Marketing & Mayhem
Twins, Crisis Management, & Standing in the Gap
Unlock the secrets to a seamless synergy in business as we chat with Kelsey Klim and Kollin Chupa, the founders of K Squared Marketing.
These marketing powerhouses - who might … just might … dress in the same outfit OFTEN, take us in their journey from event planning and management to owning their own marketing firm. We jump into conversations that range from pumpkin patches to crisis management and find … there really is something to be said for business partners who can complete one another’s sentences.
What REALLY matters when it comes to marketing - your brand message, your voice, your core values and your call to action. It’s a lot more than a pretty brand guide. And while we love those - we also know business leaders who didn’t do extensive research into their logo or their color scheme. Leaders who jumped right into “doing”. But there’s positive and negative to both.
Is there such a thing as a bad client and where do you draw the line? In a society where image, perception and instant gratification currently drive many business models - what would it take to create a sustainable business model? Where do you draw the line between brand recognition and the kind of marketing that grabs your attention? Is there ever a time to compromise? What if it calls on your own values and integrity and … isn’t meeting them? And how much does self awareness play into how you choose clients?
From bad pictures to murders - you’ve considered a marketing team but have you considered one that can handle crisis management? Someone who protects your story, your integrity and your reputation while you’re busy building and living?
Our guests -
Kollin Chupa & Kelsey Klim
Insta @k_squared.marketing1
Web - ksquared.marketing
For more mayhem, be sure to follow us:
Insta @marketingandmayhem
YouTube @MarketingMayhemPod
And don't forget to leave us a 5 star review! Or message us to deep dive into your topic or just give us feedback!
Hosted by @raebecca.miller and @jennyfromthe843
Unlock the secrets to a seamless synergy in business as we chat with Kelsey Klim and Kollin Chupa, the founders of K Squared Marketing.
These marketing powerhouses - who might … just might … dress in the same outfit OFTEN, take us in their journey from event planning and management to owning their own marketing firm. We jump into conversations that range from pumpkin patches to crisis management and find … there really is something to be said for business partners who can complete one another’s sentences.
What REALLY matters when it comes to marketing - your brand message, your voice, your core values and your call to action. It’s a lot more than a pretty brand guide. And while we love those - we also know business leaders who didn’t do extensive research into their logo or their color scheme. Leaders who jumped right into “doing”. But there’s positive and negative to both.
Is there such a thing as a bad client and where do you draw the line? In a society where image, perception and instant gratification currently drive many business models - what would it take to create a sustainable business model? Where do you draw the line between brand recognition and the kind of marketing that grabs your attention? Is there ever a time to compromise? What if it calls on your own values and integrity and … isn’t meeting them? And how much does self awareness play into how you choose clients?
From bad pictures to murders - you’ve considered a marketing team but have you considered one that can handle crisis management? Someone who protects your story, your integrity and your reputation while you’re busy building and living?
Our guests -
Kollin Chupa & Kelsey Klim
Insta @k_squared.marketing1
Web - ksquared.marketing
For more mayhem, be sure to follow us:
Insta @marketingandmayhem
YouTube @MarketingMayhemPod
And don't forget to leave us a 5 star review! Or message us to deep dive into your topic or just give us feedback!
Hosted by @raebecca.miller and @jennyfromthe843
um.
Speaker 3:We have we have new faces, but like similar faces almost the same voice, I know I love it, like blonde and brown voice, I know I love it Like blonde and brown.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, it's kind of like you guys. I know we are so excited to have my dear friend Kelsey Clem and her sister Colin Chupa from Caseware Marketing in. Youngstown, Ohio. Welcome ladies. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3:We're so excited okay.
Speaker 1:So I didn't know until you guys just jumped on like two minutes before that you were twins yes, and and since this is just audio, we'll explain.
Speaker 2:Like we are almost in the same outfit right now. Um, this happens so much so there's a couple weeks, a week, week, where we are on site with different clients, so we don't see each other. But inevitably, if we show up, like to our office after we are like done with our separate clients, we're in the same outfit and we don't plan it.
Speaker 3:This is how we've been our whole life. Do you know that Rebecca and I are the exact same way?
Speaker 2:that is, do you know that rebecca and I are the exact same way? Yeah, I've heard that, I've heard, and I I forget like what the term for it, maybe like life twins or something like that, but it it refers to when, when you spend so much time with your girlfriends, you start to actually walk the same, have the same mannerisms, dress the the same. So I get it.
Speaker 1:That makes so much sense. That's like the original influencer. Right Is like your friends, like your group. Yes.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think it's. It's good from a business standpoint too and maybe you guys will agree, because when you show up to a pitch with a client, you know you guys can kind of pick off, pick up where the other one left off, or, if one's like, struggling maybe. We've had this happen so many times, especially when we first started our business. We were postpartum. We were both, you know you feel like you had a stroke. So you're like words, like there.
Speaker 3:There was one time I was actually snapping my hand like looking for the word, kind of like grabbed her hand and I said what? She means that's so, that's so cute.
Speaker 1:I love that that's so relatable. I mean, I can't tell you the amount of times we get out of the car and we look at each other, like down to the shoes, and we're like, okay, we're both in black bodysuits, we're both both in dark denim, we have picked booties, and so this is what this is.
Speaker 3:It's on brand, yeah, you know. So tell us what you guys do at K Squared Marketing.
Speaker 2:I, we love your show so much because, um you, you explained your business almost to a T, how we explain ours and sort of the Genesis of our, our business model, and how we've um, kind of structured our lines of service.
