All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
This is Veterans Radio.
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I am Jim Fossone.
I'm the officer of the deck today.
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We want to welcome to VeteransRadio today Michael DeMoss.
Mike is an Army veteran.
He's got an interesting business background, and that's what we're really going to talk to him about.
Michael, welcome to VeteransRadio.
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Well, it really all starts with an ROTC scholarship in the early 80s, maybe late 79,
at Western Maryland College. How did a nice kid like you get pulled into a ROTC scholarship, and where did that take you?
Yeah, it's an interesting part of my story.
My freshman year of college, my parents paid for my first year.
I didn't do very well, and at the end of the year, they said,
good luck, buddy, you're on your own.
One of my best friends had an ROTC scholarship,
so I went to the application, filled it out, did the physical training thing, and somehow they let me in.
Well, it's one of those things I say to a lot of people who I end up talking to who say,
well, college is so expensive, I can't find a way to go,
to which I say, I'm calling BS on that, because there is always a way to go if you want it bad enough,
and including going out and getting an ROTC scholarship.
After graduating with your bachelor's degree in chemistry, what did the United States Army decide you should do?
Well, I was a chemistry major in college, which, the only reason I chose that is because it was the shortest matriculation line
when I was signing up for classes.
I'm not buying that because organic chemistry was a killer.
Oh, it was horrible. Yeah, so when I had my selection criteria, I would put aviation pilot first,
ranger, infantry second, and chemical core third, and of course, they gave me a chemical core.
So I was a chemical officer right out of the gate, one of the most unpopular guys on any Army post.
Absolutely. You went to the U.S. Army Chemical School, you graduated from there, as well as Airborne School.
You got to be a nuclear chemical and biological staff officer.
All of those kind of good things, right? Where were you posted?
I spent most of my time at Fort Lewis, Washington, which was a really, really good place to be.
It was beautiful out there, the people were cool, the post was fun,
and we got a lot of new equipment to test out there.
So early in the Humbees, early in, like, TACFIRE for artillery, lots of cool testing.
I really enjoyed Fort Lewis. It was a fun post.
What was the time frame here, Mike?
So I graduated from college in 85, and I was in Fort Lewis, the tail end of 86,
and I spent the rest of my tour of duty there, and actually ETS in January of 90.
And then I think the first Gulf War started within the next, I don't know, six to 12 months after that.
Well, you got to miss some of that fun, and what we've had our guys in and gales in for the last 20 years
is now over, thankfully, as well. But a lot of turmoil in the world.
We still need good men and women out there protecting our freedoms.
So you did what a lot of guys did. You know, got five and a half years in or something,
and said, okay, it's now time to do something else. What was the something else?
Well, it's interesting. I just did not like people telling me what to do, which was...
Oh, what a surprise. What a surprise.
I really enjoyed some parts of the military, but I just...
The hardest part for me was just taking orders all the time, especially when I couldn't make sense of them in my own head.
So I thought, okay, I'm going to go be a sales guy where I can, you know, drive my own world.
And came to find out that I was just in another job where somebody was telling me what to do.
There's always a sales manager, isn't there? Increasing your quota and telling you to do more.
Yes, yes. And so my first sales job, it was right when R-12 was being phased out and replaced by R-22.
And my company had something like, I don't know, 12,000 tons of this stuff in a yard.
And they said, hey, we're going to have a special commission program.
Whoever can sell this, you'll get $50 for every ton you sell or whatever.
And I had only been in the job six months and I sold the whole entire yard to one customer.
And somehow that made me sales manager material.
So that's how I got to be a sales manager, you know, just because I had one lucky day, I guess.
So... And a lot of guys find that what they get out and do originally right after transitioning
maybe isn't what they end up doing for their career. And you did about eight years in the
sales and general manager area in the same kind of thing. Two companies that I think are probably
competitors, direct competitors of each other. Yeah. Yeah. When that, when you got through that
period, what was the itch? What were you like? I just got to move to something else and talk
about that transition because a lot of veterans go through multiple career transitions.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's twofold. One part of it was I still had people telling me what to do.
But I think the second part of it was I really, I felt like no matter what kind of job I had,
I was never going to make, I was never going to really make money. And because I had been in sales
and sales management and general management, I could look at a P&L and I could see how much
money I was making for the company. And then what little tiny bit of that was coming to me.
And I just felt like I've got to do something on my own. And I just was looking for opportunities.
