The Art of Moving Forward: Marketing Strategies for an Ever-Changing World

Brandi Starr [00:00:35]:
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to another episode of Revenue Rehab. I am your host, Brandi star, and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Maura Vetter. Maura is the founder and CEO of Moto Moto Agency, a four time Inc. 5000 company, a 2023 us chamber, top 70 small businesses, and the 2023 Cobb Chamber of Women owned Businesses of the year. Over three decades, Moira has fostered growth for Fortune 500 global brands and hypergrowth mid market companies. She was named the 2022 NABo Women Business Owner of the year and 2023 leader in corporate citizenship and received the 2023 AMA Atlanta Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the author of Adventure, an outsider's inside view of getting an entrepreneur to market, and a former contributor to Forbes and Adage.

Brandi Starr [00:01:42]:
Welcome to Revenue rehab. Your session begins now.

Moira Vetter [00:01:48]:
Wonderful to be here. Thank you so much for having me on today. I really have enjoyed listening to the kind of substance you get into. You know, I think there's a lot of podcasts that cover lighter fare and I think marketing and revenue these days is a full contact sport. And I look forward to talking to you today.

Brandi Starr [00:02:10]:
Yes, I agree completely. Which is exactly why revenue rehab exists. Because there are definitely some days I end the day and I'm like, whoa, I need a minute on the couch. Call the therapist. Well, before we jump into our topic today, I like to break the ice with a little Woosa moment that I call buzzword banishment. So tell me, what industry buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Moira Vetter [00:02:39]:
So I worked a lot with management consultants. And so, you know, I think we're all embroiled in buzzwords and we're in different industries, but the one that just comes to the surface constantly is table stakes. When people talk about these sort of, and I have different words for that. So if anybody hasn't heard the term table stakes, I've got cost of entry, obvious answers, obvious executions, right? These fundamentals that, of course we must have these things, which I just think it's so much easier to say that, right? There are these fundamentals we know we must do. But let's talk about the things that will really push, push the envelope, push the boundaries, get us exponential growth. But again, I think there are people forever that were like, is it table stakes like you stake in a tent? Or is it table stakes like a plate of steaks on a. You know, that is such a good question.

Brandi Starr [00:03:35]:
Yeah, I think it's steaks like you make it a ten. Yeah, because those are the things that hold up the table, the foundations. Yeah. That one is a buzzword that's been around for a long time. Time.

Moira Vetter [00:03:46]:
But it's a word that, you know, I work with a lot of newer people. I'm in advertising and marketing, and, you know, young people don't know what the heck you're talking about. So, you know, that. I mean, that's the danger of buzzwords, is people speak with a lot of self importance and supposed clarity, and there are a lot of people sitting there that do not know what, what you're talking about.

Brandi Starr [00:04:07]:
Yes, well, I can promise for this discussion I will not use the word table stakes. So we'll be able to put that one in the box and throw it away, at least for the next half hour or so. Now that we've gotten that off our chest, tell me, what brings you to revenue rehab today?

Moira Vetter [00:04:26]:
So, being an agency founder, and I also did a stint at the early part of this year, actually, as a fractional CMO with a mid market corporation. So I started my career on the client side. So having been both client side and agency side, you know, we're talking about brand and growth at this interesting time in the world, and, you know, to sort of frame it up, I think there are always fundamentals of brand and fundamentals of growth that people want to talk about. But with the world in such a state of flux between global pandemics and, you know, catastrophes, you know, economic turmoil that has just taken the world, you know, I think a lot of businesses, and I'll speak for larger corporations and mid market corporations for a minute, which I think is primarily your audience. Right. People that would have a CMO or CRO. These organizations are accustomed to having a little longer tail on their cyclical change. And the last three years have just been up, down, up, down.

Moira Vetter [00:05:33]:
And trying to anchor yourself to a strategy is very difficult when the, the arena changes this, this rapidly. And, you know, I made a note. It's not only that the world's doing that, but there's a revolving door on talent as well. And it really is like building on sand, you know, and I think that's what's making it hard. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say, I'm here today to talk about trying to build on sand, because I feel like that is the place that we are in the world. That's the place. We have over 30 clients universally. They all have teams that have very new members on them.

