0:02

Hello everybody , Welcome to

0:04

On the Move , a show where

0:06

we share transportation , sales and marketing

0:09

success stories . I'm Jennifer

0:11

Karpus-Romain , Executive Director here

0:13

at TMSA , a trade nonprofit

0:15

educating and connecting marketing

0:17

and sales professionals in the transportation

0:19

and logistics space , and I'm

0:22

here today with Michelle LeBlanc , F founder

0:24

and CEO at Drop and Hook . She

0:26

is one of our TMSA board members

0:28

and I'm really happy

0:30

to have you on the show today . How are you doing , Michelle ?

0:33

I'm good . I'm good Just

0:35

catching my breath after ELEVATE

0:38

.

0:38

Yes , that's what I was going to say . We just saw each other last

0:40

week . My hair is a mess because I have yet to

0:42

put on makeup since the show , but we saw each other last week . Elevate

0:48

Very exciting week . We got to celebrate

0:50

TMSA's 100 year

0:53

anniversary , so love being able to

0:55

serve the industry for so long . Got

0:57

to see a lot of great content , a lot of great

0:59

networking . Curious . What are some of your

1:01

biggest takeaways from the show ?

1:05

um , so this is a great question

1:07

, because I , when I got back with

1:09

my team on Monday , we had like a group call

1:11

and we were all like , let's talk about , like let's

1:13

do our debrief . What were your like

1:15

thoughts ? So a , we're gonna put

1:17

out a blog with , like everybody from my

1:19

team's thoughts , but this is also like fresh

1:22

in my mind . so I feel like the biggest

1:24

conversation that I kept having

1:26

with everyone , like throughout the event which

1:29

is always funny to me like every time I go to

1:31

an event , it does always feel like there's like

1:33

some thread that keeps popping

1:35

up and the one this year really felt like

1:37

a lot of people saying how

1:40

do I work smarter

1:42

in my work , not just

1:44

harder , because I think in our industry

1:46

right now , a lot of people are being asked

1:49

to do even more

1:51

things , like wear even more hats

1:53

, just add stuff to their plate , and

1:55

they're not necessarily getting additional

1:58

resources to do those things and

2:01

also simultaneously , like the market

2:03

being what it has been for the last little

2:05

bit , they're being asked to really look at the

2:07

things that they're actually doing and

2:09

say are these , are these working

2:12

, our efforts ? Um , or , you know , just be more strategic in what we're attacking

2:14

, or like , should we tear everything

2:27

down and do a rebrand because it's not working , which

2:29

I don't think that's the answer . I do think

2:31

it's just the market for a lot of people , um

2:33

, you know , some of some people

2:36

maybe , sure , but I

2:38

think that was like the one conversation

2:40

that I really kept having is like a lot

2:42

of people were coming to tmsa to that community specifically

2:45

to have is like a lot of people were coming to TMSA to that community specifically to have those

2:47

conversations with other people that were in their

2:50

same shoes of like . How are you doing

2:52

it ? How are you figuring out

2:54

, you know which things do you want

2:56

to prioritize and how can you kind of find new

2:58

strategies to work smarter ?

3:01

Yep , absolutely , and one of those

3:03

things that was talked about is AI

3:05

, which you did a session on , and

3:08

it is this constantly evolving

3:10

landscape there . What

3:13

are some of your most important things

3:15

that you think people should keep in mind when they're

3:17

engaging with AI ?

3:21

So , yes , I did , and

3:24

, as you know , I redid my slides

3:26

like four times because even just in

3:28

the time period , that . I was working on them , I

3:30

felt like , by the time I was even

3:32

like getting there , I was like , oh

3:34

my gosh , I'm

3:46

like so tired of this constant hype

3:48

cycle and talking about it . But

3:50

I think , like the fact is

3:52

that , even though it is everywhere and

3:55

everyone is talking about it , we

3:57

haven't necessarily had the real conversations

4:00

about, at least marketers,

4:02

haven't had the real conversations about l ike how

4:07

was this built and what is it really doing and

4:09

how can we use it strategically

4:12

. You know , like be smart about

4:14

it . We can't just put our heads in the sand and be like

4:16

that's bad , because , like

4:18

it can do a lot of really great things for

4:20

us to take things off of our plate

4:22

that we don't necessarily want to be doing . And

4:32

, you know , I think the thing that I have learned when I'm evaluating AI tools is really

