Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got. I'm your host, Sean Taylor, along with my producer jb and today our guest is Paul Carpenter. Paul has spent the last 27 years managing every channel associated with the brand to consumer business relationship. He focuses on giving brands permission to think bigger and to create content that has substance. Paul is the current president elect of the Atlanta chapter of the American Marketing Association, a professional community that provides opportunities to elevate the industry and all those who engage in marketing. Paul, thanks so much for joining us today.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me, Sean.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: Let's jump right in. Tell us, tell our listeners, what's the worst advice you ever got?
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Worst advice I ever got was brand doesn't matter.
[00:00:56] Speaker C: Okay. Brand doesn't matter. Who? If you can say who is giving this advice and give a little bit of the context.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Yeah. The person giving the advice was actually the head of an agency. It was kind of a mantra through the agency. We were a direct response agency. So everything that we put out there was measured and it, we were full bore into performance marketing. So ROI on every impression. And I get it, I'm not naive to the business, right, that sales matters. But when you're going through the, your, your first few years and you think you're, you think you're being taught something that matters and you're, you're going, oh, wow, I can add to the bottom line and all of this to then go, brand doesn't matter. And I kind of latched onto that in many ways and I just got in this hamster wheel of performance.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: What did, what did that mean for you? What did that mean for you personally as far as what your day to day job became as a result of that or was relative to maybe inherently what you wanted to do?
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Well, what I wanted to do was I think what a lot of people who got into advertising wanted to do. The idea of selling imagination and ideas was something that I loved. I thought it was the way you did business, telling stories. And the thing is, I didn't know, I just thought, oh, okay, well, this is the way. And especially when the Internet came about, you know, early 2000s and we start doing everything from media to the interactive experiences and a click in an email could then drive a dollar. Like, man, what else were you, would you think like, we can actually see this? And so in many ways, I drank the Kool Aid.
[00:02:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:57] Speaker D: How long do you listen to that advice?
[00:02:59] Speaker B: I mean, it's still in my head today, you know, 27 years later. It's in my head. But about two years ago, I really kind of stopped down on that. I was. There was just a gut feeling that you could start to see that we were over indexing, if you will, in talking about performance, Everything's ROI oriented, and in many ways, I think a lot of companies still subscribe to that. They're unconscious about what's going on. And about two years ago, I just thought, it's time to get conscious. It's time to wake up a little bit and go, wait a second. What. What does this audience want? The audience doesn't want to be measured. They're not in a funnel anymore, you know, and so we're kind of. I feel like there's an awakening.
[00:03:48] Speaker C: Why? Why two years ago?
[00:03:50] Speaker A: What happened two years ago?
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Two years ago.
This is not the easiest thing to talk about. Three things happened for me. And I'll talk about the first one, which was I caught Covid right before my oldest son graduated for high school.
And missing his graduation was devastating. Number two, June of 2022, I started watching the Bear. Amazing show. I grew up in the restaurant industry, so watching that, it made me think about, did I make the right choice with this marketing thing?
Number three was I had a coworker at that agency.
She and I were basically spouses for 12 years. She passed. That was the one that was like three strikes and back to. Back to back. And I said, I got to do something else.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: Yeah. So that impact made you examine the whole of you. What. What led you to come to the culmination of. I need to now deviate from that path.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: So when my colleague passed in July of 2022, it wasn't. I wasn't thinking about brand or marketing at that point. I was thinking about life.
[00:05:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: I was thinking about, you know, did I miss an opportunity somewhere?
And it was scary. You know, it's really scary to go. I'm going to throw away 27 years of experience to go and do something completely opposite. So getting to the brand part of, like, brand doesn't matter. And I'm like, storytelling. Wow. That's something that I never really got into or was allowed to get into.
I want to try that.
[00:05:45] Speaker C: Let me ask you a question.
Do you have any type of regret?
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Two parts to that?
[00:05:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Yes. And I also try not to regret anymore.
[00:05:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: That was actually part of my. It was kind of part of my practice. Like, my first instinct is regret. And, man, what. What else could I have done? Where else did I, you know, who got in my way, you know, kind of all those kinds of things. It's not about who, it's not about what, it's about me. It's about what I allowed, what I didn't allow.
And, you know, the only thing you have control of in this world is yourself, you know, So I really took it as an opportunity to kind of control what I can control, put as much good out there as possible. And I feel like marketing is a place that is good. I think it's great. I love the community, and I'm going to bridge this through by saying the reason why I'm trying to bring mindfulness into marketing. It's been there before, but we don't have it. I don't feel as much now, and I want to help bring that pendulum back to the center.
[00:07:02] Speaker C: What's the issue for people that ignore brand? The worst advice you ever got. Brand doesn't matter, right?
