Driving Growth: Modern Marketing Strategies for Manufacturers

Curt Anderson 00:00
Hey, Damon, Happy St Patrick’s Day. Man, how are you? Are you on mute?

Damon Pistulka 00:08
That was good, wasn’t it?

Curt Anderson 00:09
That was, yeah, you fixed us right out. That was a great,

Damon Pistulka 00:12
yeah, yeah. Too much of the green beer already this morning.

Curt Anderson 00:15
Too much green beer this morning. And it’s only 930 your time. Man, yeah, that’s yeah, no. All right. So hey, it looks like your your last name looks a little different than normal. What? What’s going on

Damon Pistulka 00:25
there? In the spirit of Saint Patrick’s Day, I’m open Stop it today. Damon

Curt Anderson 00:31
Pistulka, I absolutely love it, man, Grandma Kenny would be very proud of you. So I love it. So, alright, Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to everybody out there. And, man, we have so kind of we have a married Irish. Is that how that is? Jennelle So Jennelle McGrath, Jennelle, how are you happy St Patrick’s Day, too. Happy

Jennelle McGrath 00:49
St Patrick’s Day. Thanks for having me.

Curt Anderson 00:51
Absolutely So, man, this is honor. What a privilege. You’re an industrial marketer, marketing guru. We have all sorts of fun things. Inc Magazine, 5002 time you made that list. Dive deep into that. But before we go there, Jennelle, Did you are you? Are you sitting down? Janelle, yeah, alright. You ready? You ready for this? Right? Throwing them a little brace. I’m I’m coming at I’m coming at you. A little Curt now, so this wasn’t, this wasn’t on the list that we sent you. So, Jennelle, when you were a little girl growing up, mm hmm, way before, where did you went to? Merrimack, is that where you went to? Where you went to? Right? All right. So way before college, when you were a little girl growing up, who was your hero? Who did you look up to, who just showered you with unconditional love? Who was your hero as little girl growing up,

Jennelle McGrath 01:39
I would say my dad, my dad, probably had the most impact on mindset,

Curt Anderson 01:47
awesome. So as we are both proud girl dads, we love that answer. What’s dad’s name? Please mark, mark and please share why was mark a hero to you.

Jennelle McGrath 01:59
I did a post on this a little while ago about it was about six or seven, and he had this stump in the yard that he was sure had to come out. And he worked on that thing for months and could not get it out. And one day, we pulled into the driveway and he had a sign that said, Never, say never. And so it burned in my brain of what that moment was like, and then his life as I got older and older, there’s lots of other things like that that he really made sure to instill

Curt Anderson 02:28
so resiliency is that which determination just grits? Is

Jennelle McGrath 02:33
that what we’re hearing definitely a lot of grit. Awesome.

Curt Anderson 02:37
Big shout out to Mark. Hey, speaking of Damon, Harry flares is in the house here, Harry, Harry, what’s happening? Happy St Patrick’s Day. So hey, do us a favor. Drop us a note. Let us know that you’re out there. Do us another favor. Do yourself a favor. Connect with Janelle on LinkedIn. She is at powerhouse. Puts out all sorts of fun, amazing information. So Janelle, let’s go here. So you start, you go away to college. And at Damon, are you ready for this one? Yep. Janelle, at 18. How old were you when you started your

Jennelle McGrath 03:07
first business? 18? Damon, I don’t know what you were doing

Curt Anderson 03:10
at 18, but I wasn’t starting a business. So Jennelle starts a business at 18. So Jennelle, please share with us what business did you start at 18 years old? So

Jennelle McGrath 03:18
it was a fitness business. So we went into people’s homes, and we did boot camps. We would go on site and run these hundreds of people coming into these you know what? You how they used to do them sandbags and tires, and it was a lot of fun. And then we had people who went into people’s private gyms in their houses, or into, like their community gyms, and would train them there as well.

Curt Anderson 03:44
Awesome. Alright, so 18, what inspired you to start a business at 18?

Jennelle McGrath 03:48
So I’ve always liked business, but I think I just kind of fell into it. I was training for a triathlon, and really fell in love with exercise, and then it just kind of like, naturally was the next step. So became a personal trainer, and then the rest is history. Lo and behold, start

Curt Anderson 04:10
a business at 18. So walk us through like, how long did that business run? And then I believe you started another business. What walk us through those steps?

Jennelle McGrath 04:18
So I had that business for about 15 years, and, yeah, very long time. And I tried everything to make that thing work and get to a place where I was so excited to come into work every day. And it was just a very by nature that industry is a very transient business. Yeah, they’re, you know, their schedules, the lifestyle and so running a team in that capacity is super challenging, and they’re getting up at, you know, four o’clock in the morning and calling out not, not really good for the stress levels. So I decided that I no longer wanted that business and I just wanted to be a consultant. I was like, I just want to work for myself. I was sure that employees were. Yeah, the absolute reason why I was so unhappy, and I said, That’s it, I’m done. And after a year of being a consultant, I had more business than I knew what to do with, was back to kind of this starting point of like, oh my gosh, I’m unhappy again. But it was just too much work, nights, weekends. There was no boundaries. And so I had this epiphany. Had a business coach, and you know, we talked through it’s wasn’t the employees that were the problem, it was the misalignment of the culture, like who we were hiring, the type of business, the values that we were instilling and implementing. And so from there, we made the shift. I hired one employee, and what I would look back at the pictures, and it looks like little closet, elbow to elbow in a co shared space. And yeah, from there, we grew and grew so,

