Transcript
Speaker: As we start to see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, middle market companies continue to express concern about customer engagement and relationships, as well as their own talent management capabilities and culture. How do middle market companies create and position their own brand effectively to both attract and retain customers as well as employees? Come find out on today's discussion with Julie Hamilton of Intention.
Speaker: Welcome to The Market That Moves America, a podcast from the National Center for the Middle Market, which will educate you about the challenges facing mid -sized companies and help you take advantage of new opportunities.
Speaker: Welcome to The Market That Moves America. I'm Doug Farron, Managing Director of the National Center for the Middle Market at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business. We are the nation's leading research organization studying mid -sized companies, which account for a third of private sector employment in GDP and the lion's share of economic growth. It truly is The Market That Moves America.
Speaker: The National Center for the Middle Market is a partnership between Ohio State and Chubb. Today, I'm happy to welcome Julie Hamilton, who is the principal of Intention, which is located outside of Chicago. Welcome, Julie. Thanks, Doug. Really happy to be here. So why don't we just start, if you could, tell us a little bit about your background and about your company. Yeah, I'd love to. Thank you. So maybe a little bit about me first, and then I could talk about the company.
Speaker: I'm a 20 plus year marketing and branding vet. I've spent my career in what we call in my industry, the creative agency side. And my experiences ranged everything from brand activation, shopper marketing, brand strategy, integrated marketing, you name it, I've probably worked on it. And I've had the good fortune of working on some pretty amazing brands. McDonald's was a big client of mine for many, many years. I ran the US, Canadian and global business for an agency in Chicago.
Speaker: And in that time, I led the team that developed and ran their Monopoly game for several years. I was part of developing a strategy for redefining the family experience in McDonald's, Canada. And then I also had a chance to develop several global campaigns for them in partnership with some pretty great organizations like the Olympics Committee or FIFA World Cup.
Speaker: And before all that, I worked on PackageGoodside. And in the last several years, I've been working on some business and health care, helping pharmaceutical manufacturers, med tech, med device companies just think more strategically about their brands. So that's a little bit about me. Intention is a strategic branding and design studio. And we really focus on helping mid -sized companies solve complex business challenges.
Speaker: So that means we don't just focus on creating and deliverables for clients. We really want to ensure that whatever we do for a brand will actually support the sustainability of a business. So that means our approach is always kind of part consultancy, part brand strategists, part designers. And usually our work focuses in one of three areas or all of three areas for a brand, defining brand strategies, designing brand identities and developing brand communications.
Speaker: Great. And why the middle market? So given it sounds like you've had some really great experience with big companies and doing things pretty much globally, what attracted you to the middle market and why have you intentionally, pardon the pun there, but decided to focus on those businesses? Yeah, I love the middle market. We channel our efforts there for a host of reasons.
Speaker: The biggest one being that my business partner Terry and I both grew up in middle market companies. So we've seen the potential of midsize businesses and we've seen the challenges quite frankly, you know, whether it's leading and growing business, establishing and scaling systems, building and motivating teams, or even creating an influencing culture.
Speaker: We've had a front row seat to what makes mid -size companies thrive or fail. And to be honest, too many mid -size companies are sitting on one of the most underutilized assets to support their business and that's their brand. So we found an intention because of our belief that branding can do so much more to support the success of a mid -size company. And so what are some of the challenges that you see
Speaker: specifically with middle market companies around creating, nurturing, evolving their brands. I mean, what do you think some of the big issues for them are? Yeah. Gosh. So I think the first thing to probably do before we dive into that is to just define what we, what we mean when we say brand, because it's a big word and it means something to pretty much everybody. You know, and attention, we define a brand as an overall impression that really reflects who you are.
Speaker: what you think and what you do. Brands are really defined by the experiences people have with them over time and the benefits that they come to expect from them and the value they place on their relationship with that brand. And so one of the things that I think we see all too often with mid -sized companies is that they tend to make this distinction about their business and the things that they sell is one thing.
Speaker: and their brand and their marketing as another thing. And for us, there is no distinction between your business and your brand. And here's why, because people are making purchase decisions about your product or service based on the impression your brand reinforces. Your business is fueled by your brand. So we often see a lot of companies creating too much of a distinction rather than thinking about it holistically.
