Ep 14: Marketing for Business Owners - Fill the Funnel, Nurture Leads, Close Faster

My first career was in corporate,
in human resources, and I loved human

resources.

Just a great opportunity
to work and help with other companies.

And when I went back to work,

I didn't want to do H.R. anymore.

I really wanted to do something

that still help firms, but
I wanted to do it in a marketing, arena.

And to me, it was very similar.

Helping performance,
for multiple firms was wonderful.

And, there was a lot of synergies
between HR and marketing.

And just naturally gravitated towards it.

So if you're just joining us on Touchstone
Talks, we have, Susan Catalina from JQ,

the court,
with a strategic marketing firm

talking to us today on, marketing

opportunities and how they impact
the growth of your company.

Okay.

And he is.

can you give us a basic understanding on
what is marketing?

Right.
Marketing is key to growing your business.

It's a it's a perfect way
to fill the top of your sales funnel.

And nurture your prospects,

when and prepare them,
when they're ready to buy.

So sales, it's very difficult for sales
to find

quality leads without really good,
effective marketing taking place.

And sales folks
generally can close sales more easily

if a really good
marketing system is in place.

so what elements fall under the heading
of marketing versus sales.

Yeah.

So marketing we like to see it in
two different two big groups.

One traditional marketing
and digital marketing.

Essentially.

And what comes in under
the traditional marketing, arena

is networking,

PR media, a lot of marketing

that's been around for years
and generations and decades.

Digital marketing is where you're

doing more things on a digital, platform.

Could be

through your website or SEO, social media,
email marketing,

both are key.

And important
to setting up your marketing operations.

Not all of them are necessary
for every business.

And so that's key.

Many people think they need
to be everywhere all the time, and that's

why many of them do not embark on
marketing to the best of their ability.

You really need to just tap into
what's best for your business,

for your prospects.

And deploy them with the right strategy
and system on those.

Definitely.

So I kind of cheat a little bit
because my husband has been in marketing

his whole life.

And I consistently hear marketing budgets

cut first, marketing budgets cut first,
no priority being given to marketing.

Why is marketing
important for growth? Yeah.

The sales of course, is very important
to, growth.

And, usually though,
there could be without marketing,

just short term
revenue spikes when that happens.

But if you have a, well,
oil marketing engine

that is providing sustained,

growth for you,

you should
you should never stop it, right?

You're not feeding the engine.

You're not going to continue
to have growth. Right?

So marketing is key
for providing that awareness and moving

your customers along the customer journey
in order for you to close a sale.

So if you're not doing that
and sustaining that for a regular basis,

it's very unlikely
you're going to get the best sales,

close rates that you possibly can.

Is there a particular industry
that you work with more than others?

Yes. Most of the industries we work with
are in the financial industry.

We do have some manufacturing
and other professional services firms, but

our sweet spot is financial.

And how is that different for,
you know, what

we think of as marketing target
or Walmart.

Like the big guys are going to have

a different marketing strategy
than the people we're working with.

Yeah.

Yeah. It varies.

In a in, in a big way.

Because the sales cycle is much longer

in, in finance, professional services,
manufacturing.

But generally speaking, it's not emergency

services or quick buy
where you write on all the time.

You really need to build your awareness,
your trust, your expertise,

in the marketplace over time
and educate those folks

in order for that process to happen.

So it's a long sales process.

And, and, you know, there's a

it's it's not just an expense,
but it as you will add to your value.

Right?

That's all you really need to look
at your marketing, not just an expense,

but a long term, initiative
that will absolutely help

you close
sales, increase revenue as well as,

what's, what's a

typical response time
if I start a marketing project?

How long before I see,
ROI return on that investment?

Yeah.

You're getting your best.

ROI is going to start.

You're going to start seeing it
about 6 to 9 months after implementation.

And that's when you should take a deep
dive as to our what are we doing?

Well, what's not working?

What do we need to tweak?

In the tactics
we in the operations that we set up

and how we're tracking all of that
as well as we have to

to determine
what is working at the what's on.

Oh, absolutely.

The number of times that I hear owners.