Curt Anderson 05:49
and forgive me if I miss when you said consultant. So you go from, you know, hardcore boot camp workout business, right? And very high stress, trying to in, very difficult to scale. It’s very difficult to scale that type of business, right? Especially like pre COVID. Maybe folks are having more success post COVID, but pre COVID Back in the day, very challenging. So when you were consulting, what type of consulting were

Jennelle McGrath 06:12
you doing? So, marketing, all marketing,

Curt Anderson 06:15
what inspired you to, let’s go there. So what inspired you to transition from like, hardcore workout to marketing and then again, like you are a fierce, really, all in manufacturing, industrial. Walk us through that transition of, like, where you’re more consumer based, kind of building your workout business. Let’s take walk us into your consulting business.

Jennelle McGrath 06:35
Yeah. So from when I decided to just be a consultant, the parts of the business that I really fell in love with were the marketing and the sales and the business components, which is what I went to school for. It just happened to be that I had this interest in fitness, and they overlapped. But when I moved over to consulting, I loved it, because you could really be so creative, and you got to see all of these different intricacies of how organizations are structured, how you can optimize them and really take what you learn from one industry and mirror it over across others. Because a lot of times we’ll get questions around, you know, well, like, what industries do you guys service? And like, you have to be in this super niche, same, you know, industry as us. And in my experience, I think it’s better to have visibility into lots of different organizations, because everybody has the same problems and everybody solves them a little bit different, so you get a little bit faster learning curve. Right?

Curt Anderson 07:31
Awesome. Okay, so hey, Damon, we’ve got a few people stopping by. Gives a little round of applause. We got somebody says, old school, hard work. Worked hard. So giving you a high five there. And then we got margin here today. Happy St Patrick’s Day to everybody. Everybody’s Irish today. Damon, average they are. So they practice a note. Let us know you’re out there. Give Jennelle McGrath a big hello and hey. While you’re at it, connect on LinkedIn with Damon Oh Pistulka, because he’s, he’s Mr. Irish today as well. So Jennnelle, let’s keep it going. So when you start this consulting business, was it market V was it market Veep? Or did you so it

Jennelle McGrath 08:07
was the McGrath group and the graph, and then, yep, then I was like, Okay, this is not going to work long term here. Like, I can’t sell this at any point. They can’t, like, I don’t want my name attached to it. Wanted to be a brand. And so as a marketer, all the cool names, quite honestly, are taken. So we went through hundreds and hundreds and trying to make sure you could get every social handle, yeah, and the domain without paying, you know, $40,000 to have it brokerage out. And so market people was the one that stuck and was short market

Curt Anderson 08:43
Veep. So who, who’s taking credit for that one you family member? Like, where did that come from?

Jennelle McGrath 08:47
Somebody told me about the show Veep. I’ve never once watched it. I’ve never

Speaker 1 08:55
Yeah, with the, well, yeah, the Elaine, oh yeah.

Jennelle McGrath 09:00
I was like, oh, that’s clever. So,

Curt Anderson 09:03
so that’s where the name came from. So alright, so, so let’s go here. So you are heavy duty with industrial marketing, B2B. Why? Why does that particular market really sing to you? So

Jennelle McGrath 09:15
we’re a HubSpot partner, so for the last decade, we’ve been in that ecosystem and seen all different kinds, startups, healthcare, finance, education, manufacturing and all these, all these different types. And one of the biggest things that I love about industrial and manufacturing is the people. I think that they have some of the kindest is a group in itself. They’re just so open to helping each other, even if their competitor, I look at, you know how they invite each other into tour their facilities and collaborate, is just a very different dynamic that you don’t I don’t see as often in other industries, and it’s across the board. It feels like. Like, but the people, they’re just good, good humans. Good

Curt Anderson 10:05
humans. Alright, well, that’s a good answer, good humans. And so again, I love for everybody. Connect with Jennelle. Jennelle, you have a great LinkedIn profile. Couple things that stand out to me. I love you’ve got helping companies be legendary, or, I’m sorry, build a legacy. Build a legacy. How? Like, why is that, like, such a mission, kind of a crusade for you? Why is that building a legacy so important to you? I

Jennelle McGrath 10:26
think, when I think about building a business, I think you can build a business, and you can have really high revenue, have great profit margins, you can do all these things, but I want us to be a place where we’re impacting the actual world. So I want to stand for something where, even if I’m gone, that brand itself is doing good in the world. And so I think to have that relationship with clients, and have those conversations around, what are you doing for your community? What kind of giving back? Let’s incorporate some of that into your marketing. You know, don’t hide those things that you’re doing, because it will help attract, you know, like minded people in and I just, I think it’s a value alignment,

Curt Anderson 11:13
nice, okay, a value alignment. So let’s, let’s go into the culture of your business, because what’s fascinating here you have a business, and just, like, was that had been a pretty big pivot, or was it a very stressful when you decided to close down the previous business? Was it a long, gradual, kind of slow, or was there, like, an aha moment where, like, I just can’t do this anymore? I

Jennelle McGrath 11:36
think it was, like an emotional build, right? Because, like, it’s like a baby, like, it’s like a family member 15 years you’re like, okay, like, at what point is happiness going to outweigh where I’m trying to grow this so I think there’s definitely an emotional component. But I think I just couldn’t handle the people calling out at three, four o’clock in the morning. I was like, I want to work with people who show up, who stand by their word, who get the job done, do what they say they’re going to do. And that’s where I think the real pivot came

Curt Anderson 12:08
Nice. All right, so let’s dive into market Veep. And so I’m going to pull up your website in a few minutes. But for folks, if you were in public, you’re at a trade show, you’re out to lunch, you’re on an elevator, somebody just says, like, hey, market Veep, what do you do? Please share with folks, how do you and your amazing team make the world a better place?