Speaker 2:Um, you are gritty gal, marketing and I wish we would have thought of the word gritty, because when we were, you explained it as you get down to the nitty gritty of your clients and that's what we do. So we spent the first half of our career. We did over a decade in live event marketing. So we did event marketing at a 6,000 seat arena in Youngstown and then a theater we did event marketing for. Eventually we did event marketing for an outdoor amphitheater and what we found from our time there we did event marketing but then we also did sales and sponsorships, and so what we found there was there was sort of like this large disconnect between agencies and clients and there was nobody that was sort of advocating for really what the client's message was. It was like they throw all this, you know creative at them and you know the flash. No strategy or execution, everything wonderful, yeah, what are you saying? What's your call to action? What, where? Where is your brand messaging? You know what? What are you saying basically?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Colin and I are both pretty strong writers and that's ultimately kind of how we have structured our business and kind of distinguished ourselves from some of our competitors here and colleagues alike. We really work on creating a message, first and foremost because that and you guys have mentioned this like a couple episodes ago like that is the genesis of marketing. What are you saying, what is your voice? It's not about like all pretty things, what you look like. That stuff will come. But what is your foundation, what's your core values and what are your services? What do you want to communicate that kind of stuff. So we kind of started there with what we wanted to provide. So we kind of narrowed it down, obviously over the last. We've been in business for six years now. We offer public relations services which we can get into in a little bit Crisis management is a big part.
Speaker 3:It's a big part.
Speaker 2:We have recently uncovered school district marketing. That's a lot of content. They're very heavy on social media content, special newsletters, forward-facing messaging, but then we do traditional media buys as well. So we're getting back to I think Jenny described it as middle-aged marketing. We try to sort of fill that gap between what big agencies are throwing at clients. It's overwhelming, it's oftentimes costly, it's unnecessary cost kind of.
Speaker 2:You know, I read something probably three weeks ago that was about. It was about standing in the gap for somebody, um, and it was talking on the personal. So you know, if you have a friend who's going through something, they might not know that they need something until you stand in that gap and you give it to them. And I think that's kind of how we, that's how we live our lives, but that's also how we have structured our business. Like we ask a ton of questions. Sometimes it seems intrusive, but we are trying to figure out what that gap is, and you don't know that you need a crisis management plan because you didn't even know to ask for it. You're just, you know, struggling to survive at this point.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of where we stand when I feel like when people have I mean gosh, when you're already in like an interesting space, or even as a new business owner, you don't even know the gap until, like you said, somebody stands in it. But they don't even. I mean gosh. We've met business owners who can't even articulate their message at all, much like bring it to life in a plan, because they're so deep in the weeds about execution that they have completely lost. People like you and I and Jenny. If somebody doesn't hold on to that and really bring that message to life like that creative standpoint, that stance doesn't come naturally to a lot of our clients, truly no not at all, and I feel like that's really one of the things that we've seen.
Speaker 3:It's like, okay, well, you know where do we start. Tell us about your story. What does this mean? And they're like it's crickets. And I get in the car with rebecca afterward. I'm like how in the hell do you not know this stuff before you start a business? Like how do you not know? Like so much thought went into the name of our brand, so much thought went into the coloring, the logo, like I just and again having that kind of marketing and sales right, but most people don't have that. So it's so crazy that we're we get in these meetings. It's like we're what are you thinking?
Speaker 2:more importantly, they've never thought about it, because nobody ever asked. Right, right, you get in front of a marketing company and they're just like, ok, well, we're going to create a commercial for you and that's it. And you don't include the client in the process, because they know better, they know better, they know where you should be, that nobody even asks. Like, you got to go beyond. Like OK, what do you want to say? Like we have a whole brand worksheet that we give to clients, like when we onboard them, and beyond that, we're asking them what do you want to say? What do you think people are saying about you? What would you like people to say about you? So these are like really like nitty gritty. Back to your point questions that just get missed, they get convoluted and they get missed and they're valuable. I mean even looking under a business's hood and seeing the assets that they already have that are maybe underutilized.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say because you talked about this opposite ends of the spectrum idea. So one of them is you have the client who has a successful business, has come to the place where they actually need marketing, but they've already the business has been in business for a little bit. Those are the clients who'd have, who picked a name, picked a color. I mean they just executed, executed. You know, I won't stereotype here too much, but typically I find that those are more like the male centric ownership where they just like go, go go go.
Speaker 1:There's no thought. So we were in a meeting recently where we were like we're going to have to tie this together and make it make sense for anyone consuming this, because it doesn't from our standpoint. But then we have other clients who start with the most beautiful brand kit but they have no idea where they're going, but they just have this really pretty penny and I'm like okay, so we've got the guy that's just like yep, yep, yep, decision maker. And then we've got this really beautiful, like if you guys could just get somewhere in the middle and if that's our job, I love that. But all of our clients are coming from very distinct, opposite ends of the spectrum. Is this universal?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and especially like when we first started. I mean, I think about like the mixed bag of people that we had. We had a nonprofit, we were still doing event marketing for the arena that we left, but we were. They were subcontracting work to us at that point, so we were doing that, but then we were also. We launched like this line of service called coffee and consultation with K squared, cause we love alliteration.
Speaker 3:I love it.
Speaker 2:I mean, but it was sort of like it was a three session, a three session process. The first session was like discovery, the next session we'd like present plans and then the third session. We would teach them and coach them how to execute on their own, and that was geared toward small businesses. So we had, you know, that you know mixed bag, I guess, of clients that we were working with and yeah, same thing, I mean there, clients that we were working with and yeah, same thing, I mean there. There would be some people I do you remember, which I won't name this business, but there was a small um, that coffee and consultation.
Speaker 2:That was also like it was Colin's idea which was broke, because Colin was the sales side at the arena, I was the marketing side at the arena, but we worked so well in tandem and we've also brought that into our business model as well. But you, not only from you know, internally with our own business, but also with working with other businesses on like actionable sales items for them. Yeah, like actionable sales items for them. But you know, we, we had taught, we had used that as sort of like a prospecting tool, like, okay, they're going to get three sessions with us, but they're maybe going to want more. You know they they see what we can offer. It gets us in front of them.
Speaker 3:So we went to. We went to this meeting.
Speaker 2:It was a, it was a family business, but one of these, like you, that you had mentioned before that they very successful, but it was like the next generation was like the dad was ready to pass it off to his kids and they were expanding. They were going to Columbus. They had an office here in Youngstown but then they were expanding to Columbus and so they brought us on to sort of like start to discuss what that looks like, and what we discovered was that they were so busy operating like they were working in it, not on it that they had set up a phone line they put as a call to action. They set up this phone line and that was where that was supposed to feed them. That feed, like that was starting.