Moira Vetter [00:06:14]:
Almost all of them are operating in new key markets than they did three years ago. Even if the companies have been in business for 100 years, everything's new. And it just makes it hard to have confidence and to sort of set a strategy and go about it.

Brandi Starr [00:06:31]:
Yeah, and I agree completely. I was having a conversation with a peer at dinner a couple weeks ago, and I was saying how like, I almost feel like a newbie again, because so many things that I know that have been tried and true in the last few years, it's like, oh, that's not working the way I expected. That's not working the way I expected either. So it's taken a lot of, like, research conversations, like hearing what other people are experiencing, to really. And I like that analogy of building on sand, because that is.

Moira Vetter [00:07:09]:
That.

Brandi Starr [00:07:09]:
That's a, like, great visual, because we've all had that experience of just walking on sand.

Moira Vetter [00:07:15]:
Yes.

Brandi Starr [00:07:16]:
Yes. So 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 expect from, from our discussion today. So tell me, what's your best hope? What's your intention for our discussion?

Moira Vetter [00:07:33]:
My intention is that people know where to begin in a situation where it's sand. Because to be honest, it's always sand. Right. The ground is sand. Right. The dirt is sand. Sometimes it's. We falsely believe that something is more secure or stable.

Moira Vetter [00:07:52]:
In reality, the world is always changing. It always has been changing. Things been going obsolete, new generations have been coming into the workforce. You know, all these dynamics, they are changing more rapidly, but it is not different. And so I think a lot of what I intend is for people to relax and understand that they are no different from anyone else in kind of experiencing these dynamics coming at them, and that they should follow their gut, they should listen to their instinct, and they should just start putting 1ft in front of the other. I think that is the greatest danger in a time of rapid change where you don't have predictive outcomes is starting, especially in large companies, where we're going to do a little more planning, we're going to do a little more research, and before you know it, the quarter's gone, half h one's gone, the year's gone. And so my intention would be that people know it's as good as it's ever going to be. And I know as much as I knew before, and they don't feel like newbies because, you know, like you just mentioned it, you're having a conversation and you're like, I don't know, everything's new.

Moira Vetter [00:09:02]:
The danger of that is everybody goes back to, you know, having imposter syndrome. Right. Feeling like I'm the first week on the job and I don't have the tools. But eventually, if I read that book or if I get that AI software, or if I have that, then I'll be able to start making decisions again. We all just need to keep making decisions every minute and keep moving forward.

Brandi Starr [00:09:25]:
Yeah. It's really easy to start to feel paralyzed when so many things are changing and especially when you're leading marketing, because we see all the statistics of the CMO has the shortest tenure in the c suite, and, you know, all of the things. And I do see a lot of places where people do feel that imposter syndrome, you know, who have never felt it or more than they used to. And it is like this kind of constant feeling of my job's always on the line and, you know, I don't have time to figure it out. I don't have time to try things. Like, there is a lot of that pressure. And so I do like that, you know, sort of calming mentality of there's always pressure, there's always change. You still know what, you know, like, go with your gut and continue to move forward.

Moira Vetter [00:10:18]:
Yeah. And by all means, keep learning. Right. Do read the book, listen to the podcast. Listen to all these podcasts, you know, but you still have to have enough information to keep moving. And that is the greatest danger is, you know, I think especially when you end up with the amount of transformation that has occurred in the last few years, and everybody says generative AI, and all of a sudden people feel like, well, I don't know enough, right, or I don't have the systems, or all of a sudden organizations that did not have as much digital experience or technology, now they're all tech enabled. The danger is feeling like it's changed so much. I don't have what I need to start making some decisions.

Moira Vetter [00:11:00]:
And I think that does impact both organizational growth as well as the brand. Right. And that is the thing that makes the CMO. It's the difference between 18 months on a CMO and a CMO that's been in there and is clearly a part of the, the foundational team at the table. You know, you have to have that confidence. Yeah.

