Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Tracks Nobody Sees, But Every Marketer Should Hear.
This podcast celebrates the hidden gems of marketing insight found across all professions—both within and beyond traditional marketing roles. Just as B-sides on a single contain brilliant tracks that are treasured by true fans, every profession contains marketing wisdom that isn't obvious at first glance but is incredibly valuable when discovered.
Tom Hootman (02:35)
So, should I count the Taylor Swift references you're gonna make in this episode? I don't think I can, because I don't know fucking shit about Taylor Swift.
Kayla Kurtz (02:42)
Yeah, you'll miss most of them. So by all means, feel free. ⁓ but send me your notes after and per usual, I'll tell you how many times you were wrong.
Tom Hootman (02:51)
Fly Eagles fly beat the shit out of her boyfriend in the Super Bowl anyway
Kayla Kurtz (02:54)
Yeah, okay.
Hey, hey, not my boyfriend.
Tom Hootman (02:56)
Well, by transitive property, he kind of is. Did you listen to his podcast that she was on? Did you do that?
Kayla Kurtz (02:59)
You're right, like actually, how much of his money?
I'm sorry, do you want to reword that question? How many times have I watched the podcast?
Tom Hootman (03:06)
Did you listen?
Christ. Of course you did. Of course you did.
Kayla Kurtz (03:10)
Come on.
Tom Hootman (03:11)
Thanks for being on the podcast. I really appreciate it. This is ⁓ of course for those listening. We, this is going to be a two parter, I think, because there's no way you and I are going to like get through 45 minutes and not have way too many stories. So Kayla and I actually backed the start time up an extra half hour just so we could talk longer. Cause this is one I've been looking forward to for a very long time. I actually couldn't wait. And I was like, finally I was like, episode five. Yeah, let's do it. Whatever.
Kayla Kurtz (03:13)
Thanks for having me.
But listen, did I start off offended that I wasn't like 1A invite? Sure, sure, sure. Maybe a little. But no, I'll take episode five. ⁓ First Taylor reference for everybody. Track five of every one of her albums. Known to be the best one, so let's go.
Tom Hootman (03:40)
No. No.
⁓ Okay, so I know you're gonna pick Taylor Swift songs. This is a theme. I guess it gets clicks. If your career had a theme song, what would it be? Or like, let's say you have a three track soundtrack to your career. What are those? Like tell me about that playlist.
Kayla Kurtz (04:07)
Mm.
Here, listen, yes, one, okay, my theme song is Taylor, but that's unfair because she wrote a song that made me cry at the record release party because it felt too real. people can make fun of me about that. I do not care. No, everybody out there, make fun of me. It's a little ditty called, I Can Do It With a Broken Heart. The whole song, for those who may not know, they're living under a rock.
Tom Hootman (04:22)
making fun.
Kayla Kurtz (04:32)
is she wrote it about like going through breakups and having to get up on stage in front of thousands of people every night and still pretend like everything's just fine. And largely, you know, it's about like breakups, but I feel like daily life just happens and it's okay. Let's put that in a bucket and turn this zoom on and pitch my life away. And it's like, you know, and so it's literally the lyrics are, I'm so depressed. act like it's my birthday every day. Like it's
⁓ It's pretty, it's, it's, it's too spot on, right? And so it was like, I was laughing, but crying and square cat vinyl, like, my God, it's so real. So yeah, that would be the one. That would be the one.
Tom Hootman (04:59)
Yeah, that's that tracks.
track.
Kayla Kurtz (05:11)
so I'm actually not going to do a full Taylor theme because that also wouldn't be indicative of a playlist really. Right. To me, like a playlist needs to include other artists. but I do have to have a theme or I can't focus. So I went with Paramore
which is another band I'm absolutely obsessed with and love for my career playlist, if you will. So the first one is Hard Times. Some key lyrics like, I need some sort of sign, hit me with lightning, I'll come alive. Like I had a really troublesome start to my career. Not in the like, it was bad. It's just that I went to school to do something very different and kind of decided like that wasn't what I wanted to do.
Tom Hootman (05:50)
teaching, right?
Kayla Kurtz (05:51)
Yeah, and I like to teach. I like to explain things to people, like teaching a classroom or multiple classrooms of children every day wasn't really going to work out for me. So there was a period in my career where I was like, have no idea what I'm going to do. I went back to bartending, shout out Brothers Bloomington. I was like, I'll listen, I'll just bartend for the rest of my life. At least this is fun. Yeah, it was better.
Tom Hootman (06:11)
Woohoo!
Money's better.
Kayla Kurtz (06:18)
and then I, I kind of felt like I needed to have, my, my life algorithm at the time was like, you gotta have a, an actual career. You have to have a job. You have to have a nine to five that you go into every day. You can't work in hospitality forever. So like, ended up finding a pretty cool opportunity in a digital marketing agency. And I was like, I can see what this might be about, but it was like, just give me something like, give me something that takes a little bit of creativity.
Tom Hootman (06:41)
Yeah
Kayla Kurtz (06:46)
and some brains and like, I'll do it, right? So that song Hard Times is kind of all about like, hey, it's going to feel weird now, but like you got some stuff that you could pop off on. So that would be the start of the career. We would pivot then to Pressure Pretty self-explanatory, but again, like some of the lyrics are like, I can feel the pressure. I'm better off without you. Things you'll never know. You have to let them go. You feel like you're picking up on a
Tom Hootman (07:10)
What I'm picking up there is like there's again, shout out Blind Zebra abundance, detachment, right? Like there you go.
