Marketing Accountability: Full Written Transcript

MATT: Hello and welcome back to Midwest Mindset, the podcast that gives small business owners the big agency secrets to marketing. I’m Matt Tompkins of two Brothers Creative, where we believe every business deserves affordable and effective marketing. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. Great companies have high cultures of accountability. When people feel accountable and included, work is more fun, it’s more productive and more profitable. And your marketing is no exception.

Accountability is the key to success in marketing, and when marketers are held accountable for their actions, they’re more likely to make decisions that are in the best interests of their company. This leads to increased sales, improve customer satisfaction, and a stronger brand overall. Accountability is not always easy, but it is essential for success in marketing.

Every overnight success story is 15 years in the making. That’s one of my favorite quotes, and I don’t even know who’s who it’s credited to anymore. I think Bezos tried to hijack the credibility of that quote at some point. It’s been said over and over again, but it’s so true. As entrepreneurs, business owners, we. We work hard. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re putting in the work. You know, we’re working these long hours, seven days a week. It’s stressful, high anxiety. But when it comes to the actual work that’s being done, unfortunately a reason many most businesses fail after just 3 to 5 years is because they didn’t put in the right work. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. And today is all about accountability. It is all about having a plan and the follow through with that plan. We’re talking about it specifically in regards to your marketing. But really, this applies to your business as a whole. And Tracy Winkler is Well, you I mean, you have experience many years working in marketing and you are now a certified implementer, so you’re like a BFD, I think is what those that’s the acronym you should be using for yourself. Right?

TRACY: Oh, how funny. And and thank you, Matt, for having me on. And actually, it’s professional implementer. Oh, I am certified, but I’m a professional implementer. Just to set the, you know, set the record straight there.

MATT: My wife will say that I’m certified in other areas or certifiable. I think that’s the that’s the term she throws around with me.

TRACY: That’s a good one.

MATT: So when I when we look at like, what makes a successful business, it is the boring shit. It’s the things that nobody wants to do. It’s not you think about a success story in business and we think about the money and the the ego and all the credit and the the legitimacy and how we’re revered in our industry. You know, the wealth, the success, the cars. Those are the fun, sexy things. But what gets you to that point, that is the that’s really the part most people ignore or don’t want to think about. And it’s the boring shit, you know, it’s I sum it up as you have to be a professional business person. If you want to be a successful business person.

And professional just means having a plan following through with that plan and iOS, which I’ll let you explain because you can do a much better job. It’s something that we have started to self implement here over the last few years. You’re working with us here at Two Brothers Creative to take it the to the next stage. But it really is a it’s a it’s a it’s a roadmap for how to be a professional business person. So walk us through what actually is. Okay.

TRACY: Fantastic. And you did really well on that. So. Well. Thank you. Thank you. You know, like my job.

MATT: Because I’m a professional business person, that’s why.

TRACY: Now I get it. I get it. Okay. So basically, it is it’s tools and concepts that are great organizational system to put into place. So what happens? So the book there’s the book, Traction by Gino Wickman. So you’re familiar with that? Yeah, that is where it all started. That is where Gino Wickman, he’s been an entrepreneur for life, and he actually took and cobbled together concepts that have been around for years to create simple tools, simple meaning that they are really simple to use but not easy to do. And yes, it is not the fun shit that you get to do in the day to day, and we make people make it look like it’s way more than that.

But where the consistency really comes in is from the stuff that isn’t that isn’t sexy, right? And so those are the things that you have to once you lay them down and you lay them down in a format like we do with iOS, you we do give you that roadmap. So for those that are struggling with that, this is where we come in and make it easy.

MATT: And as I mentioned in the opening with marketing, marketing is treated differently than every other part of most businesses, and I’ve never really understood why that is, especially considering that marketing is literally the most important part of your business. And you could say, Well, what about the products services? Nobody’s going to know about your products or services or that your business exists unless you’re telling people. So word of mouth is marketing your grandma telling her friends at bingo night about your business. That’s marketing. And so the fact that we put marketing in this special category and we say, okay, we’re not going to hold it accountable, we’re not going to be metrics based, we’re not going to have key performing indicators, we’re not going to have any sort of goals. We’re just going to come up with a fun creative idea, throw it at the wall, hope it sticks.

That’s marketing. And that’s that’s the that is a horrible approach that is setting yourself up for failure more times than not. And so I’ve never understood that that separation when people ask me that, like what do you recommend for my marketing? What’s the the top tip? And I say, treat your marketing like any other part of your business. And that all starts with accountability. So what we’re talking about here today applies to your business, it applies to your marketing, it applies to every department of your business equally. This was fascinating, Tracy, because I wanted to I was curious, like what the top weaknesses for most business leaders are and all of these are are basically solved by by traction. So at the top of the list, the number one weakness for business leaders is holding people accountable.