Brandi Starr [00:11:23]:
And so you use the word foundational and foundation. And we. That's where I want to start. So we're not going to call them table stakes, but in thinking about with everything being so influx and, you know, there being constant change and all of the things, what do you feel are the key foundations that everyone needs to be focused on?

Moira Vetter [00:11:47]:
Yep. Okay. So I have one, and I've really been thinking about it a lot lately because we are working. It's super. It's super easy. It's one word. It's planned. There are a lot of people that have just been operating from Google Docs and, you know, have implemented slack and there's a lot of disorganized silos and pockets of places where activities happening or tickets or dispatch or requests are going on and, you know, project management systems.

Moira Vetter [00:12:20]:
But a lot of people are lacking a plan. And, you know, in the old days, right, we used to do that at the, you know, in third quarter, if you were on a regular traditional calendar year, you know, everybody would square up where they thought the year was going to be in the following year and confirm budgets. And I think one of the things that's challenged that is it's not a September thing anymore. And the plan has to be fluid, so it has to be more brief. This is not, you know, 50 page plans. These are not 30 page plans with tables and pie charts and lots of things. Right. This is a lot more plan on a page.

Moira Vetter [00:12:59]:
But the thing that I challenge everybody to do right now is not to do a one year plan, but to do a two year plan. We started doing this a year or two ago. We noticed coming out of the pandemic, you know, there were certain people that had a mandate that they had to move. Right. So we need to get going, and we're not quite sure what the budget is, but when people don't know what today means, they start looking out longer term. Right. So there were a lot of people that were looking to the future, and there's a lot of people that do three to five year plans. And there's a lot of, you know, newer people on our teams that don't know what the heck they're supposed to do with the three or five year plan, right.

Moira Vetter [00:13:39]:
Because it is not in the here and now. You know, I can't interpret that. The challenge with building a one year plan is if you're late getting started on it and it takes you two or three months to do it. In actuality, you have a plan that will carry you about six months and you don't get any you know, grass under your feet before you are in planning mode again. And so there's been such a change in that and who, you know, racy models and who are the people that are accountable for this plan? And did we consult all the right people? And so that's where a two year plan gives you enough to be a long term thinker, chunk it into action items, and if the thing gets delayed a quarter or two, you still have a longer Runway that you're acting against. And I think that's what's critical for growth and brand, because a lot of people will tell you, growth is sales. It is this month's sales. It is.

Moira Vetter [00:14:39]:
What is our month over month increase? It's, you know, are we dropping the churn? Right? What's our ARR? These are all the growth terms. But the brand does not change day to day, week to week. I mean, unless you have a catastrophic pr fail, right, then yes, your brand can crater in a day, and Wall street, everybody cancels you. That is a very different situation than a brand is a long term proposition. So marketers, cmos, any kind of sales, marketing, CRO, kind of executive has to be able to understand revenue and growth for today. And the shorter term and shorter term to me is 60% months, you know, 18 months. And the longer term is the brand side of it, which is traveling along beside it. And that's two year, three year, five year.

Moira Vetter [00:15:31]:
And you have to keep both insight, you have to be intentional about how you frame your view of that, because whether you will have your job in 18, and, hey, there's a reason enough to have an 18 month plan, because the tenure for a CMO is 18 months. So go ahead and map out what you think you're going to do for the likely tenure. Right. You at least will know what you're doing and you will not be at a, I don't know, I'm two thirds of the way. And now we're trying to reset and re anchor and reset goals. No, build for what you think you're gonna be in there for. But I just think it's so important to that calm and that confidence that people come in with. I know people talk a lot.

Moira Vetter [00:16:17]:
For instance, the association of National Advertisers has a lot of tools for corporate marketers, and they have a CMO toolkit for the first 100 days of their job. Everybody talks about the first 100 days in the first quarter, but nobody talks about plotting out the 18 months so that you are there 36 months out and beyond, you know?