Kayla Kurtz (07:11)
Have it.
I'm going to talk about Blind Zebra at least a few times today. So Stephanie, Brian, tag yourselves. had like a, spent 11 years, the same agency. that, that job that I found where I was like, give me something, make it fun. And I'll probably never leave it. I found that I thought. And, and then that agency that I was with that didn't, I didn't end up, working out.
Tom Hootman (07:37)
All good things must come to an end.
Kayla Kurtz (07:38)
Indeed. And then that is a, there is a point there though, where I can say from that moment, I have, I've put myself in the driver's seat of my career. And so I stopped really letting other people dictate what I was going to do next. And I started picking and choosing what I wanted to do next and what would keep like lighting me up. Thanks. Thanks. ⁓ So then I like the latest and greatest era of my career.
Tom Hootman (07:59)
I love that so much.
Kayla Kurtz (08:05)
See, it's Taylor reference, even though I'm not talking about Taylor. Hayley Williams, though, good bestie of Tay-Tay. Ain't It Fun. And listen, if you've heard the song Ain't It Fun by Paramore and it doesn't make you dance in your seat, you're dead, I think. You are familiar? Okay.
Tom Hootman (08:17)
to try it out. No,
I'm not familiar. I'm sure I've heard it in a grocery store or something.
Kayla Kurtz (08:21)
Yeah,
you definitely have. I'm not going to sing and embarrass myself, but you've definitely heard it. But the lyrics are like, what are you going to do when the world doesn't orbit around you? And isn't it fun living in the real world? Right. Like. You're not running things, the world is running you. But the second that you kind of figure that out and then control what you can and let go of the rest, you can enjoy this.
Selling in an agency world is still selling in an agency world, which is what I do for work every day. And there are absolutely afternoons when it sucks ass. ⁓ But there are also times it's fun.
Tom Hootman (08:53)
Yeah, I mean, but is it?
I mean, I'm fascinated by this question. I wanted to ask this. it's not one of the pre-questions I sent you, so apologies. like, if you count the Hanapin to Brainlabs acquisition as two agencies, you've been with five agencies. Is it the same? Like, is it pretty much the same, selling agency services?
Kayla Kurtz (09:01)
⁓ come on.
You know, it's funny about that when I started at Forthea, couple of the members of the leadership team were asking like, you know, how long do you think until you can start producing? and I said, Hey, you know what? 25 year old Kayla would have been like tomorrow for sure. get it. Right. and it was, it won't be tomorrow, but it'll be less than a few months. Right. Because I, there is a lot of, especially if you stick with a similar.
segment or set of channels, right? There is a lot of it that is just the industry. What's different is how that agency house might approach it. But a lot of it is very similar. What I keep trying to find are agency teams that are asking themselves harder questions, that are taking the status quo and saying, don't want to do it that way.
Anybody that's less resting on their laurels, I think is, what makes an agency monotonous. But if you're out there kind of pushing the envelope a bit, there's, there's still plenty out there that isn't the same that you can go run after, which I think is also why I'm crazy enough to stick with it. Cause there's enough that's different.
Tom Hootman (10:14)
Yeah, I like to say to people a lot that there are, think Hanapin would have continued to have grown and would have continued to have a great agency because it was phenomenal agency with wonderful people and brilliant people. But we would have had to have diversified significantly in the last five years because if you just run an agency that does one thing and you've done that and you've made your nut on that for a long time,
Kayla Kurtz (10:30)
Absolutely.
Tom Hootman (10:39)
the ground is shrinking beneath you, right? Like the water is rising and the island is getting smaller. And we see that, mean, brass tacks, we have friends in the industry who kind of seek out, like that's where they want to work. And those numbers of agencies like that are smaller and smaller and smaller. And there are still some phenomenal agencies out there that do one or two things really well, but it's almost like legacy business more than anything else.
Kayla Kurtz (11:05)
Yep, no, mean, you didn't ask, but it's one of the reasons again that I kept looking at my career and saying, what do we want to do here? And I've largely worked for agencies that are paid media focused. Coming to Forthea was an opportunity to learn how to sell SEO, learn how to sell web dev, get deeper in advanced analytics and a slightly different client ICP at least, right? So.
Every agency wants the fortune 100, but like, okay, yeah. You know what? Also me neither, right? Like I'm kind of, enjoy this world where it's like, what's your business? Let's learn about it. so yeah.
Tom Hootman (11:34)
I don't. Not yet, no. I'm good.
Yeah, I mean,
it would be it would be different sitting in my seat now having a fortune 100 or 500. But when I was when you're like when you're like the SVP or VP or you're over like the segment of it. And I'll just like you get a client with a very large toy company at Brainlabs love them great client. They were they were fantastic to work with had very high standards. They were demanding. It was good demanding team ran hard. But the but the senior executives at
very much love this client. So I felt like I spent more time being like, answering questions internally about how are they? Are they happy? What are we doing? What's tomorrow? What's going on? Are we growing? And you just, you wake up in the morning, you're like, ⁓ holy shit. Like, what am I doing? And the clients actually, like the client calls were great. They were like where I ran to like hide because it felt like you became that brand guy. And like, when you're in the office in New York or people are in Bloomington and they'd be like,
Kayla Kurtz (12:13)
Hmm.
truly.
Thank you.
Tom Hootman (12:39)
Hey, Tom, great to see ya. How's it going with that brand? And you're like, I just, you. ⁓
Kayla Kurtz (12:43)
It's,
it's mind numbing. And that's, ⁓ you know, every, every company that starts in the entire world wants to grow. Nobody's like, well, let me just, let me back that up. There are probably some that like, I'd like to get exactly here. Listen, watch an episode of shark tank. they're like, no, no, no. I mean, I'm pretty good, man. but I, I, I, growth is growth is, ⁓ is the goal, but there is.