And one of my friends from high school called me up one day and said, Hey, I met these guys,
they have a company for sale. Do you want to go in with me and buy it? And we knew nothing about
it. It was a mailing company, direct mail. And we went to a big trade show and there was all these
machines and all these people and all this hype. And we got really excited. And we said, Okay,
we're going to buy this thing. And so I took, I mean, it's nuts. I took a $50,000 second mortgage
on my house. And then I got 10 credit cards for $5,000 each all on the same day cash advance.
And that's how I got together $100,000 to buy my part of the company.
Now, what year would this have been, Mike? This was 1998.
And risk taking certainly is something that most guys in the military live with.
And so was this financial risk something that you really agonized over? Or did you just view this
as this is the next thing I got to take a risk on and somehow I'll make it all work?
Yeah, I think it's more the latter. I mean, we're moving really fast. But I had started a couple
of small companies along the way that either made a little bit of money and then I ran out of energy
and stopped or the product lived out its life cycle. So I had made, I had seen the ability to
make a little bit of money fast. And I just felt like I needed out and I was willing to take a risk.
And I mean, I had a piece of paper that justified financially why I was doing this, but it was
at that time for me a very risky move. But I just was confident that we would figure it out.
And you know, we almost went broke three times over three years. Like it wasn't easy. But we would
always think about this is what we thought we were going to do. It's not exactly working right.
How can we pivot to something that's slightly different that's more appealing to the customers?
And we just adapted, adapted, adapted until we found the right kind of groove and then really
worked that angle the best we could. And I mean, if I'm giving advice to anybody, if you have an
idea and it's not working, just pivot a little bit to make it work. Don't don't like hang your
hat on that one thing that that's not working.
Yeah, and really look at what your customers saying and doing and say, oh, well, I don't do
that exactly right now, but I could shift a little bit and do it and be you should kind of
shift it more to marketing and and communication. Tell us about that a little bit.
Yeah, so so in both of the companies that I worked for after the military and then my own company,
we would we were hiring advertising agencies to help us grow our business. And my overall
experience while we had some good experiences, our overall experiences with the advertising
agencies, they charged a lot of money. There was a lot of fluff, and they weren't really helping
our business. And and I felt like they were great for these big, you know, proctor and gamble or
somebody like that. But a small or midsize business needed someone who really understood both the
P&L and the marketing and would come in and kind of sit at the table as their fractional CMO is
the best way I can describe it. And I found that's the niche that we have have landed and where
we're trying to help small to business midsize business owners grow their business, not wasting
their money on things that don't work, and then help them drive a return in their business. That's
and that's where I find my passion is helping other entrepreneurs grow their business. Like,
that's where I that's where I get the juice from watching that happen and being successful doing
that. Well, and you had worked for some big, you know, Fortune 100 company, you know,
Fortune 100 companies and saw what they could do. But what was really missing was for that small
business, you know, they don't have a whole department of people sitting around working on
marketing, although they need help and they know they need help in this area. And quite frankly,
you're doing this at a time when the marketplace is really changing, right? It's going from
publication to internet, if you will. So so there was a big transition going on that it was difficult
and still going on for difficult for the small business guy to to get a grasp of, isn't it?
Yeah, it's very complicated these days. And it's it's on the channel. So you can't just do direct
mail or you can't just do TV, you have to be in a lot of places. And there's just so many
companies that are trying to sell a silver bullet, like, Hey, if you just do this one thing,
it's going to work. And it's really not true. But that's what they sell. So that's what they're
promoting. And we're promoting marketing as more holistically. And it's one thing I wanted to say
about the big companies, they can get away with things that small companies can't because they
have a lot of revenue, they have investors, you know, I remember this one company I worked for,
I won't say the name, but they reorganized once a year over five years, new president, new values,
new mission. And the fifth year we reorganized back to the way it was the first year that I went
there. And that was like, that was like my mind just blew up in my head, because I was like,
small companies can't afford to go through all this and change the signs and spend all this money,
they just need to grow their business and focus on the key things that are going to help do that.
And that's really, that's part of what got me out of there was like, I just can't do this anymore.
Well, that's right, a small business can't afford those kind of mistakes. It can't blow money on
an advertising campaign that doesn't work because it doesn't have really deep pockets, it's got to
have some return on investment. And your company, Victory 360, tell us what its sweet spot is.
So it's funny, I actually own two companies. So Victory 360 is direct response marketing for
home services businesses. So plumbers, HVAC, insurance, roofing, siding, windows, doors.