TRACY: Absolutely it is. Yeah. Right. People, right seats. And it’s something that people get when they say holding them accountable. It’s either it’s you’re managing human energy. And so that is the biggest thing that’s happening. And so keeping them accountable takes that leader to be really thoughtful in what they’re doing. And we can kind of expound on that later. So you got you got a big list. Yeah.

MATT: Going holding people accountable is number one for the top weakness, followed by getting rid of underperformers which traction does. Because when you are a metrics based company, you’re able to see, okay, this isn’t I just really like Bob. He’s got a great personality. It’s is Bob delivering? Is Bob actually performing well?

TRACY: And can I expound on that? When you were talking marketing, it goes back to part of marketing is your true core values that you’re building out. And so the simple thing is hiring and firing for those core values and that all it takes part of your whole marketing strategy that you’re building.

MATT: I never done goal setting. I’d always looked at goal setting as this like, you know, wishy washy type thing. I’m like, I’m not going to be one of those people. And what I found, though, is that, I mean, you really can’t track any sort of progress or know if you’re doing something right or wrong, if you’re not setting goals and then measuring them. And so what I would suggest to you, if you’re if you’re just starting out and you’re like, listen, this seems daunting. I don’t know if I can do this. I’m barely keeping my head above water. Keep in mind two things.

One, simple steps. It’s a simple step by step thing. You don’t have to do the whole entire thing all at once. I mean, if you can hire an implementer like Tracy, that that’s fantastic. But if you can’t, but if you can’t read the book and then implement something as simple as this vision traction organizer and at least you can lay out, okay, what’s my one year, three year and ten year goals like where do I want to be? What I found is in I set my goals in October of 2020 was when I left, didn’t renew my radio contract. I said, I’m going to do this full time again. Give it a second, a second whirl. And I set these goals by the end of the year, I want to be here. And it was like or I set my annual goals and by the end of the year I had already hit my annual goals.

MATT: And I’m like, okay, wow. I’m really like under estimating here what I’m capable of. And then I was able to adjust, and then you start to see what’s actually possible. And that’s for a business owner, that’s a really it’s an incredibly motivating thing, but it also opens your eyes to like, okay, wow, like this could actually be something here. This is an actual company. It’s not just a hobby or some freelance work I’m doing on the side. So I think having having just taking the approach of like, I’m going to do one thing at a time, get that one thing down and then move on to the next and, you know, and then giving yourself some grace over time here, that’s we want to be so hard on ourselves as business owners. We don’t want to give ourselves any sort of grace.

You have to keep your focus on the long game, like see the forest through the trees, step back for a second and say, okay, yes, I’m barely keeping my head above water right now, but I don’t want to be this way forever because that’s how businesses fail. So if I’m thinking a year from now, two years from now, I don’t want to be treading water, then you need to put an hour a day or whatever that little amount of time you can spare towards this so that you can get to that point where you are not working in your business, you’re working on your business.

TRACY: You are saying it all, this is perfect.

MATT: I need to come with you and be your pitch person.

TRACY: Have you noticed? I haven’t. I didn’t have to speak much and I’m usually the one speaking a lot. So no. You know, since you’ve done that and that vision traction organizer that we’re going to talk about and setting those goals that also works for you personally. So as the business owner, you can use that same format for your own life and for your own family. So it works both ways.

So any of the business owners out here you can use it for and equate it to the business or you can equate it to your personal life and family as well. So we’ll keep it as simple as you want. So getting that goal and writing it down and having that plan so you can actually ten x what you’re doing because most people do this. It’s a Dan Sullivan thing right now. There’s a great book out and it’s it’s about ten Xingu or two. Xingu two Xingu is you’re basically not changing a lot of what you’re doing. You’re basically 80% of your tasks that you’re doing to get to your goal. It really doesn’t. You don’t have to change much, but to ten things, you really have to cut things out and make a difference. So basically when you’re planning, you get to make the choice, you know, when you’re planning this and where you want to be in your goals, in your one year, your three year and your ten year goals and.

MATT: You’re so spot on with. Especially the core values. Yeah, I was really surprised when I set my picked out my core values, and then I found, wow, these are like a direct reflection of my personal values. And then you start looking at the goals and things in your life that you want and the reasons why you want these things. Like, I want to make more money. Okay, Why? So I can have more experiences in my life with my family or friends or whatever it is that that drives you individually. And none of that is possible without, you know, having these these these kind of core elements, if you will, that that iOS provides. And when it comes to your marketing, you know, being accountable with your marketing is something that is seems a little, um, maybe it’s like this unattainable or kind of a gray area because I will tell you this as far as like do’s and don’ts for, for measuring your marketing.