Speaker: And the reality is that people make a collection of associations with a company, that impression of you, right? And that impression is informed by more things than you even consider. And this is what we see too often with mid -sized companies is they're not considering everything that's informing that impression. So yes, of course, it's the product or service itself, but it's also things like the physical space you operate out of, experience with personnel.
Speaker: Of course, advertising, your website, et cetera, your visual identity, those things are kind of expected. But it's also things like others' opinions of you, press coverage, your behaviors in the marketplace, how you treat employees. All of those things are your brand to your customer. They aren't making a distinction. To them, every single interaction with you is your brand, which is shaping how the customer feels about you, which in turn is driving the decision that they make about you.
Speaker: which obviously impacts your business. And all too often, I think we're thinking about them as separate things rather than really one in the same. Right, right. So are there other, and I can see how that could be a pretty big miss, right? For a lot of leaders, because at the center, we've obviously spent all of our time learning about and talking to mid -sized companies just like you do. And a lot of times the leaders are just so focused on
Speaker: You know what they do so producing the best product providing the best service and and it's something I think it's sometimes you know these things that maybe tend to slip slip under the cracks a little bit are there are common kind of mistakes or.
Speaker: If I was a mid -sized business owner, what would you tell me advice and things that I should be thinking about and doing so that I'm not maybe missing that commonality of the brand and what it means to the totality of my business? Yeah. The thing we see all the time with mid -sized companies that we come in to work with are that they've built their business based on a great offering.
Speaker: And usually, there's a real strong sense of conviction behind why that offering is what it is. And whether that's they saw an opportunity to do something better for their customers than their competitors, or they realized there was some overlooked avenue of serving a particular industry, or they realized that the future is going in a particular direction. And so they've gotten ahead of it. Whatever it is, they've built a great offering. But there is a strong sense of why that offering needs to be what it is.
Speaker: Now, here's where the miss comes in. All of that is great. But that conviction or belief is so apparent to the leadership team and ownership. So they think it's as apparent to everyone else, or that the product or service sort of speaks for itself. I can't tell you how many times we'll be in a room with a leadership team, listening to them talk about why they do what they do and why it's better than their competitors.
Speaker: And every single time, not one of the things that they talk about is reflected in their brand, in their story, in their visual identity, in the way that they talk about their offerings. Like I want to buy what you're selling, but that is not on your website. So unless you're in the room selling that to me, there's no opportunity for me to connect with that. You know, we think that we just tell you about how this product works or the texts and specs that we think make it really great that a customer is going to connect with that.
Speaker: And that's so much the approach that we see. They're just reporting information and hoping that a customer sees the inherent value. And they're forgetting that people buy what they believe in, not what you're selling. Yeah, so how can companies do a better job of that? How can they communicate that in a better way?
Speaker: because I totally get it, that passion that they have for their own business, how can they get people to kind of see that same, I guess, you know, the benefits, have the same passion, you know, get that belief. What can they do about that? Yeah, so I think a couple things. First, it's important to understand how we connect with brands. You know, we've already talked about the fact that the brand is that totality of the experience.
Speaker: We as humans size up brands like we size up people. We size up that collection of associations and we have a feeling about them. Is this brand trustworthy? Is this brand capable of delivering on its promise? Now some of that process is happening subconsciously, but it's happening. And so once we know how we feel that shapes the decisions that we make, if you think about meeting a person for the first time, you're looking at how they carry themselves, how they treat you, what they sound like, et cetera, and you're taking all those things in
Speaker: figuring out how you feel about that, right? We're doing the same exact same thing every time we interact with a brand. So if customers are making decisions about brands based on an emotional gut feeling, it really comes down to how do you leverage your brand to truly establish that relationship with them.
Speaker: It's thinking about the connections in a different way from just something transactional to something more meaningful. When someone's got a meaningful connection with a brand, the result is often a trusting and lasting relationship with that brand. Again, if you think about in the context of a relationship with another person, there's always an emotional connection at the heart of it. It's not just a transactional interaction. Because of that emotional connection,
Speaker: You're building trust. There's a loyalty that's established. That relationship is then shaped over time by the experiences people have with that brand, just like a relationship with another person. And so of course that in turn positively impacts your business. Let me talk about another element of this, which we haven't touched on yet, and that's internally. So with your own employees, and we conducted some research a few years ago
Speaker: with several of the faculty members at Fisher College of Business. And we looked at talent attraction and development in the middle market.
