years? Yeah.

14m 41s

Michael Orr

Well, first of all, since I'm demystifying this, I don't have a degree in marketing.

14m 50s

Tom Bronson

Hey, thanks for being our today.

14m 53s

Michael Orr

Yeah. We'll wrap this up. Speed it up, Michael. Yeah, no, I, I have a degree in psychology, which I believe is perfect for what I do. Oh yeah. I absolutely hated my own minor in advertising because it was an unrecognized minor. So I created my own. So all of those people who hired me on that resume now, you know, where I bent to the truth just a little bit, which is just marketing, how has it evolved? You know, and you talk, you brought up ROI, right? And that's a big focus, obviously of what we do now with digital marketing in the old days, the old adage was, you know, 50% works, 50% doesn't I just can't tell you, which is which, and that was David Ogilvy.

15m 40s

Michael Orr

Right? And we did billboards and ads and TV commercials. And when you did them, sales went up, but no one really knew what was moving the needle. They just knew something was working. Okay. Today we've shifted into, you know, measurable results. And the amount of accuracy that is available to targeting your customers is mind boggling. It's actually frightening. It's, it's so good. Right? Where we're in the old days, you know, it was kinda like shooting a blunderbuss and 50% of the stuff might hit your target.

16m 24s

Michael Orr

Now we, we routinely, you know, fire at targets with our snipers at over a mile away and hit it every time. Right. Right. The thing that I think I see is that, you know, when you start talking about ROI, I don't see people really tying ROI going all the way. Cause it's an investment to actually set the goals upfront, put in the measurement mechanisms. And I'm not talking about measuring interactions, clicks and, and, and visits and those kinds of things I'm talking about.

17m 3s

Michael Orr

Can you tie this sale to this marketing activity?

17m 7s

Michael Orr

And it's possible. I mean, the tools are there. I just don't see a lot of people and the bigger guys or companies sure are gonna take the time to do that, but it's good because they can measure some effect of what they're doing, where before it was like nothing. Right. So it's, it's all good stuff. I'm, don't, don't, don't, don't think I'm not a fan of all the digital things. I'm a huge fan. What I think has been lost is the way we communicate with, with our highly targeted customers. Okay.

17m 49s

Michael Orr

You remember in the, in the old days, I mean, advertising messages used to become part of our culture and our conversations and our, you know, friends gathering. I mean, where's the beef, right? When's the last time we had a where's the beef in our discussion, it's just kind of gone. So I think that that's an opportunity right now. You've got the algorithms that do an amazing job of finding who will most likely purchase from you. If you take the time to do some, where's the beef to where you actually get people talking about you and stopping and you know, and those kinds of things, if you combine those two things, I think you have a real competitive advantage.

18m 35s

Michael Orr

And I see very few people

18m 38s

Tom Bronson

Doing that. Yeah. Oh yeah. No doubt. Yeah. In fact, it's kind of a rush of memories. I'm trying to think. Karen and I, over the weekend, we were talking about, we saw there was some commercial on football yesterday and I, I can't remember what it was, but Oh, it was how many legs does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop, one who, you know, and, and I, and I was, I was sitting on my computer doing something and Karen started laughing and I said, wait a minute. Was that really the old, like 1960s commercial? And she said, yeah. I mean, our mind clicks on things like that. You know, my bologna has a first name, zillion of them, you know?

19m 22s

Tom Bronson

Oh man. Yeah.

19m 24s

Michael Orr

I'm soaking in it. You know what I mean? There's so many of those kinds of things. And, and now it's just, like you said, it's volume. We throw enough targeted stuff out there and we'll get some numbers back. We'll just imagine if you did that volume, because what we've done is we've created, everybody can target customers now. Okay. Even playing field, we can get at exactly who we need to get at. So now what those people have a lot of targeted noise. So how do you carve yourself out with your competitors, with your highly targeted? Cause you're not the only one targeting the same group of people. So, so that's what I'm saying. I think if we get back to combining some of the old kind of way, we approach the connection with people in messaging with the tools we have today, I think is a pretty powerful mix.

20m 16s

Tom Bronson

I agree. And by the way, I'm, I'm disturbed and alarmed that your degree is in psychology, especially with everything that I know about you,

20m 27s

Michael Orr

But you do know this marketing was in the business school business school had a lot more math than psychology, which I avoided like a plague.