Speaker 2:Their sales process was a call. That was it. The phone did not ring anywhere. Nobody was answering the phone and they it was a personnel issue. They discovered that in this meeting, as we're talking through this, I was like well, walk me through your sales funnel. So, okay, somebody calls. Who's answering that phone? What's their script? What do they do? What's the follow-up?
Speaker 2:blah blah, blah, and so they they're all looking at each other and they're like well, I thought Josh was doing it, oh my gosh, josh isn't doing it because, like we put, them on this. Then they just start fighting.
Speaker 3:They start turning on each other.
Speaker 2:It turns into a family feud and like I looked at Kelsey and she looked at me and I was like, well, I don't know that we can help you.
Speaker 3:I don't want to be stronger than coffee.
Speaker 2:We left. We're like, what the f just happened? So we, yeah, I mean, it's just that's like a very good example of like you have the best of intentions and they had all the they had they. They called us because they liked us. And they're like, hey, we really like you. How do we work with you guys? And so we're like, well, well, let's talk through it. So that's what led them. We're like, okay, let's see where your weaknesses are. Let's let's uncover those, let's help you with that. And so, like we uncovered that like mid meeting, and it just never got back on the rails.
Speaker 3:I feel like, rebecca, one of our first meetings that we had, we had a discovery zoom with somebody and we asked very similar questions because, again, that marketing and the sales they play so nice together usually, or they're supposed to and when we started asking some of those same questions about your sales process talk to me about who does that, who does the follow-up it was like, again, crickets. We were like, okay, this is not anything that we want to be a part of, because they couldn't articulate and it was what they were doing worse than crickets.
Speaker 1:right, there was this underlying tone that felt like there might have been something in the past that didn't feel like full, that didn't really match our integrity values.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because they weren't really able also to articulate what people were saying about them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which is weird.
Speaker 1:When I was like wait a minute, back to your earlier this term of crisis management. We basically said if we're walking into a situation where we're going to be doing repair work because we are starting to feel like this is actually a repair situation, we are starting to feel like this is actually a repair situation and if we're going to basically reestablish your business's integrity, then we need you to tell us where the integrity got lost very clearly so that we can anticipate that down the road. And then that's where we really took but honestly, jenny out of the gates that conversation. I still think about the start of that conversation because it was awkward, af for sure we were, so we were together. It wasn't us but the, the man, just, you know, on a zoom high level you change the name on your zoom.
Speaker 1:If you're like like when my kids did zoom school, I would have to change it to me or to them. His had a woman's name on it. There was no video at first.
Speaker 1:So, Jenny, being polite and Southern, says should we wait? What was her name? Julia? Julia, she goes, should we wait for? Was her name julia? Julia, she goes should we wait for julia to join us? And he goes who's julia? Like it was us. And so I'm like kicked, like hitting her and I was like you know. So we kick it off and she coaches him through how to turn his video on and I, I mean, we're both just thinking like wait, this is like our perfect client right so but it's so then.
Speaker 1:So then it became a joke for like four months. We had this other employee, this third employee, julia, and every time like something, I would be like you know what, just delegate that. Like Julia has Julia's right on top of it, she's right, take care of that. Like let Julia. Or like we would joke with one another If we're like, well, let's say, we miss an email, we're like you know what, julia, that's our fault for not following up. We gave that to Julia. I'm so sorry. This is true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, you bring up a good point there. There's such a bad or a good. There's such a thing as a bad client, you know where, in small businesses when they first get started small, you know, marketing companies, whatever it's like. That is very hard to discern because you need money right, like you're in business to make money.
Speaker 2:So when, when you first start out, it's like okay, you know, maybe we can overlook the Julia thing, you know, like, like it was probably just a product, you know, dad doesn't know how to use zoom either, like we wouldn't want somebody to think about that, dad Like. So it's like like we would have these conversations about like, okay, well, let's just like, let's make it work, you know, and if they're willing to like, yeah, hey, the price we're asking. And then, even if that didn't go through, it was like well, we obviously underbid it. Well, that's, that's a dangerous part about which and it's also the hardest part about owning a business and I'm sure you guys can attest is pricing things, pricing your services so that it holds your value, but that you get the job I mean. So we started for the first like two years. I will look back at our old proposals and I want to throw up. No wonder I got that job.
Speaker 2:I do not believe the shit that we pull, that we put up with for the minimal amount of money. But we were pricing things to get the work, not necessarily what the work was valued at. No, it's the experience.
Speaker 1:I mean, at some point we all have to earn.
Speaker 1:I think that's one of the things that like even, I think bothers both of us about this idea of just like handing out these beautiful brand kits Like they're expensive, beautiful A lot of times, like it's not really what gets the business started. But then I'm like, okay, but you still don't have any experience executing. You just make pretty things and that's actually not what marketing is Like. Every message can't be beautiful. Yeah, every message can't like. It needs to be aligned to the brand and what the goals are. But you know, for every guy that doesn't choose his colors by anything but accident, you know, then there's somebody who's spent all day on it and then has this thing and has no idea what to do with this cute little baby they now have to bring home that they just put four to $8,000 into and has no plans to bring in that amount of income at any time soon.
Speaker 1:You know, it's like this, it's heartbreaking it comes down to.
Speaker 2:If there is not an actionable item attached to any tactic asset that you are employing, then it's garbage and you need to regroup, because that's unfortunately the way like our society sort of is. We are now all about image and perception and instant gratification. We're not worried about sustainable solutions and strategy. That has kind of gone by the wayside and I guess, to kind of put a bow on, what we're all saying is that we are standing in the gap. Companies like us are trying to stand in that gap because there's a whole sector of the market right now that is needing that, that. There's businesses that they don't know that they need it necessarily, but they do. They're wondering why they're wasting tens of thousands of dollars on these gorgeous assets, whether it be, whether it be a commercial or an ad campaign or, you know, billboard campaign or whatever and they're not seeing their needle move.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I call it where the rubber meets the road marketing. That's what she did. Right, because at some point it's like, if it doesn't lead to revenue, I mean, what are you doing? It can be pretty long, but if it doesn't equate to dollars, like you know, I don't get it.