Brandi Starr [00:16:37]:
Yeah, and I think it's really interesting because especially with brand, and, you know, I do see growth in brand or strengthening in brand, like planning out longer. Definitely makes sense because it is something that, you know, nothing with those brand changes happens fast in general. And so where I would challenge it, and I'd love to hear some of your perspectives, is a lot of what I'm hearing when it comes to some of the growth initiatives and focus on revenue, that it is getting harder to even plan for the year because so much is shifting. So it's like a lot of people are really thinking more in half years or quarters and almost re planning, like taking more of an agile approach. But what you're saying is actually think longer. Yeah, I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

Moira Vetter [00:17:38]:
Yeah. Now you can't be tone deaf. And especially if you're in a publicly traded firm, you have to operate in quarters. That's not, it's, in addition to having a quarterly lens, you must think longer. But I did a piece in Forbes where, you know, it's this, Warren Buffett had written a piece about short termism and long termism, and it very much is that Wall street, you know, mentality, right. If you only live quarter to quarter, knowing full well that there are so many changes that you cannot affect in a quarter that, you know, you short yourself. And so I, I think it's a both, and I hate to say it's, it's the best of the worlds or the worst of both worlds, but you have to be able to operate in both to be relevant to a CEO, to understand. You may have to get on an investor call and be able to be 100% clear about the urgency of now.

Moira Vetter [00:18:33]:
At the same time, the urgency of now means nothing if we also do not have this and this and this, you know, coming in. And I, you know, I think it's, it's hard. You know, a lot of people talk about how marketers can speak the language of the C suite, right. The language of the C suite is this quarter. You know, it all depends, right. If it's a privately held company, it may not be about this quarter. They probably do conduct themselves in a more formal, board like structure. There is some form of quarterly readout.

Moira Vetter [00:19:08]:
If you're a mid market company, your private equity company, or whoever the key investors are, you will have a QBR. There is always some form in a well run company of a quarterly readout. But I think the feeling that you must have been able to turn the ship in the quarter from a marketing standpoint is what you need to separate yourself. And so I'll give you an example again. It's amazing being in the agency world because you just have so many petri dishes around you. Right? We got 30 clients. A dynamic corporately. We see all these different dynamics.

Moira Vetter [00:19:46]:
And I'll give you. Let me have to write this down so I don't forget the two dynamics, but in terms of one had to do with a comp structure. And I just think it speaks to how wonky it is, this year's revenue. So we had a client who at the end of last year, somebody said, next year, we will have x revenue. Right? So here's our pipeline. And as marketing, you are expected to contribute to this revenue target. But nobody separated out where in the pipeline people are and how much they really believe marketing can do to move the needle on that versus the amount of that that's already in the pipe with salespeople moving it along. So there's some aspect of that that's about understanding what marketing can truly affect.

Moira Vetter [00:20:35]:
So that as we're all talking about it, we know we're trying to convert this pipe, but how much of that can we really, you know, make an impact on? But the challenge that happened was this company came into the end of last year. They very clearly had a pipe. They. They were changing markets and audiences, but they didn't change the pipe number. They came into the new year and they had some executive changes. So they had a new CEO, they had a new CFO. Well, it took that a quarter to, you know, to get the new CEO on board, have them go out and meet all the people. Then this new CFO came in, and they're looking at their structures and their contracts, and they, you know, whatever.

Moira Vetter [00:21:15]:
And so then new CMO gets brought in at the end of Q one, and here we are, and they're like, where are we with our $10 million pipe? And there's no resetting. There's no considering, was it the right figure in the first place, with all the new people on the table, they just got to make it happen. And so I see a lot of these dynamics where no one has validated if something is reasonable or whether the actions are mapping to be able to deliver something. And the time, it's like, again, let's go back to sand, right? What is it? Sand through the hourglass? It's sand through the hourglass of we keep not resetting the target or we keep not having more clarity on how we'll achieve the target, but we keep going back to where are we against that number? And then the closer we get to the end of the year, we keep wanting to know where we are against the number and the anxieties going up. Right. So it's like, what miracles can we pull off? Right. And that's where people start to get desperate instead of, well, we should have changed this last quarter, we're going to do it now. It may not even affect change this quarter.