Tom Hootman (12:55)
I was gonna say there are some that don't want to grow.
Kayla Kurtz (13:08)
growth that is ludicrous. is growth that is not based in reality and there is a growth that you're not actually willing to put in the work for that. You know, like we were talking about a second ago, if, if you, you know, accidentally have some legacy business that has allowed you to grow, or I feel like we're far enough away from it now too, where I can kind of poke fun at the pandemic, which is if you had a couple of the right brand,
Tom Hootman (13:17)
Yeah.
Kayla Kurtz (13:36)
clients at the time.
⁓ no touch point of sale systems. All you needed was one, right? And it was like, there goes your, like that's your whole business was up into the right. ⁓ and so there's, there's a lot of where it's like, okay, that's awesome. Now, if you can capture that bottle it up and turn it into a process or an approach to win more business over time, or even just capture that story and tell that story.
Tom Hootman (13:46)
Mm-hmm.
Kayla Kurtz (14:01)
⁓ There's always an industry doing that, but it's just, there's actual work that has to be done to create that spontaneous combustion. And I don't think a lot of brands that say they want to grow are willing to adopt that mentality.
Tom Hootman (14:15)
Yeah, it's, I'm reusing a term that was almost a tagline at our agency when you and I worked together, manufactured serendipity. And it's true, but the thing is that you can't manufacture serendipity. Like the serendipity happens due to the things you do to put yourself out there to make serendipity happen. The second it happens, you can't go, okay, what did we do there? Let's do that. If we do that 10 X times, we should be able to 10 X. Like, no, that's the serendipity side.
Kayla Kurtz (14:22)
boy.
Tom Hootman (14:42)
not the manufacturing side, like it literally is people you bump into in a parking lot, right? That are like turned into great opportunities. And I think every agency we're experiencing this now, like every agency that grows or moves through the inflection point of figuring it out has a few of those clients that are manufactured serendipity that come to you, that help you, that help push you forward. You can't rely on them.
Kayla Kurtz (14:56)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (15:06)
A lot of people refer to it as the honeymoon phase of starting a new agency. yeah, like people come to you immediately and it's all good. ⁓ yeah.
Kayla Kurtz (15:09)
Right. I'm sure you're getting that right now, right? Like people are like,
dude, Hootman, what's going on? You started your own agency? Let's dance, man. Let's go.
Tom Hootman (15:16)
Let's do this. Let's work together. Woo. Yeah.
And I know number one, I know that's going to end. And number two, I don't want to do that forever. Right. Because I don't ever want to sell it. That's not the goal. But it's like, I don't want to be the guy who has to like, be the guy to like introduce and like being like you eventually like, I realized what Pat was doing when he hired me and he brought you over in a marketing team. Like, you want to create a process. You want to create a machine that kind of
does it, which is, I'll be additive to that, but it's getting really old, like writing scopes. yeah, like it's, it's, you don't, I get why agency owners who don't scale and just stay in this mode, burn the fuck out because it's impossible to be the client success person, the escalation point, the new biz person, finance, HR.
Kayla Kurtz (15:51)
I bet.
Tom Hootman (16:07)
and all of those elements that go into it where you're just like, what is it now? just runs at like a medium high heat all the time.
Kayla Kurtz (16:10)
Yeah.
basically your laptop's always a little on fire.
Tom Hootman (16:16)
Always a little on fire.
And Jeff Allen, shout out Jeff Allen, gave me great advice. He was like, at the, at the, at the point you're at now, he's like, you can never get grumpy. Cause your team's so small. Like you can't be, you can't be grumpy because if you piss off like your team, you're mute. You don't have depth. Like they're like, you can't be like, you can't, there's no leadership. You can't pull your leadership team and be like, all right, everybody. Because they're it like there's.
It's like, it's a small group. There's, you know, more than 10 of us, but at the same time, you piss off, it's easier to piss off half of 15 people than it is to piss off half of 250.
Kayla Kurtz (16:41)
Sure.
I don't know, to get that credit back, right? it's this pivotal right now. Don't be an ass, Tom. You mean to call Alaina No, it's fine. I'll make a couple phone calls. Steph, if he's being mean to you, you call me.
Tom Hootman (16:53)
can't be an ass. Sorry. Sorry, Steph, Alaina. ⁓
We're not telling you to edit anything out. just saying I'm sorry. I want to talk a bit about because you've been on the front lines and I've been I've been fortunate to be in the room with you on some like amazing pitches, some wretched pitches. Jeff and I talked about a couple of them and I love
talking, this is the shit like you talk we talk about in the airport after a pitch. This is the stuff I've just like, if this podcast was only that I'm happy and I don't care if anyone listens. But like, what would you because you've been across a few agencies now? What would you consider the best best pitch you've ever been on the best pitch? Win or lose that you were like, holy shit, nailed it.
Kayla Kurtz (17:21)
Mm, that's fair.
Okay, so.
starters all of my pitches are great but I think I think there's a difference in what I would call a good pitch in my career now versus what was a good pitch back in the day and okay thank you I learned from the best man I'm not giving one answer I very recently probably two
Tom Hootman (17:37)
typical.
I'll allow it.