Oh yeah, I tried that for a month.

You I said that right.

Nobody answered me.

That's right.

That's

I don't want to do any email marketing
because I just go in

and delete all my email.

Nobody's reading emails any longer.

Oh, it doesn't really work that way.

I that's true,
I do I do hear that that myth often.

So what if I have no marketing, right?

I have my sales team.

I've got my sales force.

They're out
beating the doors down for whatever.

They're whatever they're marketing
or whatever they're selling.

And, and I want to support them.

And I'm on this growth trajectory
because I'm starting to get ready

to think about what the next steps are.

What do I do?

Do I call you when I call you?

What does that look like?

Yeah.

So you are you're you're you're at a point

where you're have a nice system
with sales.

You haven't done any marketing.

Maybe the marketing you have done
is very traditional, where you,

the business owner, is the rainmaker.

And so you've been bringing
in the new business, folks,

or I've been sort of closing the deals
just right, for you.

So which is very effective.

And works very nicely.

But typically that's
where you'll see those of short,

quick every day, if you will.

Types of closed rates.

You know, one of the first things
you would want to do is, you know,

set up your marketing so that you can
predict your performance and scalability.

And you have a nice, engine
that's working on a regular basis,

bringing in leads, on a regular basis.

So your sales folks can close more deals
with qualified, leads.

So I think that's, it's really key is,
one of the first things

I, any client that works with me is we
we check out their current, presence.

Okay. Have a digital presence.

Is it, and, you know, what are they doing
to, you know, what kind of marketing

are they doing?

How are they getting leads?

How are they supporting their salespeople?

What materials even is some of the things
that we certainly look at.

So after that audit happens, then

typically we, we make recommendations.

It could be they make

have almost everybody has a website now
which is fabulous. Yes.

But it may not
but everybody's is not fabulous.

Correct.

It's, it's very it might be outdated.

Outdated is very quick.

And websites are not nearly as expensive
as they used to be.

Right.

Be updated on a regular basis
and especially in the,

I mean which I'm happy to chat
a little bit more about that

things have changed in a big way,
but certainly your website needs

to not only look current and reflect

your business as being current
and not outdated,

but it also must work
within the technology

behind things and how the search engines
are finding you as well.

I opened a website the other day
and it hasn't happened in a lot of time.

But I opened it on my phone
and I was like,

why do I have a screen full of letters
and numbers?

And it was
it was not optimized for phone use.

And I was like, I didn't even know
that was still an option.

Right.

I haven't seen that old.

It's not responsive. So.

Yeah, that's,
you know, probably ten years ago

that was a key component
to changing your website.

So it's responsive
for all different devices.

And that is certainly key.

And Google is still that's still
very important to them plus other things.

Now since AI is become

so indoctrinated

in all that we're doing online.

But it's, it's constantly changing.

And, you need to work with experts
that are working

with websites development and the right
technological components all the way.

Design is key and important
to reflect your brand and to attract

the ideal clients to your firm,
but all the development

and the technological pieces behind it
are just as important.

Yeah, I is changing so rapidly,

there's no way that those of us
that are not day to day

AI operators are going to be the most up
to date current on how it works.

Yeah, no question.

I'd love to talk about that
and how it is absolutely getting today.

Oh, we we love AI
and and and applying it into marketing is

is fabulous and I highly recommend
I know there's a lot of

people are uncertain about change
and it's clearly disruptive.

But there are some wonderful enhancements

that you can add to your business,
especially in the marketing arena.

And one is AI is being built
into a lot of marketing tools.

So if you're using marketing automation
or CRM systems like HubSpot or Salesforce,

they're building AI tools and correct,
easy, efficient for you writing emails

to keep track of what's
going on and clients of with clients

or prospects rather, as well.

I'm not saying you don't have to.

Do any of you still have to write it.

That is key, piece as well,
but it does make it a lot more efficient.

You can get a lot of work done

working with these tools
within these marketing, platforms.

Also,
there's wonderful operational efficiencies

you can get, with
AI tools to use Microsoft Copilot,

to organize and streamline our process,
we use Monday.

There's so many fabulous
there's a lot out there.