4:35

to ask the question about , like what is this really looking

4:37

at and what is it really trying to

4:39

do ? Because AI tools are just that they're

4:41

tools that have been developed

4:43

to do a specific task for

4:45

us . So , like when you think

4:47

about large language models , it's

4:49

like taking a lot of words in

4:52

and trying to understand the connections

4:54

between those words and how they work together

4:56

. This

5:06

tool is going to be making some inferences of their own about the meanings between

5:09

things and teaching it to learn from what it's taking in . So it's like it's

5:11

really kind of interesting because if you think about like teaching

5:13

an employee , teaching a member of your team , the

5:16

things that you choose to prioritize

5:19

and what you teach them are going

5:21

to change how they then go on to

5:23

do their work and

5:25

what they're coming out with on the other end , like

5:27

the processes you choose to build within your

5:29

business are going to make your end

5:32

result different . So I think , like

5:34

anytime anyone is evaluating an AI

5:36

tool , that's really what you need to look at

5:38

. I was looking at a social media tool recently

5:41

that was like we added AI hashtag

5:43

suggestions , where we're going to like put

5:45

in hashtags on your social media posts , and

5:47

I was like , oh cool . So is it like going out

5:49

and like looking at what are trending hashtags

5:52

that are like relevant to this topic and like

5:54

finding the ones that have like the most mentions

5:56

and putting them in , because that'd be really cool ? I would love

5:59

if an AI tool would do that . And they were like no

6:01

, no , it's just looking at , like , what the content of the

6:03

post is and like picking some words based on that

6:05

, and I was like that's a lot

6:07

less cool . I'm way less excited now

6:09

. I'm sorry sales rep that is demoing

6:11

this to me , but like I think my whole face just kind

6:13

of went like ah , because

6:15

that's really not a whole lot

6:18

of value for me . Like I can just hashtag

6:20

random words . That's not really

6:23

the task at hand .

6:28

Yeah , I think it's about providing value and , like you

6:30

said , last week there was a lot of conversations

6:32

about how do we do more with less . How

6:34

do we be most efficient ? So

6:36

AI tools , or any tools

6:38

, should be helping our efficiency

6:41

. It should be helping the team achieve

6:43

something faster , more

6:46

efficiently , and so that's what I

6:48

always look at when I look at technology is like

6:50

how is this actually assisting in the process

6:52

and making sure that we're talking

6:54

to the team members who would be using that ? Because

6:57

, had you not asked that question , you

7:00

may have purchased that and then been like guess

7:02

what this is going to help you ? Hashtag ? And

7:04

they'll be like okay , so it's kind of doing the

7:06

things that we know how to do . How

7:09

is that making us more efficient ? And you

7:11

would be like , right , I don't know . And

7:14

so I think it's really important to be

7:16

thinking about like what does the tool actually

7:19

do compared to what do we want it to do ? How

7:21

can it evolve , how can it grow ? But what is

7:23

it actually doing ? And I think sometimes

7:25

people forget that step . They get really excited

7:27

about the bells and whistles and all the things and then

7:30

it comes down to it and we've invested

7:32

in something that maybe isn't going to solve

7:34

the problem that we're looking for .

7:36

Yeah , and it's very easy to be like chasing

7:38

whatever the shiny new thing is , and

7:40

I think we don't spend enough time actually looking

7:42

at like , well , what are our real world processes

7:44

today , what are the things that we're already kind

7:47

of struggling with , because maybe AI

7:49

can do something to fix one of these ? But we need

7:51

to like define what the problem is first .

7:54

Absolutely and with that

7:56

like we need to then

7:58

measure and understand the ROI

8:00

on our efforts and what we're doing . So

8:02

what are some of your best tips for people to

8:04

do that when they're assessing their

8:07

marketing strategy , their marketing campaigns or

8:09

these new tools that they might be using ?