Kayla Kurtz (17:55)
maybe going on almost three years ago, I got a chance to pitch for a brand that I don't know how much we're supposed to, I'm not gonna, I want to be nice. I got a chance to pitch for a brand that was somewhat of a referral introduction for my last agency, but that referral had started at this new prospect company like very recently, so it was like we had a champion but he was
pretty low on the totem pole, right? So we really had to like build up the confidence of a large buying team and an experienced one as well. And so if I fast forward about six months, what I end up realizing is that one of my most respected CMOs in the industry, Sydney Sloan, if y'all don't know who she is, look her up. Yes, her, she is amazing. Right now she is with G2.
Tom Hootman (18:42)
Who's she with?
Kayla Kurtz (18:46)
⁓ but she has been everywhere awesome. So, she was at the time, ⁓ working with this, this. Prospect and she was the newest sort of, decision maker. And, ⁓ at the very end of our pitch presentation, and she hadn't been on any call before that she's, and I've got it on record, which is probably also one of my favorite things in my career is like, thank God for the pandemic in the way that.
We record like everything now. So like your resume is just, it's built for you. But in the last like 30 seconds of the call, she said, I just want you to know I sit through a lot of these. This is the best sales pitch I've ever seen.
Tom Hootman (19:12)
We could hoard everything, everything.
Yes.
Kayla Kurtz (19:25)
And right. Like I, I got chills in the moment. get chills now, as soon as the call was over, I emailed the video to Steph and Brian. I was like, y'all, you taught me like we're doing it. ⁓ right. It's good because I think as a salesperson, you know, you're annoying. Like your job is to ask for money, take up people's time.
Tom Hootman (19:37)
That's so good.
Kayla Kurtz (19:47)
and constantly be told no, right? So if you take a situation where you're asking for somebody's money, they barely know you, and they gave you 90 minutes of their day, and you're not the only one, right? And they said, yo, this stands out to me. That is like the epitome of a compliment. No, we did. We won it. I mean, we won it. If we didn't, yeah, right?
Tom Hootman (20:05)
You didn't win it? Or you won it? Yeah. That'd be hilarious. That's a hell- That's
a clip for a LinkedIn post. Did you win it? No, fuck no, we didn't win it.
Kayla Kurtz (20:12)
Right? No, absolutely
not. No, lost it. Lost it, lost it. but you know, I, I, I felt really good about that. And then I think there's also something about that, that feels good for the team you're handing it off to where like, Hey, they, they like it. Just do the thing we talked about. There's no hidden, you know, trap doors, trap doors in this one. yeah. So that was probably.
Tom Hootman (20:32)
Yeah, it's all legit.
That's awesome.
Kayla Kurtz (20:36)
Yeah, now I feel bad because I should have definitely come up with one where it was like a great pitch and then we didn't win it.
Tom Hootman (20:42)
I mean,
The one that still burns me was, and I'll say their name because I don't even know that they're around anymore, Sears Hometown Stores. And we were in their cavernous early 90s campus. went up and pitched, we went back up and pitched to Chicago. And when you're there, it felt like it's like 45 minutes into the city, so you stay at like.
Kayla Kurtz (20:48)
Yeah. ⁓
my.
Tom Hootman (21:05)
the Hyatt Conference Hotel that's nearby and you are in the middle of fucking nowhere. You're just the the window lights up blue and yellow. You can't sleep. And it's like when my family's like, how glamorous you get to travel. It's like, no, if you could have a window into my world in this night, it's miserable. They shook my hand in the lobby and he said, you're it. You're the choice. We just got to put this in paper. Great job today. That was awesome.
Kayla Kurtz (21:08)
The IKEA is in the background and that's all you got.
Tom Hootman (21:33)
and they didn't fucking sign.
Kayla Kurtz (21:34)
Yep. Yep. Yep. That's the worst. I think, that doesn't happen that often anymore, but those, those, those times when it feels like it's right on and then it's like, well, this is not at all what we talked about. I just connect reconnected with Dave Wilson, AMN healthcare. It was one of my very first deals. and, for anybody who might not know the AMN, AMN healthcare brand, they've got many, many, many.
sister brands under the umbrella, right? And so we flew all the way to San Diego.
Tom Hootman (21:58)
tons, tons of brands.
a lot of marble, opulent office building. I don't think they're in San Diego anymore. I think they moved.
Kayla Kurtz (22:06)
Beautiful. ⁓
Potentially. ⁓ But I remember
like we were at Kinko's, you know what I mean? Picking stuff up. Got to take hard copies. And we had fully audited their account. And that's important language here, folks. We audited their account. We get out there. I've got my boss who's Tom at the time. Our boss at the time was Jeff, right? And is going to be helping run the team that runs this account. And we discover
Tom Hootman (22:14)
Gotta take hard copies.
Kayla Kurtz (22:33)
in the moment after they said yes, like we're gonna move forward with you guys. What was it, like 17 actual accounts? It's not like it was silly.
Tom Hootman (22:40)
At the time, yeah, I think it ended up growing to like low twenties. We
were like, what? Thank goodness Jeff was there because if we had come back as the salespeople with that curve ball, poof.
Kayla Kurtz (22:49)
Wouldn't have worked, but he had to, he had to say yes. So got, but like, was one of those deals where that pitch was lights out. Like there was not a moment in it where I was like, we didn't just win this. And then we get to the end and they're like, yeah, you did just win this, but curveball
Tom Hootman (22:52)
Yeah.
But ⁓
that's also the same trip where Jeff had the rental car that he scraped up against the curb and had to... I think that was back in the shared hotel room days, which was really fucked up.
Kayla Kurtz (23:09)
And didn't you guys have to share a hotel room?