[00:07:09] Speaker B: I think in a day and age when your audience and your customers or your fans actually have access to your brand through social channels, they can control the narrative more than you can.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: Expand on that a little bit.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: I mean, talk about how that happens.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, let's say, for instance, this microphone company does something weird, suddenly your brand is now in the hands of really, the audience. So I really do think that there's an opportunity for people to take control of that narrative again and not just rely on algorithms. It's a mindset. It's a business mindset. Are you looking for short term or are you looking for longevity? I think the idea of a mindset where somebody really, truly cares about the audience and they care about their own business and maybe creating a legacy, you need brand. It's what people say about you when you're not in the room. Another easy way, a simplified way, is brand is your why and marketing is your how.
[00:08:18] Speaker C: Perfect.
Brand is the why. I totally agree with that. And if the why is important, how do we measure how good our why is going?
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Different than we do with the how. Yeah, very different.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: So.
[00:08:37] Speaker C: So that's where we're getting clouded, is we're the. The how is getting confused with the why too often.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Well, because we're really in a business of next day, really instantaneous reporting, instantaneous results. Everything is instant. Everything has to be measured. Dollar goes out, dollar comes in. When 100% of your focus is that you're leaving a lot of.
A lot of money on the table. Year two, year three, year four, down the line, it's. It's a. It's not a sustainable model.
[00:09:13] Speaker D: Right. When you used to just measure impressions and clicks and sales. You're like, this is the only thing that matters. We made a candy bar. People bought the candy bar, right? They clicked on the website, that's fine. But why we make candy bars and why we sell them and why we think you should have them. All that story just went to the wayside because they're like, that doesn't matter because look, people bought the candy bar, right?
[00:09:33] Speaker B: The audience coming cares about that audience coming. Like the Gen Z's.
[00:09:40] Speaker C: So yeah, next generation consumers, if you will.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: I would, I would even say people like myself, a Gen X generation is kind of tired of, you know, what we've, what we've kind of gone through over the past 25, 30 years.
[00:09:55] Speaker C: So, so what if I ignore my why? What is my danger?
[00:09:58] Speaker B: I think the danger is you're going to be out of business. We've been around as species for how many thousands of years?
[00:10:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm not good at math, I'm.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: Not, and I'm not a anthropologist either. But the idea that we have existed for as long as we have is all built off story. It's all built off of trust, reliability, reputation.
That's essentially brand. And so we're at a tipping point where for 20 plus years we've relied on algorithms and bots. And they're not storytelling for you, they're not storytelling for your brand. They're not creating the why, why you exist, why your company exists, for the customers. And for longevity to happen, you have to have brand.
[00:10:50] Speaker C: What is a step one or a step two way for a company to pull the brand back in and remind people of the why?
[00:10:56] Speaker B: I would start with your own staff, your own team. I feel like the companies that really put their brand out there in an authentic way, they walk the walk. They do it because their employees or their team or their staff are all saying the same thing. So it doesn't matter where you're at, at a cocktail party, at a Braves game, if all those employees are talking the same language and saying the same thing and then people are out in the wild and they see it happening like you've got brand on lock. I mean, dollars do come with that.
What's funny is I just saw a clip where Ryan Reynolds, and we all know what he's done outside of Hollywood. He was just sitting in a fireside chat and somebody asked him a question about growth and scale for their businesses and how he's been able to do that. His answer was emotional investment.
And that's all done through storytelling and brand.
[00:12:02] Speaker D: It seems so simple when you say it out loud. If you are a brand that people emotionally connect to, they will want to give you more money. So why is it so hard to talk people into this? Why have they been doing it the other way for so long?
[00:12:13] Speaker B: I feel like we've been. We've been dining from a bowl full of Skittles. Like, it's. It's dopamine. Like, that's what's keeping us alive. That's what. And then CFOs are totally fine with that. Like, look at the numbers. Numbers are fine. Cool. I tend to disagree with that, though, because I feel like you can make the numbers say whatever you want them to say, especially on the marketing side. Now, on the accounting side, those are pretty darn firm, right? Like, you know, depends how good you are at accounting.
[00:12:42] Speaker C: Well, yeah, he's trying to make an accounting joke because we're an accounting firm and just, it's, you know, and don't delete that from this episode.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: That's gold.
[00:12:56] Speaker D: That'll stay.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: But, you know, the.
I've been there. I've been on the analytics side. I've seen these reports. There are certain storytelling aspects you can do with reporting and numbers to make them say. You can have excuses for them.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: It is so maddening. I don't have any hair left from trying to validate something that I don't believe in.
[00:13:22] Speaker D: Yeah. How's it going so far? I mean, you started a new business two years ago.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: You essentially re.