And you could tell me from your experience working in marketing and with iOS here if this is accurate, but don’t focus on the wrong metrics. You know, you want to focus on things that actually matter and drive your business forward. So leads, qualified leads, sales. Yep. We get caught up a lot of the times, and I’ve seen this unfortunately from other marketing agencies where it’s easy to spin the analytics, you know, and they’ll be like, Oh, you’ve got a 10,000 views on your video, you’ve got a bunch of heart emojis, you got a bunch of likes, you got a bunch of shares. Well, what is that actually doing for your business though?

TRACY: You just nailed it right there. And so in every company is going to have a different metric. So and really, when we call it a scorecard, so KPIs, your scorecards, your metrics that you’re looking at every week, but it’s what is an action that’s going to move you forward. So every week when you’re measuring that and looking at that, it’s it’s not just your measurables that are lagging, but what is going to be the next step to get you where you want to go. So if you’re on an island, let’s say you and all the gentlemen here at two brothers, you guys are all on an island drinking libations.

MATT: Scary thought, dipping your to be trapped on an island with these.

TRACY: Guys and dipping your toes in the sand and you have your team back here and you have a sheet of paper that you can look at what’s happening, maybe how many prospect calls, how many leads have you got? You know, what is it that’s going to move the needle for you that, you know, you can stay on the island or that you have to get your rear end back here to take care of business. So those are some of the metrics that are simple that we’re measuring. Now. You as a marketing department or different departmental can have your own scorecard metrics that even go deeper because you are going to be measuring things at a different level than actually the whole leadership team, but still keeping it as simple as you can without overthinking it.

MATT: And you have with us, you have teams and so we use 92 IO, which is a great online platform that it works hand in hand with your your traction for your US. And so we’ll have, you know, we have our marketing team and we have our marketing team has, you know, we have daily huddles, we have our weekly level 10 or 10 meeting. And then you have your maybe operations, you have your leadership team is another big one for your company. And you know, early on you’re going to have a lot of people in all these different members of many different teams.

But it’s important to distinguish those teams because you’re right, you know, setting your marketing goals there, it’s going to align with your overall company goals, but your marketing goals are going to be different measurables and metrics than, say, your leadership team goals, right? I mean, so you want to like having different sets of goals is important and you’ll, you’ll find this as important for you as the owner of the business to make the business more profitable, your life less stressful, streamlining everything. But your employees are going to love having accountability too, because they know what they need to do. They know when they’re performing well. And it’s just it really is this like overwhelming sigh of relief from everybody individually to company wide. Like, okay, all right. We’re all on the same page now.

TRACY: So you said same page. So do you care if I unpack something so that they understand because we’ve been throwing out some terms like the L ten meeting and we’ve been throwing out scorecards. And so basically iOS has six key components. Okay, so it starts number one with Vision Visions at the top, the second components people, third components data, the fourth components issues, the fifth components process.

And the last component of all is traction. So vision without traction is hallucination. So seriously, right? So where I wanted to unpack that is we start up at the top with the vision where we ask the eight questions and we go into this vision traction organizer that we’re going to give the your listeners this actual tool so that they can use it. But the second tool that we use is shared by all. So first, when I’m working with clients, I’m working with the leadership team only and we go through in my core processes and what I take you through. We start with the 90 minute meeting. So that’s making sure that iOS is right for you. You like me and I like you. Yeah, obviously we determined we kind of like each other. You know, we you know, the verdict.

MATT: Is still out, but. You know, we’ll we’ll we’ll muscle through it. We’ll muscle through it. That’s right. Muscle through it.

TRACY: So then we start off with a focus day, and that’s about an eight hours of an high level working on the business. 30 days later, we’re going into a vision building day one, which is really taking the marketing and then vision building Day two is 30 days later. After that, it’s time for you to share by all. So you after the leadership team, we develop the accountability charts. We we put all this together.

Then you’re sharing it out with your teams and you were talking marketing teams then they’re starting to build the same thing after that. And then I work with you guys on a quarterly basis and then an annual basis. I’m not digging too deep in the business. I’m just keeping you accountable and running everything. So those are kind of the six key components and high level what we’re doing and where we start. So where we’re starting today is vision. Yeah. And people and.

MATT: With vision traction organizer here, which you can download for free. The link is in the show notes. Yep. It really is. It’s kind of just the, I don’t know, the first draft, if you will, of your, your traction of your entrepreneurial organizational system. So, you know, Tracy’s got one here. She just pulled out. And like your core values, what are your five core values?

TRACY: I mean, we answer eight questions. That’s what we do.

MATT: Yeah, that’s all it is.

TRACY: So we start off with core values. What are your core values? Okay, so you can have as little as three to up to seven at the max. What are your core values?

MATT: So our core values would be honesty, quality, collaboration, creativity and growth.