8:11

Yeah , I mean , I think ultimately

8:14

, like , my approach to that

8:16

question is the same thing . It's

8:18

like , take the time at the

8:20

upfront to really think about what

8:22

it is that you want to measure

8:24

. Like , what does success actually look like

8:27

for

8:29

whatever this campaign or this

8:31

project that you're working on ? Is

8:33

just like , take a beat to really

8:35

define that before you ever

8:37

even start to have this question about , like , how are

8:39

we going to actually

8:42

then measure that success on that ? Because

8:44

that's I mean for Drop and Hook

8:46

. That's like one of our key things when we start

8:48

working with a new client is to do a strategy

8:50

at the upfront and get aligned about like

8:52

what are your actual goals for what you're trying

8:55

to accomplish ? And like , what you're trying to accomplish

8:57

might be like we want to write blog posts

8:59

, but really

9:02

I always then have to ask the

9:04

like , why Like , but why are

9:06

you trying to write blog posts ? Okay , you

9:08

want to like get more people to your website

9:10

. Okay , well , why do you want to get more people to your

9:12

website ? Like , what are they going to do once they get

9:14

there ? Oh , they're going to fill out a form to

9:16

like request a quote for services , like , okay

9:19

, now , finally , we've gotten like

9:21

two or three levels down and that's the real

9:23

like here's where the ROI

9:25

is going to come from . And

9:28

I think too many people stop at

9:30

the like , well , we want reach

9:33

on social media . And they don't

9:35

ask themselves , like why

9:38

do we want that reach ? Like what does that actually mean

9:40

for our business ? So

9:42

that's my number one tip is to just like

9:45

be be curious , keep asking those

9:47

whys and then use that to work

9:49

backwards about really defining what

9:51

your goals are and ideally

9:53

I know it's not always easy um

9:56

, trying to then build the business

9:58

processes on the back end to be able to tie

10:00

activities like social media or

10:02

blog posts or whatever it may be be

10:06

able to tie activities like social media or blog posts or whatever it

10:08

may be into . Like how does this turn into an actual end result for us ? Because

10:10

I think that's the real thing

10:12

that you want to be reporting on at the end of the day .

10:16

And how do you best track those campaign

10:18

successes ? So , like you said , I

10:20

love that drill down , like , okay , your

10:22

goal is , oh , we want to have more of

10:24

this activity , but why ? What

10:27

is that activity actually achieving ? How

10:29

do you then track the campaign

10:31

success once you drill down and be like , okay , our actual

10:34

goal is that we want to have more

10:36

sales calls or more product demos

10:39

or whatever that looks like . How do you track

10:41

then those pieces , those activity pieces

10:43

for those campaigns ?

10:48

So that's like one of the reasons I I super love digital marketing is that , like

10:50

, even if you're , if you do , set this end goal of like

10:52

, well , we want sales , we want to increase sales , there

10:54

are still all these other things that you can

10:56

measure , um to get there and constantly

10:59

be like kind of tweaking if you're seeing where's

11:02

the point along this , that

11:04

this is not working , to

11:06

still continue tracking towards that larger

11:08

goal . So what

11:11

I mean that the

11:13

simplest answer to this question is like I

11:15

use HubSpot a lot for a lot of things , but

11:19

you know , it doesn't have to be that there are a lot

11:21

of like great native analytics tools

11:23

that are out there and and , frankly , you can do

11:25

a lot of things in spreadsheets . If that's like

11:27

all you sort of have available

11:29

, um , really it's knowing

11:32

the things that you want to track

11:34

and then finding a way to

11:37

you know sort of tag that information

11:39

appropriately to measure back

11:41

against this campaign . So you know , if you

11:43

are that person that's like I am gonna

11:45

have spreadsheets , I don't have a fancy tool

11:48

, I'm not in HubSpot . I mean , like I

11:50

would argue it's surprisingly , you

11:53

know , affordable when you think about the time that it might

11:55

save you . But you

11:58

, you know , you might put like UTM

12:00

codes that include your

12:03

campaign , like

12:10

UTM codes that include your campaign on any particular piece of content that is associated to

12:12

that campaign , so that you can look at that . You might be looking at things like

