Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to The Market That Moves America, a podcast from the National Center for the Middle Market. The center is the leading source of knowledge, leadership and innovative research on the middle market economy. Throughout our podcast, we will feature middle market leaders and stakeholders to hear their real world perspectives on trends and emerging issues.
Speaker: Welcome to the Market That Moves America. My name is Doug Farron, Executive Director of the National Center for the Middle Market, located at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business.
Speaker: As most of you probably know, we talk to a variety of thought leaders and experts and partners and middle market companies. And ah this episode in particular, I'm really excited about because we get to talk to one of our partners who's had a really big role in helping shape the direction and ah growth, really, quite honestly, of the center over the last 15 years. And so our guest today is ah Jason Malicki, who's the principal of Rattleback.
Speaker: And just welcome to the podcast, Jason. Hey, thanks, Doug. excited to be here Yeah. So we're going to cover a bunch of different things. I mean, just from the broad point of view around the work that we do and and some of your thoughts and you know what you see across the landscape. And then we'll get into more of the NCMM specific things. But before we do that, um could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your career and then you know what what Rattleback does?
Speaker: Yeah, of course. So aye I have, you and I actually graduated business school together in 2001. So Doug and I have known each other for a really long time. And i always describe my career since then as sort of like, there's like two decades almost, I guess it's more than that now. But I had sort of decade one, that was basically a brand consultant. And a lot of the work that we did, I came right into the agency universe, was very heavy on the creative side of brand building. So it was logos and identity systems and web designs and visual tool sets that were used to represent a brand of a marketplace, mostly B2B stuff. And then about 10 or 15 years ago, we made a transition kind of at the onset of the content marketing movements to go really into deeply into thought leadership, consulting and development. So it became a lot of you know primary research oversight and development and assistance in developing points of view and helping subject matter experts turn their kind of mushy noise in their head into compelling arguments
Speaker: and then downstream all the content that comes from that. So whether it's research reports or articles, or blog posts or podcasts or webinars, right? um And it's funny because the center is one of the few clients we've had with us for that whole journey. And actually in a lot of ways, the center is a big part of that journey because we kind of went through both of those phases of the center's journey alongside it. And we were kind of evolving our agency ah along the way. So it's kind of cool.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome. So that leads really right into my first question, which is because you work with, you know, a variety of different clients and you just described that process of taking, you know, various data points and points of view and, you know, creating actual thought leadership. What role do you see that in the business world at this point? And how are businesses either using thought leadership effectively or perhaps not leveraging it fully? That's a good one. I, um,
Speaker: Well, yeah, I feel like the, the, the market commoditizes everything way faster than ever. Like I think about when we got out of business school 20 years ago, the the market for anything was a little smaller. And you think about even my own business, you know, when I was going in the agency business, you had a handful of competitors and you mostly competed within a local geography left, got blown up a long time ago. Right. So, you know, you're competing with the world, competing with the world for every, every spend, you're competing with the world for attention. So I feel like it's particularly in in and high stakes, complex B2B purchases, it's it's belief systems and point of view that create separation. And that's really all you have at this point because everything else has been commoditized away. And I see this in in big transactions, consulting services, financial services, you know the point of view that the firm brings to the market is maybe the key point of separations.
Speaker: I see it in investment decisions. We have venture capital clients where even capitalism and commoditized the idea that, you know, a pork kill, I'll call it, is looking for money from a capital partner. They're they're in competition with each other.
Speaker: And a lot of times the point of separation is what's the belief systems for, you know, this VC versus that VC. And I even threw it on their investments as well. You think about like SpaceX right now, SpaceX is commanding a massive premium relative to the market. And all of that is,
Speaker: Musk's point of view on the future. And so it's like thought leadership is kind of evading everything. um so So that's how I tend to look at it misuse. You know, I love that question, because I feel like the biggest misuse we see is that it's seen as a marketing tactic. It's seen as like, well, we just need something to fill this week's newsletter or this month's newsletter. And it's really not. and You and I have talked about this a lot over the years. And In that the center produces such amazing original primary research and the the best sponsors recognize that that research should be what they're using to create differentiated IP. It's, know, it's giving you insight that nobody else has to create products and services. Nobody else can.