Speaker 2:And there's, you know very rarely are you going to run across a brand that that has that luxury of? Oh, I'm just going to do a pretty, like you know, photo campaign and roll out this new product that I have. I mean, those are, those are your companies. Like you know, pepsi I had a client one time who he wanted to do. This wacky ass commercial made zero sense. He's, by the way, is swearing loud on this.
Speaker 3:We're so good. You're fine. You're in a second. You're in a second, you're in a second. We're so good at writing stuff.
Speaker 2:We're always going to say, you know, well, we didn't.
Speaker 1:Honestly, though, isn't there something about, like, really creative people being the people who like curse a lot? I thought that was like one of our badges Like yeah we are you know what. I think it's a thing I'm going to find some research. You can find research that supports anything, so I'm about to find some research that supports that.
Speaker 2:Yes, Somebody can now cite this podcast as their research to support their.
Speaker 1:Anyway, sorry, just researched it. We pulled four really creative people and all of them cursed.
Speaker 3:Like Salem four out of four um exactly four out of four highly recommend swearing.
Speaker 2:um, so I forget what I was saying now, sorry. So you know yes, yes, okay. So we have this client who wanted to do this crazy ass commercial. He wanted to like ride on a camel.
Speaker 3:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:It had zero, zero to do with anything that he wanted to accomplish. So like I, very at first, like I thought he was joking and I laughed and he was serious, and so like I reeled it back in and I said, okay, but let's go back to the goal. Let's go back to that. What is the goal here for this commercial? It's to increase X, y and Z. I don't want to get too specific because they're a current client of ours, but anyway. So we went back to the goal and he's like well, yeah, but I mean we want to get their attention. And I said, listen, that kind of wacky commercial is reserved for companies like Pepsi and Coke who have millions of dollars to blow on a Super Bowl ad campaign. That kind of doesn't have anything to blow on a Superbowl ad campaign. That kind of doesn't have anything to do with the product, it's just that brand reinforcement. We are not at that level.
Speaker 1:I was like do you think you're just trying to check off like a bucket list thing? And he really just wanted to ride a camel, because if it was Jenny, a hundred percent I would totally want to do that.
Speaker 2:Wait, you like camels. So it didn, Jenny, 100%. I would totally want to do that. Wait, you like camels.
Speaker 3:Didn't you just post a selfie of a camel? I did, yeah, I love a camel. All right, I'm jotting this down as an idea for Gritty Gal.
Speaker 2:So tell me about the camel. Was that a petting zoo?
Speaker 1:I'm so scared they're going to spit and she's over there letting them be on her shoulder and I'm like I don't want to get spit on You'll hear it on the podcast tomorrow.
Speaker 3:But I go to like the pumpkin patch and like strawberry festival every year and it's the same camel every time and so for the past like four or five years, like I've taken a selfie with this camel Because I like to post it randomly on Wednesday and say guess what day it is?
Speaker 1:So I don't know, you got like such a good one last time, but I'm like so scared this thing is going to grab my hair or it's going to spit on me and she's like we're tight, we're tight.
Speaker 2:What's the camel's name?
Speaker 3:I have no idea.
Speaker 2:Oh, you need to learn the name.
Speaker 1:I do need to learn the camel's name, like we know some of the names of the petting zoo. We know the pig is cinderella, but we don't know the camel's name I'll find out.
Speaker 3:I'll find out at the pumpkin patch this year, if I go so kelsey and I and you go, because your camel's gonna be there, so you gotta be you're gonna go.
Speaker 3:It's just hot right, so hot yeah, oh, holland, like so clark, and I like a couple years we've got, I got like these cute, like little shirts made like it's fall y'all, like a little truck and some pumpkins in it, and then I wear jeans and like a cute you know, oh, my god clark, and I sweat profusely at this thing. We went last year, last October, and she was like I have a picture of her holding this like probably 20 pound pumpkin and she's just covered in sweat. Her shirt's wet, like just miserable. It's miserable here until like late October.
Speaker 1:You feel so dirty and so sweaty and it's like, oh, here we go on the handbag. There's nothing cute about it Like at all you look around and the moms are all trying to like make it feel so magical. But they're literally like postpartum.
Speaker 3:Well, the worst is like so the moms like come in these like gorgeous fall dresses. I mean I'm talking like long sleep, because I mean they are looking for that photo op, because they do like there's so many photo ops. Yeah, it's like a photo they have like hey and like you know, it's just real cute.
Speaker 1:It's a great photo op you know 400 pound pumpkin or whatever the thing is.
Speaker 3:They put the tails around, oh yeah yeah, and then meanwhile me and clark, last time we were like in shorts and we were like we ain't taking a picture, those moms are, though that's what I was gonna say.
Speaker 1:They look, they look like they. You know they are giving it their best shot, but you look at the same dad. The dad is literally like he just took me out, just put me in front of the tractor and the kids are trying to have fun, but like I mean, it's not.
Speaker 3:It's it's good in idn theory, but it's not, it's not fun it's really torturous we have like one million pumpkin fall up.
Speaker 1:Here is actually oh, I'm sure yeah you guys should come up to ohio for fall because it really, truly, is what we talked about on the podcast yeah it is.
Speaker 2:It's gorgeous up here and we have we live in a rural area, so we live outside of Youngstown and we live like I live on an 11 acre horse farm. Yeah, and we can like throw a stone and hit a pumpkin patch in the fall like gorgeous, but anyway, I like don't get down with the whole, like oh, we're going to, you know, look like we're not dressing for the gram here, like I put my kids and like they have like their. Well, because they're working farms, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're all working farms, it's not just like somebody set out like pumpkins. I mean, you got to wear your boots and or you're going to destroy your entire wardrobe if you don't destroy your entire wardrobe if you don't.
Speaker 1:But I think that's partially like. I mean, I don't mean to, like you know, put the majority of the mount pleasant mom population on blast, but I could show up to a school picnic I could show up to, like I showed up to field day the other day and, of course, I volunteer.
Speaker 1:Jenny and I are similar like this, like we volunteer at school and we fill our plates with whatever, because that's what the village is. And it drives me nuts that people always say, like what happened to the village and yet they're doing nothing to contribute. That annoys me, yeah, but I like show up and everyone is in these, like you know, the golden goose sneakers, which I love it, do your thing. The puffy sleeved dress and these cute little headbands with the big nine, the pearls, I'm like it's field day.