12:14

source data for how people are coming into

12:16

your website . Is it from a particular social

12:18

media channel ? There's

12:21

a lot of things

12:23

where you might not have the perfect

12:26

tool but you can kind of look at like , oh

12:28

interesting , we had like a spike on this

12:30

particular day . Well , let's go back

12:32

and look at what happened on that day

12:34

and make some hypotheses

12:36

about what that might be

12:38

and then maybe use that insight

12:40

to try to set up a test for

12:43

a future scenario that

12:45

maybe we are going to track a little bit better if we

12:47

didn't have the things in place in the first place

12:49

. So you know , I

12:51

think in an ideal world

12:53

scenario you have measurement

12:56

tools set up that are able to capture that

12:58

data for you and you can kind of dig into and

13:01

slice and dice that as much

13:03

as you want , like as much as your own curiosity

13:05

takes you down that road of kind of looking at

13:07

you know how

13:09

can we get some insights out of this , but

13:12

it really is , ultimately , at

13:14

the end of the day , like the tools are just the

13:16

tools . It's about that curiosity and

13:19

, you know , having having

13:21

the interest to continue to dig into

13:23

it and understand

13:25

what it is that you're looking at . I

13:27

guess I would say also because I think it's

13:29

very easy to say , like well

13:32

, our Google ads are

13:34

the thing , the last thing that people did before

13:36

they like converted on this form . So therefore , the

13:38

Google ads are working and nothing else is working

13:40

. Let's throw it all out . And that's

13:42

why I say like , I love a tool like HubSpot

13:44

, because being able to see like a full customer

13:46

journey of like well , it wasn't just the Google

13:49

ad , they actually visited the website about six

13:51

times before that and they downloaded this piece

13:53

of content and then they , you know , were

13:55

an attendee at this event that

13:57

we went to . I can see here that they

13:59

were on this list that we imported of

14:01

leads from that event and , you

14:03

know , maybe they also had a conversation with the

14:05

sales rep there . So

14:07

I love a full funnel reporting .

14:11

I do too . I think it's really helpful

14:13

. And then something I found really

14:15

helpful back in my director of marketing days

14:17

was I actually then when we

14:19

got new customers , I would call

14:21

them and ask them where

14:24

they heard about us or how they

14:26

engaged with us , because it was a

14:28

good um , like checks

14:30

and balances , to make sure that that

14:32

information was accurate . Um

14:34

, and for the most part it was . But then

14:37

there was a little things like oh yeah , like , say , they

14:39

said they went to an event . Okay , well , maybe

14:41

we didn't have that whole list inside our CRM

14:44

because it was a smaller event or

14:46

for some reason , you know . Or every

14:49

once in a while you'll get like inside

14:52

HubSpot , or at least like us . It'll be like found from

14:54

offline sources and I'm like well , what's

14:57

that offline source ? Like , how do I dig

14:59

into that a little bit deeper ? And so it helps

15:01

you create a better understanding

15:04

of your funnel too . Like hubspot

15:06

, other tools , they let you see so

15:08

much of that journey , but there's still ways

15:10

to improve and to grow and to like check

15:13

that , and so it seems so simple just

15:15

be like oh hey we're so happy to have you as a customer

15:17

, like where , where did you

15:19

find us ? what , what did you respond

15:22

to ? Well , like just simple things like that

15:24

really helped and

15:26

helped the sales team understand too

15:28

, like all of the things that happened before

15:30

they had those conversations . So just

15:33

something to think about , too , is like following

15:35

up . Then , when you get that customer , how are

15:37

you engaging with them ? How are you making sure that

15:40

all of that work that you did do is part

15:42

of your process and you're tracking that correctly ?