Moira Vetter [00:22:21]:
It'll be next. You know, it's that calm. And it is hard to both represent a sense of calm and an absolute clarity around the need to drive revenue. And so that's one example of everybody, here's a number, everybody's continuing to move, there's a lot of change. But, you know, who said, who said that was the number? And how do we know if we can do that? The other part is, and this isn't necessarily something that marketing can affect, but it is absolutely, especially if marketing is held accountable for tying revenue back. There are a lot of clients that we have that their incentives are on an annualized basis. And so we've had this happen in the recent years where a product is finally ready to launch and go to market around August, September, and the team is looking at launching it in September, but knowing full well that the compensations or the incentives to hit certain pipeline targets are annualized, they know they can't meet that number in one quarter, so they push the launch of the product out till the following January so they can get an entire annual run rate. That is not what a company should be doing, pushing launches, particularly in a tech enabled reality where five months could get you obsolete.

Moira Vetter [00:23:47]:
And so I think that's another thing where the C suite needs to be aware of the mechanisms around the marketing and the sales function that could inadvertently be throwing off go to market or impacting, negatively impacting everybody's ability to grow.

Brandi Starr [00:24:09]:
Yeah. And I think you hit on a really key, broad pain with two components of it that I see happening in so many companies, whether it be our clients or just other cmos that I'm talking to. And those two things are, one where you're talking about the goals that are unreasonable and that are just seemingly pulled out of air, like, yeah, yeah. And where there are like, the people involved in actually generating the revenue are not involved in helping to establish or validate those targets. And then the other piece of that is comp structure, where I have seen this, and in our book, we talk about what gets measured, gets done. And it's like the comp structure and how you are incentivizing people directly ties to how they're making decisions. And I see so many organizations that have set up the incentives, whether it's actual comp incentives or just how people are being measured and their success, are actually counterproductive to the business goals. And the example of delaying a product launch is a great one because at the end of the day, people have jobs to make money.

Brandi Starr [00:25:31]:
Like, it's not. It's like, would be great to think that we're all here just, you know, because we love it. And it is great to love what you do, but at the end of the day, it's how you sustain your life.

Moira Vetter [00:25:43]:
Like, it's totally, totally. And, you know, the other thing I will say, and this, this goes back to the brand side of it. And an area that I see again, 2023 was a difficult. I feel like everybody had a lot of freedom and a lot of money to just go try a whole bunch of things between 2020 and 2022 because the world was so, you know, whatever, right? Just try something, do something. And so lots of people tried things, and then it all got pulled back pretty hard in 2023. And when that happened, there's been such a focus on the KPI, the KPI of the here and now, the KPI of this month, the KPI of every single incremental little activity. Why the email? Why the newsletter? Why this frequency on it? Why that digital campaign? Why. Why run for more than four months? You know, there's all these little things, but also, all of our clients have been charged with entering new markets, right? Diversifying their mix, moving from old sales models.

Moira Vetter [00:26:44]:
And that's not something you get to a KPI in the first month or the first quarter. And so I also think there needs to be some understanding that for a brand to go into new markets or to diversify in any true fashion, there has to be some relaxation on initial or immediate KPI's because then nobody's incentivized to go try to do something new or try something differently to engage. And that's where companies like Coca Cola, companies that have a chief innovation officer. I had Michael McCathryn from Chick fil a talked to me about, you know, innovation and innovation strategy. And you have to be able to be fearless, and you have to be able to go into it not necessarily expecting to succeed. Right? Because if you are that specific about if we go do this and that it will be success, well, then you've too tightly defined something that's supposed to be innovation. You know, there has to be risks so I think that's the greatest challenge that I see right now. There's a lot of command and control and tight rein on KPI and tight rein on this week, this month, this week, this quarter.

Moira Vetter [00:28:05]:
But for all the talk about new markets and new frontiers and all of the things, there does not seem to be much appetite for risk.