Speaker 1:Yo, these kids have been given sponges. They're chasing each other around sponges. And then if?
Speaker 3:they hit the other person.
Speaker 1:They went.
Speaker 3:I'm like do you know that I have set the bar so low at Clark school? She started a new school this year, so I have set the bar so low. I walked into school the other day and Rebecca and I had a meeting, so I was like in all black, like you know. I looked nice, I look put together. Five teachers were like you look so nice. What is the occasion? I put a little makeup on? I'm not here. It's not in a bun Bar. Hello, I love it. Live there, live there.
Speaker 2:I mean you, just you have to. You know we have field day next, next Friday, next Friday, and we live in, honestly, like we live in a community that if somebody were to show up like looking like, like that, like looking like all put together, you'd be in the minority.
Speaker 3:I mean I might be moving there then yeah, we don't, we don't, we don't mess around.
Speaker 2:I mean, people have like ball caps on Listen, if, if you, you do. I want to say, like you, do you like that? Oh for sure, Like I, just more power to you. I think that you know, those women look beautiful. They probably get the job done just as good looking good. But I just, you know, I think, I think my season of life is like about survival.
Speaker 3:Yes, a hundred percent what you get Like if I have a bra on. Congratulations, I'm doing good.
Speaker 1:Well, I also know myself. Even for the Christmas party for my neighborhood I wore bike shorts under my really nice dress because I know that if I've had even one beverage I take a wide stance when I dance. So I cannot trust myself Like I grew up in the year 2000,. Like I'm going to get wide and low, so I have to prepare accordingly. I cannot just be out there Like if little John comes on, it's on Right, yeah, yeah. And it's christmas and the holiday is like I could not possibly show up to field day in a dress and trust myself. I've got to be in leggings.
Speaker 2:I have to get my life together I know myself well, yeah, and like you said, I mean it's hot and kids have sponges and they've been like like cooked up with sugar, real thing last like yeah, three hours. I mean no way man there it was like a.
Speaker 1:it was like dodgeball, but with man. It was like a. It was like dodgeball, but with sponges. And I was like this is my nightmare Like how are we washing the bucket? Are we changing the bucket? My daughter's squinting over her head. I was like don't do that Please don't do that.
Speaker 3:I feel like run over there to my car. Let's see if we can hit it with sponges.
Speaker 2:Great, perfect. Now, that's an idea.
Speaker 1:That's the marketer in you. You're like immediate fundraiser, we're going to get things done. Go over there.
Speaker 3:All right, so real, I want to talk a little bit about, like, the crisis management thing, cause I think this is fascinating to me, cause this is not anything that Rebecca and I've really thought about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we haven't had to deal with this yet, but the term is so exciting for me I don't know why.
Speaker 3:So talk to us about that.
Speaker 2:And there's different levels of it too, I mean. So sometimes it's not like a full blown crisis, sometimes it's a bad picture that got released and it's questionable and you sort of have to explain or apologize. So sometimes it's as simple as that. But then other times, like we've kelsey calls it she has coined this, our bingo card of chaos, and so we have, in the last like probably two years, we have hit probably every bingo spot, bingo spot that you can think of to like you know, our rest we dealt with, unfortunately. We dealt with our murder this year, not of a client, but like somebody who was yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was it. That was sticky.
Speaker 3:Holy shit, I definitely did not see this going that direction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the thing I mean. It's like it's, it's scalable. You know, like they're like said there's. You know, we had in one week we had like a food poisoning situation, an arrest and a murder. We ended the week with a murder.
Speaker 3:That was right before Christmas and Jenny, you know that I love dateline so much.
Speaker 2:Oh girl, we I mean, come on, yes, I couldn't listen to dateline, for I just started listening to dateline again because it's like, once it hits like close to home, it's like, oh man, like this stuff is real, like this is like upsetting, you know I really do love a dateline yeah, so, but, um, yeah, and our involvement with that was sort of like so we have a, we have a client and they're a current client.
Speaker 2:So again, I want to be careful with how much I say, but they, um, they had somebody who worked for them who was murdered under very suspicious circumstances. So then it's, the chatter starts and the news crew showed up immediately, like once that hit the news or the. You know, because the news stations have like police scanners. So as soon as that like hit the scanner, which thankfully we this particular client engaged us immediately. We have we have other clients that will try I don't know why they do this, but they will try to like figure things out by themselves and then they'll call us at the 11th hour, once it hits the news then they call us and like well, what do we do?
Speaker 2:It's like well, you shouldn't have given it up until we worked through the comment and addressed it, because here's the deal. You know, depending on the situation you want to inform, you know, the stakeholders within your organization first of something terrible that's happening.
Speaker 3:You don't want them hearing about it on the news.
Speaker 2:And then talk about how you want the outward facing messaging to go.
Speaker 3:Because those are two very different things.
Speaker 2:I mean how you want the outward facing messaging to go. Those are two very different things. I mean how you speak to your internal team and your stakeholders is very different than how you're going to address the media and the general public. And so when we are engaged at the beginning of that process, results are optimal. Beginning of that process results are optimal.
Speaker 2:When we get a call from a news producer, which this has happened so many times, do you have a comment? I'm looking for a comment on you know so-and-so who was just arrested at the insert place of business and I was like, oh, actually didn't know that happened, please hold. Then I have to call them the client and be like, hey, okay, so the news is looking for a statement. They're like oh, we didn't think that was going to be that big of a deal. I'm like it is. Here's the deal.
Speaker 2:That's what's interesting is like crisis is scalable, but it's also subjective. I guess like some people's lives must be such a dumpster fire that that's not a big deal to them. That's a good point. That's a good point. You know. I think you know we had a scenario play out recently with a crisis and thankfully we were engaged from the very beginning and we worked through the client with how to engage their staff on this, and I think an important piece of that's an important piece of crisis communication, like we said, for the reason of they're going to be advocates for you, then If you engage them in the process, if you engage them in the process from gauge them in the solution, then then they're going to be able to help you get whatever message that we, we want to convey. They're going to help be, you know, your influencers. So you know you already have ground. What's that?