15:44

Yeah , I had a client at one

15:46

point that was running a billboard campaign and

15:49

they were like , well , how do we measure the ROI

15:51

of a billboard campaign ? Right , like this is

15:53

not inexpensive . We know people are

15:55

seeing it . Anecdotally , we've had people

15:57

be like , hey , I saw your billboard and like

15:59

, send us a text message of it . And that's exciting

16:02

. People do love to see their marketing

16:04

messages that they worked on out there in the world

16:06

. But like , okay , at the end of the day , like does this

16:08

expense make sense ? And we were like , well

16:10

, you've got like a signup form on the website . Can

16:12

we just throw a field on there that says , like how did

16:14

you hear about us ? And like , maybe

16:16

not everybody's going to answer it , maybe

16:19

we're going to end up with some messy data because

16:21

, like people are . You know it was like a free

16:23

text field , but at

16:25

least let's start to see if we can get some insights

16:28

from that . And it it was like , oh , the

16:30

billboard campaign , a lot of these people

16:32

were converting from our Google ads , right ? So

16:34

if we had not had that

16:36

level of like , oh , maybe

16:38

we should ask them . It would

16:40

have looked like these were all coming in from Google

16:42

ads and like I was running the Google ads , so

16:44

like like I could have been like oh well , done me

16:47

. But

16:52

as it turns out , that was not like actually what people were thinking in their own

16:54

heads as the place that they had first heard about this and they started

16:57

their journey . So I've seen that work really well , like on

16:59

the driver recruiting side of things as

17:01

well , because , like nine

17:03

times out of 10 , it was like referral from a friend

17:05

. Somebody told me about

17:07

your company and that's so powerful and

17:09

there really isn't any way

17:12

to measure that

17:14

. You know you can give

17:16

your drivers like a referral code

17:18

and like maybe people put it in , knowing

17:26

that then you could build a marketing strategy of like how do we better empower our own people to be

17:28

advocates for this company and give them the tools they need

17:30

to like talk about it well and

17:33

bring more people in , because that's a really valuable source

17:35

for us ?

17:36

Yes , we started doing that . How did you hear

17:38

about us here at TMSA for our

17:41

memberships and things , which has been really helpful

17:43

for us to know that ? Because , yeah , we see , um

17:46

the traffic and the web traffic people coming to the

17:48

website , but how , why ? What brought them there

17:50

? Um , so it's simple

17:53

. It is . It's an open text

17:55

field , so you get some interesting answers , because

17:57

it's not like a check box , so it's not super

17:59

clean . But that doesn't mean that you can't find

18:01

value in that . Um so

18:04

great idea . Um , yeah

18:06

, that

18:11

um so great idea . Um , yeah , as we talk about all these different metrics , things that people

18:13

can add , one thing I would love to get your perspective on is like we just came from a conference

18:16

of sales and marketing people . Everyone is talking

18:18

that marketing sales language , but

18:20

how do we convey what we

18:22

do and talk to

18:25

somebody who isn't a marketer , whether that's

18:27

a boss or someone in a different department

18:29

? I feel like marketing

18:31

can be siloed a lot of the time with

18:33

sales . You bring in revenue and you

18:35

can see that pretty linearly . There's

18:37

so much that goes into it , but it's a language that

18:40

people can see in a spreadsheet and understand

18:42

or see in a chart . Marketing is a little bit

18:44

different . So how do you encourage

18:46

people how they talk to their non

18:48

marketers that need to get buy in for marketing

18:51

? How do they speak to them so they understand

18:54

what's really going on ?

18:56

Yeah , and I think that's like a big

18:58

part of the reason that I landed in

19:00

this place , of really realizing

19:02

, like you have to go deeper and understand

19:05

what somebody's inherent motivation

19:07

is to then be able to

19:09

give them back the thing that they really care

19:11

about . And it's it's funny because I think as

19:13

marketers sometimes we're really good at doing that for

19:15

our audience , right , we're like I'm going

19:17

to build this audience persona , I'm super going to know

19:19

this person , everything that they like , where do

19:22

they hang out on the internet ? What associations

19:24

are they part of ? Right , and then we forget

19:26

to do that within our own companies

19:28

when we're talking to other people

19:30

in the company , and it's like that

19:32

wouldn't be hard work to do it . Just , you know , it wasn't

19:35

in our job description or it wasn't something that anyone

19:37

ever like suggested to us in our careers

19:39

. And then once you , you realize

19:41

that like I can market myself and

19:44

my own work within my company , I think that's a

19:46

super powerful thing . And

19:49

it comes back to that kind of like knowing

19:51

who you're talking to and what is going

19:53

to be the most important to them

19:55

. And you know

19:57

, I think I love digging

19:59

into the data and having all of these data points

20:01

about . We got the most impressions on this one

20:03

. Oh , reels are like really performing

20:06

well right now . We're like we should be doing more carousels

20:08

. The vast majority of people in your company

20:10

like aren't going to care about that

20:13

. You know they might like

20:15

to come to you with ideas , like , if there's one thing

20:17

I've learned working in social media , it's like everybody

20:19

because they probably do social

20:21

media in their own life has lots of ideas

20:23

and that's wonderful and lovely , like the

20:32

more ideas , the better . Better , let's bring them in . But that's the sort of stuff that