Speaker: Right. And that's really what they should be doing with it. And the best sponsors do when we see it. Yeah. And the ones that struggle don't, they just see it as just, you know, checking a box on the marketing list.
Speaker: Yeah, right, right. So so you you kind of described that commoditization of everything and, you know, a great kind of background as to how this has evolved over the 15 years that we've worked together. What do you think are some of the changes that are going to be happening in the future? If you could, you know, predict the next three to five years, what do you think thought leadership is heading?
Speaker: I think it's going to stay a lot on the trend that's on right now. you know I think there's sort of like, I put this in two dimensions. there's There's the format dimension, which is that we were in a world where thought leadership was written and read.
Speaker: So it was books and long form research reports, and those were consumed and read by by clients. and and And that's certainly shifting and will continue to shift to you know, it being produced and consumed, you know, so produced as podcasts and videos and multimedia experiences that are more, I used to talk a lot about lean in and lean back, this idea that this is lean back content. I don't have to work so hard to get it. I can just listen, stick it in my ears.
Speaker: And I think the second shift, and you're at the heart of this too, is a shift from brands to people. So there's like, like like there's just been a huge shift in where, what people trust. They don't necessarily trust institutions and brands as much as they used to they're more leaning into trusting people. So they're turning the thought leaders away from, from organizations a little bit.
Speaker: I just think you're going to see both of those trends continue to accelerate um as we look ahead. Cause I think that that that's already kind of left the, you know, left the stable or whatever the terminology is.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. So i have to ask this question because i don't think there's a day that, you know, for either of us that goes by that AI isn't part of various conversations.
Speaker: So how are you seeing AI as it relates to thought leadership? Is it a threat? Is an opportunity? Is it both? Because, you know, I think there is this misconception that like, oh, it's it's just going to do everything for us. But at the same time,
Speaker: it just is aggregating information. So I'm just curious, like if you see this as a, it'll even put place more importance on having really good original thought leadership that yes, AI can then source and spread, you know, even more rapidly than, than what we're doing today.
Speaker: Yeah. I think you you hit the nail on the head. I say it's a yes and right. It's yes, it's a thread and yes, it's an opportunity. I mean, on the, on the consumption side, the thread is exactly what you just said, which is that,
Speaker: when someone queries AI, always try to tell our clients what AI is essentially doing is it's, it's taking all of the narratives, all the points of view in the marketplace, and it's sort of consolidating them into one kind of cohesive story. It's sort of a, it's a mass aggregator of, of opinions and, and, and hopefully of research and insight.
Speaker: So on the one hand, it's, I, I, the last couple of years I've been saying it functions sort of like an interloper, like all of a sudden there's this like, entity sitting between the the the the publisher and the and the client or like or the consumer that's sort of synthesizing what's going on and it may get it right, it might get it wrong. So in that sense, it's a huge threat.
Speaker: yeah On the flip, it's sort of ah it's sort of a huge opportunity in that what we are seeing is that entities like the center or people that have been leading voices for some time, i' sorry,
Speaker: um have built up this repository of insight and AI of us, of course, is mining that repository. And then it's constantly referencing that because you look at the center, the center's got this huge body of original primary research that nobody else has on topics nobody else has covered.
Speaker: And so when someone's trying to understand the middle market and how it moves, we're going to show up in citations more than not. Yeah. and I mean, and it was interesting, you know, as we get ready for our new website kind of relaunch and all that, just how much that has changed, you know, thinking about going from search engine optimization to AI optimization, right? I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly. yeah I think we're yeah you're back to your question of where it's headed. I think there's a reasonable future where there is thought leadership that has developed and with the intense purpose of it being consumed by
Speaker: an AI bot that no one's ever going to read this. That's not the point of producing it. It's trying to be visible for, you know, another experience of some kind, which is, you know,
Speaker: mind-bending for those of us who've been doing this for a while. Yeah. Well, let's um shift gears a bit and talk more specifically about the NCMM. So, know, remember um in the very early days, I mean, I'm talking like literally days after I started in 2011, you know, i gave you a call and, um,
Speaker: You know, is we needed a a ton of help because we were building something completely from scratch um startup in that sense. And so when when you first started engaging with us and helping us out, I mean, did you first of all, did you know much about the middle market? And then, you know, what were your initial impressions of seeing this partnership between Fisher College of Business, GE Capital,
Speaker: like the creation of a center that would focus just on the U.S. middle market? Well, you know, it's funny, Doug, I can actually remember the exact moment I first heard of the center.
