Leading The Brand Forward: Why 2020 Strategies No Longer Work.

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform. [00:00:10] Speaker B: Good day, wonderful people, and welcome to another edition of let's Be diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Today our topic is leading the brand forward. Why 2020 strategies no longer work. Our guest today is one awesome human. Her name is Sam Malone Dicola. Sam, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining us. [00:00:40] Speaker A: Hey, how are you? Thank you so much for having me. [00:00:42] Speaker B: You're very welcome. Sam, how are things with you? What's going on? Give me the tea, give me the deets, give me it all. What's happening? [00:00:49] Speaker A: Yeah, things are going great. You know this, Andrew, But I have three young children under, all under five years old. I have a set of 12 twins. We're about 16 months old. So never a dull moment in or a quiet moment in my house these days. It's crazy and fun and I find now that I have more children, I really enjoy when I get to talk to other people or work with other people who have children as well because it's just a whole different ball game. [00:01:17] Speaker B: It certainly is. And I always say, obviously I'm not a mother, I'm not a parent, but I do say that a parent's job, but necessarily a mother's job, is never done. Mothers work all day and then they have to tend to stuff in the evening. So it's almost like a 24 hour type thing. I was talking to a mother the other day and she was saying when, it's funny, when kids are sick, they, you know, they go to mom, they don't go to dad, they ask for mom, no doubt because they don't love dad, they just go to it's mom. [00:01:49] Speaker A: And yes, I had some little voices calling out for me in the middle of the night the other night. So, yep, that's 100% true. [00:01:59] Speaker B: So great job on, on doing everything. We'll talk a bit, a little bit about what you do and that as we go on this conversation. But great job in, in managing everything that you do, trying to find time with family, spending time with family, keeping your business going and just keeping everything running in the household. I'm a firm believer that the moms are pretty much the glue of the household. That's, it's awesome to see. Great work on that. [00:02:26] Speaker A: Thank you. A post on social media recently and it said if you, if nothing else, Today, as a mom, just remember everywhere everyone is wearing clean underwear today because of you. And I think that really, that nails it on the head, right? [00:02:41] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, before we begin, Sam, I always have a fun, thought provoking question that asks my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today? [00:02:51] Speaker A: Ready. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Okay. Well, your question is, if you could have any fictional character as a best friend, who would it be and why? [00:03:00] Speaker A: As a best friend, who would it be and why? This is hard because I like to read a lot. I think I would say maybe Agatha Christie. I really love kind of cozy mysteries. That's the genre. That's a genre that I really, really love. And I just always love in the Agatha Christie books how she approaches things and looks at things from a different way than, you know, the other people around her. And that leads her to kind of solving these cases that other people, other even maybe some people who even are perceived as more credentialed, but she is the one who is able to solve them because she takes the time to, you know, really get to know the people who are involved and look at it from a kind of different direction, a different side of things. And I always think that's so interesting. And I'm always trying, when I'm reading those books to know whenever I'm reading a mystery book, I always try and solve the crime before they do. So sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I don't. [00:04:04] Speaker B: But, yeah, that's awesome. And I love the. The fact that you're talking about Agatha Christie and the way she approaches things in a different way as a leader, seeing that and knowing that. And I know we'll talk about this further on in our discussion today, but every year is different and the culture is different and people are different, are becoming even more different and wanting and demanding and ex. Have higher expectations on different things. To be able to look at things in a different light in a different manner is super important. [00:04:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, with miss. Her Miss Marple character, Agatha Christie just like, does such a great job of portraying that. And yeah, it's definitely, I think, speaks to how I try to work with. With clients and with businesses and things like that. It does take now the ability to look at things from another. Another perspective, another side of things. [00:04:56] Speaker B: So, yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks so much for having fun with me to get us started. We want to know who you are and what really drives you to do the work that you do. [00:05:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm Sam Dinicola. I'm the founder of Sam D. Nicola Digital. We are a boutique digital marketing agency and I really started in the corporate world. But my, I was very fortunate that I worked for a private equity firm and I was able to run the marketing departments for all of the companies within our portfolio. So even though I worked in the corporate world, I still very much focused from the beginning of my career had the, you know, privilege to work with smaller and mid sized businesses who were really in a growth stage. So really helping them to kind of see and understand what got them here