Speaker 1:I said their boots to ground Like they're a lot more yet in touch with whoever the message is going to be repeated by, probably.
Speaker 2:Exactly and they're. They're like you know you talk about. Everybody talks about all these like paid influencers. Yeah, have a set of paid influencers that are within your organization, like let's utilize them, you know. So you know. I think that that was key in the success of how it was the situation was handled, was engaging the personnel at the beginning and letting them know exactly what happened, with however much they could let them know exactly what happened. This is our message going forward, this is the message that's going outward, facing, and so it was hugely successful. Then, you know, we didn't have a nurse producer call us in the 11th hour and want to know, and then we're scrambling, trying to let staff know what's going on. We're trying to do damage control like that. That is like the worst case scenario whenever you're dealing with any kind of crisis. I mean, is that?
Speaker 2:you're in a position where you're doing damage control, because our thing is, we're never going to lie for our clients, we're never going to say you know that something didn't happen when it did. Our job, though, is to minimize the fallout of whatever situation happened, you know, and kind of maximize the solution or the moving forward part when, thankfully, we have not been in that position yet where a client has sort of asked us to hide the truth. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we make that clear, Like we're not doing that, I mean, and that that goes back to you know, our beginning of this conversation about integrity and what like your values are as a business owner. I mean, that's one of our key. What like we will not lie for you. I think the term crisis communicator, crisis management, I think that kind of gets misconstrued as like, oh well, you're paid to lie for people.
Speaker 3:No, that's what lawyers are for.
Speaker 1:There is a certain misconception, though, where people really think that because they're paying you, it could be lying. It could be this sort of like idea that you are on call 24 seven, and there are certainly clients where that is more of the relationship. But that's laid out from the beginning when we get that contract or when we set the agreement or the terms with the client. But that's not true for every client, you know. Like it's not. You know there are definitely clients where we just execute like small portions of their business, where we're not in the crisis management team right now and we're not, you know, on call. Like we can talk about that if that's needed. But there's this assumption that if you're on their payroll at all sort of that that's your yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's not. We are not in that role with all of our clients. We're no-transcript, that that's what you do. So then they start thinking of you for those kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I imagine it's a natural evolution because if you and if you're good at it and if people appreciate your crisis management I mean, when you're in a crisis, you don't have to look around and read 9,000 Google reviews Like you have heard, you know of a guy or a girl who already handled this for somebody else you appreciated the way it went, like. You have to move quickly, right. Is there ever a time where you get a client in the crisis, like, or do you typically only manage if they were already on deck for you?
Speaker 2:That we've never. We've never had like a cold call with somebody that's like my world blowing up, we need help. No, that's not happened and I'm glad that it hasn't happened like that. Not that we would turn that down and we would.
Speaker 2:we would handle it probably tomorrow's phone call sorry after this podcast, air we're gonna get yeah um, but the reason for that is because you know, when you're dealing with crisis management, you are dealing with somebody at a very uh like low point and in yeah, in their day or in their business, and so there's going to be a certain amount of trust that they need to have in you. And because they're already clients of ours, we have a relationship, we know their brand, we know all the major players in their brand, so that trust is there already and so I think that they're more willing to share what actually happened because that's another thing is, um, early on, when we started doing this kind of work, um, we had a client I think I had. Only we had only worked with this client for maybe three months and they had a situation and they didn't tell me what happened. I could not find out. They weren't even trusting me with the details of what happened.
Speaker 2:I think they thought I was being nosy by asking and I finally had to say listen, I'm not looking for dirt just for salacious reasons. I need to know, you know I'm not going to go like, turn this into like a Facebook post later, like I need to know all angles of this so that I can meet that with a solution or prepare a solution in the event that this detail gets released or that detail gets released. And you know, they, they, they were very unwilling to like trust me with that information. Now our relationship's gotten a lot better, but I think that you know we have not had anybody cold call us for a crisis. We have not had anybody cold call us for a crisis, but you do. I mean, you see people in a very vulnerable situation and we've had people panic and be shaking and not knowing what to do and just saying I'm going to throw up. I don't even know how to handle this.
Speaker 1:And again I wish we could be a little bit more specific, but it's basically when their personal life meets their business life, which, as a business owner, is extremely scary.
Speaker 1:So, even though the brand or the business is so personal. Right, you've thought about the colors, you know what the message is, you've done all these things to protect the integrity. There still is probably a moment in everyone's business ownership life where personal tiptoes into it, when you did everything that you could to keep the two separate, and that that definitely gives me a not so great feeling in my stomach, just even thinking about how scary that is.
Speaker 3:Well, it's a public screw up, right? I mean, it's like, you know, it's one thing if I screw up at home, but when I do it on social media where everybody can see it, or in the business world where everybody can hear about it, I mean that's like, oh my gosh, like major tail between the legs I would freaking, die. Like even just talking about it gives me anxiety, to be quite honest. I mean, like, well, speaking of that, so talk to me kind of about the impact of social media and crisis management. I would love to hear y'all's take on that.
Speaker 2:So it's like anything else. It could be a great tool or it could be the biggest pain in the ass and just make things so much harder than it has to be. I mean, we, we try to definitely use it as a tool. So part of our strategy is to get out in front of something. We want to have the first say right, we don't want everybody to speculate, control the message, but it's depending.
Speaker 2:I guess it's again, it's all situational, because we certainly don't want to put it out in broadcast Like hey, there's a problem, when maybe somebody didn't know there was a problem. So there's, you know. You just kind of take that. But also, knowing we've had this happen before, that we've sent out internal messaging that is supposed to just be for internal use, somebody screenshots it, puts it on social media, so then we kind of address it with okay, do we put this on the company's Facebook as a message? Do we put it on the public channels now as our message? At that point? Yes, it's almost always yes, because it's out there already. We should have something on our channels as well. But we know that even when we craft these internal messages they're going to get leaked, we do so with the thought of this is going to get shared.