20m 38s

Tom Bronson

Oh, the math. I, yeah. Believe me. I get that. So I know the EBITDA, you, you know, it's funny. And in my marketing degree, I have a media advertising and a marketing and management minor, and I lacked one, three hour class to having a psychology minor because I mean, marketing defining the message and being able to speak to your intended audience is all about psychology. I mean, that's, that's, I think it's a great lead in for what you do. And so, you know, but don't try to use your psychology on me, mr.

21m 19s

Michael Orr

I already have folks.

21m 20s

Tom Bronson

Yeah, yeah. Billy. Yeah. Trust me. It's true. So say that one of our listeners or viewers wants to develop a concept for a comprehensive marketing strategy in their small business. So I know that that's what you do for clients and we'll tell them how to get in touch with you later. But let's say that they were attempting to do this themselves. Where should they start?

21m 42s

Michael Orr

Sure. I think, you know, the place that I start every time is taking a look at taking a look at taking a look at your competitors is really a great place to start with the thought of when I go look at them, what are they saying to customers about the same stuff we're selling, right? How are they talking about it? How are they connecting with them? Or are they just saying, we got this stuff, want some, which I got to tell you is most of the time, right? There is a,

22m 21s

Michael Orr

Yeah, we have this too. Do you want ours?

22m 23s

Michael Orr

Yeah, yeah. Or see anything you like place an order. So, so the, I forgot the question. I mean, not the community is usually there, right? The opportunity is usually there to do something to set yourself out. So the first thing I do is go look at competitors. I remembered the question again and, and see what they're all doing and document it. And it's not, I mean, sure. I've been involved in multiple hundred thousand dollar research projects to do that. Okay. And to stand up in front of a board of directors with confidence about what you believe the competition is saying, and here's what we're going to say.

23m 7s

Michael Orr

You have to spend a lot of money to be able to do that. You just have to in a big company, that doesn't mean a small company has spent a lot of money to do that. You can do that on your own, go out and do what I'm saying. I go and look at websites. If you can't tell what somebody is talking about, how they're talking about themselves on their website, you don't really have to look any further if they haven't done it, they're, they're probably not doing it anywhere. You know? So I look at that

23m 33s

Tom Bronson

Trade magazines, websites kinda everywhere that you might be, they probably are there. Right. You know,

23m 43s

Michael Orr

The second thing is to take a very hard look at all the features and benefits of whatever you're selling. Okay. Put down a laundry list of, of those and it's features and benefits or benefits and the features that deliver those benefits. Right. And, and then force rank them. And that's like, that's the most, probably one of the most difficult things for businesses to get their heads around because you really have to decide which children are your favorites, because we can't say 'em all all the time, right.

24m 24s

Michael Orr

Because what we're getting to is how are we going to talk about ourselves? So we go through an exhaustive process to get all your features, all your benefits, every great thing we have to say about us and, and, and, and put that down on paper and kind of prioritize them. Okay. It doesn't mean you're abandoning number five because you put number one up here. It just means, this is probably what you're going to lead with. You put it up here. The next thing is to boil all those down in, in, and, and come up with a statement, a positioning statement, a business statement, not a creative statement, not a tagline, not a headline, just a business statement that says, you know what, you're what you're about.

25m 11s

Michael Orr

The thing you want customers to think about you first, you know, to understand about you, to just know how you can, what problems you can solve for them. The statement really gets around. You know, I always say, how can you make your customer's day better? That's what the statement should answer. And if it's, you know, they're able to, to, you know, sleep well at night, knowing they have an exit strategy that will accomplish their goals. And the reason we can say that is because we do this and we do that and we do this and we do that.

25m 52s

Michael Orr

Okay. What supports those? That main statement? Usually it would come up with, I mean, we've come up with a, we were doing a university one time and I bet we had 25 of those statements. And then we filter those down. It's good to go out to your customers and ask them, does this sound like us does this sound right? And here's why we're saying that feature benefit and kind of validated a little bit, but I guarantee you, you will get 90% there on your own. A lot of times it's that last little bit is where the real gold is, you know? So, so it's good to get out in front of your customers.

