Mastering Market Diagnosis: The Key to Effective Communication Strategy

Brandi Starr [00:00:34]:
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to another episode of Revenue Rehab. I am your host, Brandy Star and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Richard Levy. Richard is an MBA level qualified marketer with proven commercial abilities and international experience. He is an expert at growing exceptional brands across all marketing channels. Experience and touch points. Richard combines brand and performance marketing to create growth and is an expert of marketing effectiveness. Richard is able to achieve both short and long term financial success by mixing knowledge of strategy that he developed at blue chip organizations such as Geography Santander and Moneygram with the flexibility, innovation and tactical acumen required at smaller organizations.

Brandi Starr [00:01:29]:
Welcome to Revenue Rehab. Your session begins now.

Richard Levy [00:01:36]:
Thank you. Thank you very much for that, for that introduction. It's very kind of you and I'm delighted to be here.

Brandi Starr [00:01:42]:
Yes, I am super excited to talk to you. And before we dive into our topic, I like to break the ice with a little woosah moments that I call buzzword banish. So tell me, what overused word or phrase would you like to get rid of forever?

Richard Levy [00:02:00]:
I'm going to be a little bit controversial to kick off the show, if I may. And I am going to banish brand awareness. I might just explain that because. You might.

Brandi Starr [00:02:12]:
Yes, I'd love to hear it.

Richard Levy [00:02:14]:
Why am I getting rid of brand awareness? And the reason I'm getting rid of brand awareness is because we should replace it, Brandy with salience. Brand salience. Because the difference is brand awareness clearly is have you heard of a brand? But brand salience is do you think of that brand when you're in the buying position? So let me give you a very, very quick example. The UK British Airways, famous airline, probably 98% of people have heard of British Airways. So let's say that's their brand awareness. But if you say, are you looking for an airline that will get you there on time, that won't lose your baggage, that flies across the world, that is cost effective? Very few people will say British Airways. So the fact that you've heard of them doesn't necessarily mean that you're thinking of buying them. So I'm going to banish brand awareness, but I'm going to replace it with salience, which I think is far more important.

Brandi Starr [00:03:10]:
Okay. I was going to say this one might be a tough one for me to not say in our conversation, but I'm going to try real hard to put brand awareness in the box and throw away the key, at least for the next 30 minutes or so.

Richard Levy [00:03:25]:
It's a deal. It's a deal.

Brandi Starr [00:03:27]:
Awesome. So now that we've gotten that off our chest, tell me what brings you to revenue rehab?

Richard Levy [00:03:34]:
Well, I think that marketeers can play an enormously commercial role within the business. In fact, we should, along with sales, be the engine of a business. Certainly B2B and then a B2C. It perhaps is even more marketing led. But I think one of the sort of mistakes we make as marketeers and in the perception of marketeers is we focus Brandy very much on that last bit of it, which is the communication element. So we're all pretty obsessed about the comms and what we're saying and not anywhere near obsessed enough about all the work that has to go in to our brands to get them to a place where we're ready to communicate. And I think, and I'm a firm believer and I teach this, what I'm teaching at Cambridge, as I do, that if we focus on the 92%, and I'll explain where I've come up with that number, that matters before we get when near communications, we're going to be much more effective marketeers. And if we're much more effective marketeers, we will add a lot more commercial value to our businesses from a revenue point of view.

Richard Levy [00:04:52]:
Actually, not just from a revenue point of view, which is the top line, but also that profit line, which is the bottom line.

Brandi Starr [00:04:59]:
Okay, I'll get back to the 92% in just a second. But before I go there, I believe in setting intentions. It gives us focus, it gives us purpose, and most important, it gives our audience an understanding of what they should take away from our discussion. And so what's your intention? What would you like people to get out of our discussion?

Richard Levy [00:05:21]:
I really want people to get out that marketing is a commercial side of the business whose sole job is to raise revenue or profit or whatever financial metric or customer lifetime value which will lead to the same. And we have to understand Brandy, the financials, and be able to have those conversations in the boardroom before we understand anything else.