isn't what's going to get them to the next stage and really identifying their brand and their marketing strategies that are going to take them to the next level. And that's very much now what I do within my marketing agency is working with small businesses and growth stage brand to build these strategies that are actually going to take them to the next level to actually drive revenue, not just, you know, engagement or vanity metrics. Because the bottom line is so important to these types of businesses. So it's not just about whether they should run ads or not, whether they should be paying attention to AI search optimization. It's really more about getting clarity for these businesses and these business owners and so often they're overwhel. So really helping them to cut through the noise and identify what tactics and what things are actually going to move the needle for their businesses that aligns with their goals and their capacity and the kind of businesses that they really want to create. [00:06:44] Speaker B: When you mentioned getting clarity, that hit home to me because I feel like business owners leaders. You talked about being a parent to three kids, so I believe that parents are leaders at home or in the home. So getting clarity of your situation and your surroundings and what's going on is super important. And I believe when you talk about building strategies that's going to help us to build strategies because if we're not clear in our direction and we don't, we're, we're unsure where we want to get to, then how can we build strong strategies in order to, to build our business? [00:07:18] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's so easy to get caught up in the tide of just the bottom line is how much revenue are we bringing in or how profitable are we? But I think for a lot of small businesses and founder led brands, that can really lead to them building a business that they hate, that they feel trapped in, that they're really not fulfilled by. And I never want to see that. So I do always try to help support them in kind of zooming out and looking at the bigger picture, not just the day to day of running the business. [00:07:50] Speaker B: So when you think about, when you think about branding in 2020, what do you think defined that? [00:07:55] Speaker A: E. I think with 2020, it was Covid a lot of things. It was kind of an amazing thing to live through because at first we were so scared, we were so nervous that businesses were going to go under and certainly many businesses did struggle and continue to struggle as a result of COVID But there were also so many opportunities and so many new businesses that were created during that time. Marketing and branding around that time were very reactive, very quick, very kind of emotion based. It was also the year, I think, that we started to really see this shift from brands looking more polished to people really looking for transparency and humanity and communication from the brands that they were purchasing from. So a great example that many people have probably noticed is your Instagram feed used to be wanted it to be look very curated, look very polished, look very put together. And starting around 2020, that really started to shift people. The content that was performing the best, the brands that were performing the best on social media, particularly on Instagram, were were these brands that were trying to connect on a more human level with their audiences. And I think, you know, TikTok as well, was a huge driver of that shift during that time as well. Wasn't just about esthetics, it was about is your brand in alignment with your target audience, with your customers. And those customers were really asking, you know, do you understand me? Do you understand what's happening around us? Do you care, you know, what are your values as a brand? So it really changed and accelerated the need for brands to have a digital presence and to use to leverage that digital presence to build trust. And trust really became a tipping point for a lot of brands during that time. [00:09:50] Speaker B: Connection on a human level is so huge to me and I think it continues to be now because because of 2020, people are looking for that more and more now. They want to not just have that connection with that with their co workers, but they want to have their connection with their leaders as well. Not because they're going to be buddy buddy and they're going to go for supper, go for drinks after, but to have that connection in the, during the day is so big because that just helps whatever they're trying to do in the business moves move further and move faster rather than arguing or comment or saying I don't like something. It's so important to me. [00:10:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And we've seen that if for anybody who's an online course Creator, an online educator from the customer standpoint, that is shifting a lot. And people are really valuing and prioritizing in person experiences so much more. And on the kind of flip side of that, leadership is starting to see that like it's not just about a pizza party, right. It's about creating an opportunity to get people in the room and to create ties and relationships and conversations. It's not a flattening of organizational culture as much as a flattening of the number of layers people you have to get through. Right. It makes for a much more cohesive working environment. And on the consumer side of things, it makes, it helps to shorten that buyer's journey and that buyer research journey as well. So it really is super important that trust building, that transparency, both in the business and externally to customers. [00:11:30] Speaker B: So how does leadership behavior directly impact brand perception today? [00:11:36] Speaker A: I think founder