There are.

And they really do enhance your operations

and you are able to get things done
far more efficient.

You do have to learn a new method, though.

You have to be willing to step outside,

the comfort zone of Excel spreadsheet.

You know, just old school, classic email.

And that's correct. You do.

And that, you know,
and that is true for everyone, right?

You can't write technology,
or you'll your business will die, right?

Right.

So you need to figure out a way to adapt
and we as

humans are not we don't love change.

No, it's makes it harder.

But once you do take this step
or even add, you know, get a team in place

to take this step and really look,
best for you and make recommendations.

Almost everybody falls in love with it
because it just makes things

so much easier than what we did before.

Well, and I am not, a natural adopter.

I am a natural skeptic.

So I, you know, saw
all the potential problems of,

well,
tell me how you're going to make sure my

client's information is still protected.

If you're using anything that I adjacent.

And until they

solved those problems with enterprise
based systems at an affordable rate,

I was unwilling to
to play with it at all.

And so we've only recently kind of made

the steps into using it within the firm,

because I just wanted everything
safe and secure

before, you know, before
there was a chance.

And but I it's you're right.

As soon as you get used to it.

I will not be as native

as my children by any stretch
of the imagination, you know?

Ever.

But, it does so many things.

And not all perfect,

so it doesn't.

It takes more people,
which is good in my mind.

I still want the people involved,
and I still want my advisors

involved in what's being written
and what's going out

with their name and touchstones
name and and things like that.

So, I'm not ready
to hand over the keys or anything,

but I appreciate the efficiencies.

It's not ready for that just yet.

But anyway, yeah, it will.

It'll get there eventually.

Human touch and review.

No question.

But in marketing, the biggest change
I just want to say this one last piece

around that is

with the I google,

I search
and the chat box is like a large language,

like ChatGPT and Gemini and other ones.

When we used to search, you,
you would get a list of,

website links that you can decipher from,

and decide where you wanted to go.

And now that is

totally different.

Yeah. Just check now you get the answer.

Yeah, you get the answer. Though.

They're still playing around
with a lot of different options,

but you get the answer
right at the beginning.

And you don't need to search.

If you don't want to write,
you should check to cite your source

is, is is a credible source.

And generally speaking, they are
they're getting better and better.

You still need to check.
But that's the case.

But you as a business

owner
and the way you're doing your marketing,

you now need to think about your content
and the way you produce it

in a different way
to perhaps more likely appear in right

summary as or end
or in one of those chat boxes.

And there are keys, to doing it right.

There's the E a t acronym,

that I don't know that Ackermann.

What does that mean?

Share that.

So all your content,
at least at the moment, needs to be

with, thinking
about each one of those categories.

E g a t, which stands for E,
is experience.

The first E's experience.

So you have to deliver any content
you're getting out anywhere.

You need to be demonstrating
these components in it

for these, for Google I or the chat box

to kind of more qualified or validate
you as a reputable solid source

so you're more likely to show up
in either a summary or in a chat box.

So the E stands for experience
what your experience

in the industry
and the marketplace expertise is.

The second e a is authority.

You have authoritative content
in authority

in a marketplace,
and T stands for trust and trustworthy.

So this is what the systems are

constantly evaluating
when you're looking at all your content.

So it's key.

Any content you're getting out here
including

then keeping that in mind
that makes sense.

That makes sense.

That's honestly, if I'm viewing
something, that's what I'm looking for.

So the fact that we can have

a digital screening process for
that is, is very helpful.

Yeah. It's key. Yeah.

So it's good and there are ways to do it
and write it in your content.

That makes it very helpful.

But it's a key piece
that we are instructing all our clients

or drafting content
that that meets that mind.

And most really good, firms
that have been getting out

content, like your firm, as you

or you do that every time, it's
natural for you to do that.

But for firms that haven't and their story
and they want to look like they are,

a smart and firm that these are
the things that they need to be mindful

of before they can be content.

Oh yeah. Absolutely. That's
that was the origination.

I've touched on talks.

You know,
how can we get information out in ways

that are easier for people to understand
it, hear it and trust it?