Brandi Starr [00:05:52]:
Okay, so now let's get back to this 92%, because you threw out a, a number which, you know, people always stick to, of, like, where to get 92. What does 92 mean? So that's my first question, is what's 92%. And why does it matter?

Richard Levy [00:06:12]:
Okay, so I'm talking about the 92% of marketing, which is known to do with communications. And let me explain how I've got that number. I think you can divide marketing up in two threes. So, and they're all the same level of importance. They're all 33%. So the first 33% is on diagnosis. What's the situation outside the market, what is our brand, what do we want to stand for, who are we targeting, etc. So it's a real diagnosis of the business.

Richard Levy [00:06:50]:
Where do we want to play and how do we want to win, in effect. And this is really, really important, this is crucial because if we don't understand that, everything will fail further down the line. So that's your first 33%. The second 33% is your strategy. You now understand all about the business, what the outside world looks like. You've done your diagnosis. You can see the marketplace now. We're on to the strategy.

Richard Levy [00:07:17]:
Exactly what are we going to say, what's our positioning, who are we reaching, what are our objectives, etc. Etc. So that's another 33%. Again, note, there's nothing to do with communications at this point. I've diagnosed the issues. I want you to think about it. Brand is if we go to the doctor, and if you go to the doctor, the first thing they're going to say is, tell me about you, your past, your health. Right? That's the diagnosis.

Richard Levy [00:07:42]:
The second bit is, what's wrong now? What are you trying to fix? And they're going to say, okay, this is what you need. Okay, but without doing those two steps, they can't just operate on you.

Brandi Starr [00:07:51]:
Right.

Richard Levy [00:07:51]:
Because you're going to go, you didn't ask me what's wrong. Right. So that's the second, third. So we're now down to 33%. Okay. We're trying to get to 92, but we've done 33 and 33, so we're at 66. So 33% to go. Of that last 33%, I'm going to divide it into four.

Richard Levy [00:08:11]:
And this is the tactical element. This is now where we start saying, okay, what is our product? What does it look like? Does it work? What's the customer journey? Is it optimal? Is it not optimal? And we're all doing this from a customer point of view, not from our own point of view. It's like when you have kids, Brandy. And everyone thinks their kids are the geniuses that are gonna save the world. What do the Other people think, right, it's not to do with that. So is the product really, you know what go through that product journey, the customer journey? What does that feel like? So that's the product. Then how are we going to distribute it? That's a product is another 8%. So another 8% goes to product, another 8% goes to distribution.

Richard Levy [00:08:52]:
How are we distributing it? Are we going direct to the consumer? We're seeing a lot of brands moving in that direction with a variety of successes. Or are we going through an intermediary? Are we going through a retailer? Are we going through a wholesaler? So how are we distributing our product or our service? Really, really important because that has the financial matrix that then affects the price, which is the third bit. Okay, another 8%. Where are we pricing now? Traditionally we used to price, you know, this was the, a product used to cost the business, I don't know, 20 bucks. We used to put a 50% margin on it. So another 10%, sell it for 30. It's like outdated web pricing. So we have to look at pricing from various different angles and various different ways to do it.

Richard Levy [00:09:39]:
So of that 33% that's remaining, I told you I was going to give each one 8. So that's 8, 16, 24. That leaves me with about, well, actually technically 9%, which is finally the last bit, which is the communications. But and I see this so often that I cannot stress it enough, if we do not get the diagnosis right to understand the market and we do not get the strategy right to know who we're targeting, what we're saying, what segments we're playing in, and we don't get the price of the product and the distribution right. I have very little hope that the communications will be correct. But what we're tending to see is everyone skipping that first bit, the bit that's under the iceberg, and going out the communications. And you just think, really. So, you know, everyone go, you know, it's that, it's that famous question.

Richard Levy [00:10:32]:
I should have banished this actually, as well as brand awareness, I should have banished one other thing which is when people say what channel is most effective? And the first response to that brand is a question with a question which is, what are you trying to achieve? Because if I'm trying to achieve salience, I'm not going to start doing Google search because that's not the best way to do it. I would do PR or something if I want short term sales for people ready to buy. Now let's say that's 5% of the market, then I'm going to start my Google stuff. So therefore it depends. But that's how I got to my 92% pre communications.