Jennelle McGrath 12:25
So we help organizations with scaling their sales and marketing, but at our core, we really want to have a positive impact on their overall organization. So that could be aligning their sales and marketing, it could be helping deploy their marketing campaigns, but as an overall whole, we function what most people would consider as a traditional digital agency. So everything from websites social content generation, we’re a HubSpot partner. So we do tons of implementation across like the CRM and the marketing tools, but the ultimate goal is to really have that closed loop reporting so that we’re able to say this drove ROI specific by each channel, as opposed to a lot of times in marketing, it’s like this big question mark of like, how much did this campaign actually generate? And so that’s why we went all in on HubSpot,

Curt Anderson 13:18
right? And how in your HubSpot certified partner, I believe,

Jennelle McGrath 13:21
right? Yeah, we’re a diamond partner. You’re a diamond

Curt Anderson 13:24
partner. And so how long have you been partnered in line with HubSpot?

Jennelle McGrath 13:28
I think, I think we did it our second year. So maybe nine years or

Curt Anderson 13:32
so, nine years. Nice. Yeah, awesome. Why? And, and for folks that aren’t familiar with HubSpot or or maybe they’ve considered it, or they’re that’s new to them. Why do you why you align with HubSpot? Was it a culture thing? Just the dynamics, the value, What? What? What really attracted you to HubSpot?

Jennelle McGrath 13:48
Yeah, I think the biggest problem that we were seeing was we had half clients on HubSpot, half or not by naturally coming through and finding us, and they would have HubSpot, and we would see that the people who had HubSpot, we could get faster results, because we could really see the data, as opposed to having a log into 25 different systems and try to, like, connect the dots and say, like, this person, you know, this could have been around the same time HubSpot solved all of that. So we moved everybody over. And then I think, as an organization, right? The people and their value system were very much aligned. We work with a lot of the teams over there, especially the sales side, that are just very like minded, and I think that helps with partnership,

Curt Anderson 14:33
right? Awesome. Okay, so let’s, I’m going to take a peek your website. Now, before I do that, you also have your you have a podcast yourself, and it has a you have a fascinating name. So we’re talking about market V please share with folks your podcast. And where did you come up with this name?

Jennelle McGrath 14:47
Yeah, finding business happy. So it went back to kind of why we started this, this business. And I think that there are parts of the learning. That I wish I had known or had access to, to have conversations, because I don’t think it’s an easy journey. And I think people get caught up sometimes in this growth mindset that they forget, like the purpose behind why they’re doing it. And so the premise of it is, is, how do you live your best life, inside and outside of work? So that might be, you know, we had somebody on who you know, their organization helps businesses, helps businesses go over season work, and it’s like has a school and it has like you can bring over your kids. It’s just like a completely different lifestyle that I would have never, you know, thought of or explored. And so just opening up people’s eyes to other ways to be able to think about what happiness really looks like. Love

Curt Anderson 15:45
it. Absolutely love it. So finding business happy. So check it out. And where can folks find your podcast? Spotify, Apple, awesome. Alright, great. And what type just and just share, like, what type of guests, what type of what are some of the topics? What are some of the guests? Let’s dig a little bit into your podcast. Podcast.

Jennelle McGrath 16:02
Yeah. So we have a lot of sales. We have marketing. We have people who have, you know, heavy LinkedIn numbers in terms of strategies, of what they’ve done, or how they’ve looked at personal branding of themselves. We have SEMrush, we have, I’m talking about SEO. So it’s really a very wide range. And some are more people interest, and some are more like, here’s how a tool can help reduce friction and improve things.

Curt Anderson 16:36
Nice, excellent. Okay, so what’s great, you know, a lot of times we kid around like we talked to different marketers, and we’re like, you know, unfortunately, you sometimes become like the cobblers kid with no shoes. And so what I love, what’s going on with you is, can you see my screen? Yep. And so let’s take a we’re going to take a quick little tour of your website, if you will. Let me just move things around. And Alright, let’s share with folks what’s when they pop on your website. So if there’s a there’s a company out there and they’re looking to line with like a heavy duty, you know, roll up your sleeves, HubSpot agency like yourself. Just share with folks what, what? What’s going on here? What would they see when they land on your site? Yeah.

Jennelle McGrath 17:16
So the core thing that we really try to instill is that the human component should be at the core of any strategy that you’re deploying, if you are truly just coming to work with us to deploy tactics we are not the best fit, and we’ve really fine tuned and honed who we want to work with, And they actually go through a value alignment assessment before I even get on the call to talk with them, because I want to make sure that they have enough structure to be able to, you know, even simple things, like, do you have somebody who can approve in a timely manner the the items that we’re having? Do you have a sales team? You know what? What is your average growth over the last year, you know, so understanding the bigger picture, because you can’t develop a strategy unless you have these core fundamentals, and you can’t have have successful campaigns unless you have a strategy. So everything really starts with strategy, and then we’ll deploy from there.