26m 34s

Michael Orr

And then you take that statement and decide how you're going to creatively in an emotive human way, even in B2B, because we are all humans in B2B, which is a news break news flash, how you're going to stop people, you know, how are you going to grab their attention? How are you going to convince them to read on, take the next action? And it takes a little bit of something in the noise to do that. Then where's that message, you know, going to be, where's it best go to get in front of your customers, which is your, I still call it the media plan. We like to call it digital, but it's digital. It's just another media option in my mind and then measure it.

27m 18s

Michael Orr

So that's sort of the whole plan. How are you going to measure it? You know, what, what does success look like for us if we do this? Did I answer the question?

27m 28s

Tom Bronson

Yeah. I'm making notes like a madman over here. Cause it, cause it sounds, I haven't told you this already, but I did. You probably did, but I rarely listen when you're talking to, you know, I'm actually making, I'm actually making a grocery list for when I'm done recording.

27m 43s

Michael Orr

It looks like you're engaged.

27m 46s

Tom Bronson

Well, so, so I mean, you described a lot of steps there for business owners that want to do this, so it doesn't start with, Hey, let's get a new logo.

27m 57s

Tom Bronson

That's where, that's where they want. You know? And I just, yeah,

28m 2s

Tom Bronson

That's the sexy part of it. Right?

28m 4s

Michael Orr

Just in an engagement with a company. And then the request was we need a sale sheet now. I'm like, okay, well, why does anyone want our product? Have we, you know, we, so we, we kind of backed into let's back up and do positioning for the product and go through the process that I just described. And we went and looked at all the competition and everything else like that. And then, then I said, because if I just go do your sales, I'm happy to do it. You know, we'll do it, we're doing it in a vacuum. I'm going to make all these decisions for you not having these conversations and not, not going through the process. We'll do a sales sheet, you know, we'll, we'll do it be beautiful.

28m 47s

Tom Bronson

It'll be, it'll be great.

28m 49s

Michael Orr

However,

28m 52s

Michael Orr

So we did that. And of course the sales sheet is, you know, is now going to be their website basic. It was like, you know, which comes first. But in any case, the messaging was all put together in a, in a, in a way. And now it's being implemented in different places. So,

29m 9s

Tom Bronson

So I mean, you described it as I'm writing this all down and of course we've talked about this before. It's basically a process, right. That you're walking them through. And I, you know, we've already had Dean Ash and, and Jason Forrest, and we talked about sales being a process of it's almost paint by numbers. So if we're demystifying marketing here, it really is a process to kind of get, and if you follow the process, it kinda answers where you go next. Right. Exactly. And I mean,

29m 42s

Michael Orr

You're, so I guess I focus a lot more. Also some everyone's doing something in marketing, right? They're doing something right. And they may be investing in peaks and valleys and they're not doing are, you know, flat line, you know, strategy and spending all that. But they're doing something. The thing that I, I think that, yes, it is a process. And just like I described on the sales sheet, whether you stop and go through the process, you're making all those decisions. Okay. I know my competitors and I may not have even looked at them in the last year and a half, but I know him, you know, those kinds of things. And it's a, in the heat of battle and day to day business, it's easy to miss is a time consuming process.

30m 28s

Michael Orr

You know, that you have to stop and focus to go through. But the thing that people, I believe miss the most, it's not, not doing a logo. It's not, not putting your message out there somewhere doing a website or doing a Facebook page or LinkedIn page or posts on LinkedIn. They'll do some of that stuff, but it's not working as hard as it could be for them because they haven't stopped and, and decided, how do we talk about ourselves as different from the other guys and girls out there. And the way I describe that is you're standing in front of a room of a hundred potential new customers that are gonna make a decision in the next 15 minutes.

31m 10s

Michael Orr

You're flanked by two of your competitors on each side of you, you each have, you know, 10 to 15 words to speak, to convince the crowd. You're the one instead of these other four, what is that? Do you know that? Do your salespeople know that? Does your website communicate? That is your LinkedIn posts supporting that idea. And most of the time the answer is no or not much. Right? Right. So, wow. So walking through a process is in so many other areas in maximizing business value, it's about having a process to follow and documenting that process and doing that.

31m 58s

Tom Bronson

And that sounds like what you're doing with your clients and the same thing that, that you would recommend. We're talking with Michael, or we're going to take a quick break.