Brandi Starr [00:11:10]:
Okay, so what I'm hearing is that the key challenge that you see is a over focus or overemphasis on the communication strategy without organizations really doing a lot of the underlying fundamentals to understand how they should go to market. Is that a fair summary?

Richard Levy [00:11:35]:
I think that's a really fair summary. And I think there's two reasons why that happens. One is time. Because the work I described, diagnosis and the strategy, they take time. And companies, normally if you're a public company especially and you're reporting to Wall street or to the stock market, you don't have that time. You almost live in quarter by quarter or half by half. And secondly, it comes from a misunderstanding of what marketing is because marketing is so much more than just the communications, but because we obsessed with it and that's what we talk about, we become pigeonholed that we're the communications department. And that's really dangerous.

Brandi Starr [00:12:17]:
I definitely agree. Like if I think about, you know, my career and the history of marketing and like, you know, where things were 20 something years ago, the marketing team was viewed as the communications team. Like that was fairly synonymous. You know, we were the make it pretty people and get, you know, get some stuff in the market. And we talk a lot in different circles around having CMOs and marketing leaders to really drop the ING from marketing and be the chief market officer. And that concept really is rooted in what you're saying. And the, the person leading marketing and really leading revenue as a whole in, in my opinion has to be grounded in all the things related to the market. Like that diagnosis and strategy component.

Brandi Starr [00:13:15]:
I think the question that I would ask where I almost challenge, not that the 8% is the communications, but almost in that last 33%, the product distribution and price feels like if it feels too late in that we need to have those things in place before developing the strategy. Because to me, when you understand the market, that is where you then have to have product market fit. So you've got to understand what you're selling to that market and how we're pricing it for who we're trying to go after and what are our main distribution channels for getting that product or service to market. And to me those components have to happen before we develop an overall strategy. Because in your strategy you talked about your positioning and your goals. If I'm trying to develop a strategy knowing where I'm priced and where My product sits in the marketplace has a lot to do with my positioning. Like am I positioning myself as a low cost leader? Like we're selling on price, which generally no one wants to do or you know, are we the top tier and we're trying to sell it as, you know, the Bentley of whatever it is that we sell. And so I'm really curious how you have grouped the product distribution and price in that last 33% with the comms.

Richard Levy [00:14:55]:
Yeah, that's a really, really good question. So let's let. And I appreciate the challenge. So I think we both agreed the diagnosis comes first because obviously without that you don't know. So it's the order of those second two, this, the strategy and then that sort of more tactical element. If we are looking at strategy, I'm defining it really, really quite simple simply because I think simplicity is genius, which is segmentation, targeting, positioning. Right. So stp.

Richard Levy [00:15:32]:
So you know, the sort of segmentation of what is the, you know, I've got this on the diagnosis. I understand who we are as a business. Now I'm moving on to how many different segments are there? So that's my sort of segmentation. There might be 10 different segments that we can serve. Let's say there are Brandy. Right. The next stage is who am I going to target, what segment. And the reason I've narrowed it down to that, to that is because of those 10 segments, eight might be totally full up, got 100 different customers in there, endless competitors, or there might be one competitor that dominates.

Richard Levy [00:16:10]:
So for example, I'm not going to go up against Amazon, right, because they have a scale or Alphabet, Facebook, whatever, meta, whoever you want to put in because they have the scale that I can't possibly get. But they might be a segment that came out. So then I'm choosing who I'm going to target. Once I've chosen who I'm going to target, then I'm going to work out my position and the position, as you know, the three elements of can we do it as a company? Is it what the customer want? And can we do it better than the competition? That's it. So now I have my strategy. Now I know who I'm targeting from a segment point of view. I can now move on to my price. So let me give an example and then feel free to challenge back because it's a great conversation.

Richard Levy [00:16:53]:
I'm manufacturing handbags. If I'm going to target Gen Z, that is going to be a totally different price point and totally different product than if I'm going to target retired people aged between 50 and 70 with retirement pots of at least 100,000. Right. I mean, I'm making this up to try and make a point. So without knowing who I'm going to target, which was the second part of my journey, how do I know how to price? Because those two pricing tactics or strategies will be very different depending who I'm targeting.