The benefit of being the only female on the pitch squad is, I'm sorry, you guys have to bunk up.
Tom Hootman (23:19)
Yeah, that was a weird.
was a, was those were those were strange times. Strange, strange times. ⁓
Kayla Kurtz (23:22)
Weird times, weird, weird times. I actually, love
to hear those like those old stories sometimes because it's like, man, that stuff, that stuff doesn't happen anymore. Well, you don't go on pitches anymore. You don't go on pitches anymore. That's the truth. Well, kinda. We'll get to that later.
Tom Hootman (23:32)
Well, you don't go on pitches anymore. It's gone.
I mean, I
think that for me, I sucked at pitches post-COVID because I don't pitch well in this environment, like the remote Google Meet. maybe it's because at Brainlabs it was more pitches and less like new biz sales work. it was like a Broadway production and like eight dry runs and like talk track.
Kayla Kurtz (24:05)
I remember.
Tom Hootman (24:05)
Yeah, and it's just a lot. It's just a lot to try to nail. You get in your own head. And I actually was so bad in a pitch prep session that like Jeremy Cornfeldt stopped it and like pulled me aside. He was like, Hey man, let's talk after like, you all right? Like I was like, yeah, I my notes legit. And he's like, what do do with notes? And that's the problem with it is that I still see this with people today. They mistake the fact that the vast majority of people are remote to being, I can read from my notes and talk track in the actual pitch. It's like, no, no, no, no,
You still just have to vibe, you still have to riff. Stop writing shit down. Know what you wanna talk about, because there's a lot of people that go straight, they look straight down to their script and they're like, yes, and then you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, what are you doing? Stop.
Kayla Kurtz (24:41)
yeah.
yeah, it takes, there's a balance there. There's a balance of preparation, control. I don't want to say manipulate because it's got a bad tendency around the definition of it, it's, you can manipulate a scenario and make sure you win. And it's like, that's not true. You're making jokes about the remote selling. But back when we started the Brainlabs thing, I was like,
Tom Hootman (24:45)
Woo.
There's a.
Kayla Kurtz (25:10)
You mean we're going to shut this whole thing down if they don't turn on their video. We're just not going to do the pitch. We've got 12 people who dialed in today. I don't, I think we go, you know? And so that's where the Midwestern girl in me is like, no, no, we have your attention. Let's, doesn't have to be perfect. Let's just go.
Tom Hootman (25:18)
How much? 12 people.
Well, I don't have...
I very rarely run into camera off anymore. felt like, feels like we broke people finally.
Kayla Kurtz (25:30)
Same.
I think so, and I think that's the case, right? And so kudos to the folks. No, no, no. I'm how many times am I, am I going to shout out the pandemic more than I shout out Taylor Swift in this? That will be really unfortunate and will get me canceled. no, but I, I, I met the actual people at the time at Brainlabs who were like, it's important that we be on video because I mean, I, I agree now, especially that there's a different.
Tom Hootman (25:37)
pandemic. Shout out, shout out pandemic.
Kayla Kurtz (25:58)
aura in the conversation if you can at least look at somebody face to face and when somebody won't go on video. I have a thought about it but you also don't know what the hell's going on in their day right? Like how many kids are in their house taking up the wi-fi? Is this the only way they can still have the call? Like take the opportunity and have the conversation.
Tom Hootman (26:09)
You know, yeah.
Did they
recently have a repaired retina and they have to wear fake glasses to hide people from it? You never know.
Kayla Kurtz (26:21)
Exactly. That's,
listen, that's none of your business. Like let them have their moment. again, things are recorded, right? So like just, you've still got the, the ability to hold them accountable for how the conversation went. If you can't see their eyeballs or eyeball in your case.
Tom Hootman (26:36)
One last pitch you and I were on together, I need to bring up. We could do just pitch. We could do just pitch podcasts forever. One of my favorite, and my question to you is, and I'll give you the question, then I'll tell you mine that just fucking sent me off. My question is gonna be like, what type of prospects drive you mad with rage, right? What kind of behaviors prospects do? And name names or not, I don't care. But I'm gonna name names, because I don't fucking care.
We pitched Cintas, was it Cintas? Like the apparel, like they come in and they do rugs and mats and shit, right? And based out of Cincinnati, Cintas, I know where you live. Great pitch, it was a weird pitch because we walked through their building and then they had a separate area with like a door inside the building, like a separate office in an office and I was like, what's that? And they're like, that's where the C-suite's at. And I was like, you have to put them behind a separate door inside your building? That's kind of fucked up.
Kayla Kurtz (27:18)
Mm-hmm.
Interesting.
Tom Hootman (27:27)
So we go
in and the pitch went really well. And I wouldn't say it was one. felt like we nailed that, but like that went really well. I feel like we have a good shot. And then they, with like within like 14 minutes reached out to you and tried to recruit you to be a re like a regional manager for Cintas.
which is the most dastardly fucking thing you can do.
Kayla Kurtz (27:49)
Pretty good. Hey, listen, it's not, it's not their fault that I'm good at this. No, I forgot about, yeah, I forgot about that. That's also a thing that like I, it makes me really proud when I'm going through a sales process and somebody back channels and is like, so do you actually like doing this or would you like to, I was pitching, one of the many, many, segments, within the NASDAQ conglomerate, back at my last spot and, ⁓
Tom Hootman (27:54)
I hate the player, hate the game.