32m 9s

Announcer

Every business will eventually transition some intimate to employees and managers and some externally to third party buyers, mastery partners, equips business owners to maximize business value so they can transition their businesses on their terms. Using our four step process. We start with a snapshot of where your business is today. Then we help you understand why you want to be and design a custom strategy to get you there. Next, we help you execute that strategy with your systems of our amazing resource network. And you'll be able to transition your business on your terms. What are you waiting for more time, more revenue, if you want to maximize your business value, it takes time. Now is that time get started today by checking us out at www.masterypartners.com or email us at infoatmasterypartners.com.

33m 22s

Tom Bronson

We're back with Michael or a marketing master here at mastery partners. I call him the, the branding whisper, and we're learning about demystifying marketing. So let's talk a little bit about branding, although I am biased. I think Michael is one of the best branding geniuses on the planet. Don't let that go to your head. My call. I, it is on recording now. And so you can just play that back to yourself over and over and over. I'm making my screensaver. Perfect. So is there a difference between marketing and branding?

34m 2s

Michael Orr

Sure. I think, I think marketing is much more holistic than, than branding, but branding in my mind is probably the most important thing to make your marketing work the best.

34m 16s

Michael Orr

So branding is how people think about you, your company, your solution, your product, when they think about you, it's what their takeaway is about your stuff you sell. That's branding. Marketing obviously is going to include other things like analytics, product, innovation, pricing, media planning, the whole thing, right? Everything branding. In addition to what we've been talking about, which is, you know, your, your messaging, your digital profile presentation, your advertising, whatever, how you put yourself out there.

34m 60s

Michael Orr

But branding goes way beyond that. When you walk into a Chick-fil-A, do the employees live the brand, there are they different than the employees in other fast food restaurants, you don't have to like them. You don't have to like Chick-fil-A, but they have, their people are part of their brand. And which is probably the most important part of a brand. So brand goes well beyond the, the, the aspects of marketing. Even, even though we talk about it, mostly around marketing, but it's everything. It's, you know, one of the things we talked a lot about in, at, at Georgia Pacific was the image of a restaurant is 40% or more.

35m 48s

Michael Orr

I'm probably making up that statistic, but it sounds good related to the cleanliness of the bathroom. Okay. Because if the bathroom's not in order, you're wondering what the back kitchen looks like. Okay. So now the bathroom, you know, towels and soap and cleanliness has to do with your brand. Now, who would, you know, you went to the seat, so branding is more emotive it to me. It reaches all aspects of your, of your whole company, your whole offering. No,

36m 23s

Tom Bronson

I get that. In fact, you know, one of the things we've talked a lot about the branding here at mastery partners, and it was against my better judgment, but that, that noggin of mine has sort of become synonymous with our brand. Right? It's on our cards, on all of our literature, it's on our website. So people can, so they can see that in the colors and all of that. And it's it's, I used to tell our salespeople that when they were going to a trade show, that when they're interacting with their customer, they are our brand. Right. And so however they interact, that is what the customers are gonna see in our brand. That's why Chick-fil-A spends so much time training their people, how to interact with other people.

37m 7s

Tom Bronson

So, yeah, exactly. That's that's Brendan, is there anybody that doesn't like, Chick-fil-A really,

37m 13s

Michael Orr

I don't know. You know, when you bring up the, we, we wouldn't let anybody sit down in the booth when we were at Kimberly Clark. Right. That was just, that was just a rule. There were no chairs. There was no leaning. There was no, you know, we would do shifts. So you could go sit down, because again, if you're sitting around in the lounge where the customers, I mean, it's part of your brand, it's not an energetic, engaged company. So you do things like that, that you maybe don't even realize are part of your brand, but they're, they're part of your brand. And it's all, it is all very part of psychology. And my degree that I completed and I mean, I always think about like Coca Cola.

37m 56s

Michael Orr

I know that you, you, you, you, we always bring up the usuals, right. But Coca Cola, I'm always reminded of that one because I don't drink Cola. I didn't drink Cola. When I was a kid, I don't drink Cola. I didn't like Cola, but I always felt left out that somehow. How could my life be happy? Because if you drink Coke, you're happy and you're refreshed. And you're part of the global community. And I'm left out because I drank fan of grape, but it was, I mean, it's that whole emotional thing, you know, and that, that's what your brand is all about. It really is. And they did a great, they do a great job of it. Let's face it. They're just facing another caramel colored, you know, sugar water.

38m 38s

Michael Orr

That's all it is.