led businesses, founder led brands, personal branding at the leadership level has become real asset to many businesses that have made that a priority. Right. So whether you are a founder led brand in that people are really connecting, consumers are really connecting with your brand first through the founder, the founder is really building that trust. And so that then when they're presenting an offer, a product, anything like that there, it almost acts as a referral. Even though they're obviously the owner of this brand or in leadership at this brand, it is immediately again shortening that buyer's journey because people already trust that owner at such a level that they're, they feel confident that that owner is not going to steer them wrong if they're putting something out there into the world or these businesses that are maybe larger are not founder led as much, but they are using their, not just executive leadership team, but even their employees to really be able to communicate the, the values of the company, I think is really impactful. And so we've been seeing a lot of brands take the time to, depending on their niche and their industry, create some thought leadership on LinkedIn. Right. Or get more active on Instagram, start growing their own Instagram. Following that is like very nicely paired with the business's brand on Instagram, depending on what makes most sense, where their target or audience is spending time. But those brands were seeing real success in the brands that take the time to implement that and implement it well. [00:13:20] Speaker B: When you talked about values, I've had lots of conversations with people and when I first started getting active specifically on LinkedIn and working with people, I could tell that when I talked about values, people couldn't answer that. So if I asked somebody what are your core values? A lot of people couldn't answer that. They couldn't tell me what those were. And now more than ever, people are able to answer that. And not only answer it, but they're answering it with such emotion and compassion because it's things that they firmly believe in. So I think there's a big difference in that. And when you're talking about personal branding, you could talk about a little bit more, but when you're putting stuff out there, we can't just put stuff out there just for the heck of it. We got to firmly believe that. I'm putting this out there because this is what is in my heart and this is what I firmly believe in. [00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think even more than being able to name the value is being able to live true to those values. And people are really going to see that. Right. So rather than being performative about those quote unquote values that, that you might be trying to tell people that you have really living those values and showing your employees, your customers, your colleagues, everything that you really live by those values and you operate through those values, I think is so important because people are not stupid. As consumers, we're more well informed than ever before. Right. So just doing one press release or one social media post or whatever about this, that or the other, that's not enough. It's kind of actually can hurt your brand at this point because it just feels very inauthentic and performative. [00:15:12] Speaker B: What you just talked about is actually a great segue to what I wanted to look into next. How has the conversation around diversity, equity and inclusion changed brand expectations? [00:15:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think regardless of your feelings around diversity, equity and inclusion. Right. And certainly there's. It's been extremely politicized in the last few years. Right. But again, I think it really goes back to values. Right. So if you as a company believe in diversity, equity and inclusion, it's. It's really about staying true to those values. Right. Whether you're calling it DEI or not calling it dei, which we've seen a lot of businesses in recent years, they don't actually call it DEI anymore, but they are still making these real efforts to live by those similar values. Right? So that is like supporting those employees or team members that maybe don't have as much representation at the executive leadership level. Right. And supporting them and helping, giving them opportunities to continue to grow. That is really where you win. Not only in terms of reducing churn of employees and keeping people and making them feel valued and like they really belong to the team and everything. But also, again, you know, customers are more well informed than ever. So, like, it's, it's not out of the realm of possibility that you say, oh, yeah, we, you know, really value inclusion. And it's, it's not out of the realm of possibility that someone could say, okay, really, because 2% of your employees are. Or 15% of your employees are people of color and they're all below management level. Right. Like, that is not out of the realm of possibility for somebody to be able to find that information out. So it's, it's really about, again, functioning from those places of value, whether it's diversity, equity, inclusion, some other values, whether you call it that or you call it something else. It's, it's about not relying on a single social media post or a press release. It's taking a deep look at your hiring practices, your leadership representation, your partnerships, and being consistent over time with how you live to those, Those values, I think is, is really important. And people will disengage from brands that feel like they are being inauthentic around it or performative. You'd be better off as a brand not even talking about it than, than kind of trying to just fake it and pull the wool over people's eyes. [00:17:51] Speaker B: I was