TRACY: Okay, so core focus, core focus. That is really what is the sweet spot. So really what is the reason and the core focus I want to talk about again, that is really simply put, that’s why you hire and fire people. That is what you stand for. That is what And if you had an employee, for instance, your core values and it’s like, did you align with them? Yeah. And if they don’t align with them, I mean, you know, that that shows a lot.

And the same thing with your customers as well. Those are the people you want to have fun. You want to, you know, you want to work with people that every day that you guys are doing something fun, making a difference out there and that people align. And if they don’t align, they will know because you’re either holding them back and there’s a better option for them. Right? We’re going to the next the ten year target now, ten years. Gosh, what the heck is ten years? Am I still going to be in the workforce? I don’t know.

MATT: All I can say here is dream big, like in traction in the book, he calls them, you know, big, hairy, audacious goals like Think Big because we do limit ourselves. We have this it’s like a scarcity mindset almost of like, oh, geez, I don’t know if I can say that I’m a $10 million annual revenue company or not. I don’t. This is for you. Like just dream big because dream big. I mean, I went through this early on with my mentor. She’s looking at this going, uh, why? This is a why are you limiting the potential growth of what this company can be? You know, and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it early on of, you know, this this actually could be that big of a success, you know, And so don’t limit yourself and and really just dream as big as is possible. Right. And that’s where it starts.

TRACY: It is. And now some people went 5 to 30 years. So whatever, you know, even though we have ten year but dream big and that’s where I was kind of going with the ten X thing because if you don’t set those goals that high because you might hit down at two X, but if you hit them at two x, where are you going? You’re way below. Yeah, right. So ten year target. Next thing we do is what you love. Marketing strategy we both used to do. I used to do a lot of strategy. So there’s a difference between a plan and a strategy. You can imagine that.

MATT: Yeah. So and this is we’ve talked a lot about this on the podcast, having a strategy, having a plan with processes and procedures, having a checklist to accomplish tasks along the journey of what that strategy is. These are seem like very simple things, but they are the most overlooked aspects of especially marketing, because we think marketing, like I said, we think is just this creative, fun idea. You come up with a name of a clever mascot and something funny and he’s got a catchphrase and I got a jingle and then boom, it’s a success story, right? That’s all marketing is.

Marketing is a science first. It is formula first and then creative. And that is that is hard for people to kind of wrap their heads around because it seems like it’s the it’s the funnest part of the whole company. Right. Coming up with silly, goofy ideas. But without a strategy, you don’t have anything, right?

TRACY: You’re doing the tactical things and everybody wants to do tactical first. So the strategy is big picture, and that’s actually putting a plan together, a plan to see where we’re going to go, that it matches your core values and that you can actually then put that plan together and then follow through on it and execute on it. Now, what we do with strategy, that’s pretty high level. So when what this sets it up for is really nice for marketing agencies, because when any marketing agencies have worked with the company that is run on iOS, they’re like, Oh my gosh, because they get it. So this is really top level. Like working with you then takes that marketing strategy to a deeper level and gets more. You bring on the tactical with the strategy or you’re able to do the tactical right.

So after we do the marketing strategy, we go into one year planning. Okay. Or excuse me, your three year picture, and then you go into your one year planning and then we start creating rocks or which are 90 day quarterly goals, 3 to 7 for the company. No more than that because, you know, it’s it’s hard to accomplish. And then later each person has their own rocks and then we create an issues list and issues. And that’s basically that’s throwing up every issue you’ve got.

MATT: And it’s not necessarily personal issues you have with people. It can’t be, but it’s like, okay, hey, our, our, our in intake system for new clients is flawed and here’s why. And like here’s you know, it’s figuring it’s problem solving, right?

TRACY: It is problem solving and critical thinking and also getting going deeper because sometimes some of the issues can be symptoms and you’ve got to keep digging, digging, digging for the root cause, which can smoke out a couple of different issues. The idea that what we when we’re working together and build more out and we’re not talking about that all today because we do not want to confuse them all, but on the issues list is basically we want to take those issues and we want to solve them for good.

And that’s either by giving them on a to do list for something weekly or on a rock for a quarterly goal, but making sure to get it off forever, not just that reoccurring issue that never goes away, that pain in the you know what that sticks with us. We want that gone.

MATT: All of this is like Big Sky view with a lot of things we covered here today. However, again, just to reiterate, it starts with the Vision Traction Organizer. So download the free PDF in the show notes. We also have Tracy’s contact information because you do a lot of consults and initial conversations with people that where there is no there’s no financial risk, you’re not on the hook and you can get a lot of valuable, very valuable information and resources suggestions from Tracy herself to help you move your business and your marketing forward. So Tracy, thanks so much for coming on as a professional implementer here on the show.

TRACY: Well, thank you. And I had a great time and help first. That’s what we do.

MATT: Thanks once again for joining us here today on Midwest Mindset. Don’t forget to download that free vision traction organizer. The link is in the show notes. We’ll see you on the next episode.