38m 42s

Tom Bronson

Or you are in Atlanta and you're maybe the only guy in Atlanta that doesn't drink Coke.

38m 48s

Michael Orr

No, I don't. But, but fortunately, because I'm in Atlanta, Coke is the generic for soft drink.

38m 54s

Tom Bronson

I know that. Yes, exactly. You want to open your coat might be a Sprite or a dr. Pepper or whatever, but it's a co it's like, it's like a Kleenex is the mic.

39m 9s

Michael Orr

Totally, totally.

39m 10s

Michael Orr

That's right. And if you don't believe me, go to the South and, and do that, you know, that's absolutely the truth. Talk about branding. Right. So, so you've already talked about Coke and of course, you know, other big companies that do a lot of branding, I think about kind of the beer commercials and they're all about branding. And, and, but how can small companies be thinking about branding?

39m 35s

Michael Orr

I think you, you mean to me, you have to do it the same exact way. As, as the big companies, you just might not have the bandwidth. You might not have the money. You know, you're certainly not going to have the, you know, the number of zeros in their, in their media budget and those kinds of things. But they went through this, they, they went or go through the same steps we've been talking about. It's just on a grander scale,

40m 1s

Michael Orr

Dale. And, and, and

40m 2s

Michael Orr

If you go through the branding thought process of positioning and branding, and how are we going to talk about ourselves and how are we going to communicate? Are, you know, that thought everything you are doing or aspire to do in marketing is going to be more effective. And it's like, when we first started talking, we all have the benefit of the, of what I just call them the algorithms. Right. Cause that's what drives all the targeting. Unbelievable, unbelievable stuff. But if you also put stuff out there with that highly targeted, you connect with that customer more times because we knew that stuff worked without the algorithms before.

40m 43s

Michael Orr

So now we put the two together and it makes for a powerful package. So I think you think about branding the same way the big companies do, you know, you have to just go through the process we've been talking about,

40m 54s

Tom Bronson

It's gotta be, it's gotta be consistent. Right. I mean, it really takes time to develop that the right message and, and make it consistent because if you're changing, you know, the old joke, every time a airline gets a new CEO, they get a new logo and they repaint the jets. Right. And it's probably because the brand is damaged in some way, you know, before. And that's why they have a new CEO and they're trying to create a new branding, but, but I would argue that that consistency of message. Starting developing a great message first and then consistently delivering it will bring you better returns than changing the message over and over.

41m 43s

Tom Bronson

Is that, does that sound right?

41m 45s

Michael Orr

Right. Yeah. And again, even if you do, if it's not optimal, but you're doing it consistently, consistency is probably more important than actually doing it. You know, the very, very, very best cause it's very, very, very best. It's going to talk costs a lot of money, optimal, you know, level and consistent. And I think, you know, you'll get your, you'll get your returns. And that's all I have to say.

42m 11s

Tom Bronson

I, I I'm, I'm a member of the school of thought that says, I don't care what you say about me. Just talk about me. Right. It's true. To a certain extent. I know you would say some things, right?

42m 24s

Michael Orr

Yeah. We've talked about here around our dinner table night,

42m 28s

Tom Bronson

Right. So why is it so important to be able to differentiate your business and really articulate your USP or unique selling proposition in your market?

42m 39s

Michael Orr

Sure. I think we get back to the example where you're standing up in front of potential customers and think of every little marketing thing you're doing in that, in those terms, you know, if it's a LinkedIn post, think of it. Okay. Your LinkedIn, LinkedIn posts are lined up against your competitors. Why are they going to click yours over the other ones? You know, if you think of everything like that, then you know, you're thinking about your, your marketing and your branding in the right way. It's how are you, how are you driving to connect with customers, you know, more, and, and

43m 15s

Tom Bronson

I think we also need to pay attention to, you know, it's one thing for the guys in the executive team to be able to articulate the, the, the differentiation or the unique selling proposition. But you got to spend time to, to send that message throughout the organization. Everybody in the company should be able to articulate how we are differentiated from our competitors. And it's so important to make sure that that message is also delivered internally. It's one thing to create an external campaign to get that message to your customers. But if your own team doesn't deliver exactly the same message, then you're just, you're, you're causing yourself.

