Marketing, Branding, and the Culture Connection

Tim Carroll (00:02)
Welcome to Culture at Work, the podcast that explores how to maintain a strong corporate culture in a rapidly changing world. I’m your host, Tim Carroll, inviting you to learn from industry leaders on how to build an exciting culture to bring people back to the office and inspire them like never before. On today’s episode, we have Wren Scott. Combining careers in marketing and journalism, Wren offers his clients a unique expertise in branding and messaging.

As an anchor and investigative reporter for CBS in New York, Wren won four Emmys and 12 Emmy nominations. In the world of advertising and communications, Wren spent four years on Madison Avenue with clients including Nestle and Gillette before opening BrandMinded Digital Marketing in Tampa, Florida. This is a fun conversation. Let’s get right to it today. Wren, thank you so much for being with us today.

I’m just, I’m always excited about the conversations, but this one I am very much so because we’ve known each other for many years and we’ve had many, conversations over the years. And I love this podcast because I get a chance to have conversations around culture with a unique perspective. And I think in that regard, this is maybe the one of the most unique perspectives around culture building.

because we’re going to be talking about among other things, but marketing and branding and how that can affect the culture internally and externally. And so thank you so much for being with us today.

Ren Scott (01:42)
My pleasure. Always love talking with you Tim.

Tim Carroll (01:45)
So let’s start as we always do. And I want to get to that ever so important question on how do you define culture?

Ren Scott (01:55)
Well, you know, it’s interesting. I’ve been involved with most of the podcasts you’ve done and I’ve heard everybody define culture. And, you know, I understand that it is this, you know, this set of beliefs that, and in most people say is created and maintained by employees. And I agree with that to a point, but I do believe, and you and Nancy and Marcy and working spaces are a classic case in point that it trickles down from the top. So, you know,

It may be something that employees can maintain and can buy into, but the framework for it has to be established by leadership. And now when I look at working spaces and we’ve talked about this many times, furniture is really a by-product of what you do. It is technology. It is architecture. It is design. It is creating spaces that make life better for other people and getting to know Nancy and Marcy and how they value family and how they value employees.

how they incorporate employees, how they listen to employees and support employees. That to me is a culture and it’s a mutual exchange. That’s not created and driven by employees. It is created and driven by the culture of leadership. And that has filtered down to, think, create an environment that is very comfortable, conducive to collaboration and creativity. Just so many good things that come out of the way that working spaces.

and the culture of working spaces has evolved. So I just differ in that one thing that it is created and maintained by employees because you’re the classic case where it is very much created by the leadership and then embraced and continued by employees.

Tim Carroll (03:40)
So you deal with or work with companies across a large spectrum of industries. And you said something in there that stood out to me and that I’ve never really thought about before. And that is, do you feel like knowing who you are, knowing who you are as a company affects culture in a big way? And thus, by knowing who you are being solid on your brand on your, you know, presenting yourself, does that

Does that affect culture in any way in your mind? Do you see it with all these industries?

Ren Scott (04:14)
Very much. mean, I mentioned authenticity as being part of your culture or your brand. And I don’t want to sound full of myself, but having done this for decades and having worked with a wide swath of companies and organizations and cultures, we as a team now only pick people we want to work with because we believe in the authenticity of what they’re doing.

and they are genuinely in an endeavor to make the world a better place. So if you think about it, Shriners Hospitals for Children, Moffitt Cancer Center, we do a number of 501 C3s. I’ve been with a team called Four Hearts for 15 years that provides pacemakers for underprivileged people in third world countries around the world, and we are now up to over 17,000 lives saved.

you know, another organization called Christine’s Hope for Kids. I’m a big fan of credit unions. think they do well by their participation of their clients. I’m a big fan of people who are innovative in the medical field and are working with technologies not to mask pain, but get to the source of the pain and actually cure the pain. Everybody has this theme in common with us, and that is they genuinely love what they’re doing.