Curt Anderson 18:16
Excellent. Okay, so as we’re going through here. And what’s fascinating is you’re, you’re, you’re as you’re describing. You’re almost like the accidental agency, because you want to just do things on your own. You had to business coach and, like, kicking and screaming. He’s like, hey, just, just hire one person, right? Just just one put them in your, like, your little office closet. You guys are gonna be elbow to elbow. Like, how does somebody go from, I really don’t want to hire anybody, to the ink, you know, like, you know, being on the Inc 5000 is, like, every entrepreneur is not on every but, you know, many entrepreneurs dream it’s like the athlete. Like you mentioned, you’re a triathlon triathlete. You know, it’s a person that can finish the Iron Man, Iron woman, that could finish the marathon. Like, how do you go from one employee to like the Inc 5000

Jennelle McGrath 19:03
I think baby steps. I think a real focus on on the goal. I mean, it took us years. I think we hit it eight years in, seven years in but I think, you know, it’s one of those things to your point, like I had it on my wall, on my bulletin board for years, like it followed me around. And I think about to your point, around the first employee that I had in this little closet space we were in, like a Regis, like a co working space, and we kept having to get more offices as we grew but they couldn’t find a section of the building where, like, it could be like, two or three or five in a row. So we would have like, three offices over here, one on the other side. We’d like meet up in the conference room or the lunch room, and then we eventually built out like a full brand new space. Bad timing with COVID, like, moved in. Right before COVID? Yeah, um, but, yeah. I think it’s just an evolution. I think when you really hire for values and culture fit and align to that the world is your oyster. Well, I

Curt Anderson 20:11
love that, and let’s, let’s go here. Damon, what do you what do you

Damon Pistulka 20:14
got so far? No, this is great. This is great because, you know, first of all, back to the human connection, right? Marketing, just to try to get somebody to sign up to buy something, is just, it’s heartless, right? It really is. It’s just the transactional is all heck. And starting with the human, I think, is, is really the connection the community and everything you build there, and understanding you’ve talked about a lot that your customers align with that value, because you’re going to find that pretty quickly. I love that they’re doing that before they even talk with anyone. Because you know, if you want someone that’s just slamming bam and trying to get as many sales as they can, no matter what, that’s one thing. If you want someone that wants to build a community and legacy and long term business, you know, connecting with the people that are doing business for that’s a completely different thing. And, yeah, an awesome thing.

Jennelle McGrath 21:10
Totally different mindset. And I think once we learned like TAC, people who want like these really, really quick wins. So don’t get me wrong, there are things that can get quick wins, but as an overarching like not thinking about annual planning or quarterly sprints, or having to explain fundamentally why they’re important, was just a really big, like, learning curve for them, and it was taking us a lot longer to ramp them because there was a lot of education.

Curt Anderson 21:35
Yeah, I love so. So in a couple of things, I want to hear Janelle And again, for, for kind of giving a highlight to what’s going on at market V but in the same regard, you know, being a high level expert for market, for manufacturers out there, and maybe, you know, maybe their their website, wasn’t a top priority, a little bit behind the curve. What I love that you have here, like you’re very specific. This is our menu. This is what we do. These are our superpowers. This is what we bring to the table. In the same regard, Damon, you were talking about this before we went live. Is, are we a fit? And what I love is so Damon and I, we do a lot of, like, webinars and training and stuff. And so we’re always we use a line. It’s called like, how do you niche down till it hurts? Right? How do you stay in that niche and be disciplined. And I feel like you’re really walking a walk here with this line of like, Hey, are we a fit? How many companies have the courage to put right on their website? Like, no disrespect, nothing personal, yeah, we might not be the best fit. Yes. Talk to us about, like, what did it take for you to offer that, and what has this done for you? How has this been beneficial for you to, like, really stay in your lane?

Jennelle McGrath 22:42
Yeah, I think it stopped with the tire kickers and the people who just openly didn’t have enough budget and infrastructure. And then on the flip side, it opened up other conversations about how to optimize and really look at it as the 10,000 foot view instead of just looking at it. This is how marketing should work. But score app was actually there on one of the episodes, and they’re fantastic. I think it changed my perspective too, because it makes it very like black and white. There’s no gray, like, when it comes through at the other end. There’s no like, gut and feeling of like, I like this person. I think they’re saying the right things. This is like, this is the number, and this is the range that I know we should be within, because there’s enough you know, that we can grow together. And so it makes it very factual, and I’m very data oriented, and so it just it made it an easier solve, made it less personal in terms of, like, Can they do it? Can they not do it? Right? They have the items.