Kayla Kurtz (28:15)
the new like lead marketing director. First time I met her, lots of people asking lots of rapid fire questions, you know, going back to discovery call this and we're like pretty far in. ⁓ and afterward I got a text message from my main POC and he was like, listen, she really likes you. So if you're interested, like I love that. I'm like, yes, I love that. ⁓ thank you for training me well, by the way. Yeah. Hey.
Tom Hootman (28:36)
That's awesome. It made me want to hurl a brick through their window, but at
the same time, awesome for you.
Kayla Kurtz (28:42)
Hey,
I appreciate it. No, there are things about that that are strange, right? Where like...
But you've got to respect the opportunity. mean, there's a different way to go about it. Brian and Steph always tell you to have, what's the phrase that they use for it?
They use it's a it's your bench, your virtual bench. That's what they call it. Keeping a virtual bench, right? Which like when you spot somebody in the wild doing great work. Make a note, you know, and you do it whether you do it. Yeah, while you're doing it, while they're still in your parking lot is a little weird.
Tom Hootman (29:00)
virtual bench.
The virtual bench comes out a lot.
It's a little thirsty, I think is what they say.
Kayla Kurtz (29:17)
That is what the kids say. But you know, hey, shoot your shot, I guess. Like, yeah, I would have maybe waited until after the fact, but then we didn't even get the business. And so I was like, well, if you want it, like, that's not the way to tell a girl you like her.
Tom Hootman (29:28)
How about a little, you know, something for the effort?
so the question, what, like prospects that drive you mad with rage? Is, is there like a thread that they like behaviors they do shit that you've seen that you're just like, because they're like, there are people like brands that like, I hope listen who are like, so these are what these assholes are thinking about me. But it's like a lesson because they're the great prospects are like, what's here's our rubric. We're going to share it with you. Here's what we look for. And you have an idea of like the rules of engagement.
Kayla Kurtz (29:34)
right.
Tom Hootman (29:55)
But they don't, I always used to say this, like, we do this all the time. They have one to five agencies. So they don't know what a good client looks like, just like they don't know what a good prospect looks like. What is the shit they do that you're just like, come on?
Kayla Kurtz (30:09)
⁓ it's great point. And I use that turn of phrase all the time, right? It's like, know that you're dealing with five of me right now. And I do this every day. If there's anything I can do to help you get through this faster, like by all means, right? Like, please.
Tom Hootman (30:25)
Kent
did a great job of walking through like, holy shit, it's mind numbing.
Kayla Kurtz (30:30)
It'd be awful.
get it. have empathy for that. I really, really do because also like I'm sure you've done it starting up the agency. When you go to buy a piece of software or engage with a bad salesperson, it's gross. But the truth of it is that there's the other side of that is don't be a bad prospect, man. ⁓
Tom Hootman (30:49)
Yeah,
I mean, the best thing you can do is say like, hey,
We're not gonna do this.
Kayla Kurtz (30:53)
So it's part of it, right? It's like, don't show up on my doorstep with this rapid timeline. I need, I want, I gotta have. And then the second I send you the email that's like, I need account access, you're gone, you're disappeared. I've got three of them in the pipeline right now. And you know, all due respect to all the things that are going on, I get it. But you came here saying you needed to make a decision by this timeline and I can't help you unless you show me.
what I need to see. And so like a prospect that doesn't know that they need to also be a partner in the process is like, I feel bad for them because probably their team, like, you know, exactly like the team either like spun some roulette wheel of who has to call on agencies and deal with this and doesn't have time, or there's not an understanding that this is a part-time job.
Tom Hootman (31:31)
That's indicative of what's going on over there. Yeah.
Kayla Kurtz (31:45)
and there are questionnaires that are going to have to be filled out, and there are conversations and meetings that are going to have to be held. And if you need this decision made in the next three days,
it either show up full time for the next three days or know that that's not happening. and that's, think that for me, ⁓ prospects are going to prospect clients are going to client. But what irritates me is when you've asked for me to go cash in some collateral internally, and then I go do that and you go ghost. Like, now, you know,
Tom Hootman (32:17)
It's shout out Blind Zebra It's it's why it's great but sucks that the close the file email works. Hey we're going to close your file. Haven't heard from you a bit. Obviously it sounds like it's not a good time. No prob. All good on my side. I'm to go ahead and close your file. But but but but but wait wait wait. We still want to works every time. And I say works. It's not even like a trick. It's like I'm literally closing your file because I just can't have this sitting in my pipeline for months on months on months.
Kayla Kurtz (32:23)
It's perfect.
Yep. Yep.
Works every time.
I'm tired of talking about you every week and ⁓
Tom Hootman (32:46)
And I'm losing
my and my team is losing faith in me.
Kayla Kurtz (32:50)
100 % clean out the closet, right? Like, yeah, again, I cannot speak enough to that closing the file. I just sent one last week and you know what I got back? An auto responder. Yes, but it was an auto responder from the CMO who wasn't my POC. So my person isn't there anymore. And instead of letting me know that that wasn't a part of it, right? So now I understand that part of the urgency.
Tom Hootman (33:00)
A response, number one.
Mmm.
happens a lot.
Kayla Kurtz (33:14)
was a safety mechanism that they were trying to employ, but also like bullet dodged because probably not the best opportunity. But then, hey, just let me know that, right? Like we're up against it. And this is where again, think Blind Zebra encourages their operating system is get to know the person, not just the company, because there's, you know, there are goals for the business and there's KPI you're trying to hit with.
paid digital, but there's also like, what does take to get you promoted, right? Like, how do I keep your job secure so that you sleep better? It's easy, but it's not an easy set of questions to ask.