They are doing it because it improves people’s lives and makes the world a better place. And that makes it very easy for us as an organization because something that may sound counterintuitive, and I think we can dig into this a little bit too, I believe in truth in marketing. Now that might sound like an oxymoron to a lot of people because, you know, it’s always-

Tim Carroll (06:00)
It be a new concept by the way, but that seems like a unique approach these days.

Ren Scott (06:06)
Yeah, and I can give you some context to it. It’s very interesting. So I grew up in a house. My father was one of the madmen. He worked for Ogilvy and Maether in the 60s on Madison Avenue. And he was quite a force. And I grew up in a house. And this is no joke. We would talk during the programs and we would watch the commercials and then we would discuss the commercial. I I was literally weaned on advertising.

And so out of college, I went to New York and went to work for a big Madison Avenue firm and then had a family tragedy. lost a brother and it just rocked my world. And I’m like, I can’t write about hairsprays and candy bars. I’ve got to do something different. So I went back and got a master’s in journalism. Spent 20, 23 years as an investigative reporter and an anchor and all that stuff for CBS, which is all about the facts, right? It’s all about just telling the truth.

And then we started having kids and I was like, I can’t do this anymore. I need to have a life. So came back to this world of marketing, but it’s the same thing to me as journalism. It’s just good communication. My father had a wonderful phrase and he’d say, the key to all of this is to reduce it to the irreducible minimum. Just get to the heart of the matter and tell the facts. And consumers are smart.

they know when they’re being played and they know when you’re saying something that’s genuine and just has that tone. And so that is what I have always brought to this. And again, I mean, it may sound like, you know, I’m blowing smoke, but I have so much enjoyed working with your team because we’ve accomplished so much. thinking, I think about you during the pandemic, people aren’t going back to the office. Oh my God, the sky is falling. And what did working spaces do? They very calmly started putting out research pieces.

of how inevitably we’ve got to get back to the office, but we can work with the hybrid system. We can work through this. We can do it together. That is, that to me is really good marketing. It’s just being honest. It’s educating people. It’s helping people. And when they see you do that again and again and again, they just want to work with you. They want to work with good people who care about them. And that’s, that’s what I see as marketing. So all this.

slick bait stuff that’s going on on the internet right now. It’s very troubling to watch. I feel sorry for all the people who get snookered by it, but marketing is just really quality communication, reducing things to the irreducible minimum and telling the truth in a compelling way. And so I don’t know if I’ve gone off on a tangent here, but it’s very important to me because that’s really, that’s been our brand. Our brand is selecting good clients and that’s what we do.

Tim Carroll (08:56)
And it sounds like you select clients that do have an understanding of who they are to a degree. And then you help craft that into a message. will tell you that I think the calmness through all of that only happened because we knew who we were and we were maniacally focused on getting that message out because we felt strongly about who we are and who this industry is. But that brevity thing, just from a corporate perspective, what we say all the time is be brief, be bright, be gone.

The irreducible minimum, same thing, like say what you got to say and get out and mean what you say.

Ren Scott (09:32)
I mean what

you say. People can tell when you’re blowing smoke. They really can. I’ve worked with such a range of corporations and I actually walked away from the most profitable client I ever had because I realized that they were promoting a patent that wasn’t what they promoted it to be. I’m just not interested in that. It’s just what’s the value of that.

Tim Carroll (09:58)
So you mentioned the C word, COVID. What have you seen? Again, I like your perspective because, this is something we really don’t talk about in our conversations together very much, you your interactions with all of your clients and all these industries. What have you seen in your world of that branding, marketing, messaging that’s changed post COVID?

Ren Scott (10:27)
Hmm. You know, it’s interesting because, you know, there is this sense of what I’ve detected. And I think you and I have talked a little bit on this, sense of isolation and loneliness that’s out there. People feel like, you know, they’re, they’re, thought this was going to be great, right? They got to work from home. Turns out it’s not, it’s not all that was built up to be. So I think people are really looking for messages that inspire and educate and guide them a little bit. And, you know, I, I,

You know, I look at my career growing up and how important mentoring was, you know, being face to face with people who I looked up to, took an interest in me and, and gave me their time. Those little conversations, you know, getting coffee in the morning, you know, being in the office kind of thing. All of those were so critical to developing relationships that, you know, that changed your life. So I, I, I’m seeing now in the messaging that, that we’re putting out with people.