Brandi Starr [00:17:38]:
I do agree there, I think where I'm thinking more B2B because I know the majority of my listeners are B2B and you know, products evolve obviously, but to a certain degree it's not a scenario where like a handbag manufacturer, they may say, okay, we want to target this audience now and we're going to put out a whole new line like it. It's, there's a lot more flexibility, freedom, the, you know, a lot higher volume of products that, that, that can happen. But from what I've seen, at least in my personal experience, in my own career, as well as being a consultant, for most companies, the product to a certain degree, the pricing and the distribution channels of how they go to market remain relatively fixed over time. But the segmentation, targeting and positioning can evolve quite a bit. And so I'll even use ourselves as an example. So we're service based, B2B. We sell cons, you know, at the end of the day we sell hours and those hours get used for the same bucket of things. If I look at the 10 years that Tegrida has existed, for the most part there's been some ebbs and flows and things we've added, but for the most part, at our core what we sell is the same today as what we sold 10 years ago, you know, 80% since we've got a lot of percentages.

Brandi Starr [00:19:22]:
However, our positioning and our targeting based on lessons learned in the market and seeing where we're most effective, where we're most impactful in the industry is the thing that has evolved. And so looking at how that, you know, there's different segments of the audience that, you know that's the same. Like there are some that go with the big five consulting firms that, you know, sort of like you talked about, the Amazon and the metas that we're just, we're never going to compete with. But if I look at that like those are the levers that I leading marketing have is to look and say, you know what, here's a segment that we really want to lean into and how we're going to target and then my comm strategy is going to tie to that and so I'm wondering if from B2B to B2C maybe where the differentiation is in how the order of those things happen. Because on the B2B side, I don't know that we could set a strategy and then evolve the product or the pricing. Sometimes we got some wiggle room on distribution channels. But I don't know that most companies can make those kinds of changes to product and pricing in that same way that targeting, segmentation, positioning evolves more over time. So I'd love to hear your experience there.

Richard Levy [00:20:59]:
It's a really, really good question. So let's look at marketing consultancy as a really good example because it's the business you're in and I'm in, separated by big ponds, but effectively we're offering very, very similar services. So if I look at my own, the diagnosis of the market will leave. Right, because that's what, that's understanding a separate element. Then we move on to the sort of strategy. So I think you're saying that, you know, the, the segmentation, targeting, positioning that evolves, that changes that, that, that, that moves around. I agree with you. Although let me ask you a question back on that.

Richard Levy [00:21:43]:
On the targeting, you sort of evolve as time goes on, but I wonder if that then peaks. I'll give an example of my own experience because when I started consulting I wasn't and I sat down and did this exercise and I tried to think, well, who am I targeting? But most importantly, who am I? Not that to your point, Brandon, you're absolutely right. I'm not targeting someone who's going to use one of the big five. Right. Because we're playing a different, we're playing different games, right? We're not playing on the same field. Fine. I'm also not targeting the company that started three months ago because they're probably trying to get all their stuff together and marketing is a little bit further down the line and also from a sort of resource point of view, etc, doesn't really work. So then I say, okay, so we'll target those small to medium sized businesses who have got, who are a bit up and running but they don't know how to increase revenue and they don't know how to promote their product and they haven't got any salience, blah, blah, blah.

Richard Levy [00:22:45]:
And there's that gap and I've worked out, you know, what that's worth and how you go in there, etc. I'm also not targeting big companies like Unilever because they have 250 people sitting in London doing marketing they don't need 251. So the targeting has remained relatively static, the positioning remains relatively static. But when I move then on to the price, that evolves so that, that evolves as I gain more experience, that evolves depending who the client is. You know, there's a big difference between a start, you know, someone be going a year and someone be going 20 years of what you may charge. So I don't know if the price changes the product. Yes, it's fundamentally you or me, but does the fact that I'm now teaching at Cambridge, does the fact that I've continued to study every year mean my product gets better every year? I don't know. It's a very interesting way of looking at it that the core product remains the same, but the wider one, I would hope in my case and in your case, evolves and progresses.