talking to somebody the other day and they were just talking in general about websites and, and putting values in. And she was saying to me that if you think so, someone is doing renovations in their home. If you think that people are not looking at the mission, vision and values of your company, even though it's renovations and it may not be a big deal because of the renovations, if you're not. They think, people think that you're not doing that. You're mistaken. Because she feels, and she says lots of people can tell what kind of work a company is going to do and how, how important they think that job is and what they're going to put into it tells a lot about what their mission, vision and values are. And I thought about that. I'm like, that's super interesting. [00:18:40] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think even we don't have. If you feel like, I don't know, I just want to make money, I just want to have my business and go about my way. Even within that, a value can just be, listen, we're going to get in, we're going to do good work, and we're going to get out as fast as possible. So you can pay us as fast as possible. Right? That is fine. That is, that is values Right. It doesn't have to, you don't have to feel. If you feel intimidated by some of these larger again, quote unquote value statements that in and of itself is just I just want to do good work and be on my way and get paid. Like that is a value. That's, that's quality, that's speed, that is trustworthiness, resourcefulness. So even if you think, oh, I don't really have values around the business, you do. And it shows up in how you run your business, how you treat your employees or your team or your colleagues, how you treat your customers, how you handle making things right when things go wrong internally or externally. Like those are all values. I think a lot of small business owners, it's really easy to talk about values like capital V from a corporate standpoint because they have HR and you know, they're taking their retreats and all these things. But for some smaller and medium sized businesses like they don't, they, they are running their business, they're busy, they don't, you know, what am I going to do? Go on a little corporate retreat by myself? Because I'm running this entire business by myself and I'm going to think about my values. I understand it's really hard to take the time to think about that and do that. But if you really look at how you are functioning as a business own or, or as leadership, you will see that your values show up every day and just how you operate. [00:20:19] Speaker B: So I'm going to put the pressure on you. I got a big one here for you. What does it mean to lead the brand forward rather than just to manage it? [00:20:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I think managing a brand is status quo. It's consistency, right. It's how we've always done things. I think leading a brand is really anticipating. It's about anticipating what's coming next. So like I think a great example of this is AI is really reshaping how people discover businesses. Whether you like AI or not, your customers are using it to do research. So it doesn't, I don't really care if you like it or not. If you are not optimizing to start showing up in AI search customers will, there is a large portion of your customer base that will not find you and you will see an impact on your bottom line for via that. Right. So it's influencing these people's buying decisions. So like leading a brand forward is asking these bigger questions. Where is attention shifting? Where is trust being built? How are we building that trust? How are we adjusting to make sure that we are getting that attention. But how will that continue to shift and evolve over the next 12 to 18 months? Months? It's not about tactical as much as positioning. It's these kind of larger questions. Right. And I, and again, I know that's really hard for some executives, some business owners, because it's so hard to get out of the tactical. It's so hard to get out of the day to day. But if you really want to lead a brand, these are the things that you need to set aside the time to look at and consider. Or if you feel like you can't, you need to find someone who, you need to bring someone in to help you answer these questions, help you identify these things, help you. If you don't have the time, that is absolutely fine. But you it there's, they should still be a priority. So someone needs to have the time, whether that's you or you're bringing someone else in to support with that. [00:22:28] Speaker B: And I'm guessing when you're talking about status quo and anticipating the status quo, I think you have to decide what way you're going to go. So if you're comfortable being in the status quo. So if you've been a company that's been open for 30, 40, 50, 60 years, you might be like, okay, status quo. We've been open for this long, things have been going well this long. So we're just going to stick with what we're doing. Whether when you're anticipating means that you are thinking, okay, well next year things are going to be growing, so we need to anticipate it even more. So, for example, myself as a podcaster doing it, as long as I've been doing it, I've anticipated things growing and I've seen the growth since I started and I continue to see the growth. So I've anticipated to try to continue to go along with the growth, doing things differently, having different conversations. We have to do that because if we don't, then like I said, you're going to be at the status quo [00:23:26] Speaker A: and things are never going to change, you know, stat. Well, I would argue they will change, but because status quo works until it doesn't. So things will change around you whether you are changing or status quo or whatever, whether