20:34

can lead to you constantly being reactive and having to like put out all the

20:36

fires all the time . So you have to then , you know , refine

20:38

that into like what

20:41

are the things that are actually going to

20:43

be strategically important for

20:45

us as a marketing department , for

20:47

the company as a whole , and take

20:51

your reporting then and

20:53

the things that you are sharing out and

20:55

turn it into that end

20:58

result . So I think it's super

21:00

important as marketers that we

21:02

communicate to non-marketers within

21:04

our organizations what

21:07

it is that we're setting out to do Like . I

21:09

think any report should sort of start with

21:11

like here was our hypothesis

21:13

, this is the scientific method . We

21:15

had a hypothesis and we

21:18

thought this and we decided

21:20

we were going to do this , and

21:23

then here's what

21:25

happened . You

21:27

know a few high level results . Ideally

21:30

we can communicate how those

21:32

translate into some impact

21:34

for the business . But you

21:36

know , if our sales

21:38

cycle is 18

21:40

months long and maybe we don't have a

21:42

lot of control over some of the factors

21:45

that go into that sales cycle , right , like people

21:47

are being told that their budgets are frozen

21:50

right now so they're not going to invest in new technology

21:52

, like you as a marketer can't control

21:54

that , but what you can control is

21:57

, well , we were able to

21:59

get , you know , this many leads

22:01

and here was the

22:04

topic that performed best

22:06

out of this campaign that

22:09

people seem to really be caring about right now

22:11

. Maybe here are some

22:13

anecdotal insights or

22:15

some key companies . I love

22:18

having , like a target company list

22:20

or a target job title list . I

22:22

would very much encourage anyone if you work with

22:24

sort of a sales team partner

22:27

within your company , just go like , ask

22:29

those people for , like , who is your hot

22:32

target that you're going after right now ? Because

22:34

if you can then put that in your marketing

22:37

, like we touched six people

22:39

with this campaign that were

22:41

from our target company list . Suddenly

22:44

that reporting becomes so much more powerful

22:46

. And

22:49

then I think the third component of that report is just and what

22:51

are we going to do next ? Like what does this all

22:53

mean ? Because , uh

22:55

, I think sometimes we just

22:57

like to be like and here's the report , full

23:00

stop , and people need to

23:02

be brought all the way along on that journey

23:04

of like what is the moral of this story

23:06

? Be brought

23:08

all the way along on that journey of like what is the moral of this story that we've learned

23:11

and what does it mean for the future ? Because I think ending on that note

23:13

gives people some reassurance that

23:15

, like , I have a plan in place and

23:17

you know , if you continue to come along with

23:19

me on this journey , like here's

23:22

where we're going to go next and that's something to

23:24

be excited about . And I think

23:26

that's something people are looking for in their day to day

23:28

is like what do I get to be excited about

23:30

in this job ?

23:32

I think that makes sense and you mentioned like

23:34

people are having their budgets frozen or

23:37

they're in a really tight budget and so

23:39

kind of showcasing the data driven

23:41

decisions that you're doing that will

23:43

help relay that story , that

23:45

message , through to the other

23:48

parts of the team . Are there

23:50

any other departments that marketing

23:52

should be focusing on aligning

23:54

with for best success or making sure that they're telling

23:56

those stories to them to then get buy-in

23:59

for what they're doing ?