Brandi Starr [00:24:00]:
Yeah, and I mean, I do agree like there is, I mean with every product, I mean, even if we're selling software, it's going to continue to evolve and get better and you know, we add features, functionality, but at its core it stays the same. I am going to shift gears a bit because I, you know, if you can't tell, I love a good spirited debate and I could go down this rabbit hole for quite some time. But I want to bring it back to the why this matters. Because, you know, no matter what order these things come in, I agree that all of what you are saying is, you know, important and that that comm strategy is such a small part of the whole. But I want to bring it back to the revenue because I know just from our conversations before this episode, you know, you've seen how new customer acquisition revenue has declined over the past how many ever years and that a lot of teams are really struggling to reverse these trends. And so I wanna, you know, thinking about this framework and beyond, I want to talk a bit about how you see that, you know, in thinking about this and not putting comms as the main place that you're leaning into your focus. How do we achieve that sustainable growth and reverse these trends, like make the connection for me from, you know, the fundamentals that you have shared to how this actually shows up in addressing the problem that we're seeing in the marketplace.

Richard Levy [00:25:42]:
Yeah, that's a good question. I, I think what, what, what we got to think, Brandy, is if marketers want to increase revenue and that that should be why they're there, quite honestly. Otherwise what are we doing then we have to understand truly the impact that we're making on the business. And to understand that, we need to speak the language of the boardroom. So, for example, I don't know, and I'm not going to guess, but I'd imagine the numbers, relatively few marketers who can really read a balance sheet, who can understand a cash flow statement, who can understand the profit and loss, because when we start talking, or customer lifetime value, when we start doing that, we're increasing the bottom line or the top line, if we're talking about revenue of the business. So let me give a practical example. If we can bring in X amount of new customers, and I say to the CFO, you know, Brandy, I put in 200, 250 customers this year. I mean, just making these numbers up, obviously the question I'm going to get is, well, what does that mean? And then you're going to say, look, the average customer lifetime is worth X amount.

Richard Levy [00:26:57]:
This was my cost of acquisition. I'm going to cover my cost within six months. Anything above that is incremental revenue above my costs. And I. And if I have more money, I could scale it out and bring in 500, 750, a thousand new customers. And as that increases, my economies of scale kicks in and my cost per acquisition comes down. Now, a CFO is going to really listen to what you're saying, say, I want this person on my team. This person is a revenue driver.

Richard Levy [00:27:29]:
So we talk that kind of language. It's a massive tick. If we talk, if we say to the cfo, do you like my new advertising campaign? I promise you, you're going to get nodding heads. And then the minute you leave the room and the door closes, they're going to go, all right, let's talk about the real stuff right now. That's out the way, right? And that's a terrible, terrible position to be in. So I think to make sure that what we're doing, and, you know, you follow the framework that we debate, debated, you get it right. I think increased revenue will come. The second bit, though, is be able to talk about that numerically, show it with numbers.

Richard Levy [00:28:07]:
And if you can show it numbers which are believable and realistic, you are going to go really far as a marketer and you're going to have massive influence on the business that you work for.

Brandi Starr [00:28:18]:
Yeah, we do talk a lot about measurement and tracking in meaningful ways, because there are, you know, and if I look at leaders that I talk to, like most CMOs, CROs, like, once you get to that level, they are focused on those things, at least to a certain degree. However, where I See, the gap coming in is those that are on their team, that are more in individual contributor roles, don't understand or know the language of business and therefore are not building things out in a way that give us the ability to communicate better at that level. And I think that is a key opportunity is we've got to bring that knowledge and that conversation down through our organization. And, you know, not that we're necessarily going to have the marketing coordinator reading a balance sheet, but if we as leaders start to use more of that language and helping our teams to be able to translate the individual work that they're doing into the language that the CFO will understand and respect, I think that allows them to start building out that engine in a way that enables the CMO to have that conversation and really be able to confidently say, if you give me X, I can deliver you Y. And I don't think, you know, I think most CMOs would like to be there and their mindset is there, but I don't think they have the infrastructure in place to actually be able. Like, you can give your customer acquisition cost. We know our customer lifetime value. Like, everybody kind of gets that.

