Tell me about your vision.
My vision is where I want to be is to help business owners
build that strategy foundation under their marketing.
I have run into and I've done this for a really long time,
so many businesses that launch into a marketing activity
without really understanding how it fits in their strategy
or even if they have a strategy underneath it at all.
And I execute that vision in a couple of ways.
I have a podcast more than a few words
and I share quick tips.
I do training both at colleges
and in presentations around the country.
I've written several books
and I work with individual clients
helping them lay that foundation.
Gotcha, so adding on to that,
where did your vision come from?
I fell in love with marketing when I was in grad school,
I was supposed to be an accountant
and two of my professors explained to me
that I could do accounting, but I would hate my life.
That I see the world through a marketing lens
and they were absolutely right.
The accounting helps, but the way I see the world
is definitely through that marketing lens.
And in both corporate jobs and as the owner of an agency,
over and over again, I found that
if I could get business owners over that hump,
if I could get them to the place
where they understood what their strategy was,
what we did for them was so much more fun
and so much more productive.
And I have tested this technique
through way too many decades of marketing
and I believe that it is the way to go.
Yeah, absolutely, this is great.
So where are you going with your vision?
What's your goal for your vision?
I've had the big company experience,
I've had the entrepreneurial experience,
I ran my agency for 20 years until I sold it.
Where I'm going now is I wanna work selectively
with business owners that really get the process,
that really are going to participate actively.
I'm not looking for people who want me to come in
and solve their life's problems, not my gig.
I want people that understand this is a partnership,
that they're gonna have to take responsibility,
they're gonna have to make the tough choices.
I'm gonna ask the hard questions,
they are gonna have to be ready to answer them.
And like I said, few clients that really get it,
that's where I wanna be at this point.
So it's much more of a for fun type thing for you,
not as much as the entrepreneurial trying to help everyone
to make a lot of money type.
I, no, I want my clients to make money, don't get me wrong.
I want them to be successful
and I definitely wanna be paid for my time,
just like when I do a presentation,
I'm showing up, I expect that there's going to be
a remuneration at the end of it.
I am just at a place where I can be selective.
And-
I totally understand.
You know, I mean, I ran an agency for 20 years,
I loved most of my clients.
There were some that we worked with
because they paid a lot of money, it kept the lights on,
but that isn't the kind of work I wanna chase after
at this point in my life.
Yeah, I know a friend of mine, well, a friend of mine,
I know him through networking, his name is Don Ollert
and he's up in Michigan
and he does a style of marketing as well.
I forget the exact specifics that he runs into,
but he did some other stuff throughout his life
and then he retired and then he got tired of being retired
and started his own company
where he does marketing now for fun.
And he, same way he gets to be specific
in who he wants to work with
because he wants to take on the fun clients,
not just everyone.
Absolutely, and you know, fun does not mean not challenging,
but it can mean a product or a service
that I'm excited about.
It might be a cause that I'm like,
if we can get this message out, we can change the world
and or at least our little corner of the world.
I teach one course a semester at a local university
because I want that next generation of marketers
to come into the workforce prepared to do it right.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show
and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.