24:01

yeah , I mean . So I think , um

24:03

, we , we work on some like employer

24:05

brand marketing at Drop and Hook

24:07

, and so one really

24:10

great thing that I've seen come out of that

24:12

is that , even though we

24:14

weren't necessarily hired to do

24:16

this , one

24:18

of the things that we were hired to do was monitor

24:21

Glassdoor and Indeed

24:23

reviews for one of our clients and

24:25

try

24:28

to keep a pulse on what are their

24:30

ratings and how are prospective

24:32

employees seeing them out in the world

24:35

. But we

24:37

started gathering up that data

24:39

and feedback and giving it back to our

24:41

HR partners within the organization and

24:43

they actually were able to use that information

24:45

to then go out to specific

24:47

like local operating

24:50

companies within their larger company

24:52

and be like , hey , a lot of people

24:55

during the onboarding process are saying they're

24:57

not getting enough training , like , what can we do

24:59

to be more supportive of new

25:01

employees when they're coming on board ? Because we've

25:03

we've spent all this time and energy

25:05

trying to recruit them . Let's

25:13

retain the people that actually showed up on day one and reduce our overall recruiting costs , because

25:15

we can just keep more people on board . And they were actually

25:17

able , within that organization , to increase

25:20

their retention statistics for

25:23

that particular location

25:25

to the point where they were running Facebook ads

25:27

every single month and they were like we have to turn these off because

25:29

we don't actually need new hires

25:32

anymore and it's like you know

25:34

, I just kind of like tricked

25:37

myself out of work there , but

25:39

, like , in the long run , I'm like I'm really happy

25:41

because what I want for my clients is that they get that

25:43

overall success for the business and like

25:45

that's that's really what they needed , that they get that overall

25:47

success for the business and like that's really what they needed . You

25:50

know , I'm not here to make

25:52

money for Meta , so I think that you know , like

25:54

talking to your

25:57

local HR partners or anybody

25:59

that kind of has an employee engagement role

26:01

can be really valuable . If you're in

26:04

more of a B2B organization , talking to

26:06

anybody that's like customer support

26:08

or customer success or

26:10

you know just whoever

26:13

is in charge of like answering your

26:15

sort of complaints line , can

26:17

be extremely valuable . You

26:20

know , I think it's important to communicate the things

26:22

that you're doing as a marketer , but I think

26:24

you should be going to talk to those people because

26:27

that gives you insights into , like probably

26:30

what , what things should you be doing next

26:32

? What are the actual pain points that your customers

26:34

are dealing with ? Um and

26:36

uh . You know , I

26:39

think honestly like operations

26:41

and I there's there's not a department

26:43

within a company that I think marketers

26:45

shouldn't be talking to , because I think , like

26:48

part of the job of marketers

26:50

should be really understanding um

26:52

who their brand

26:54

is in all ways and

26:57

and what that means in all ways

26:59

, in order to then do marketing

27:01

as successfully as possible a

27:06

lot of great tips and feedback from you

27:08

, michelle , as always .

27:09

I have one last question for

27:12

you , which is my favorite question to ask

27:14

everyone , because it's the thinker Things

27:16

like you talk about marketing , success

27:18

and data and all those things all the time

27:21

. I know you love HubSpot data

27:23

. I remember asking you for help

27:25

on something and you were like I love it I was like okay

27:27

, but this one's a little

27:29

bit different . If you could go back in time

27:31

and advise a younger Michelle on anything

27:34

and this could be personally or professionally

27:36

when would you go back to and what

27:38

would you tell her ?

27:41

I mean , I think

27:43

that younger Michelle could have used a

27:45

lot of advice . You

28:04

know , I think I came up in my career at a time period , you know , in a financial

28:06

market that was probably very similar to this financial market that we're in right

28:08

now , and

28:10

I got laid off a couple of times very early on in my career because of that . So I think