Speaker: And i I was at Fisher, as a matter of fact, at the time. So I was on campus in a meeting. At the time, we were part of another institute at the at the university. And I was sitting in the meeting and and the head of that institute walked into me and So, hey, they just got this National Center for the Middle Market thing just got funded here at the the the university. He's like, what what is that? What's the middle market? I don't know what that is.
Speaker: And I was like, I'm not really sure either. And kind of but I was like, I was fuzzy too. And so um I remember that moment. And I remember it at first when I first saw it, I was kind of scratching my head. I'm like, I don't i don't really know what that means.
Speaker: um and then And then it's funny as I got a little bit into it when we started working together, I came to realize it actually might been might have been one of the most visionary deployments of organizational marketing capital i've ever seen.
Speaker: And on both sides, you know, on the one side, you had GE Capital, which was the founding sponsor that had this vision that we're going to, to our earlier conversation about thought leadership, we're going to create a point of separation in capital. So we're going to say, we're not just giving you money for financing equipment. We're also giving you valuable insight on how to grow a middle market company.
Speaker: that's huge, right? That's a, so that's a huge play. Right now on the flip side, Fisher looked at this because, because as i understand it, I could be wrong, but G asked for a research report and Fisher was like, no, you need a whole center and talk about that level, level of visionary look at what you need. You need a, you a strategic ongoing investment in insights, not just one one off.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, So looking back, I didn't see it at the time. i was didn't I didn't understand it. But but you know about a year in, I was like, oh, wait a minute. This is actually one of the smartest things I've ever seen. it's pretty cool Yeah, I mean, we could do an entirely separate episode about that whole first year, right? All the things that we went through. But um so like in terms of the brand, you and the Rattleback team, and we really really created a new brand entirely from scratch. Describe that you know very briefly and kind of what you learned from it or some of your takeaways.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, it's funny because this was actually one of the last major you know brand builds that we did. And our process at the time was highly evolved by the time we got here. And had been doing this for 10 or 15 years. and And we had a really iterative, collaborative process that we framed over time that would bring you and other people into the process of of sort of creating brand assets and defining brand vision and brand mission and all that kind of language.
Speaker: um Because branding is such a subjective thing. And we I learned over the years doing it that the the more involved you can bring your client into that process and make them feel part of the creative journey, ah hu but the much better likelihood you have of getting a high quality outcome for everyone involved.
Speaker: and um And it was hard because like you said, you've got two huge brands coming together, you know, and everyone's got a strong opinion about what this should look like. And everybody wants their brand to own the day. Like it's GE wants it to be theirs and Hostey wants it to be theirs. And we're kind of stuck in the middle, you know, trying to figure it out.
Speaker: And it was not easy, but it was fun. It was a lot. Yeah. no so Well, you know, I kind of had similar experiences lack of knowledge about the middle market when I was brought in for this role. And I think one of the things I learned, and actually I continue to to lean on this every day, is having a supply chain management background, I was used to dealing with a lot of different partners, right? Because you're, and coming out of a retail world, I had to deal with you know suppliers, ah store operations folks, marketing folks. like
Speaker: as I was kind of used to being in the middle of in the hub of and with a lot of spokes and relationships. And so you see us now like we work with RTI Research and we have sponsors and we have faculty and we have other part partners. And so what do you see like is the most interesting or frustrating aspects working across all those different partnerships?
Speaker: One is is you're you're exceptional at this, by the way. I wanted to tell you that because you are so good at at sort of like managing all of these different partners and it's a hard job.
Speaker: um I think that the the answer is is is the same for both interesting and frustrating. And that is that what continually amazes me is how... we can take the same set of data and everybody sees something different in that data. They latch onto to something different. Like I listened to the last episode you do with Roger Bailey and the thing, and I spent a lot of time with the MMI twice a year and the things that he latched onto about the data from, from June of 26 was radically different than what I latched onto. The conclusions he drew were radically different. And it's like, that's the thing that always blows my mind. Right. It's like, I didn't see that at all.