A lot of it kind of tends to, and this is intentional on our part, but trying to encourage people to collaborate more and to interact more. And without telling someone to go back to the office, you kind of indicate what they’re missing by not being in the office. And don’t get me wrong. I mean, there’s some wonderful things about the hybrid model, you know, especially young. Absolutely. Trying to raise somebody at home and.

One person can be home two days a week and the other can be home. You know, there, there’s value in that, but I just think there’s a great deal that’s being, that’s in the messaging. really focus a lot on like when we, when we talk about your company, we profile every new employee. You know, we, we, let them know, A working spaces is excited that you’re here. B you have wonderful credentials and, and, and really are going to have an impact on this company.

And C, welcome to the team. Come on in. Don’t sit at home and wait for the Zoom meeting. Come on in and join the team. And I think that’s always being greeted with a lot of enthusiasm by people. It’s what I sense again, and a lot of this, and you know this, I mean, you’ve been in this business for a long time. know, communication and messaging is just authenticity. So I don’t have to make up stories about why you should want to be in the office.

I just have to share concepts and the excitement of what happens when you’re all together again. And again, if you think about what we’ve done over the years is we create spaces that inspire connectivity, productivity, collaboration, creativity. That’s what we’re doing. We are creating spaces where you can come in and be part of this excitement. So I don’t know if that really answers the question. I don’t think.

you know, it’s been a slow evolution on our part as well. And each client set a different challenge, but nobody has been more in the cross hairs of what happened during the pandemic. And, know, our client that, you know, deals in office furniture, no offices, no company, right.

Tim Carroll (13:41)
those new employees that you talk about recently, and it’s, it’s really started happening more, but some of these, most of the newer ones that we’ve gotten have been people that have come out of working from home and they’re like, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve got to get back into an office setting where I’m around people and engaged and excited to, to, interact. Right.

Ren Scott (14:06)
Right, right. I remember we there was a podcast that that you did a while ago and you were talking with a gentleman and he had a series of offices one being in New York City and we were talking about and I know it because I work for CBS in New York for a lot of years just getting into the city is a battle. Yeah. And so, you know, was listening to his plight and thinking

You know, that’s interesting. There are places where your time can be used much more productively than sitting on a train or a subway or a bus. And I fully understand that. And I think in some ways that has been a positive for some people, but I still, I agree with you. think a lot of people are climbing the walls and can’t wait to get back to a sense of normalcy, which is collaboration and communication with other human beings.

Tim Carroll (14:59)
Well, if you go back to June of 2020, you put out a video and in that video, one of the things that we said was that mentorship, there’s going to be a deficit of mentorship because you know, I couldn’t personally wrap my brain around. How are you going to mentor new employees and young people that you’re bringing into your company when they’re not around people? And it’s funny because JP Morgan just came out and said,

We’re bringing everybody back. And one of the reasons they said was mentorship and that they can’t seem to be able to teach and train the younger generation of employees that are coming into the company with them sitting at home. And so put your pants on and come on back. Culture requires pants, right?

Ren Scott (15:48)
Well, listen, it’s interesting. I have, I have two kids, both who are working in startups and one has been in New York through this whole thing. And he just last week announced to me, can’t sit here in my, you know, my apartment anymore. I’m moving to Charlotte. I got an Airbnb for two months because we have an office there and I need to be with people.

He’s like, you know, at the end of every day, it’s five o’clock and he’s like, OK, what am I going to do? Way too often that involves going and getting a beer or something, which is just, you know, it just becomes this pattern of social life. And so it’s hilarious. I mean, we bought him a car for his 21st birthday that’s been sitting in a garage down in Tampa. And he called me to go, can you get that thing fixed up? I need a car. I’m moving to Charlotte.