Curt Anderson 23:44
Did you feel? Did you or anyone on your team feel like, Oh, should we go there? Or was this like a no brainer? Like, no, we’re gonna like, how did you

Jennelle McGrath 23:54
Yeah, I think that it was, like a slow progression, yeah. I think the questions have also evolved with the more conversations that we’ve had. And I think that we’ve definitely had negative right? We’ve had people come through and they’ll fill out. It tells you, when they stop, what question they end at, and they’ll get to a certain question, and they’ll email in the contact form and say, you know, I don’t feel comfortable filling this particular thing out, or I don’t, I don’t really know if I want to continue this piece, but I still want to talk to you. And so my response is, like, this is a, this is like, a trust thing, right? Like, it’s, if this is going to be a real partnership, we need to understand where this is, like the very first thing, there’s way more complicated things that we’re gonna have to have trust with. And so the other day, I got this really aggressive email back, and it was, it was very not nice, and I was talking about it with the team. I said, What’s interesting is there was no self reflection. And. Into the person of, well, maybe this is why, like, culture and value wise, why these organizations are doing this. And so he was trying to essentially bully me into having a meeting. And, you know, my competitors don’t do anything like this, and they just give him a proposal. And he needed so many proposals before, you know, he would move on. And it just it, it shows really through. There’s no yeah,

Curt Anderson 25:26
there’s a misalignment, yeah, and so, and it’s, and kudos to you that you are in a place of of experience. And if I could, you know, use a word with a, you know, I’m saying this with utmost respect, in humility, like you have the, the maturity to not give in to that situation, right? Yeah. So I hope, I hope that word was, yeah, right, of course. Well, it because I think as as entrepreneurs, even, like my like, I’m still trying to figure out how to mature. You know, I remember my my father when, when he was in his 60s, he was like, Man, I can’t believe I’m in my 60s. I’m still trying to figure out how to mature, yeah, as entrepreneurs, like, every day, every week, we’re maturing on how to do better. But like, you know, maybe years ago you were make, I would say, fallen into that trap 100 right?

Jennelle McGrath 26:10
Yeah, it’s a grind, right? Like, there’s like, this period of, like, I always tell our team, the place that I want to exist in is a place of choice, where we can pick and choose and really work with the people where we can have the most impact. And I think in early days, right? Like you take whoever comes through, and I think it took us a long time to really reflect on who was a good fit, and it took years of talking about endlessly and like dissecting when somebody would leave like what the reason was, was it, was it something we did? Was it something that they did? Was it, you know, just different values, it could be 10 million things. And so boiling all of that down takes time, which is why we continue to fine tune the questions. I still don’t think it’s perfect, but I think as the world changes, it will continue to evolve. Well,

Curt Anderson 27:01
I absolutely love that. And hey, by the way, I absolutely love look at that handsome guy, Damon, with a guy with long hair. How

27:06
about that? She did that.

Curt Anderson 27:09
You know what? That guy wasn’t there on Friday. She just

Jennelle McGrath 27:12
put that he could be you. Curt,

Curt Anderson 27:16
yeah, he’s a little much thinner than me, but you’re right. So let’s, let’s go here. I’m going to talk about and then we’ll jump off the website. Thank you for sharing as much as you are, because I think this is extremely valuable. Because I don’t think whether you’re cutting metal, making circuit boards, providing a service, marketing, what you’re doing is like you’re sharing, like, how you’re understanding your ideal buyer, and like, we can provide superior service when we stay in this lane, but when we get into this lane, that now that’s where, you know, things don’t go so well. So and I think what was, what was your phrase? He was very, very not nice. Is that how you said that aggressive,

Jennelle McGrath 27:52
very not nice and aggressive, very, very

Curt Anderson 27:55
not nice. I think that was the quote, very, very not nice. I was like, I gotta write that word down. Yeah. Next time you’re aggressive, I’m going to call you very, very nice. Yeah,

Jennelle McGrath 28:03
there were other words, but just not appropriate for a live stream.

Curt Anderson 28:08
Our mother, our mothers are watching

Damon Pistulka 28:09
the show. It really is. It really is funny when you run into people like that because they’re they’re angry because you’ve said, No, I don’t, I don’t really think we’re a fit, and then they go get offended by that, because they think that everybody could be, I don’t know, like you said, you said it really. Well, no self reflection there, because, listen, we’re not ice cream, you know, ice cream. And it wasn’t like I

Jennelle McGrath 28:36
was saying, like, I don’t like you, yeah, like, I wish you the best. Like, we’re not a fit. Like, I’m glad you found other people. I’m happy to refer to other people too. Yeah. So

Curt Anderson 28:45
before we before we cut out from the website Janelle, just share it. Like, so company, culture is huge for you. I caught you on a podcast with our dear friend who’s going to be on the show next month, Jim Mayer, Jim is like, he’s the culture guru, and he asked you a question about culture. So I know this wasn’t on kind of like our when I when we did prep. So I’m going to, I’m going rogue on you a little bit. Again, the person, the accidental entrepreneur, not accident entrepreneur, the accidental you know. Inc, five like you grew your company. Inc, 5000 I can’t understate like, my respect, admiration for you of that such a massive accomplishment. And here’s a person that like didn’t want any employees. Obviously, you’re doing something right. You’ve built a culture, you’ve you’re 20 plus strong. You wouldn’t have landed on Inc 5000 you have bunch of other awards that you have locally. You know, encourage everybody check out the website, and you can see the awards that Janelle has won. How was Was it intentional? Like, how would you define or describe how you’ve built your culture? So