Brandi Starr [00:28:15]:
And so what advice do you give to cmos who want to fight that battle? Because I've heard your sentiment echoed in many conversations from the head of marketing, understanding that especially with so much that changed post pandemic, there is a need for like space to try things, to continue to innovate and to have that longer Runway to show, improve. That efforts are working, but it is met with resistance, skepticism, you know, all sorts of negative adjectives there. What advice do you give? What advice do you give to someone who is trying to fight that battle for the space for more Runway there?

Moira Vetter [00:29:05]:
And I'm hate to do this and take it back to budget, but it's going to go back to budget. I feel that somebody has to say to their, you know, c suite or whoever is defining this, what is innovation worth to this company? Right? What, what is, what are new methods worth? Are they worth 10%? Are they worth 20%? Is it worth 50%? Okay, so if that's what it's worth, I'm putting aside x percent of the marketing budget. That is not bound to any guaranteed result. It is bound to testing, trying and learning, testing and learning whether it's testing in new markets, testing in new methods, leveraging AI to do blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, it's the petri dish, right? It's R and D within marketing. And you have to protect that part over here. And then when they say, well, what are you doing with your budget? You say, remember, that was the test budget. That's the budget that was allowed to have failure. Right? This is the part that we're looking at where we think we have predictive KPI's, or I, or, you know, maybe there's somebody that says, I refuse to commit to a KPI because I take risk with all of the work.

Moira Vetter [00:30:19]:
If everything we do is preconceived, then you don't need me. You can do AI to structure our tests and you can just automate all of it. Right. I mean, I do think that is, this goes back to the confidence thing, right? It's, for some organizations, particularly if they are manufacturing or industrial, marketing may be seen as a tactical function. And in some organizations like CPG, brand and marketing may be seen as hugely innovative functions. And, you know, you not only have a seat at the table, you have a seat at the head of the table. I think you also need to be cognizant of that to see what is realistic. And I really think that's important for each CMO or CRO to consider because I will also say private equity is famous for wanting to take the person from GM or GE or Kellogg's and put them into a little mid market company with no money.

Moira Vetter [00:31:20]:
And hey, we hired somebody who's done this on a larger scale. They've operated on a bigger stage and that's why we brought them in. But you give them none of the tools they had in that other environment, what they probably have is confidence. But if they don't have any resources, they're not going to be very lucky either. I just think that's another thing. A lot of people are looking for big change right now and big innovation. I definitely get a sense from some clients, we've been messing around with a lot of stuff for a year or two here and somebody's quickly got to figure out what we, what we should have been doing and start doing it. And if that's the case, you got to have somebody that is going to be confident to go and say what is happening and what isn't happening and not flip out, you know, and it's, you know, it's hard.

Moira Vetter [00:32:19]:
I think we talked in the, at the top of the podcast here about some of the people who are very senior in their career who feel like they are absolutely new, right. They are completely fresh out of the, out of the gate. And I know people with 30 years experience right now who have had their foundation shaken, you know, and, you know, have turned over again and are really having difficulty navigating, you know, this constant change reality. Everything's digital, everything's immediate. Much of it is automated. And they have problems anchoring themselves, not even talking about the shifting sands in terms of the environment for your company and your brand, but just for the role of marketing.

Brandi Starr [00:33:06]:
Yeah. And it is one that I do see changing so much. Like I started my marketing career back in 2001 and just even looking at what, you know, looking at the leaders that I had and how they were measured and what was important to now, I mean, and that that's just over 20 years. It is so drastically different. And even just looking at the last ten, like the change that has happened in terms of like, bringing in technology and the expectations and how much can be measured, it's like we've gone to the extreme of almost taking out some of that, you know, we're going to do without necessarily knowing, you know, being able to measure every single thing. Like now there is that what you talked about, that expectation of measuring everything that's happening in marketing. And, and I do think that there is a little bit of settling happening right now, that it seems like the role is being redefined and a little less tumultuous, at least from my perspective.