So, you know, it is resonating with this group. I my son’s 31 and I have a daughter who’s 28 who’s now working remotely in London and she’s doing the same thing. She wants to, she thought London would be so romantic, but she’s missing the office. So I think it is resonating with a lot of young people. And I think they do want to get back to the world that we grew up on, which I think is the way to go.

Tim Carroll (17:12)
So talking about marketing, how do you feel and I could be off base here, but I sense in our own company, you know, the marketing that we do and the messaging that we do, it’s very consistent to what they employees here internally. However, I feel like the social media presence, all the things that we do, the videos, all the things that we do does in fact affect the culture.

Am I off base? Can, in your expert opinion, can marketing affect the culture of an organization internally?

Ren Scott (17:54)
Absolutely. And it’s interesting because in my world, culture and branding are not so far apart. We have created a brand for working spaces and the brand has always been one of going above and beyond, never asking for anything. We have never tried to sell one time. We have not done one project where we’re going, hey, we have a great bargain, sign up and you’ll get your discount. We’ve never done that, but we have put out.

blogs and videos sharing the expertise that your team has. We have put out blogs and videos that feature your employees so that they are part of the message. They are part of the mission. They are part of the team. And we have done something and I hear it all the time. I hope you do too from people who go, God, they just do everything right. They just do, know, everything they do is done with integrity.

Everything is done with this, this sense of substance and there’s nothing hokey and nobody’s pushing anything. And if nothing else, they’re giving us free education about how we create a better culture for us. So if you are in the business that you’re in, and I’ve, I’ve heard this from a number of your employees doing interviews with them. They almost get teary eyed when they talk about coming into an office that is completed.

and seeing the reaction of the employees when they walk into their new space for the first time. This is not a passive thing that your employees are involved with. This is something that your employees take great pride in. And I’ve always been a big fan of acknowledging a job well done. You can have a kick in the butt or a pat on the back. And I’ve always found the pat on the back goes much further.

And I think one of the things that we have done together, you know, it’s been your leadership and guidance, but we have shaped the messages is to in a subtle way, consistently say thank you to everybody who works for you and with you. But at the end of the day, I hear it all the time. We created a space that’s going to make everybody else happier, more productive, and enjoy their day.

more than they did before they worked with working spaces. And that, to me, is your culture and your brand. And it is, if one word comes to mind, it’s an inclusive culture. And it’s been something that we are always cognizant of. And it comes, I you’ve brought a whole sense of energy to the project, but Nancy and Marcy are about as genuine as two people can be.

Tim Carroll (20:35)
No doubt.

Ren Scott (20:37)
And also the idea of what they’ve over the last 25 years. It’s so I think that that’s something that that has helped shape your culture. And I think I would put that out to anybody. The idea of you don’t have to seek, you know, advice from your employees. Like, are we doing enough or are we, do you feel loved here or supported here? I don’t know how, I think you just are very conscious of that and you make a point.

Tim Carroll (20:42)
That’s right.

Ren Scott (21:05)
to know that they do feel supported and every opportunity you get, you put something out there. And it’s not Tim taking a bow or Nancy taking a bow. It’s somebody who played a role in a project. And it may seem like a little thing to a big company, but it’s a big thing to an individual within that company.

Tim Carroll (21:25)
We’re going to break away for just a quick message and we’ll be right back after this. At Working Spaces, we do much more than just sell furniture. We immerse ourselves in the culture of each and every client and then create spaces that inspire. Inspire creativity, inspire productivity, and inspire connectivity.

So if you’re looking to create an office space that inspires your employees to want to come back to the office, collaborate face to face, and do their best work every day, contact Working Spaces. Working Spaces, the innovative leader in office furniture and design since 1999. Now in six markets nationwide.

Welcome back to Culture at Work. so that’s, think, where I was going with this is that the fact is we don’t push product. There’s occasionally rare occasions we may highlight a product, but we’re really not about the product. You know, we’re about the client experience and all of that, but we’re about our employees. And so I guess that’s where I’m going with it. But by having that presence,

in our social media and out on the internet that we’re highlighting employees, that affects the employees. I think they appreciate it. I think it affects, they know that they’re appreciated, so it affects the internal culture of the company. So yeah, I mean, I think with you guys leading this thing up and doing it right, I really think that we’ve been able to show our employees that we care.