Jennelle McGrath 29:46
I think when we first started hiring, my number one thing was the focus on happy. So every decision that we made was derived around, how will this actually affect the outcome six months from now? A year from now, five years from now, is this going to take us off our path of happiness, and then every time that, as time went on, we would slow drift, right? But there’s this little bit of creep sometimes that can happen. It’s not a perfect system. We would do, like a hard reset. We would have team meetings and say, okay, like, let’s take a start, like a really honest survey. And the to be honest is like soul crushing, like some of the feedback that can come through. And I remember it was like Christmas time, and I got this survey, and it was just so intense, and was so raw and so honest, and we changed effort. It, think it’s one of the things that people should be honest when you know their employers are I think they get scared, but it really changed a lot of what we did, how we thought about things. And so each one of those that have come through, whether it be like a formal survey or pulling somebody off and asking questions, has changed a lot of that. But we have, we have built out a whole bunch of programs like we do 401, K matching. We couldn’t do it in the beginning, but like, that was something that they really wanted. We do half day Fridays. We started out as summer hours, but end of summer came and I couldn’t put that genie back in the bottle. So I said, let’s figure out a way to make it happen. So we did. Then we have the first Friday of every month off for personal wellness, because I had read this study in Sweden where they went to a four day work week. And I thought we couldn’t do that. We’re in the service industry, but like, what could we do? And so I think having a really open mind about company culture and talking to your team about what matters to them, where, I think a lot of times, company culture, the organization says this is what I think the culture should be, as opposed to reverse engineering it to what the people are asking for. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka 31:51
yeah. And it’s so cool that you, you do that. I mean, one of, one of my clients, we just initiated, you have one day a year for and you have to take it that you’re going to volunteer. You have to take it. I love it, not if you don’t. You wherever you want to volunteer. And there’s no specification. You know, you can be church, civic, it doesn’t matter, but you have to go out and help somebody one day a year, pay, and that’s your deal. Because it is like you’re saying, time off. Understand what your employer what really matters to your employees, you know, and from from an employer standpoint, the benefits you receive from that are really tenfold when you start to understand how you have a more engaged group of people, how they feel more connected to their community, to the business, to the people they help, just because they can really experience life and business together. 100%

Jennelle McGrath 32:47
I love me. Do VTO, that was the latest one that we did. I think that was last year. And seeing the pictures of, like, the kittens and like, you know, like, it’s just heartwarming to be like, yeah, they’re doing something good, and they feel good about it, and they’re excited about it. But we started right before COVID, the 50 by 52 project, which every week we give. At that point we’re giving $50 it’s now the 100 by 52 because we increased it. But the premise was, I think organizations were giving, like Christmas time, right? Like when you think about generosity, and so having a giving mindset all year round, we had our team pull together a list of all of the the organizations that meant something to them, and then every week we pay out to them. And in the early days, pre COVID, we would actually go on Amazon, order everything, package it up, and then send it. So they got to actually feel what it felt like to like, wow, be really involved. But COVID Put a little bit of a wrench in that, and then we became fully remote. So it became even more challenging.

Curt Anderson 33:57
Yeah, hey, we’ve got a couple great comments here. So true mission statement, not just words. And so Noreen gives you a round of applause. Thank you, Noreen. Appreciate you guys. So again, drop us a note. Let us know you’re out there. I didn’t know what time, so I know we’re over the top of the hour. We’re with the founder and CEO of market. V our dear friend, Jennelle McGrath. And yes, she is all Irish today. Everybody’s all Irish. Look at Damon. Is Damon al pastor today. So, God, I thought like, keep that, can you just keep that for rusty, you know, like, just Congress every day, right? Just

Damon Pistulka 34:29
roll her eyes and be as normal, yeah? Just, like, just Damon being Damon

Curt Anderson 34:33
Janelle. I want to go here. So two things that I’d like to hit, let’s talk about, let’s dive into manufacturers. Okay, that’s your sweet spot. That’s your mission, purpose. Passion is helping B to B. Industrial marketers. What do you kind of see in, like boots in the street? What are some things? So if there’s a market, if there’s a manufacturer out there that is in we know the you know, we know the manufacturers that you know have had, they’ve trade shows. Word of mouth is how they built their business. And now also in this whole. Internet thing is kind of flipping them upside down. Now we’re going to throw AI on it, then you throw COVID in there. Like, they’re, they’re, like, discombobulated, oh my goodness. What do I do about marketing walk somebody through that’s new to marketing? How let’s, let’s give them, like, a little one on one, or how do you walk them through those early stages?

Jennelle McGrath 35:16
Yeah, think it’s baby steps, like, to your point with COVID, I think that there was this massive mind shift of, Oh, my God, I can no longer do boots on the ground, trade shows, these traditional channels, where I would get 99% of my business. I couldn’t even visit existing customers to continue to build those relationships. And so I think that was really the starting point. I don’t have as many Congress. I still have them, but I don’t have as many at the volume of, you know, technology, and I don’t need it because I have referrals like, I think there’s a better understanding of it’s here, it needs to be used. It’s just a matter of how much is actually going to be integrated in so when we work with an organization, we have pre standing programs that we’ve essentially looked at all of the best conversions and clients that have been the most successful, and then reverse engineered, because it ended up being a little bit of people get shiny object syndrome, and they get an idea in the middle of the night, and they come in, they’re like, let’s let’s not do this, and let’s do this. And we’re like, but the goal was leads, and we’ve now requested to take out all the items in this list that are lead generating. So having these programs that are really predefined protects that and make sure that their goals are achieved. Now on the other side, we have like, buckets of hours where that people can have full freedom to, you know, tell us when we’re working with larger teams, and they might need more arms and legs to really execute on those items, or they might need a specific, really fine tuned, skilled resource in, like, web dev or something like that. So there’s two different ways, but it is always an omni channel approach. There’s no clients that we just do. Like, sometimes we’ll get asked, like, can you guys just run my Google ads? We’re not a great fit for that. Like, it needs to be like, ads, email, social, like, some full nurture campaign, because it’s a tactic, if it’s just the one channel, right,