Speaker: And one of the things we found was that many mid -sized companies really hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about their employer brand or essentially how people think about working at their business, how they talk about their employer when they're at home with their neighbors and friends and things like that, as well as developing a really strong employee value proposition. And we saw that
Speaker: Both of those elements are really important in this ever kind of growing competition out there for talent. Are those some of the things that you see as well? Do you agree with that? I mean, what is your take on the employer brand for their own talent base? Yeah, we're sitting in the middle of a really interesting time right now. I think the pandemic has sort of brought some things to the surface that maybe we were taking a little bit for granted.
Speaker: You know, we believe, at intention, that if a brand foundation is built right, it should not only just drive growth for your business, but it should create culture within an organization and even inform the decision making that you're doing to help you navigate times like what we've all been dealing with for the past year and a half. It also tends to be a pretty neglected opportunity for companies, you know, much like we talked about with product and conviction sort of speaking for themselves that can also play out in the culture of a company, you know, and so when a brand is,
Speaker: Fully defined, it's not just your customers that are buying what they believe in, but it's also your employees. People want to feel like they're part of something bigger, that they're doing work that matters. And when you're clear about your brand, you can help every single staff member understand how they're an expression of that brand and how, what they do helps you live out your brand. It even helps them understand why the company's choosing to do the things that they're doing. You know, why you're hiring or firing people that you are, why you're pursuing the growth opportunities that you are.
Speaker: This employee market that we're living in now, everyone has got to think beyond the traditional compensation packages and sort of bagel Tuesdays, if you will, that they're offering. It's really, what are you building that others want to be a part of? And your brand can really play a big role in helping you compete in a market like now.
Speaker: Yeah. And so like executionally, how is that done? Is that in a, like a written set of values or emissions? I mean, I kind of hear about, you know, the steps that a lot of big companies take. And I worked at a big company where, you know, the values were on the wall and we carried cards around in our pockets and those types of things.
Speaker: you know, mid -sized companies, maybe resource constrained, maybe, you know, how do they go about really communicating that? Is it just talking about it a lot, communicating with employees? I mean, what are some of the things that you see? Yeah, and it varies by company, of course, and kind of what they've already established with their employees. But a lot of what we tend to do for mid -sized companies when we're relaunching their brands is we'll hold
Speaker: workshops and training sessions where we'll first bring everybody into the fold as to why we're actually doing what we're doing. Like, what is it about the business right now that needs to be addressed? And what's the opportunity? And then walk them through this new articulation of the brand and then spend time workshopping the ways in which this new brand impacts how they think about their day to day.
Speaker: and gives people an opportunity to really understand how they are a true expression, how they can really impact the broader experience and really shape the impression that customers are having. So oftentimes it starts with some sort of trading session, workshop session, but there's also a host of tools, you know, whether it's just recording a presentation of the new brand narrative and sharing that out with folks.
Speaker: giving people some of those resources so that they've got some references that they can be looking at from time to time. It can come to life in a host of different ways. And like I said, it pretty much varies depending on the company and the culture that they've already established. But it's important to be communicating not just what this new brand is all about, but why you're doing what you're doing and connecting that to how that matters and how that impacts everyone's role in that.
Speaker: Sure. Yeah, got it. So we've been collecting some really interesting data because you mentioned, you know, we're in an interesting time as we kind of, you know, hopefully emerging here post COVID.
Speaker: But as we've been tracking kind of middle market concerns and response over the last year and a half or so, initially, as you might expect, we saw the biggest concerns like a year ago being the uncertain conditions, loss of revenue, like basically just stabilizing operations. But now where we're at today,
Speaker: One of the biggest concerns actually rising to the top, and it'll be interesting to see if this holds true in our next survey, is customer engagement and relationship management. You talked a little bit about investing time in maintaining relationships earlier. What are some of the things you're seeing or maybe how the mid -sized businesses that you work with, how they're dealing with that? People are missing conferences and trade shows and an opportunity to network and
Speaker: really just visit their customers and prospects. What are some of the things you're seeing? The headline is relationships are work. You really just can't leave it to chance. That sounds like a punch, but the first thing that we need to understand is a relationship with a customer is not any different than any relationship you have in your life. It takes some work.
Speaker: thinking about the entire experience that you create. We get really, we've seen a lot of businesses get thrown off by what's happening in the last year and a half because they've been so reliant upon the sales and marketing tactics that they've been using. And when some of those things got taken away, they weren't always sure how to pivot.