You pivoted, right?
[00:13:29] Speaker B: To rebranded Myself.
[00:13:30] Speaker C: Yeah. So how is it going?
[00:13:32] Speaker B: It's good. You know, from a number standpoint, I'm not even looking at it. What I'm doing is I'm trying to show up every day. I'm trying to live by the things that I practiced, you know, the past year and a half, two years, it's talking to big brands and trying to get a gauge or a temperature for how they're feeling. How are things going? I've seen the numbers. Are you happy? You know, I'm not going to make you happy, but I do want to help inspire you just to think different. You know, I've coined something recently talking about roi, return on investment. And I believe in order to get that, you need to have another roi, and that's your range of imagination.
I just think that we. We've got to imagine more. We've got to think big, got to take chances. We've become very sterile.
[00:14:30] Speaker C: I like that a lot. Return on investment can be limited by a limited range on Imagination is what you're essentially trying to say.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Success is defined as relative. What across industries, different business owners. You know, I talk a lot about success right now, more about clarity, having a, having a vision, like seeing for the first time where I can actually kind of control my destiny, if you will, and clarity in what I'm going to do today. Being present and just living that like one day at a time and always trying to be my best, you know, try to do better today than I did yesterday.
I think that same type of personal mantra, if a company took that as well and just tried to be a better company tomorrow, you know, 1% better every day. Where a company can be in 10 years.
[00:15:30] Speaker C: You're speaking the language we speak at Smith and Howard. We have a value. It's an excellence value, smarter, better every day. One to the power of one in 365 days is still one. One to the power of 1.01 is 37 at the end of the year. And so you're 37 times better at the end of the year just mathematically, if you apply 1% improvement every day. That's one thing I wanted to point out. And the other thing I wanted to point out about what you're saying is one of the things I talk about with our employees is when you go home at the end of each day, you have either shined or, you know, enhanced your brand, your personal brand and the brand of the company, or you've tarnished it. So when you go home at the end of each day, ask yourself the question today, did I enhance our brand or did I tarnish our brand? And it goes back to this longevity point that you're talking about. The more you enhance your brand, the more customers just come out of the woodwork. It becomes easy to business develop because people know your brand and everyone wants to use you.
I'm feeling reinforced by what you are saying, that the worst advice you ever got, brand doesn't matter. Yeah, it does matter. And it should actually go to the point of every day. The decisions you make should be to enhance your brand.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: Sean, you're a marketer.
You've just done it.
[00:16:58] Speaker C: The good news is I've got great marketers who know how to put poison in my head and make me repeat it. But. No, but it's.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it's true. It's working too.
[00:17:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it is. Yeah. I'm really glad that you came with us today, Paul. I think that you really had us think a lot about something that is easily, is easily set aside And I think all those things tend to get better if we focus on the importance of our brand. So thank you for joining us today and really talking about the impact that the change in your life had just a few years ago to really focus in on the importance of brand.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me, Sean. Absolutely amazing.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: Thanks so much.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Appreciate you, jb.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Jb, I think it's interesting that the advice is still spinning in Paul's head after all these years. 27 years later, it's hard for him to get the dollars and sales push out of, you know, out of his head being the number one priority. And that isn't that amazing that for 27 years he's still battling with this?
[00:18:04] Speaker E: For sure. And I think it's a mindset of everybody. That's kind of what he was saying was the mindset right now of somebody who controls the finances. Talking about brand is like, look, we're selling something, we're doing well. People are buying our product.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: Why?
[00:18:17] Speaker E: Who cares about brand and our story and our mission and culture of that matters? Because look, we're making money, but you can do both.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Yeah. I think his central message was warning against the danger of trying to do all you can to capture short term results, really to the detriment of not paying attention to the long term impact. And. And in his mind, brand and story is the long term impact for sure.
[00:18:42] Speaker E: That's basically what he was saying. I know you really loved his line, the roi, the return.
[00:18:48] Speaker D: What was it?
[00:18:49] Speaker A: Yeah, he said ROI is traditionally thought of as return on investment, but he's changed that to. To, in his mind, mean range of imagination. And I thought that was a really, really interesting part of his story and really impactful.
[00:19:03] Speaker E: Yeah. Don't forget your story and why you do this and whatever it is that you do. You have a story and the generation that's coming up who's about to have all this money to spend cares who you are and why you do what you do. So tell them.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. You know, to our listeners, if you liked Paul's story and what you heard today, take the time to rate and review the show. That pushes us up the podcast rankings and it helps us attract all the interesting guests that you've come to expect on the podcast. So thanks so much for listening today and don't forget to tune in next week for a new episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got.