Ren Scott (23:06)
You know, it’s also to me, I almost feel having straddled the two worlds of journalism and marketing, in my mind, the two are very close. It’s just telling good stories and good communication and clarity about something that you’re doing that is worthwhile. And so it’s funny because

You know, lot of people roll their eyes at marketing people. Like they’re just trying to sell widgets that nobody, nobody wants. I can’t remember. just was reading something interesting. It was a line about, you know, marketing is selling things to people that they don’t need and they can’t afford. And there is, there is a line of that going on for sure. And the internet is not helping right now, but what it does though, in my mind is it creates an opportunity.

And it creates an opportunity to do things right. It creates an opportunity to do things honestly with integrity. And then also where you have pushed it. I, you know, I always love being the gauntlet thrown down is somebody going, you know, can you work the word unreasonable into this? We do something so well, most people would deem it to be unreasonable. going, Jesus, unreasonable. But we’ve now lived with unreasonable for six weeks in this office. And suddenly we’re all walking around going.

That is unreasonably good. know, I it’s right. It makes sense. it’s, it’s, it’s also that drive to always try to be better, always try to do better. And that’s part of our culture here is always try to refine the message and have it cut through the clutter and all the stuff that’s out there. And if you’re, if your message is clean and to the point and well produced, I mean, the videos that we do.

People used to criticize me all the time because I turned down 20 pieces of music, you know, for one three minute video. And they’re going, what is your problem? And I’m like, my problem is it sounds like a children’s commercial and it doesn’t have the gravitas or the energy that we’re trying to build here. And at the end of the day, when you get it right, I have, mean, you I’ve met a couple of people that you and I know in common and they’re just like, God, everything you guys do on that website.

It just resonates. And I think we’ve just kind of quietly built something together that, that jobs. I think there’s also a message in there too, for those people looking to create a good brand and do effective marketing is you have to have a really good relationship with your marketing partner. You know, you have to be able to be candid. You have to go, I don’t like this video or like you and I shot that video the other day and you’re going.

I don’t know, man. I just didn’t feel as if I’m at my best. And I’m like, well, I’ll take a look at it because if you’re not at your best, we’ll make sure you will be. But you have to say that, you know, you can’t just let things, you can’t just accept somebody and they’ll say, you know, look, I know what I’m doing, Tim, just let me run with this. Right. Your reputation, they’re running with your culture. But it has to be a sense of trust, but there also has to be a sense of real honesty. And I

Tim Carroll (26:10)
some trust.

Ren Scott (26:16)
You know, I never take it personally when somebody goes, this just didn’t feel right. Because if it didn’t feel right, then we’ve got to make a change.

Tim Carroll (26:24)
side note here, music matters. You know my feeling on that. Absolutely. It can make and make or break a movie. I’m currently binging a show called Peaky Blinders, which is a really great show. I am not crazy about the music. I just don’t feel like the music matches. I think it could have so much more emotion and into each thing, but it is a great, great show. I am enjoying the show, but music matters.

Ren Scott (26:49)
I actually heard a very interesting interview. I’ve ran distance for a long time and always enjoyed having my evening run. so I’ve read a lot about the endomorphines, right? And this energy that gets let loose in your brain. And I was listening to a discussion with a scientist and they were like, you know, we’ve talked so much about exercise and endomorphines and blah, blah, blah.

Is there anything else in life that creates that same sense of euphoria, that same sense of energy? And the guy without missing a beat, he said music. Yes. And the crowd just suddenly, there was like this subtle applause and he’s like, you know, when you’re listening to a piece of music and you just get the chills or you just get so into it or you just want to dance or you just, it just makes you feel happy, right? It makes you feel the sense of energy.