Curt Anderson 37:12
right? So kind of a it’s not a one size fits all. It’s a full gamut. And it’s understanding the customer, understanding their needs, going through that assessment and making sure that you guys are aligned, and then proven tactics, proven strategies that you’ve been implementing with, you know, you know, numerous clients, and then just applying it to that client. And I love, let’s hit the data like you’re you, I think you’ve said maybe multiple times, or you said earlier, that you’re a data gal, did I hear that correctly? Right? Yeah, you’re all about the analytics data. Let’s just, I’m going to be kind of broad. Let’s just hit that for a minute. Like, for for a company out there, it’s like, Gee, I’m not doing anything with analytics or data. What’s like, how do you have those conversations and how do you kind of get those folks fired

Jennelle McGrath 37:53
up? So the first thing is connecting things. I think a lot of times we’ll talk to people and they’ll have their sales team each in an Excel sheet that is living not even in like a shared deal sheet, and they’re just on their desktop, and that person goes out sick, and they don’t have any access to any of the lead list. So the first thing is, just, let’s get organized. And then the second piece is, what channels have you been doing? So the most common one we see is trade shows, so taking that and then amplifying it. So let’s take these lists. Let’s run retargeting ads for them. Let’s make sure they have drip email campaigns. It’s looking at what has already been done, as opposed to like, let’s start everything out of the gate, brand new, all these new things, because the adoption piece is really important in terms of how successful an organization will be as well.

Curt Anderson 38:43
Nice, awesome. Okay, alright, let’s start. I’m going to shift gears. I’m going to come back to you, your company again, market Veep. So anybody joining us to connect with Jennelle on LinkedIn, check out her website. Wealth of information there. Inc, 5000 award winner two years. Just share a little bit. What would you share? We’ve talked about, you’ve dug into culture. So maybe you’ve answered some of this. You’ve dug into culture, building your company, commitment to your customers, is there for an entrepreneur out there? Let’s say the Jennelle, who, you know they’re in that tiny, off closet office, yeah, having hired the person next to him yet, for that entrepreneur out there, what are some of the what are some of the things that you feel have contributed to your wild success since you’ve started this journey?

Jennelle McGrath 39:28
I think a big one is having, whether it be an individual, one on one coach or a community, so like round tables and group settings, because I think leadership can be really lonely, in all honesty, especially in the early days, and you step on a lot of landmines, and you feel like you’re crazy, and you’re like, wow, I didn’t see that coming. Where now, I think you hear other stories and somebody says, Well, I tried this, or have you thought about this? And then it might not be the solution, but it’s a spur point to route you to something else. Yes, and it just makes you feel normal.

Curt Anderson 40:02
Yeah. So alright. So getting a coach. Where any tips on where to find? It sounds like you had a spectacular coach. Any tip for anybody out there? Where would you what do you recommend as far as somebody? So

Jennelle McGrath 40:13
we use Vern harnishes scaling up Yes. And so I saw him speak God five, six years ago, and immediately found a coach through their program. My coach is called Herb COVID. Shout out. He’s awesome. But I think finding somebody who is like minded, he’s also an inc 5000 winner. I wanted to be in Inc, best places to work. We’ve got that too, like having somebody who has done it live, yeah, stepped in it. You know, makes a big difference. Excellent.

Curt Anderson 40:47
Hey, we’ve got a great comment here. Damon from here, yeah, here. You want to read that.

Damon Pistulka 40:50
Jennelle, if you see an organization with great potential, but clearly see internal cultural, cultural issues, silos, sales, marketing, non aligned, etc. Have you ever helped an organization recognize and fix those challenges first before helping them with marketing solutions? Or do you immediately walk away?

Jennelle McGrath 41:08
Great question. Thank you. That’s a really good question. No, I think about when we were in an office, we were on a call with a client, and we were doing a persona development exercise, and so they had a really large sales team and their marketing team, and they were all excited get everybody in the room talking, and it was like, knock down, drag out, raw. I was like, What is going like? They were so adamant, like, there was so much disconnect between what was going on. And so it’s very hard in a marketing strategy to be able to do anything without a persona, right? We have to know who we’re targeting, what their voice, their message, any of those things. And so sales had been going after completely different people, and marketing had been targeting in a completely different way. So you have to start with the basics, the foundation, I think it’s not necessarily telling somebody you’re not a fit in those situations. They have to be. Have enough open mindedness to say, I accept that this is where we’re at, but I’m open to trying and fix these things that are going on. I just don’t know how to get there. Can you help me get there? And so that’s how I like, I love those companies, right? Like, I love seeing somebody haven’t not see loving, seeing them struggle, but being like, I have a solution to help you feel better about this. Like, this is how we get from A to B. And I don’t want, I mean, I’ve been in those spots, right? Like, everybody’s been in those spots. You don’t want somebody to to feel that way. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka 42:36
and it’s, it’s, it’s great work with people that are willing to ask for help. It’s not working, right? Recognize it. Ask for help. That’s a great example that you gave. You know, when they’re like that, if they sit down, go, wow, we really aren’t aligned. Can you help us figure that out? Totally

Jennelle McGrath 42:55
different conversation, right? Yes, such a different mindset, yeah, yeah. That’s awesome.