Speaker: And, um, And then I think, but, and that, and that's what can be challenging, right? Is it's like, it's not really frustrating as much as it's challenging because everyone's got a ah narrative they see. And our job is to somehow make a narrative that's, that's cohesive, that represents all those voices.
Speaker: And, um, we're fortunate we have, you know, as you know, we have a great writer that is really good at this and she's done it so many times now that it's makes, um, that process a whole lot easier.
Speaker: yeah but doesn't make it easy. It's never easy. Right. Well, so that this we're now in I mean, we're going to be celebrating 15 years here very shortly. And um I wanted to ask, since you've been involved literally since the you know the the early days, how have you seen NCMM evolve over the years? And ah are there things that you know might be good opportunities for us to to do better or pick up on or pivot to um in the future?
Speaker: You know, think there's so many things that the center has gotten better at over that time. Right. It's like um my dad always used to say to me, he's like, you don't want to be someone who does. yeah you can either have 15 years of experience or you can have one year of experience 15 times. And the center is certainly the former. um I think the the focus, right? Like I think over time, you in particular in the center has just gotten more and more focused on what it does really well and what it doesn't do really well. There were times early on when we were getting pulled in all kinds of directions to do things that were completely out of our wheelhouse and it was making it really hard. And the focus on, hey, we are a research center and we are really good at that.
Speaker: has just tightened up over time. I think the research quality has gotten better and better because we're better at binding topics. Like early on, it was like, you know, we didn't really think as critically as we needed to about how to bind a research topic the way we do now with sponsors. And sponsors come in and they don't know what they want to talk about.
Speaker: You just say, well, we're not going do that until we get it more clear. right right well now and And you and I also talk a lot about like, research lens, you know, like going from research that was about the middle market that research is for the middle market. I think that's a big leap that's been made.
Speaker: That's harder than people think. um I think the other big thing I would say for you guys that I love watching, I've loved watching over time is just how you've stepped into the voice and stepped into the role of thought leader, you know, the thought leader on the U.S. middle market and and kind of filled that void and owned it Um, and so that's been fun to watch as that's happened.
Speaker: Um, and the last thing I'll say is like, you know, we're just leaning into this now, but just the longitudinal data set that nobody else has. And that's like amazing. Right. And, and that, and that comes with fortitude and patience. Like, you know you in particular have done a great job of saying, well, we're building this repository over time and we're not going to lose sight of that mission. We're not going to let shiny objects pull us off, off the mission.
Speaker: Yeah, it's not many long term thinkers that do that Well, i I appreciate those comments because it's it's not like there's a playbook on how to run a really good center. i mean, I lean on my peers across the university and you know I've talked to institutes, you know, nonprofit and within universities, outside of universities, and everybody does this differently.
Speaker: And I think one of the things that I like to ah one of my favorite kind of practices is this concept of try things and then pivot quick, like fail fast. Right. Like if you see it's not working, don't just drag it on and on and on because you feel like you have to just drop it and move on to the next thing. And i think the college and all of our sponsors have given us a lot of freedom to be able to do that effectively. so That's been um pretty rewarding. and i guess another question, Jason, over the 15 years, like any, di i would say let maybe limit it to one or two, like memories or experiences or projects that really kind of stand out for you, either for their effectiveness or for some other reason, doesn't matter, but just kind of curious about that. Yeah.
Speaker: There's so many. I mean, you and i could do a whole podcast on that. yeah and I mean, there's so many stories and so many interesting things. I mean, obviously, all the summits were amazing. You know just hearing Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney and George W. Bush speak was just mind boggling.
Speaker: um For me, there's there's specific research projects that just I found the insights so compelling. The private equity study that dropped in the last 12 months just kind of turned the entire narrative on private equity upside down.
Speaker: And that was really cool. The cloud report was also like that, where it just it just shined a light on really what's going on and really where cloud adoption is and is not.
Speaker: And it was the same thing. um I'll also say personally, I was thinking about it when when i when you threw this question at me, I thought about one of my favorite memories, honestly, was you and I in a room.