And so when you’re doing videos, know, the person has to be well lighted and well framed and making some sense would always help. But if you can bring in a sense of music, and then the other layer that I always insist on is graphics, because I believe most people, especially stuff that we do online, most of that stuff’s watched with the sound down. And so if you don’t have graphic reinforcement, they’ll just miss half of what’s going on.

Tim Carroll (28:10)
just read up from a reputable source that they are treating cancer with Beethoven’s fifth. are playing Beethoven’s fifth and seeing that it’s having an effect on reducing the size of tumors and it’s just the I mean music is powerful. So I want to focus on you just for a second here and ask you have a unique background marketing and journalism. Do you feel I can only imagine how do you feel I should say?

the journalism side really does impact your marketing prowess.

Ren Scott (28:46)
In a huge way. think journalism is incredibly important to everyone’s well-being and people being informed. And it’s been very hard for me to watch some things that have happened with local news. It’s now being treated as a profit center. They don’t want to pay the talent a whole lot. And so they have these very young people just walking around reading prompters of copy they didn’t write and sometimes don’t even understand. And it’s really hurtful for me to see. But this is the thing that’s interesting.

Tim Carroll (28:58)
Yeah, I

Ren Scott (29:14)
In many ways, particularly when I’m working with a cancer center or the Shriners or Four Hearts where we’re actually saving people’s lives, I get to tell the same kind of stories. And yet I get to do it on my terms. When I was in the newsroom, I had a producer or a news director, someone would come in and you’d pour your heart out and go, I have this incredible story. And they go, okay, you got a minute 10.

Squeeze it in there and you know, minute 10, you’re just getting your juices flowing, right? Now I can tell these stories that I care deeply about and I can take as much time as I want. One of the clients that I have actually saved my life. My dad died of heart disease when he was 68 and I had always gone to a cardiologist every year and I’d run on a treadmill and they’d go, you’re great.

And I kept thinking, nah, I think I got this thing that my dad had. And then sure enough, I found a guy who does something called a CT angiogram. It’s an imaging thing. And I passed every test with him and he goes, want to do one last thing. And he did it. He goes, you’ll probably never hear from me again. And they called me the next morning and he said, you got a 90 % blockage in your LED. I need you in here now for surgery. So that’s something that I’m on a mission about because, you know, we all go have colonoscopies when we turn 50. How many people have actually seen their heart?

to know if it’s functioning. I mean, these pictures are astounding. The scan takes eight seconds and it’s just remarkable. This is a chance for me to tell stories that I care about, just the way you and I are talking about how important it is to get in the office so you can have collaboration and creativity and mentorship. I treat them almost like news stories. They’re that important. This is not just trying to sell widgets here. I have no interest in selling widgets.

But I do have a great passion for selling culture, ingenuity, creativity, things that help people. So in a lot of ways, I have the best of both worlds, because I have this background and I get a chance to, I have so many things in my head that I want to share over the years, but just something as simple as this heart scan is something that I can do, you know? And so I think that to look for stories that need to be told and tell them with kind of the clarity and

and lack of hype as if you are a journalist and not a marketer. You don’t have to have crazy Eddie screaming, you know, buy now. think the world has changed. And so there’s an opportunity for that. And I feel very grateful. I mean, to travel around, I went to all, think, 26 high Shriners hospitals in the US, Mexico and Canada. And good Lord, there, but for the grace of God. I mean, what these people are doing, it’s just wonderful stuff. So that’s the kind of stuff that I think.

marketing gives you an opportunity to lean into. I’m in a very fortunate position because I have great clients with good causes and you let me get away with murder. So what else could I want?

Tim Carroll (32:13)
Well, I’ve always appreciated the approach of that. I’ve always felt was storytelling from, from you and your team. And how do we tell a story in this? Not just, we’re not just posting on social media. You know, we’re, trying to craft a, a story and it’s a, it’s a long form story that’s played out over months and years. And, know, and I, I’ve always appreciated that, especially seeing, you know, people out there.