Moira Vetter [00:34:18]:
Yeah, no, I. And, well, and I think the other thing that adds to that dynamic that's really challenging for leaders. And I know I talked about, you know, private equity bringing in their teams. You know, a lot of companies are going through mergers and acquisition because when the market goes up and down, there's a lot of consolidation. And in consolidation, what used to happen, and I'm going back to 15 and 20 years ago when I saw this happen, people would bring in their a team, and it was the same team, and it was, I'm going to get Bob and Cindy and Sally and Frank, and we're going to do a rinse and repeat here. So I just need to bring my people in. And you don't have your people anymore like this. All the clients that I talked to, we used to get on calls, and you at least had the comfort of knowing how to operate with your team members.

Moira Vetter [00:35:04]:
Right. So the, maybe the industry's new, but you, your team has a shorthand with one another, and we know the tools that we use to go about doing this transformation thing that we do. And so what I'm noticing now is almost every call we're on with, not only with new clients, but existing clients who have maybe a new division that's going to do work with us for years. And I've been in the agency space 35 years. Right. Forever. It was always, you'd get on a call, there'd be three people on it. I've worked here 15 years.

Moira Vetter [00:35:41]:
I've worked here five years. I've worked here a year, year and a half. Almost every call I'm on now is I've worked here nine months. I've worked here nine weeks. And I started here yesterday. And so when you are working in that dynamic, they don't even know each other. Right. So, you know, it is adding, and that's where the calm comes in.

Moira Vetter [00:36:02]:
Right. You have to be calm so that people start to get comfortable. Right. And get comfortable making decisions and get comfortable making another decision, even if that one wasn't perfect. And so, you know, I think there's, there's a lot of psychology going on right now that doesn't have anything to do with the fundamentals of marketing. That has to do with the comfort of teams and operating in change and just being able to keep moving. You know, one of my favorite quotes of all time is, you know, Winston Churchill, when you're going through hell, keep moving. You know, a lot of it is not perfect every day, but you have to say, well, okay, well, we're going to keep moving.

Moira Vetter [00:36:41]:
We're going to move on to this next thing and, you know, be able to report that out again. Not like anything is the end of the world, but that it is something you acknowledge, something we understand. We're going to take x lesson away from that, and now let's move on to the next thing. What's the next trial?

Brandi Starr [00:36:59]:
Yeah, and I think that's a good way to think about it because sometimes I know leaders are hesitant to talk about the things that are not going as expected. It's almost like they want to just, you know, promote all the stuff that is working, the results that are great, and there's this hesitation, but, you know, not everything's going to be perfect. And it just, it is what it is. Like, you acknowledge what's not working, what you're doing about it, what you learned from it. And, you know, as long as you're having more wins than losses, like you're doing good job.

Moira Vetter [00:37:32]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and another reason I think that's really important is, and I know a lot of people talk about teachable moments, but I feel like there's a lot of learning going on in the workforce right now. There are a lot of people that I don't know where all the people went over the last few years, but there are a lot more people out of the workplace, whether it is boomers taking packages or people that are mid career that are taking a pause and doing sabbaticals and reinventing themselves, but there are less people, which means there is less clarity. There is less, you know, rinse and repeat, and there's a lot more new people coming into situations that need grounding and context. And, you know, that's certainly true for our business. We continue to grow and we've grown a lot, but we have a tremendous amount of new people. If you grow, if you're really successful, that means you're going to have a whole bunch of people that have no idea what you did six months ago.

Moira Vetter [00:38:26]:
And so, you know, I think that's important, too. That whole idea of employee enablement, sales enablement rate, bringing the stories along, bringing the context, you know, making sure people are understanding some of the why and the what, you know, not to point fingers, but to know we want you to have context for why we set this up this way, why we thought it might make sense, why it, you know, and as you said, just a comfort in being a little more transparent and vulnerable, you know, not as protective about, well, it didn't work. So I have to put it over there and we're not going to talk about it, but, you know, bringing it front and center. We were charged with trying some things that would get incremental growth, and you do that by taking risks. This is a risk we took. It didn't pay off like we thought it would. However, we learned this, and that's something we're taking forward.