Speaker: Like you're like a couple of weeks into the job and we're basically architecting a website that we built in three weeks and a brand architecture, like didn't like it an afternoon. And now here you are 15 years removed and it's you know this this incredibly thriving entity. is That's pretty cool to think back to just kind of doing that in a kind of grassroots way like we did.
Speaker: Yeah, well, yeah, that's what it makes it really fun, you know, to think that there's not many things that are like yet to be discovered or untouched, particularly around business topics.
Speaker: And, you know, I like to say that the topics themselves may not be you know, new but the lens, as you were describing on a couple of those projects, like the lens upon which we're sharing these insights are absolutely brand new.
Speaker: Like no one's ever talked about them from the perspective of middle market companies. And so that's, what's made this rewarding. i Even think about the supply chain study you guys did, yeah where you're looking at the supply chain from the other direction, which no one else is really doing, you know, so that was, consider it's really cool.
Speaker: yeah So I'm going to close with, we always usually close these episodes with, you know, sharing advice for the audience. We do have a lot of middle market leaders who um listen to the podcast. So what advice would you give Jason for middle market, you know, owners, founders, CEOs, founders,
Speaker: ah how they should think about using a resource like the NCMM. I mean, we we like to think that we have a lot of you content and tools and things that can be accessed, but what would you say to a middle market company who, you know, maybe new to the NCMM and is trying to figure out the best way to leverage it?
Speaker: Yeah, i think there's two two activities you want to focus on. One is benchmarking. You know, so the um MMI that releases twice a year is an incredible tool to benchmark ah your performance, just how are you doing on various dimensions? and And maybe how are you thinking about your business relative to your peers? Are you less confident, less optimistic?
Speaker: Where is your headspace relative to everybody else in the in the market? And you can filter that down by industries and size and geographies. and It's what's amazing, right?
Speaker: um And the flip of it is best practices in that, you know, the the the the flagship research that you guys do And increasingly, the case studies that that are out there are just incredible um windows into decision-making, seeing how other leaders you know navigated di you know tasks like yours, whether it's digitizing the finance function or navigating ah an exit or ah or ah or an acquisition.
Speaker: There's both data on that and there's stories on that. And and that and so i think it needs to be one of your first turn-tos it's all on, how do i put this? it's it's not It's not driven by a desire to sell something the way a consulting firm writes a case study, right? I mean, it's it's driven by a desire for clarity and truth.
Speaker: And so you're getting, you know, unfettered opinions or experiences from from other leaders like you, which you can't really get in many places, right? Usually it's, it's you know, it's shaded by someone selling software or services. Right, right.
Speaker: right So that's not the case here. yeah Well, um yeah, I mean, the the reason we wanted to have you on is because you're like, there are only a handful of people now that have been here for the entirety of this journey. And so I thought it'd be really interesting to kind of walk through that a bit and kind of hear some of your perspectives. So appreciate the time and the insights. And, you know, we kind of alluded to this through some of the conversation, but we've had a lot of things going on this year with this year. Yeah.
Speaker: celebration, kind of a preview for the audience. And we're going to be releasing a lot of analysis, content, new insights across this huge data set that we've been building over 14 plus years. And so all that work's been happening you know throughout the the the balance of 2026, new website launching here soon. We've got national middle market week coming up and ah yeah you've played a role in all that, Jason. So appreciate all the partnership and you know thanks for ah for chatting on the episode.
Speaker: Yeah, no, thank you for having me. it's it's it's been ah Honestly, it's been a privilege. It's been a privilege doing this work for the last 15 years and being a part of it and seeing, helping to take this thinking to market. It's been wonderful. So thanks for me.
Speaker: So yeah if ah if you'd like to learn more about Jason's firm, Rattleback, they're at rattleback.com. Very unique name. a lot of people ask me, and what is that? Rattleback? But yeah, go check out their site. You can learn more about Jason and his his firm.
Speaker: And we will look forward to talking to everybody next time. Thank you. Thanks, Doug. Thank you for listening to The Market That Moves America. Never miss a new episode by subscribing anywhere podcasts can be found.
Speaker: You can also subscribe to our email newsletter at middlemarketcenter.org.