43:01
That’s awesome. I’ll

Curt Anderson 43:02
tell you, I had great expectations for this conversation. Janelle, like you’ve absolutely so is, are we giving all credit to mark? Was that your dad’s name? Was it mark? Right? So we’ll just give all the credit to your dad. But this, I’ll tell you, are an incredibly impressive entrepreneur, is, I want to be mindful of your time, because I know you are super busy as we start winding down. Last question that I want to ask is best business advice that you have ever received or that you would like to pass along? I know we’ve covered a ton culture, hire a coach. You know, building your team. The survey, I’d say like that is, yeah, that was a drop the mic moment, right there, right getting, you know, having that tough love survey, getting that feedback, and again, the humility and the entrepreneurial maturity for you to put that out there, for your team to and for you to receive it with grace, that that I salute you for there. But what business advice, if you haven’t covered it already, would you like to pass along, maybe to a new entrepreneur out there? I

Jennelle McGrath 44:03
think focus on happy. I think everything else falls into place. If you focus on that, you really can’t go wrong, whether it’s happiness with your team, happiness with your clients, how to find balance and hang on to that and then build from there. But don’t and don’t get mad at yourself when you have that slow creep. Just recognize it, have self awareness and then reassess to get back on track.

Curt Anderson 44:31
Drop the mic All right. Brilliant advice, and it ties in perfectly with your podcast, finding business, happy. Love that name. Damon. Thoughts, takeaways from the conversation today. What do you what do

Damon Pistulka 44:42
you have? No, I think you’re back to, back to the first thing you know, humans, the humans and keeping the human in marketing. I really enjoy that topic around your website and your culture and things you’re doing, and then the focus on happy too. I mean, we’re all gonna I mean, we all have to work. Hard at what we do to get, you know, to get good at something and do something really good things. But there’s no reason we can’t be happy doing it right and we can’t facilitate happy. And really, you know, make the right decision, speak the right way, and do the right things, to be happy while we’re doing it. That’s so good. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 45:19
I have, I was telling my daughter, you know, sell enthusiasm. Just sell enthusiasm, and you’ll go far, right? So happy is a great thing. Jennelle, anything that you have coming up on the horizon, anything that you want to share, or best place to find you coming up, yeah.

Jennelle McGrath 45:33
So if you are in the New England area, I’m on the PMA board, and so we have lots of events that are coming up. Please connect with us there. Um, I’ll be at fab tech, East tech, um, and designed a part IMTS next year. A couple more that are coming

Curt Anderson 45:52
up. Do you ever speak at HubSpot? I haven’t

Jennelle McGrath 45:56
spoken at HubSpot, but I spoke at Fabtech last year. Okay,

Curt Anderson 45:59
excellent. Alright, so that’s a that’s a powerhouse. So again, connect with Janelle on LinkedIn. Tons of information on her LinkedIn profile. We have check out her website. We again, if you Damon, how about should people hit the remind button here? If they miss anything?

Damon Pistulka 46:14
I think they should. They should go back and start from the beginning.

Curt Anderson 46:19
This is just, it’s a great there’s multiple things here. So great marketing tips for B to B folks, people, manufacturing for entrepreneurial friends. This is a great origin story. And how to you know, we’ve talked about pivoting, we’ve talked about coaching, we’ve talked about communication, building a culture, all sorts of one of the things, and this is a person who, again, not talking to talk. She’s been on the Inc 5000 list you’ve had, Inc, best place to work, so, all sorts of awards and so, Janelle, how about demon? How about a big round of applause for graph, for just crushing it out

46:50
there. Man, way to go. Way to go.

Curt Anderson 46:54
Like, I feel like an

Damon Pistulka 46:58
under, yeah. Man, this

Curt Anderson 47:00
was great. Janelle, I’m going to ask you to hang out with us for one second. We appreciate you. Applaud you. We just boy. We encourage anybody connect with Janelle. Catch the rewind button. Go back to beginning. Damon, we got an, I don’t know if we’re going to top this one, but we have a we have another great guest coming up on Friday. I know you ready for that one? It’s going to be good. It’s going to be well, we’re going to have to stretch out for that well, triathlete, so we’ll talk. Yeah, we need to

Damon Pistulka 47:25
get ready. Fresh advice helping people exercise.

Curt Anderson 47:28
All right, we’re gonna, we’re gonna wrap up. And so I peeked on LinkedIn. Janelle, it was a is it, Brent? Is your husband? Said, Yes, Brent, alright. So big shout out to mark, big shout out to Brent. And we wish you guys an amazing, wonderful, Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to you success the rest of the year. So I thank

Jennelle McGrath 47:44
you guys so much.

Curt Anderson 47:47
Guys, soon. So hang out with us one second, and we’ll catch everybody on. You know, Damon, and one thing I always like to say, You know what I like to say, just go out there and be someone’s inspiration, just like Janelle And you too, you make the world a better place. So next, next show. There we go. So.