So what we're doing is we're analyzing the persona of their best customers, their income value,
where they live, how they vote politically, and we are helping them message those consumers
in a way that they're most responsive to. And we're touching them with direct mail, email,
display campaigns, social campaigns, and we're driving really, really good response rates.
So like, I have a plumbing company, our lead costs to them. So their cost per lead, when you factor
in all the money that they spend is about $60 or somebody to call them to place an order.
And that's very, very reasonable and very predictable.
And they don't even get in the van and drive to your house without a mobilization or service
charge of probably over $100. So it's all equals out right there before they've done a thing.
Yeah, their average, I mean, this is how we back into what we're going to do for a client. But
if their average ticket is $350 and the lifetime value of a client is $1,500 and they can surely
spend $60 to get them in the door. Well, and that's the kind of math and results that business
owners can understand. It's, you know, sort of direct. Now, you said you have a second company,
tell us about that as well. Yeah, so the C360 agency is more of the full service advertising
agency that uses the fractional CMO as the kind of the pivot point for the client. So when we
were talking earlier, that's the company I was talking about. I go in, I meet with the owners,
we figure out what their financial goals are. And then I build a mark putting plan them.
And then I bring in the subject matter experts to execute against that plan.
Well, it's hard to cut through all the noise. You know, we all get bombarded with advertising,
with emails, with spam filters that get more sophisticated, trying to protect us.
So that's got to be part of the strategy, isn't it? Like, how do we cut through the noise and get
your message heard? Yes, yes. And that's, that does take some budget, right? So one of the things
that we run into is people that have big dreams about what, how they want to grow their business,
but they don't have any marketing budget. And that in today's world, that's just not possible.
Right. So you've got to have a budget and then you've got to do it over the long term. So a good
example would be, I get calls all the time, the client says, Hey, I want to get on TV next month.
And I'm like, do you have the budget to be on the TV every month for 12 months? Oh, no, I don't
want to do that. Okay, well, then you don't want to get on TV. Because one month is just going to
waste your money. Let's take the budget that you have. Let's figure out where your customers
are looking for your service. And then let's just go there. Right. So where do people look for
whatever your services and what do they look like? What do they care about? And let's go
only there and start there. So we have a, we have a cannabis farm in Michigan that's a client of ours.
I think he was on your show. In fact, I'm not going to mention his name, but he was.
And so, you know, he's a, he has to sell to the retailers. But what he needed was to build a brand.
So where can you build a brand for cannabis? Really, it's social media. Right. And by showing
the people that are on the farm, the quality of the things that you're growing, the, the, the
statistics on the quality of the product that you're selling to the retailers,
building a brand that was, it was almost all social media. And now he's recognized in 10 states and
people think he's, you know, a big company. And it's all about picking that where your
customers are. And that's where we found his customers. Well, it's interesting because when
I, I talked to him, I said, man, you got a great website here. And, you know, he just sort of smiled.
But it's all part of that, isn't it? Having the right image, promoting the right image,
getting people to take a look at you. All of that helps build the brand, doesn't it?
Yeah. I mean, you, when you interview that person, I mean, he, he knew very early on that his business
was all about the people, like taking farmers and making farming cool again. And so that's what
you build the brand around is that value that the, that the CEO's vision and, but you have to say in
a way that common people can connect with. And, and yeah, we've done that. Well, here's a question,
I think probably a lot of small business veteran owned small businesses out there are thinking,
man, I don't know if I got the budget for this. What, what, as an expert like you, what percentage
of revenue should, should a small business, what range should it be thinking about putting into
its marketing budget? It's, it's a, it's a hard question because it's somewhat industry specific,
but I would say generally speaking, it's something like three to 10% of your, of your revenue budget
has to be 30% of whatever your revenue is needs to be in, in marketing. And I, and I think most
small companies need to be spending something like five to $10,000 a month between the
professional services of the people that they're working with and the paid application of those
things, whether it's digital ads or radio, TV, email deployment, whatever it is, but, but it's,
you know, and if you, if you don't like, we work with a lot of nonprofits that get grants and they'll
get like a $50 million grant over five years to build a really cool service. Like, you know,
people that are getting out of prison to get them reconnected or what they say, these big budgets,
and then they come to us and say, well, we need help building our program and say, well, how much
is in the budget for the, that $50 million project? Oh, we didn't put any marketing money in there.