Brandi Starr [00:30:14]:
But the way that you were able to say, here's what I've delivered, give me X amount of budget and I can get you to, you know, from 250 to 500 and between 500 and 750, that's where our economy of scale comes in. Like, that level of precision, like, that's what we call an engine. That level of precision, I think a lot of people see as a myth in being able to do that. And I see it as coming down to really being able to teach and mentor our teams to understand that language of business. So I'd love to hear your perspective on, like, where do you see that breakdown happening? Like, are you seeing CMOs that don't, you know, aren't able to have that, that, you know, kind of conversation with the cfo? Is it more that they aren't enabled with the data? Like, I'd love to hear, you know, I love talking to consultants because you see a ton of companies just like I do. And so I'm really curious what your experience has been as well.

Richard Levy [00:31:23]:
Yes, it's interesting. I think there's a couple of points. One, there's almost too much data. So I would urge any CMO out there, what's really, really important for you to understand and what's really important for you not to understand. Secondly, I think there's a defensiveness on behalf of Marketing that we're almost. Because often we have the second or the first highest budget in the company. And so there's a lot of scrutiny on that. And so there's a sort of defensiveness of I have to show everything I'm doing is amazing.

Richard Levy [00:31:57]:
And that sort of then starts making the numbers sort of become not believable. And I think once you lose that believability, that then I think there's a sort of major issue. And third, you know, marketing is a really strange profession and that it teaches you all the fundamentals we talked about at the beginning, but it doesn't necessarily teach you that end bit, which is that the financial bit and how to talk in a financial language is really, really important. So some of it is education. And then I think the fourth bit is just being in the real world. So, for example, I was teaching a student yesterday and they worked for a company and they were saying, I want to do two videos. I mean, this is really tactical, but it makes the point. I want to do two videos on the website.

Richard Levy [00:32:43]:
But my boss is saying, what's the return on investment going to be? And she said to me, how would you answer that question? And I said, okay, let me give you an analogy. When you go to a good hotel and there's a dormant and they open the door for you and you ask them to hail you a cab and you ask them where you can go to the museum, I can't prove to you, if I'm running that business as a hotel, the value of having someone on the door doing all of that. But I know that it has incremental value to the entire proposition. If you go to a hotel and they put a chocolate on your bed at night, I don't know what the value of someone doing that is, but I know as a marketeer and as a customer and as human being, it adds value. So I think we also need to be clear, though, not everything we do can be measured by someone looking at a spreadsheet. But have the confidence to say, but this matters. And I'll give you a final example of that. Eurostar is a train that comes between London and Paris.

Richard Levy [00:33:42]:
And they had curtains. It's like three, four hour journey. They used to have curtains. And then I think the cleaning bill I was reading came to £200,000, or euros, whatever it may be. And so the CFO looks at it and says, get rid of the curtains, right? We could save 200k, we'll have shutters. So they replaced it with cheap shutters that don't need cleaning. Suddenly the experience brandy isn't so good. Right.

Richard Levy [00:34:06]:
They go down and up, and I've got to put them in the right place. I can't, you know, it hasn't got that nice feel to it. So probably, if you look at how many customers travel on Eurostar, divide the 200,000 by that and it's probably 10 pence per customer. It's nothing. And it enhances the customer experience. So sometimes we also have to fight for things that we cannot measure. But it's the overall pot that we're getting, not each bit broken down into. I have to justify every penny.

Richard Levy [00:34:37]:
But if I'm getting $200,000, the totality of that $200,000, we have to be able to prove that it will bring in more than $200,000, however we choose to employ that.

Brandi Starr [00:34:49]:
Yeah, and I do think, like, customer experience is one of those things that is hard to, like, tangibly explain because you are right. Like, if I think about, you know, those experiences, I mean, just really simple. My birthday was not too long ago. The restaurant we went out to, there were 10 of us to celebrate my birthday. At the end of the night, the server comes and hands me a birthday card. And I just assumed it was, you know, just something generic that they hand out. But when I got home and I opened it, it had been signed by the entire staff, and there were at least 30 signatures in there. You know, happy birthday, Hope your day is amazing.