Right. Yeah. It's it's perfect.

So, that's that's great advice.

Marketing is definitely involved
in growing.

Tell me how
we need to prep marketing for an exit.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think first and foremost,
a firm needs to show

that they're not outdated
or in the last century.

So a lot of, business owners,

are you very intimately involved
in the sales?

In the marketing of the firm
and probably in a lot of the operations.

Right.

And obviously
buyers are not looking for that.

They're what they're looking for,
you know predicting

value and scalability and performance.

And if it's all reliant on one person
that's not going to help

with the sale price. Right.

Because for them to build all that and
they'll factor that into, into the price.

So that's first and foremost is going

digital around your marketing,
especially around lead generation.

That is key.

So having a very updated,
digital presence is key.

Website social email SEO.

So you look like
you're in the current in your right.

Not an outdated business,
but you're at your a good business

and you will be able to produce
performance on a regular basis.

That's key or digital
and then producing leads

is also key.

Having a nice marketing engine
that is producing leads on a qualified,

qualified leads on a regular basis

that you're able to convert,

and become, you know,
a customer acquisition as well as having

retention systems sometimes as well are
key pieces, to your marketing.

So, certainly the, business

owner, moving in
that he or she and, and other capacities.

So you can move, and, build

your digital presence leads on then
it's up has to be marketing automation

and CRM so you can track everything
you're doing and numbers game. Yep.

That is key.

And HubSpot
and Salesforce are great platforms.

And there are others, many others
that do that.

So you can see really what is working.

So that that is a key, component, for us.

Yeah. Yeah,

yeah,

KPIs are really important
and people forget about those.

And it's one of the number one
diligence items.

What KPIs are you tracking?
How are you tracking them?

Where are you getting your information?

Buyers are always looking for that.

When I get an owner that goes, okay,
what if

I'm like, okay, wait a minute.

Right.

So, in a situation
like that, the question becomes

is, you know, the age
old, is the juice worth the squeeze?

Right?

At what point are they too far
behind the eight ball?

And updating the marketing
is going to take so much time.

And so.

So how far?

Like, how early
do I need to fix my marketing before I go?

Okay, now I should transact.

So just like your your exit advantage,

program you're recommending,
if you're looking to sell,

you need to start getting this in place 3
to 5 years before you're looking to exit.

To it's going to take,
you know, buyers are going to see through

a spike in sales if you're just right
around the time you're going to exit.

And then obviously that's going
to reflect, the, the sale price for sure.

Right.

So I think a key piece will be,
you know, showing this predictable,

scalable business over a number of years,
to maximize the sale price.

Right. Yeah. I would agree with that.

You know, we and we have many times

put into marketing materials
for selling the business that

the number one growth

opportunities
to upgrade their marketing efforts.

Because it is just they need

for whatever reasons, need to sell now

and they're not going to get the benefit
of that three year kind of boost.

Right? Right.

So it becomes
but there are still any marketing

at that point, although I will
I will tell a funny story real quick.

We had a diligence, item
when they ask for our marketing, you know,

they ask we ask them for their marketing
materials and, normally

it's uploaded into the data room for us.

And I had, a client say,
I need to mail them to you,

you know, and I was like,

you need to mail me
your marketing materials.

What? Yes.

Typed.

Taped brochures.

I was like,
I haven't seen that since high school.

It was, So.

Yeah.

Number one growth opportunity update
automate brochure.

Right.

So it's low hanging fruit.

Exactly, exactly.

You know, and that's,
that's the way we presented it was

this is this is where they are.

And if you still like their revenue
and you still like the,

the profits,
then it only goes up from here.

Right.

So there are,
there are some benefits of not upgrading.

Right.

So it's just an evaluation.

And you guys would go through that
in conjunction with us

during an exit advantage.

Correct. Yeah. That's correct.

Yeah. Yeah.

We would, we would do the audit as,
typically like to do so

and then make recommendations
how they can actually scale in phases too.

Right.

It's a lot to do it all at once.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, it definitely is a lot to do it once

and it becomes an overwhelming
thought process.

If you're starting

and this is not anything you have
strategically thought about before.