43m 58s

2

So some challenges. So,

43m 60s

1

Yeah. And that gets back to when we were talking about your people, probably the most important piece of the brand and how they, how they think about, you know, what you're doing. We did the university one time and we started from scratch to redo their whole image. And we started with, I think we had 11 vice presidents and a president, and then we had a guiding committee of 80. And so guiding committee that we had to present each step along the way. Right? Well, here's the good thing. You're never going to get everybody on the same page, but by the time we went through that process and they had all been through the process, we had the different colleges contacting us and like, how are, how can we, you know, be a part of this where they were all doing?

44m 50s

1

It's like Mo they're all doing their own separate stuff. You know, the college of law would do their own thing from the university. And now they were all trying to get on the same page because we brought them all along and made them a part of the process, makes them a part of the brand. A lot of times they're done in a sort of a silo with upper management, VP, president, whatever you do, all this stuff. And then you launch it out to your customers. You probably need to launch it to your own folks first. And don't just tell them what it is, tell them how you got there so that they have the buy in and they understand, you know, how you got there. And you may not like the green lizard pitching insurance, but here's how we got there.

45m 32s

Tom Bronson

Okay.

45m 33s

Tom Bronson

Yeah. That's a, Geico is a, is a master of branding, for sure. So, so I think it's important sometimes to get fresh eyes on your marketing strategy. So what are some of the reasons our listeners and viewers might wanting engage with you and with point Z marketing, to get fresh eyes on the marketing strategy?

45m 55s

1

I think, you know, going through the process, like I said, it's not brain surgery, but if you've, if you've been through it, you know, it helps to have somebody that's been through it and you can guide guide yourself through it. I think the biggest reason is some, some objectivity when we went through like a big branding process at, at Kimberly Clark years ago was years ago, but it was very eye opening. And we went through all this research and talk to customers and came up with positionings and all this good stuff. And we came up with a positioning that was really good. And we liked it and, and it was a good stuff. But one of the pieces that came back to us was customer said, when we tell them something, they believed what we were saying, and that was largely in advertising.

46m 46s

1

And so this was pre social media. We, weren't doing a bunch of social media to mold, you know, a thought leader, ship position. There wasn't a lot of that. They believe what we told them from advertising. And we were like, well, you probably hear that from a lot. And they're like, and you know, 30 years of doing this, we've never heard a customer group say, we trust you in what you say. Well, we would have never uncovered that with just ourselves. Right. And so it's that those last little bits tend to be probably some of the most powerful things. You're not going to find them all the time, but I guarantee you, you won't find them by yourself either.

47m 30s

Tom Bronson

Right? Right. Yeah.

47m 33s

Tom Bronson

No, I love that. I really think that, that, you know, part of what we do at mastery is just find those blind spots. You know, you're driving down the highway and you got blind spots. I need the direction and, and trying to uncover some of those. And it's, it's like, well, so you know, my wife and I were making lunch a little while ago, we always meet in the corporate lunch room. You know, her is on the other side of the corporate offices and mine was over here. So we met over in the corporate lunch room, which is also known as a kitchen. And a, and we were both of us looking for the pickle relish. We were wanting to make some egg salad where where's the damn Raj and I kid you not, when we finally found it, we're scouring the pantry.

48m 14s

Tom Bronson

We're scouring the refrigerator. I'm standing there in the refrigerator. My wife pointed right directly in the middle of this. Is there, there it is. I went, it's, it's sometimes you're so close to something right. That you just can't see it itself. I think that's why it's so important to get fresh eyes.

48m 35s

Michael Orr

Thanks. It's also sometimes, you know, I mean, you, you don't want to recognize some, some things that aren't pleasant, so you tend to kind of ignore them, but just on the other side of the coin, people don't give themselves credit, probably see that more for things they should give themselves credit for because in business, I mean, you know, when you're always trying to improve, you're not really looking at the things that are going well, a whole lot, the focus is on the opportunity. So it's kind of human nature to be that way. I think, and someone who comes in objectively can say, you know, Hey, you're doing a great job of this and you need to talk about it.

49m 17s

Tom Bronson

You know? So that's the other side. Yeah.

49m 20s

Tom Bronson

Awesome. Awesome. Well, one last business question here. I know we need to wrap up here pretty quickly. This podcast is all about maximizing business value. And if you had the opportunity to give one piece of advice, what is the one thing that you recommend business owners do to build longterm value in their businesses?