Brandi Starr [00:39:19]:
Well, talking about our challenges is just the first step, and nothing changes if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapist will give 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 I'd love to hear your one thing. For those listening, you know, what you're saying in that effort to try to build on sand that resonates with them. What's the first step? What, what is your one thing?

Moira Vetter [00:39:46]:
Yeah, my one thing is build that two year plan and pretend you don't have a plan. This is not pull up the old plan, do a save as on the old plan, because then we just go down the rabbit holes of how we've always done it. Just start with today and say, based on my role and what I know today and which, by the way, has changed crazy amounts just in the last three months, what are the next two years about? And so I know what this quarter is and I can see to the end of the year and probably q one is more of that. But if I had to really think about what is the next big thing, the next big leap and try to build a plan, and it can be a tactical plan, it can be a strategy plan, it can be a messaging plan, like, don't over interpret what that has to be, but start to make yourself think in the long term and the short term as well and move that longer term out to where you are getting to do some of the things that are more innovative or longer tail or could have really lasting impact on things. So it's that, it's that systems thinking about doing a two year plan and then how, who are the key stakeholders that have to really work closely with you to impact that, because I think you will find you have an entirely different set of stakeholders that you need to work with that could affect the things that are going to be two years out than the stakeholders you work with on the things that are going to impact this quarter in this month. And so that's the other part of the discipline, is not just going through your day in reactionary mode, but making time for the short term things you must do, as well as the long term things and the long term relationships.

Brandi Starr [00:41:33]:
I love it, and it's great timing for me because I am going through doing some planning for my team, and I definitely am now going to change that to a two year plan. So I always love when I can take something away from these discussions. Well, Moira, I have enjoyed our discussion, but that's our time for today.

Moira Vetter [00:41:57]:
I love it. Great.

Brandi Starr [00:41:59]:
Before we go, tell us, how can our audience connect with you and definitely give the shameless plug for Moto Moto agency.

Moira Vetter [00:42:07]:
Absolutely. So we're Moto Moto agency. We are a business to business, full service advertising and marketing firm here in Atlanta. But we serve global clients and we really relish complex businesses with complex brand and marketing challenges. And we can be reached@motomotoagency.com and, you know, we serve, I mentioned mid market companies, but we also serve, you know, Fortune 200 companies. You know, people just need strategic partners who do what we talked about today, who are comfortable walking into a changing environment, stepping in on sand and anchoring themselves. And so we're the kind of firm that if you've looked for marketing and advertising support before and your challenges were never defined enough, or the agency could never quite get up to speed on what was different or difficult about your industry or how you were trying to go to market. We like to think we're different.

Moira Vetter [00:43:11]:
We're business people first. So that's our shameless plug. Give us a shot. If you've got something that's been so hard, it was difficult to get an outside partner, whether it be structuring a brand, you know, looking at a brand platform or reimagining a market. It could be a brand campaign, it could be employer branding, or it could be digital advertising and marketing and execution. You know, truly full service. You know, we love getting our feet wet with complex things. You know, we like long sales cycles, and we do, and we do a pretty good job of it.

Moira Vetter [00:43:50]:
You can see behind me we have a few, but we love doing it. So, you know, I've done this for a long time because I love this. And our people love this. We like hard challenges. We like to move the needle. We like to understand what's important today. But more importantly, we like to help build long term, sustainable brands that are, you know, changing the world. So that's who we are.

Brandi Starr [00:44:13]:
Well, awesome. I will make sure that we link to Moto Moto agency. So wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, check the show notes so that you can connect with Moira and Moto Moto. Well, Moira, thank you so, so much. I have truly enjoyed the discussion. I was gonna say it definitely felt therapeutic and just being able to relate and get out some of the challenges, but also have great advice on how to overcome some of the foundational things that I think we're all struggling with.

Moira Vetter [00:44:46]:
Yep, absolutely. Well, I really enjoyed it and look forward to talking to you more and listening to the podcast some more.

Brandi Starr [00:44:54]:
Awesome. Well, thanks, everyone, for joining me. I hope you have enjoyed my discussion. I can't believe we're at the end. We'll see you next time.