you're staying the same or you're changing, things are going to change around you. The landscape is going to change around you. Your customers are going to change around you. Even if your customers are old, you know, if you're friggin a wheelchair manufacturer, right, it's still going to change. So if you are, oh, we've been out, we're the oldest hardware store in our city and we've always done it like this and people, we just get word of mouth and referrals. That's fine until it, it's not going to work anymore. Like, and so that's what I would really argue is status quo really isn't. This has always worked for us. So we're going to keep doing it. You're going to keep doing it until it doesn't work anymore. And at that point you will be forced to adapt. And at that point you, or go out of business, which you see plenty of businesses who, you know, we've been around forever, this is how we do things. Or you will be forced to adapt. But at that point you're in a reactive place. And so even if you do adapt, you're still going to be really starting off like from the back foot and you'll be having to fight and claw to get back to quote unquote where you were with the status quo. [00:24:47] Speaker B: Do you find that businesses are anticipating too late in the game like if their status quo and then they're like, oh my God, like things are changing now I gotta, now I gotta do something or else we might be in trouble here. But it's too late at that. [00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it really depends on the business. It depends on the size of the business, it depends on their niche. Some businesses can be more agile than others, either based on what they're selling, their manufacturing time, manufacturing timeline, or based on just how agile their employees, their teams are. Right. And some, and a lot of that is about about culture, building a culture that, where it's encouraged to try things. Right. If we're going to try something new, that doesn't mean that we have to know exactly how it's going to look and it has to be perfectly planned and it has to go well or it's going to be a disaster. Creating a culture where it's okay to have, it's encouraged to have ideas, it's okay to try things and, and it's okay to, for things not to work because guess what, now we know that thing doesn't work so we don't have to waste any more time doing it. That that's can even be a real benefit and so that, you know, a lot of times I come in to work with businesses just for a strategic marketing audit, really just to, to come in and say this is working, keep doing it, do lean into it more. This thing is not Working, you're wasting time and money doing it. Stop. It is waste. It's wasteful. Don't do it. This thing over here is an opportunity. You should try it. What does that look like? Like for your business. Right. So I think a lot of it is about culture and that is always shaped from the top. [00:26:27] Speaker B: So before we wrap up today, what is one key takeaway that you'd like our listeners to take away from this episode? And if you have more than one, that is okay. [00:26:36] Speaker A: I think really clarity. Taking the time to get clarity is what can help you create momentum. So that means getting clarity on. Yes. Your values. It's getting clarity on how to. Where are we going from here? What are our goals? The big holes, right. The 30,000 foot view. It's getting clarity on. Okay, how are, how do we think we're going to move there towards our goals? Getting clarity on how do we think things are going to shift in the next 12 months, three years? If you feel like your brand is stuck, your business is stuck. A lot of times owners leadership, they want to get so focused on the tactical piece. But it's, it's kind of that thing where 20, the 80, 20 rule. Right. 20 of what you're doing is getting you 80% of the results. And so often that 20% that's getting you most of the results. That is taking that time to get clarity. It's not the tactics, it's not necessarily how many times are we posting or where are we posting or things like that. It's taking the time to get clear on these bigger picture and more foundational strategy questions that is, is the most impactful for businesses. You know, any. Go to any large business and you will see their leadership is, is very focused on the future. [00:27:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Getting clarity on your message. What you're trying to portray, what you're, what you're valuing, what you want to come, what you want their company to look like and, and going forward for that is super important for sure. My call to action today would be to like share and follow this episode. I wanted to take the time to thank you for coming on today, Sam. I just admire your, your ability to renew energy, your accommodating demeanor, your passion and your grit. You were just such a genuine human and I've just enjoyed getting to know you and I'm. It was such an absolute pleasure to have you on today as a guest. So thank you so much. [00:28:33] Speaker A: Yeah, no, thank you. This was, this was really fun and I, I hope it, that's helpful. I'm sure you'll you'll share. But if anybody has any questions after listening to this episode, please feel free to reach out to me on Instagram. My handle is just at Samd Nicola Digital, or you can contact me through the website samdinicoladigital.com Any questions? I would be happy to clarify or answer anything we've talked about today. [00:28:57] Speaker B: Well, on behalf of myself and my guest today, Sam, I'd like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe. And remember everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything. [00:29:10] Speaker A: You have been listening to let's Be Diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content, hit Subscribe.