Right? Like, duh, like, right. If they don't find it, it doesn't do any good. It's the,
it's the light under the bushel basket. So that's starting to change and you, and you do see nonprofits
advertising. They're really good causes, but no one knows about them. Right. And so they've got a,
they've got to have a marketing budget. And that's, as you've, as you've moved through your business
career and become this, you know, CEO of multiple businesses with a working with a lot of other
business owners, do you feel that some of that, some of those things that you learned, whether
with SINROTC or your five years in, in, in the army, do some of those things still ripple forward as
the points of reference for you? Yeah, it's a great question. Sometimes I do a lot of one-on-one
calls with the CEOs of the companies that we represent. And a lot of times on the call, they'll
say, I think, I feel like I was just in a therapy session because, because I'm talking about,
what I remember about my first job as a second lieutenant, it was my first exposure to what I,
what's been called imposter syndrome. You know, I'm like college graduate, six months of officer
training, three months of airborne school, boom, you're in charge. And I mean, I really knew that
I didn't know. And just being able to admit that and then find ways to learn and get support was
really, really important. And I feel like just because somebody has a title of a CEO, everyone
expects them to already know everything. And I don't think most of us do. But we have support
networks to help us work through some of the more challenging issues. And I, I would say,
I've always, every time I've changed jobs or come up with a new idea, I've always had that
little bit of insecurity. But having good mentors and good people around me to talk through things
has been the thing that's kind of helped me get over the home. And just saying, Hey, you're not
the only one who feels like that is a, is a great place to start. Yeah, we can all learn from each
other. And that's what we try to do here on Veterans Radio. And we're talking to business owner,
Army veteran entrepreneur, Michael DeMoss. Michael's, you've got your own podcast, I believe,
that you've just gotten started called Finding Your Grit. That's that, that comes back to your
Army days. Yeah, I, so this is, this follows on the, what I was just saying, I want to find a way
to have business owners tell stories about what happened in their career. So that young
entrepreneurs can hear how they navigated that versus someone giving them advice or telling
them what to do. Because when someone would tell me, Hey, Mike, you have this problem,
here's what you should do. I had a hard time accepting that and integrating it. But when
I would see a business owner talk about, he went through this hard time, here's the things he
thought about, here's the decisions he made, and here was the outcome. I can choose what I want to
learn from their experience and then integrate that into my company. And that's what Finding Your
Grit is all about. I'm trying to find business leaders who are willing to get really personal
about experiences they've had and how they overcame them so that young entrepreneurs can learn from
them. Well, it's a great, I think, opportunity to pass on to other entrepreneurs, other veterans,
business owners of sort of things that, you know, you don't have to learn everything the hard way.
If somebody else already learned it the hard way, maybe you could just take that advice if
you can internalize it. But Mike, let's remember, Mike, you started with, I don't take direction
from other people very well. Right. That's my old point. And I think, like, I think there's like this
internal struggle that a lot of people don't even admit that they don't like being told what to do.
I mean, there's a whole population of people that are fine being given direction and following
direction, whatever. But there are people that are in seats getting told what to do that absolutely
hate it. And they feel like there's something wrong with them. And there's not. There's just,
there's, there's different kinds of people. And, and I learned much better, kind of a little bit
the hard way and a little bit learning from other people's experiences versus people telling me
what to do. My parents would reinforce that. Well, we're talking to, we're talking to somebody
who's earned his chops in the marketing area. Michael, if folks want to find you, how do they do
that? Easiest way is www.c-360.agency. And there's a contact form on the webpage.
Well, we appreciate you taking a little time today to talk to Veterans Radio about your
experiences in the Army, how you, how you got there, what you learned there. And more importantly,
your progress through the business world, because I think we all learn a little something when,
yeah, we find maybe it was pretty hard for somebody else. Oh, they almost went bankrupt a few times.
But just hang in there. You'd be persistent and you keep learning and moving forward, don't you?
Yep. Yep. And I would also put the offer out there that there are any young veteran entrepreneurs
who want to just share their idea, talk about some experiences they're having,
and hear my experiences. I'm happy to connect. It's one of my favorite things to do.
Again, thank you for your time with Veterans Radio today.
Thank you so much. And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today. I am Jim
Fawcone. It's been a pleasure to be your host. I'm a Veterans Disability Lawyer at Legal Help
for Veterans. And you can reach us at 800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.
You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and Internet radio shows.
By visiting us at veteransradio.org. That's veteransradio.org.
And until next time, you are dismissed.
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Thank you.