49m 44s

Michael Orr

I think it's to get the most maximize the value out of your marketing and your sales is to make sure you get your, your messaging down, your positioning, your branding, kind of all synonymous, because I think that makes everything, you do that much more effective to me. If you take a minute to do that and then apply that to what you're doing and hold yourself to it, because you know, a good positioning is, is a benchmark. When somebody has a, you know, let's face it, everybody's a marketing person, right? Everybody can do marketing. We in big corporate America, we put people out to pasture in marketing and everyone can do, but, but you know, you, you, when you come up with your, with your brand and hold yourself to it, it's a benchmark to assess things that are put in front of you.

50m 41s

Michael Orr

Right? So if someone comes up with an idea, the first thing you want to do is is it, does it support that positioning or not? It's something to keep everybody heading in the same direction and a way to say great idea, but it doesn't fit sort of our overall messaging. It might be a sales training thing or something like that. It might be a piece of something else. So not only leveraging the value in your marketing it's I think it just sort of helps the whole organization move in the same direction.

51m 12s

Tom Bronson

Awesome. Great advice. Great advice. As you know, we ask a bonus question here, our listeners all know this, and I've been looking forward to asking you this question all day. Cause, cause if I had to lay money on it, I couldn't because there's probably five or six different answers that I bet you could give here. So our bonus question always what personality trait has gotten you into the most trouble through the years,

51m 47s

Michael Orr

I was, you have a longer list than you so rugged. Good looks is not a personality trait. No, I think, I think that, I think it's probably, I am not re I'm not afraid to be the dissenter in a group. So it kind of circles around brutal honesty and internal dialogue, maybe coming out when you might want to not, but you know, I think that's what I'm paid for and the people that call me back, that's why they call me back.

52m 25s

Michael Orr

You know, they want to hear it all the good, the bad and the ugly. And there's always some of each, right. If you, if you don't want to hear, if you don't want to hear it all or, you know, then you're not going to maximize your business value. Right. So, but I think that gets me in trouble sometimes. Would that been on your list? I know it would have,

52m 47s

Tom Bronson

Well, I knew sarcasm was going to be in there somewhere. So, so the way I've can categorize this as sarcastically, brutal honesty.

52m 56s

Michael Orr

There you go. And you know that the older I get, the less filter I have, I'm fine.

53m 3s

Tom Bronson

Yeah. True. True. But also the more wisdom that you have, right? Absolutely. Just, it goes with the age, you know, it's funny when, when you send me information, I always read it with a hint of, is he trying to tell me this? Or is he just saying this in general? So, you know, when we started for this podcast, you wrote down a whole diatribe of stuff, which I wish I'd had queued up here to read part of it. But, but I'm thinking, sitting there going and going, is he really telling me this? Or is he just talking about this stuff in general? So it was brilliant. No, no. I've already told you everything.

53m 43s

Michael Orr

I know that's true. That's true.

53m 45s

Tom Bronson

Well, that's yeah. My Michael's taught me everything that I know, unfortunately, not everything that he knows. And so, so how can our viewers and listeners get in touch with you?

53m 58s

Michael Orr

Probably website a point Z marketing.com, P O I N T letter Z marketing, all one word.com. I have phone numbers on there or I'm on LinkedIn.

54m 8s

Tom Bronson

Awesome. So, yeah, you'll see if you go to the point Z marketing.com website that Michael still lives in the days when he had the motorcycle. So it's a great, it's a great website. I think you'll enjoy that. So thanks Michael, for being our guests today, you can find Michael or at our website, mastery partners.com or on his website point Z marketing.com, where you can reach out to me.

54m 35s

Tom Bronson

And I will be happy to put you in touch with him. This is the maximize business value podcast, where we give practical advice to business owners on how to build longterm sustainable value in their businesses. Be sure to tune in each week and follow us wherever you found this podcast. Be sure to comment. We love comments and we respond to all of them. So until next time, I'm Tom Bronson reminding you to define your marketing message clearly while you maximize business.

55m 10s

Announcer

Thank you for tuning in to the maximize business value podcast with Tom Bronson. This podcast is brought to you by mastery partners, where our mission is to equip business owners to maximize business value so they can transition on their terms, Venmo on how to build long term sustainable business value and get free value building tools by visiting our website, www.masterypartners.com that's master with a Y mastery partners.com. Check it out.

55m 55s

Tom Bronson

That was perfect. I wouldn't make any changes on that.