Because it's
a, it's a whole myriad of things

and we get bombarded as business owners
with,

a million marketing emails ourselves.

Right. Do it yourself.

I digital marketing,
so working with a firm

that has the experience is a far better.

I agree, I said I that's why
I like the fractional model,

especially in this, with this objective,
because you can have

very experienced, individuals
really give you the guidance right away

as well as execute these services
or these tactics along with you.

And generally speaking,
it can help you, give you the push

to get going at a lower price
of you, right, in a whole team.

So talk about that for a minute.

For those those of our listeners
that may not know

what the fractional model is,
what does that look like.

So fractional or outsourced.

I like to use those,
two words interchangeably.

And in my firm and other firms,

they act as a fractional marketing
department to firms,

for a

firm that's looking to exit
that and it's going to be 3 to 5 years,

we would we come in and act
as their marketing department.

It would not be a full time
basis to be a fraction

of what a full time team would do.

So, we would act as their chief marketing
officer doing the audit

and the strategy and the plan,
put that in place, so they can set up

all their marketing automation and a nice,
well-oiled marketing machine, happening

and then deploy and get the vendors
to actually assist them to do so.

Or there may even be some infrastructure
internally

that might be able
to execute some of the services as well.

Every firm, it varies. Of course it does.

Their willingness to

do some of this in their budget.

Typical things that you have to look at.

Yeah I think that those are all very smart
things to consider.

A nice way to build up
your, your machine or your engine faster.

Because you have this capability
where firm that's done it many times,

we can easily evaluate
and help you deploy the right deployed

and when it should get deployed
to get to that nice.

Well other machine
that you're looking for.

Yeah. Well, I know we call you.

And I'm like, hey, what do you think about

and that's always very helpful.

To have a sounding board.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Anytime.

Yeah. Happy to do so.

the last question
that we ask all of our guests,

if you are not running your

marketing firm, what other career path
would you have chosen?

Yeah,
I would have chosen, to be an engineer.

We've run our firm very much like,
an engineering firm.

We're always mindful of efficiencies
and operations.

But, yeah, I'm sorry I didn't start.

Actually, in the engineering, industry,
I think that would have been

a wonderful place
to start rather than circling back.

Towards the middle to end of my career.

So, yeah.

So. Well, we love it.

I don't remember what else I said earlier.

Sorry. Yeah, maybe you do. Yeah.

No. That's okay.

So we see that
as an interesting question.

That the number of people that

I've gotten chefs and

plumbers and things that, you know, just.

Yeah, I mean, honestly,
this is my second career.

So this is the career I love
and think I should have always

been drawn to or should have been
even open to marketing.

And in the sales piece,
but the engineering

start would have been the best
was certainly the best place to start.

But yeah, I bet you get very interesting
responses.

Absolutely.

Yes, absolutely. Well,
thank you for joining us.

We have said something which was good.

I think, because we can cut that.

You said something about the engineer
and the creative.

Oh, you're right, you're right.
That was really good.

That was really good.

Okay.

Go ahead. So that's pretty interesting.

You don't generally see, a creative
pairing with an engineering.

Those are generally different minds.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think most people, assume
a marketing agency is a very creative

agency.

And I think we like to look at is, yes,
there are some creative aspects

that are very important, for businesses,
but we have creative folks

that will do design
and ad creative copy, for businesses.

But the key for us
is really looking at what works.

What's the what's going to attract your,

ideal prospect through visuals and content

and writing it in a way
in which that it's going to do that?

Not necessarily.

Does it need to be the most wildly
creative way needs to,

match
who your ideal prospects, certainly are.

We're the marketing engineers of,

And that's just the way
we like to look at it.

We're first and foremost business owners.

And every client that we work with,
we look at it is like, well, what?

How can we help their business
and do it in the most,

cost effective way
and get the best results, for them?

So operations and efficiency
are probably first and foremost.

And then the creative comes instantly
after that.

Interesting.

Excellent. Well, thank you for sharing.

Thank you for joining us, Susan.

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Thanks for having me. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Meet. Him.

Maybe it.

Means we.