Speaker: Now, some of the brands that we've been working with for a long time, they have a brand strategy in place, so that's serving as their compass. They have a framework for how to think about moving forward, and more importantly, they've got a foundation from which they can build better relationships. Those that have been building their business, just promoting their product or offering have had a much harder time shifting gears, and I think it's
Speaker: It's sort of expanding your perspective from just thinking about the ways in which you are traditionally engaging and thinking about it as one relationship and what are some of the other ways in which you can be connecting.
Speaker: You know, we get so focused on, you know, trade shows have been shut down. And so now we are missing an opportunity to connect. Well, one, if you know who you are and what you're about and the value that you provide to your customers, there's actually a whole plethora of options that you can choose from. It's just a matter of thinking about it as what are some of the other ways in which I can engage with a customer in a meaningful human way, right? Technology, I think, has enabled quite a bit of that for us.
Speaker: in the last year, which is great. But it's understanding that the traditional channels and some of the face -to -face is not gonna work anymore. So how do we be purposeful about some of these other moments of interaction? What do we do with some of the ways that we are already engaging? Let's say social media, let's say email, let's say video content. And how do we make those things even more purposeful knowing that those are the primary ways in which they're engaging with us now? Right, right.
Speaker: Yeah, interesting. So let me ask you, Julie, if you pull out your crystal ball and think about the next couple of years, I mean, obviously, if we were having this conversation a year and a half ago, no one could have seen, you know, what the pandemic did to everyone pretty much. But what are some of the things you think are going to be, you know, maybe, you know, trends that maybe works pulled forward and accelerated due to COVID or things that you kind of see on the horizon that are going to really
Speaker: you know, maybe help shape and shift, you know, the way that midsize businesses should be thinking about their brand and about a lot of the topics we've been talking about today. Like what do you think the next couple of years are going to look like for you and the middle market? Yeah, I'm, I'm really excited about the next couple of years. I think one of the biggest areas is going to be rethinking how we create culture and why, while not everybody is going to have, you know,
Speaker: everybody working from home or working remotely. We've got a lot of folks that need to be in plants or in production or what have you. There is now going to be this need to think about culture beyond kind of the physical space where everybody has been working. And so I think we're going to see a lot of brands. We already are seeing a lot of brands wrestle with how do they create that sense of community and connection to the company that they're working for and to the teams that they're with when maybe not everybody is in the same exact place.
Speaker: So I think, you know, we're never going back to work in the same exact way again. Um, there will always be sort of this halo effect of the experience we've collectively had in the last year and a half. So I think wrestling with how do we think about culture in a different way is going to be a really, really big one. Um, especially given like we are in an employee market right now. And the fact that so many companies are letting folks work from wherever is changing the game.
Speaker: You know, it's not about the city that you live in anymore and attracting folks to move there. You know, it's not about the office and the ping pong tables anymore. It's about, it needs to be about other things. So I think we're going to see a lot of, um, wrestling with that. I think we are already seeing, and we're going to continue to see, um, an acceleration of maybe non -traditional ways of connecting with customers or finding
Speaker: alternate ways of connecting with customers beyond what we've known thus far. A lot of that will be with technology, but a lot of that will be about looking at how do you show up differently in the industry in a way that allows you to connect with customers, but also stand out. And yeah, and I think we're going to continue to see this advancement of this acceleration of tech. I think all of us very quickly learned where we were well built for a situation like this and maybe where we weren't.
Speaker: And so making sure that there's some infrastructure investments to really support the business, for God forbid, something like this would happen again, really make sure that we've got some things in place. That's what I suspect we're headed towards. Yeah, no, I think we're seeing the same things. I mean, we're doing a lot of work looking at kind of digital transformation and
Speaker: digitization investments and things like that. And I think this has just accelerated a lot of that effort. So it'll be interesting to see kind of where the big investments are made and, you know, those who kind of have the foresight to leap into that and take advantage of it in the ways that you just described. So very interesting stuff. This has been great. A lot of good insights here, a lot of good advice, and I really appreciate your time. I want to thank you for joining us, Julie.
Speaker: Thanks Doug. It's been my pleasure. Really enjoyed the conversation and I think incredibly highly of the work you guys are doing. So it's a pleasure to be part of this. I want to thank you again for joining us today, Julie. And for more about her and her company, Intention, you can check out their website at www .workwithintention .com. There you'll find again, more about Julie's background and the work that the great work that they're doing branding wise.
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