Brandi Starr [00:35:33]:
All these things of people I never interacted with, and I'm like, oh, my God. Like, you know, these cards, I'm sure costs, you know, sense to give out, but it up leveled that experience far beyond what the cost was. And so it is one of those things that I do think that, you know, any marketer worth their salt is able to take what is the value of customer retention and repeat business and then be able to say, here are all the things that we do because they add to the experience. And like that to me, is the way that you air quotes prove roi. Not that you can do it just by the curtain cleaning bill or just by the chocolate on the pillow cost, but being able to say, these are the things in our business that we do because it enhances the experience and supports, you know, because it goes back to the brand salience that you're talking about. Because you're. I mean, you're right in that awareness is awareness. Like, there's, you know, so many airlines is a great one.

Brandi Starr [00:36:45]:
There's a ton of airlines I'm aware of. There's a handful that, you know, even in an emergency, I'm not getting on there. And. And it all ties down to that experience because at the end of the day, it is a plane going from point A to point B, and both airlines are going to start at the same airport and end at the same airport. But the fact that I'm willing to pay more in most cases for that experience is exactly what you've been talking about in terms of the brand salience. And that brand salience comes from those experience things that come with a cost. And so I do think that that is a really great point there. And it's one of those, like, this conversation is one of those things that I really enjoy in that sometimes coming into a discussion, you know, we choose our topic, what problem we're solving in advance, and I kind of have in my mind where I think the discussion is going to go.

Brandi Starr [00:37:53]:
And I always love when I'm pleasantly surprised in that the answer is not necessarily what the obvious, you know, and it's. To me, I'm thinking we're coming in and we're going to talk about the tactics to help reverse that negative trend, because that's what most people are thinking about. Instead, what you're talking about is we're going to focus on the fundamentals, which then reverses that trend. And so, you know, I definitely thank you for that. I always love when a guest can come in here and throw me a positive curveball. So this, this is a good discussion.

Richard Levy [00:38:36]:
Thank you. And I really enjoyed it. Brandon, I think it's. It's the same challenges whether you're here or where you. Or where you are. It's the same challenges, the same conversations, the same kind of. The same kind of thought. So it's really refreshing to have this conversation.

Richard Levy [00:38:53]:
So thank you for that.

Brandi Starr [00:38:55]:
You are welcome. And talking about our challenges is just the first step. And nothing changes if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapist gives the client some homework, but here at Revenue Rehab, we like to flip that on its head and ask you to give us some homework. So tell me your one thing. If what you have said has resonated with our audience and they recognize they've got some work to do, what's the place that they start? What's that one action that they should take from here?

Richard Levy [00:39:28]:
Take a step back. Take a step back. But also, and we did talk about this planning, look at it from the customer's point of view. Marketing is the only department in the whole business that should be able to bring that customer angle into the business. HR won't do it. Finance won't do it. Sales won't do it. Procurement won't do it.

Richard Levy [00:39:50]:
We are the representative of the customer. So know that customer inside out as well as you can and bring it into the business and you will be adding enormous value.

Brandi Starr [00:40:01]:
I love that. Well, Richard, I have enjoyed our discussion, but that's our time for today. But before we go, tell our audience how they can connect with you and definitely give us the shameless plug for how you help your customers.

Richard Levy [00:40:17]:
Absolutely. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, so I'm based in London, so it's a. Please find me under. I think It's Richard Levy. Lev1 is my LinkedIn address, so relatively simple. And then my company address is Sapphira Marketing. I think you'll put a link in the notes to that so I won't spell it out.

Richard Levy [00:40:40]:
But have a look around to fearamarketing.co.uk you'll see a few articles and recommendations, some bits and pieces, and then there's an easy way to get in contact with me as well.

Brandi Starr [00:40:52]:
Awesome. Well, yes, check the show notes wherever you are listening or watching this podcast so that you can connect with Richard. Well, again, Richard, thanks so much for joining me.

Richard Levy [00:41:03]:
Likewise. Really enjoyed it.

Brandi Starr [00:41:04]:
Thanks so much and thanks everyone for joining us. I hope you have enjoyed my conversation with Richard. I can't believe we're at the end. Until next time, bye Bye.