28:12

, you know , some

28:15

of the things that I probably would say to

28:17

younger Michelle is like your

28:21

job is not you . You

28:24

know , like you , your

28:26

worth and your value is

28:28

not having a job

28:31

. Um , you know , I , I

28:33

think , uh , younger Michelle lived

28:35

in a pre Obamacare era . Uh

28:37

, so I , when I graduated from college

28:39

, it was like you have to find a job that will give you

28:42

health insurance within six months or you're not

28:44

going to have health insurance . Um , and that's

28:46

like a very real thing to be dealing

28:48

with and I'm glad people today don't have

28:50

that particular challenge . But

28:53

I think it's very

28:56

easy to feel

28:58

like being

29:00

successful in work looks

29:02

one particular way and

29:06

that's kind of like that financial success

29:08

and like having a company that

29:11

is going to kind of take

29:13

you somewhere and what I learned and what

29:15

I think eventually brought me to going on

29:17

this like entrepreneurial journey is

29:19

like you don't have to be

29:21

bound by those

29:25

particular constraints . You

29:28

can choose to say like I think

29:30

things could be better and I'm going to do it my

29:32

own way , which is , you

29:34

know , still every day I wake up and do it

29:36

a scary thing to do . But

29:38

I think also there's a component in

29:40

there that's like know

29:43

your worth and what's important to you and

29:45

don't be afraid to ask for it

29:47

. So I think

29:49

you know , young Michelle , maybe

29:52

consider negotiating your salary . Future

29:56

Michelle will thank you for that . And

29:58

also you know now , today

30:00

, sitting here , like I

30:02

still have to work on my negotiating skills

30:05

. So I think the sooner you can kind of figure that

30:07

out and like understand what your worth is

30:09

and not be afraid to ask for it , that's something

30:11

that anyone could stand

30:14

to have more of in their life

30:16

. And it's not always financial

30:19

right , like sometimes it's knowing that you want

30:21

more flexibility in your

30:23

career , which is certainly part of the reason that I

30:25

decided to start my company was like I

30:27

wanted to be able to have flexibility

30:30

to spend time with my son or

30:32

to live in a

30:35

different part of the country than where my

30:37

former employer lived and

30:40

you know , nowadays we all have

30:42

much more remote work options

30:44

, but at the time that was not necessarily

30:46

as easy much more remote

30:48

work options , but at the time that was not necessarily as easy

30:51

.

30:53

Sure , I think that's really good advice trusting in yourself and being honest with yourself about what

30:56

you care about . That remote work piece has been extremely important

30:58

to me for a really , really long time and

31:01

I kept doing jobs that

31:03

didn't have that and like couldn't figure

31:05

out why , um , it

31:07

wasn't a good fit . And then finally I was like , oh , you

31:09

do best in your home because

31:12

you are in gremlin mode for many

31:14

hours in the morning before you

31:16

see other humans and waking up

31:18

in the house , like I'm much more productive

31:20

if I just walk downstairs , pour my coffee and start

31:22

work . Um , I don't do like great with

31:25

like small talk in the morning . So like being

31:27

in an office environment for me is tricky . It's

31:29

not that I'm not a personable or friendly human . I

31:31

just I'm not a morning person . It's just a

31:33

fact . So just like really

31:35

understanding yourself is really really good advice

31:39

. Thank you for being on the show today . If

31:41

anyone listening wants to hang out with me

31:43

and Michelle , come to TMSA's

31:45

executive summit , which is going to be

31:47

October 10th through 11th in Hoboken

31:50

, New Jersey . Registration is now open

31:52

. So we're getting our final

31:54

touches on our educational lineup

31:57

there , but really , really excited for

31:59

that event . We of course just

32:01

wrapped up Elevate , so taking in all

32:03

the surveys , all the feedback and seeing where

32:05

we can go . But if you didn't know , we

32:07

are headed to Austin , T texas

32:10

, next year for TMSA Elevate

32:12

. So I'm really excited . And

32:14

then one more thing that we still have rolling

32:16

here at TMSA is our Mountain

32:19

Mover Award . So we announced

32:21

our Rising Stars and all our Trailblazers and Purpose

32:24

Award winners already this year , but we still

32:26

have our Mountain Mover . So if you know a

32:28

top sales or marketing person

32:30

in the industry , go ahead and nominate them before

32:32

August 2nd . That was

32:34

a mouthful , but like to update all

32:37

things TMSA . But thank you so much

32:39

, M michelle , for coming on the show and sharing

32:41

your insight . We really appreciate it and

32:43

I hope everybody has a great day . Thank

32:46

you ?

32:46

Yeah , thank you for having me . See

32:48

you in Hoboken .