Speaker 2:This is going to get shared. I'm shocked, though, Like there's been a few times where I was 1,000% certain that things would get leaked and they didn't. It's the dumb stuff that gets leaked, Minimal, like just hey, we found this to be you know a problem and we're working to solve it, just so you know, blah, blah, blah. That's what gets shared. Like, like just minuscule things. No, like some of like the I mean some of the bigger I don't want to call them scandal, crisis, crises that we've dealt with, that have had an internal message component over the last several months, like don't get shit, and I'm like mind blown that it didn't get picked up by by social media.
Speaker 2:So it's just well I think, because the real stuff, I think um, shakes people. The real stuff is sobering for people. It's not. It's not it's not silly like social media, like fodder it's, it's serious.
Speaker 1:Well, and it feels like you could get in really big trouble by leaking that, versus just being like petty and letting some little things slide and just being gossipy. That seems like probably I won't take any heat for this, but like if you're the one knowing how easy it is to link stuff back to people. They're like I'm not touching that with a 10 foot pole, I'll let someone else drop the key on that.
Speaker 2:You're right. That's a good point because a lot of the situations that we've managed, there's legal investigations attached to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah or like no, thank you.
Speaker 3:Has there been like a recent crisis that y'all think could have been handled differently? Not necessarily in your company, but like just on the news that you're like eight crisis yeah like what?
Speaker 2:what was it princess kate? Oh yeah, I mean horrible.
Speaker 3:What would y'all have done differently?
Speaker 2:oh my gosh like, here's what I would have done. Okay, so, unfortunately, or fortunately, however you look at it, she is a public figure. Okay, so, knowing that she is a public figure, what I would have done is, once that, like you know, fodder and all these conspiracy, these crazy damaging and a lot of them were damaging conspiracy theories, I would have made that message at the at, at the rip, at the top, I would have said listen, she has cancer, we are. We appreciate everybody's concern.
Speaker 2:You can't be cryptic and be a public figure at the same time. You can't, like you have to accept that you know you're gonna be the queen of england, so you know you have forfeited and and people, people will disagree. I mean, there's a lot of people that were like she's still a human being, so okay, so what you can do it humanely, you can say because what, what transpired after that was very inhumane, everybody, everybody just making shit up. You know it's so our, our stance with everything across the board is we want the first, say yeah, we want to control the narrative, the narrative.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I hate the word narrative because I feel like that gets overused. But narrative, yeah, I think you know, obviously there were small children involved and I think like the timing of it was they wanted to talk with the kids about it and that kind of stuff. But once that was kind of passed and I know that they were waiting for like to go on spring break so that the kids wouldn't be hounded and in school and that kind of stuff, but I think it was, it just became such a shitstorm that abundantly clear, like the word is out, something not right.
Speaker 1:Let's set the record straight because you want your kids, uh, hounded about these rumors about your mom like that was the one I kept hearing is that she might be dead, and I was like yeah awful, and it was christmas time or like right after right or like having a mental breakdown, or your, your dad, has had this illicit affair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the mystery. I mean just like crazy, crazy stuff, what, what followed and that's, and that's what I mean. Like they have senior level people working for them. I mean they should have been able to anticipate that the damage would have been way and it did become way worse than if you would have just had the first say hey, kate was diagnosed with cancer. We are going to take a step back.
Speaker 3:We appreciate everybody, everybody shut the f up yeah, yeah, we have young children.
Speaker 2:We understand that we're royals, you know like, but we are also still human.
Speaker 1:But set the boundary, yeah, yeah, and then just shut it down. It's like yeah, and then if people get salacious after then they're on their own for being salacious, but in this case it was. There were so many questions that it almost like opened it, completely opened that back gate and it let all the horses out, correct?
Speaker 2:and you know, I think like part partly they wanted to protect uh, because uh, king charles was, it's also ill, he has cancer as well. So I think they had this like sort of conundrum where they were like well, I mean we already admitted that Charles has cancer. Are we going to admit another senior member of the royal family also has cancer? Like we're going to look so weak. But I mean, that's what's happening, Right, you know?
Speaker 2:when you have an opportunity to sort of like back in the day where, like, the Vikings are going to come and like because you know you're, you're yeah, like you're, you're a public figurehead. Okay, but like, let's relax our weaknesses are showing, oh gosh yeah, that for me, that's in in most recent like memory that that is the biggest bungle that I can think of.
Speaker 3:Well, that's been recently too, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean on a larger scale.
Speaker 1:What's so interesting to me I was just thinking about this is like I'm going to really zoom out. But showing weakness is so scary for so many people and now I'm wondering if we aren't just more comfortable with it because we work in marketing, so we understand that your weaknesses and your strengths both have to be sort of exploited in order to be successful. I feel like I don't know what it is, but maybe marketing people are just more self-aware or we're more comfortable with both. But now that we're saying it, I'm like I can think of so many people who are so uncomfortable by their own weaknesses Like their insecurity is essentially but you know what I take that back to Authenticity.
Speaker 3:People just they don't want to give the real and the raw Like everybody's, just like I want everybody to think that I'll have this aesthetically pleasing house with 2.5 children and a white picket fence and a husband who worships me, and every day it's like that to me. I relate more to businesses who admit a screw up or admit like oh hey, I shouldn't have posted that yesterday. I'm an idiot or right. I don't know if y'all follow the co-op on um, oh my gosh instagram the place with the frose no oh my gosh, please, I'm listening to him.
Speaker 3:You're send you his profile right now. His writing is so funny and he screenshots and like posts. All of his like one star reviews is the funniest shit ever like, and I think people I mean, but I'm talking like he is huge on social because it's just like he just is who he is. He's like I'm a business owner.
Speaker 1:I effed up today like well they have this situation downtown right now with another. Is it a tenant or is it the person in the apartment across the street? There's a situation with this woman and, like they, she keeps calling on them, and so he reports every day, like her, like behavior, y'all it's so funny like, but send us that one too.
Speaker 2:I am, yeah, like so funny you know, I think I think it goes back to, like you know, I think what you said about us, as marketers, being comfortable with with weaknesses is because we are, our perspective is different on weaknesses, in that we view it as an opportunity to make things better for a company. So I think we can apply that to ourselves personally, like, okay, well, this is a weakness, but it's an opportunity for me to get better. And let's talk about, you know, this line of service we've been lacking on, but what can we do to, like, make it better? And now let's make a vertical of how we can promote this line of service. Now, of how we can promote this line of service now because we have made it better.