Tom Hootman (33:51)
I would also add that's absolutely true and that's the fundamental piece, but get to know the company as well as the person because for so many years with Hanapin and PPC Hero and HeroConf, we had so many people who loved us and wanted to work with us and they were gonna bring us in and then we get to the pitch and that's why we printed off those hard copies, right? Like the CEO would come in and be like, who the hell are you? And be like, ⁓ you got us here. Now the selling begins.
Kayla Kurtz (34:00)
⁓ you're right.
That's true.
Tom Hootman (34:17)
with someone who's like, what the hell is a PPC Hero And you would have to like, in the moment, how about a, about a, about a, like.
Kayla Kurtz (34:20)
⁓ man.
Well,
you want to talk about like how this kind of dovetails. were, you were asking me about like favorite pitches, best pitches, ones that went really well. And then there are like weird prospects. Look, how does that turn into some of the worst pitches? That's for me, it's, I really try to get the buy-in of, I want this to be a very smooth process for you in the way that you're looking for a, a solid partner. I need you to partner in this with me too. Right. Because.
we're going to have things that we need. We're going to have things that we want. And for this to go well, everybody's got to be on board. And some of the worst pitches I've ever been in, one now in my like new secondary hometown was when you walk in a room and it's like, holy shit.
whose job was it to tell them who was coming today? And did they not know that there was an RFP going on for the last month and a half? Like, you know what, news to everybody. Yeah, or even like the small group, right? So like, I still hope to work with them someday. So I will name drop them. And when we pitched Houston Methodist, ⁓
Tom Hootman (35:15)
when it's news to everyone there except the person you've been talking to.
Mmm.
Kayla Kurtz (35:31)
I literally, I went to my first ⁓ Astro's game and the was just plastered on the wall and it immediately, I like had like a Scooby Doo moment where I was like taken back into like a moment in time.
Tom Hootman (35:37)
Everywhere.
It rained like hell that
day, remember that. We flew in, drove there, and then did dinner and stayed and flew right back. It was chaos in that pitch.
Kayla Kurtz (35:48)
Yep.
Chaos, chaos.
But do you remember what happened in the first five minutes? We started talking. We were three slides in. Someone in the physical room, there were people remote, someone in the physical board room that they turned all the lights off in. All the lights were off. Don't turn the lights off. It's weird. If the thing, very weird. If I don't get any walk up music, don't turn all the lights down. It's strange. They turned all the lights down.
Tom Hootman (36:03)
was weird. Yeah, that was weird. Don't turn the lights off on a pitch. It's weird. It's creepy. It's not a Lakers game.
Don't forget to the
Kayla Kurtz (36:15)
And had the projection going, there were probably 20 people in the room and maybe 20 more on like the virtual presentation. And someone physically in their room leaned over and muted the mic and said, I don't think they knew you were going to be talking about creative today. So like we were starting to.
tell them what was wrong with their go-to-market strategy, which I still stand by. I think one of the things that we had that was strongest about our pitch was that they'd come to us because their Google Ads account wasn't performing like they wanted, but we would take a step back and go, well, your PR strategy is shit. And so it's no wonder your Google Ads aren't performing. It's because you have no PR cover. And that was one of those cases where we were like, hey, you're kind of up against some things outside of just your
paid digital campaigns. And so we showed, like we put up a couple of their ad units and we were like, for example, best practice, yada, yada, yada. And the people who designed those ads were on the call digitally.
Tom Hootman (37:22)
So that went well.
Kayla Kurtz (37:23)
It got awkward real fast, right? And like, and we all walked out of that room and knew before we hit the front door that we were not winning that business. and, and I, Hey, we should have, and this is the thing I learned. Make sure you know everybody who's going to be there. and if you don't, your first order of business, when you get in that room is, Hey, who are you? What?
Tom Hootman (37:31)
toast your toast.
What do
you do?
Kayla Kurtz (37:45)
What
do you know? What do you do? What stake do you have in this decision? you know, do you have any questions about who we are before we even get in? And we'll, you know, I assume you do the same thing at Mixtape. I always do that now. If there's somebody I didn't know was going to be there, I'm like, pause. I'm happy to go into our agenda. But do you know why we're here today and what we're going to be talking about and everything we've done so far? Cause I can take eight minutes.
Tom Hootman (38:01)
for you.
Kayla Kurtz (38:11)
and I can get you up to speed and I can hop to the last three slides that I would have presumed you've already already seen. but if you don't have it, like an actual buying committee that's truly like functioning as a committee, like that's just the worst and it's going to make us look bad. It's going to make you look like an idiot, like for getting us all in this room together and then having people go, what? The only thing I think about with that, that pitch is I hope we were the first ones in and that before
whatever pitch second and third got in there that somebody's boss was like, you have to get everybody on the same page. Had to have been. It was so awkward,
Tom Hootman (38:46)
We had to have been the first ones in. Because you can
tell the difference, and I still say this, when, and I'm sure you do the same thing, you try to find out how many pitches, or you find out how many pitches they have left, and you try to like, where am I? Okay, great, well, and you say to them, hey, it's better than going first, but I'd always prefer to go last. I know there's questions that are gonna come up that we didn't discuss today. Bop, bop, bop, bop, it's the same thing.
Kayla Kurtz (38:58)
Where am I? First up, last at bet.
See, ⁓
except if you're going first and you find that out, you're like, great, I get to set the tone, awesome. Anybody who watches this now and goes through, anybody who goes through this process with me now that ends up in my pipeline is gonna be like, which one of the lines am I gonna get? But hey, listen, it's not that they're lines, it's just that they work and it's fact, right? So it's just the truth. If I go first, if I go first.