Calling themselves social media experts or whatever and you know, they they’ll post or influencers and they’ll post things and do whatever but but approaching things from a story perspective. Anyway, I’ve always thought that that that journalism background was a unique background alongside your your marketing. So got time for one more question and I and I would love to hear your insights. It was somebody listening. They have a company. What’s the what’s the first thing they should be doing if they’re if they’re looking at?

their culture internally, they’re looking at their the story they’re telling from a social media perspective, branding out in the world. What’s what’s one or two things that you feel like they should be doing immediately to change that perception or culture externally and internally?

Ren Scott (33:28)
it’s reduce it to the irreducible minimum. You need to sit down and take a good hard look at what it is you do and are you articulating that in an effective way? So interesting story. You introduced me to somebody recently who asked for my advice on a campaign and I can’t talk much about it other than the fact that it was something where all the marketing to date had been focusing on the technology that makes this work.

Nobody was talking about the fact that this technology is going to make your life so much better. So I, as a consumer, I’m not sitting here going, kind of ship is making this machine work? I’m thinking, oh my God, my life is going to be better because I don’t have to do A, B, and C. In one 10 minute conversation, the whole direction of that company changed. And something that I said,

in the first five minutes is now the headline on their website because they were missing the mark. know, people consume things through emotion. They want to feel good about it. know, nobody really needs to know what’s inside the box. It’s just what’s the box going to do for you and how is it going to make your life better? And a lot of people have gotten way carried away with technology.

You know, if I hear AI again, I’m going to punch somebody. I know it’s a powerful technology, but you can have it in my industry. A lot of people are using AI to crank out copy. I’m fine for letting it fill a page and give you some ideas. But at the end of the day, it’s creativity, research, understanding, experience to understand really where the message has to go.

So I think the biggest mistake, I see people with just horrible taglines, things that just are way off the mark. you know, if you start with the wrong message, you know, if you start with the wrong understanding of what you really are doing, what you mean to people, what’s the value of your business, and why does anybody need you? If you share, if you have the wrong message to begin with, then it doesn’t matter how well you execute it, you’re gonna miss the mark.

So I think it’s very important to sit down and really identify your culture, your purpose, why you started this company in the first place. I’ve had a number of clients that were in business 20 years and asked us to rebrand them. And so we would sit down and talk for hours and then completely restructure or revive or refocus, you know, where they were. And that’s a very valuable exercise as well. And again, to bring it full circle, that’s one of the things.

that your team has done so well. If you guys talk, you research, you read the John Maxwells of the world, you listen to other people, and you’re trying to get on message to share something that you know is gonna make people’s life better. And it’s not because it’s a really nice leather sofa, it’s the whole vibe that you create in the room in which that leather sofa goes and how people flow in that room and how people communicate in that room.

and how people thrive in that room. And so I think that’s the most important thing. mean, just look at the billboards. Half the billboards you go by, go like, what are they selling? I don’t know what they’re talking about. The other thing is to just be real, it’s very easy to claim you’re a marketing expert. As you said, there’s people all over the internet claiming they are experts in driving leads and closing deals and getting clicks. Clicks are not sales. It’s a game.

And I think that game and the number of people who are out there selling a false narrative is not good. So I think the other thing is to really define somebody who resonates with you and somebody who’s done the work and knows how to shape a message. Because that’s really all it is. It really is just getting to the heart of the matter and shaping the message and then executing. So it’s not rocket science, but boy, people sure know how to screw it up.

Tim Carroll (37:41)
Approach it like a story. That’s how you do it. Well, hey, Brent, thank you so much. I just thank you and your team and I thank you for your friendship and your.

The work that you guys have done, mean, it’s been amazing to see the evolution of the company over the number of, past number of years. And it’s, you know, in no small part to you and your efforts and your team’s efforts. So thank you. Thank you for your time today. guarantee there’s been some nuggets here that people can take away. So thank you so much and we will talk to you soon. Thanks for in.

Ren Scott (38:12)
You bet. Here’s to the next 25, right? Never miss a chance for a message. All right, my friend, we’ll talk soon.

Tim Carroll (38:14)
Thank you.