Speaker 2:So I think I think that's a like spot on. One of my absolute favorite branding campaigns is Domino's. Yes, when they, when they were like hey, our pizza sucks, You're right, and they did that. They they read like bad reviews, they're like, yeah, we're terrible. And then it started this. I think the ad campaign lasted like two or three years where, like then you saw like people like taking sledgehammers to the shops and they're like we're starting to round up. And then they redid like their pizzas and they, they, they even did like part of like this was the end of the campaign. They started, um, making like the delivery routes like a little more. Um, like like easier, so it didn't disturb the pizza in the box, so they would cover potholes with their logo, like they would like put asphalt over it and then put their logo like on the asphalt for easier dominoes.
Speaker 3:Okay can I just stop you right there? I'm gonna have to tell you one of the stupidest things I ever said to my husband.
Speaker 2:Okay, but you love dominoes.
Speaker 3:And I cannot even believe like I cannot even believe that I've been met in this on here. But so that commercial came out, you know, with the pothole. Yeah, I was like why are they putting pizza in potholes? That is not a very good long-term solution. I legitimately thought they were doing that and I am not like dead serious. My engineer husband looked at me. He was like you have got to be shitting me. You do not really believe that. I'm like what? No, like it's, that's what they're doing, right. He's like no, no, you need some entire day. That's what they're doing, right. He's like no, you just haven't tired that day.
Speaker 1:Jessica Simpson. It's like is this chicken or is this tuna?
Speaker 3:yeah, and she's like no, just stupid being authentic.
Speaker 2:You were like yeah, that's what I thought was happening.
Speaker 3:I'm like, yeah, that's what I thought.
Speaker 2:I'm like, yeah, I'm sorry I have a momentary like that stuff happens to me all the time, like jenny, and I joke because I'm always like wow, I completely missed that like my brain is so literal I think well, and I also think, like you're there, there's like a mechanism that flips like in your brain, like when you have kids you can only have so many tabs open at one.
Speaker 2:I a hundred percent agree with that Because like you actually like to get humor, you kind of have to be smart, right. And so there's times where I'm like I miss it too and I'm like I can't believe how frigging stupid that I was. Or like I thought I mispronounced words that I've read 900 times. Like I was at a restaurant one time with Kels and I said so loud, so loud we're loud talkers as it is and I said, oh, I think I'm gonna get this two-scan chicken. It's Tuscan. And I said two-scan chicken. We were with a group of people and I was like it was a smaller restaurant, yeah, calling, who shut up, and she and she just kind of like leaned over she's like it's Tuscan, because I kept saying it, I kept going on about did everybody see the two-scanned chicken?
Speaker 1:I think that's what I'm getting like freaking disaster can we, before we like wrap up, can we please just have a second?
Speaker 1:where we like talk about how much funnier it is to be in situations like that with somebody that knows you, like because even if she hadn't said it, like like, there are times where I mean it just happened last week, jenny and I were in a meeting and I was like and it wasn't one of us that said something like a little bit crazy, but I was like we're taking that straight to the car. The minute the door shut, we are absolutely, we'll be in the elevator and I'll the door will shut and I'll be like do not say it. Don't say it. Yep, yeah, I say it. Don't say it.
Speaker 1:yep, yeah, I know I can't get a grip before we get out of the door wait ginormous giggles it's we're like literally, and then other people get in and we're like, but we both have this like secret in our hands that we're like trying not to let escape. I mean, this is so funny though isn't it just like it gives me life that's.
Speaker 2:That's why public relations is so is such an interesting vertical of of ours and our company, because people are crazy. I mean people and the way that they react and the way that they behave. It is wild and I wish that we could get maybe off camera. We'll like talk to you about some of the like details of some of the other stuff.
Speaker 2:I have lots of questions, yeah, because it gets worse when you put a camera in front of somebody who's already crazy. You put a camera in front of their face and you expect them to stay on message and it's like, oh we practiced that.
Speaker 3:We told you what to say. We literally wrote it down. All you had to do was read it. Oh goodness, this is so fun. I feel like we're so similar.
Speaker 2:This was fun and you are, you guys, I just I, we love your show, we, we, um. I was saying off camera that we, uh, most often are in our car, like just going in opposite directions, and so that's when I listened to you guys and I have there's one day a week, I have like a 40 minute commute, so like I listened to your episodes and I talk back to you in my car all the time.
Speaker 2:So we have this conversation in real time. See, I listened to it mostly when I, when I'm like running or walking my dot, like whatever and same thing, I'll be in my neighborhood, I'll be like yes, I do yes, and I'm like pointing and I'm like please stop, please stop the neighbors.
Speaker 3:We love that. We love that Thank y'all so much.
Speaker 1:This was so much fun. It was so fun. Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:You know what we're willing to come to Charleston for the next one. All right In. What did you do this year? In July you were invited, but I know I can't make it. Maybe you could just sleep down for the weekend, maybe. I'll just abandon my husband and children.
Speaker 3:There you go, there we go. We like that too, we like that too.
Speaker 1:All these things that we have, that we take care of on top of businesses and everything else.
Speaker 2:Right On top of businesses and everything else Right.
Speaker 3:And then, if people want to follow your Instagram, what is your?
Speaker 2:business page K squared marketing. I think underscore one. Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 3:We'll put it in our description too, so people can follow oh thank you so much, so fun.
Speaker 2:This has been so much fun. Like I said, it's nice to actually talk back to you in real time and not just to myself.
Speaker 1:We're going to be talking plenty. I have a feeling that it won't be long before we're like oh so, remember that thing that we talked about. We actually need to meet you really quick, don't?
Speaker 3:be manifesting a crisis, Rebecca. Come on now Good stuff too. Don't be manifesting a crisis, Rebecca.
Speaker 2:come on now. Well, I'm just glad like good stuff too we do lots of good stories too. Okay, there we go we like that.
Speaker 1:You know I love collaboration. I feel like I love it.
Speaker 3:We're so similar which.
Speaker 1:I love exactly okay, guys.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for tuning in. We will see you next week.