Tom Hootman (39:18)
like we said it with Houston. Yeah.
It's the truth. It's authenticity.
Kayla Kurtz (39:35)
I know I'm gonna get a lot more questions that are compare and contrast in nature. If I go last, you're gonna hit me in the moment of you didn't tell me about this. What do you think about why? When can we talk about your pricing structure, right? You can tell, you also know. So it's like, just let me know so I can help you get to what you need to understand.
Tom Hootman (39:40)
Any-
Yeah, I mean, you can tell by how clunky it is. First one is a bit clunky. And the last one, it's almost like they're ready to return serve immediately. And you're like, okay. And the benefit of going last is you can tell, I'm telling all of you in-house people this, we can tell when you're asking a question that's based on something you heard that's a conflicting point of view from another agency. Like I can hear it in your tone that this is something someone else told you the opposite.
Kayla Kurtz (40:03)
Yeah.
yeah.
Tom Hootman (40:22)
And my mouth is watering right now, just thinking about it, because I have a chance to like be the last person and the person that hammers them on what they said to win that business. Because it's like the third pitch said something and we said the opposite and they're like, yeah, but what do you think about? And it's like, that's the most pointed question today. And everyone else is asleep. You've obviously that we've rung a bell that was rang three pitches ago.
Kayla Kurtz (40:48)
For sure. I, and I, I think if you can build a pitch that allows for that even better, right? Where you can, um, I think we used to build this into some of our pitches where we were, "you probably heard this already..."
Because if they haven't, well that's interesting because this is pretty basic. So that means that they were trying to shoot up here without even looking at the issues down here. And if they have heard it, we're smart enough to know. Yeah, good. It is a problem.
Tom Hootman (41:18)
Yeah, I mean, tells you
it also because they don't tell you who you're pitching against unless they're like your friend. And even then they don't tell you. Shout out Kent. He wouldn't even tell me. But you know, at that moment, it tells you like where the competition sits.
Kayla Kurtz (41:32)
Yep. And.
Tom Hootman (41:35)
And it's all
just, I mean, it really is just a feel vibe that you're trying to get to help you figure out where you're at in your head over drinks and dinner. I'm like, was that really good or was it not good? I can't tell.
Kayla Kurtz (41:47)
No, truly. And that's one thing that I would say is so much different now than in the earlier years of my career. The vibe tells you so much, literally tells you so much. So if you ask like the very basic best and worst pitches, were the vibes good? Like you can tell and you can pick up on a great client.
Tom Hootman (41:56)
Yeah.
Kayla Kurtz (42:10)
based on vibe and I know that's difficult to measure. You're gonna have to ask Chappell Roan how to do it. I don't know, like I don't have the measurement, but it is, it's important.
Tom Hootman (42:20)
⁓
It's good to know, I now know it's Chape- Cha-chapel and not Chapelle.
Kayla Kurtz (42:25)
Were you pronouncing it like Chappelle?
Tom Hootman (42:27)
I wasn't pronouncing it to anyone,
but yeah, because no one had ever, literally that word's never been spoken, like name's never been spoken out loud to me. It's interesting because July was like our first, like we won every pitch we wanted from April, April, May and June, which is awesome.
Kayla Kurtz (42:34)
dissipate.
Dude, hey, wait,
pause. Kudos to you. Every pitch you wanted, not every pitch. Critical.
Tom Hootman (42:44)
Thank you. Every pitch we wanted. there were a
couple where it was like, thanks so much. It's been really great. Take care. And then we had two where I, my gut is really fucking good. And my gut had it at a higher likelihood and we lost them because vibes were right. Everything felt right. And we lost them. And I was like, shit, this is like a mini slump.
Kayla Kurtz (43:01)
Mmm.
Tom Hootman (43:07)
Right? Like this is weird. And it's interesting to think of like the vibes, vibes felt right. Everything felt right. And sometimes you can win all of that and they want to go with you and you're the choice. But then there's some intangible reason where one didn't pick us. And then in the message to me said, maybe someday when we scale more, we can go with you, which was hilarious to me because how many times have you and I pitched as the small agency and they're like, you're too big and we pitch as the large agency and you're too small.
They don't know. So like the smallest, smallest, smallest ones would be like, here's my RFP, here's my process. And you're like, you sweet summer child.
And then the large ones would be like, we don't want to be too intrusive. Like we know you want to move fast. Like, we get maybe, can you ⁓ maybe send us four slides? And you're like, you're like a fortune 500 brand. Yeah, of course we will. Like they just don't have view through into like how big or how small they are.
Kayla Kurtz (43:50)
Yeah.
For sure. you know, I think again, that's a, that's something if you're in an agency role or if you're in a fractional C-suite role, right? Like the best thing you can offer a prospect or a company that you're consulting with is like figure out where this lies truly full stop on the priority list and, and get a real calendar in place.
for when this can happen, how quickly, understand the stakeholders and make sure everybody knows what you're doing before you get started. Because when I think about some of the pitches that I didn't win, that we didn't win, that have not been won over time, it's the ones where there just wasn't real alignment.
And that, that, that, I think that comes from both parties. You have to, you have to ask the right questions, but you also have to be participatory in what's happening. And, and it, it's a dialogue. It really is. It's not a sales process. It's a discovery process. Do we have the thing that you need? Do you know what you need? And then let's reiterate, do we have the thing that you need? that's what, that's what discovery looks like when you're, when you're on the agency side to me.
Tom Hootman (44:52)
It's a dialogue, yeah.