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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 (00:06)
Howdy, howdy, howdy, I bid ye welcome to the Honorable Marketing B Sides podcast. I'm your host and judge, jury, and executioner, Tom Hootman. I'm also the CEO of Mixtape Digital. That's not relevant right now, necessarily. thanks for joining me. this is another show where, Everyone's a marketer and no one has it figured out. But
And what's funny is I think this this guest has it pretty well figured out, but he's so humble. He won't admit to having any of it figured out, which is why he's a great guest. Also, I'll say this every once in a great while you you realize that the old joke about it, maybe it's the friends we make along the way. I first met today's guest when I was literally a puppy in this industry. I think this might have been in my first handful of pitches.
And he was on the brand side. He was in-house. And there's a lot of talk in the industry now. People are in-house and then they they go to an agency or agency, then in-house, and then they do their own consulting and they freelance and then they're 1099. It I there's a fluidity within the industry. And one of the things I was most excited about to talk with today's guest about was the fact that he's hit for the cycle.
He's hit for the cycle when it comes to marketing roles. This guy's done it all. In house executive, he's he's been freelance consultancy, he's been agency, he's been he's done pod podcast promotions, he's done it all. And what I love is the perspective he brings to the conversation.
Having worn all those hats or lived all those lives, that I just was fascinated by. I mean, I'm a one-trick pony for the most part, being an agency guy through and through. So I'm always really excited and genuinely curious to hear the perspective of someone who's done it all or more than one thing, like me. today's guest is Mark Bitanga He is someone I've known for goodness 16 years now.
Truly amazing individual, fascinating conversation, and I do hope and trust and know you're going to enjoy it just as much as I did. please always send me your hate mail, negative feedback, c deconstructive criticism. You can throw tomatoes at my house, whatever you want. I want to hear from you, let me know. And always as always, also please like, subscribe.
Whatever you want to do. It's your world. I can't make you do anything you don't want to. But you better damn well enjoy this episode. Have at it.
Tom Hootman (03:01)
ran marketing for a podcast. Like you're a podcast guy. So like I love talking to a pro.
Marc Bitanga (03:06)
I I don't I wouldn't call myself a pro. I was
maybe early.
Tom Hootman (03:09)
Early but still like a pro, I'd say. Like there are a lot of people. I mean, I never thought I'd be doing this ever.
Marc Bitanga (03:16)
Mm.
Tom Hootman (03:16)
And it was one of those things I always wanted to do, but I was like, I could never. I never I would never have the guts. And then finally just decided, fuck it. I'm just gonna do it.
Marc Bitanga (03:25)
I love doing it. I had a podcast called Growing Pains. And this was when I was still I'm sorry. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (03:29)
Kirk Cameron based. Sorry.
Marc Bitanga (03:32)
I was looking up all like the trademark and like, okay, I'm I'm not gonna like, you know, go against you know, TV sitcom trademarks for growing pains for anybody who's like in the late eighties and nineties, but yeah,
Tom Hootman (03:43)
Our age. Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (03:44)
our age. and it was on a lark. It was one of these things where it's like, you know what? I gotta do biz dev.
I've I've been curious about podcasting, and you know, I have natural ADHD, so it's ready, fire, aim kind of thing. and I remember I was sitting in my office downstairs, and I was like, okay, who can I invite my podcast? I literally turned my swiveled my my chair around to my bookcase and started emailing every author. And it was
a really interesting lesson in shoot your shot. And I was it's probably different now because it's a lot more saturated, but back then, you know, if you had a Twitter account and you had a decent, you know, career background, people would pay attention to you. I remember emailing Seth Godin because he famously replies to people. He replied to me in less than 10 minutes and he's like, Marc.
I would love to be on your podcast. Let me know when you're at episode one hundred. It was I should have taken a screenshot because it was the most lovely rejection letter I've ever had.
Tom Hootman (04:32)
That's a that's such a f that's so
kind. And that's honestly that's a great benchmark, right? Like
Marc Bitanga (04:41)
Yeah. Yeah. It it was a great benchmark. And you're probably feeling the same thing, but I felt like I was cheating the system because it was fun for me. I got basically, a thought leader on the podcast. I had VC folks, I had marketing folks, I had authors, I had April Dunford when she was just promoting her book at the time.
I remember one podcast I had a CEO and then we wrapped up the podcast and we're off air, so to speak. And she goes to me, This is dangerous. And I go, Why? She's like, I feel like I could tell you anything, but I forget that there's probably like a few dozen, if not a hundred people listening to me. And it was a great experience.
Tom Hootman (05:14)
It i That's
a great way to put it. It is kind of dangerous because you can do whatever you want. I've had on more than one occasion I always tell people like, hey, like if they're if we go down a path and you sleep on it and you're like, Hey, can we cut that story? Two people have cut references or stories out because they were like, Yeah, like it's just a little and
it's one of those things where you get going and like it's it's a sign of a good conversation, right? Like
Marc Bitanga (05:33)
It's a sound of a
great conversation when you feel like, you know, you can just be you.
Tom Hootman (05:37)
Yeah, you can just be it's interesting because we can just be you. You and I first met in 2011, 2012 when you were in house.
Marc Bitanga (05:44)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (05:46)
And I'll say like one of my favorite parts of hosting this podcast is that I try to catch up with folks for like 30 minutes just like before the show, like a week before. And we talk about the show and what we want to talk about, and like that's honestly my favorite conversation.
That's ending up that ends up being the podcast. Cause you're like talking and you're like,
Marc Bitanga (06:01)
Kind of, yeah.
Tom Hootman (06:02)
wow, like this is the podcast. And getting to glean information and like advice and like talk to people it forces you to stop your world.
Like it forces you to stop and like step outside of
meeting to meeting to meeting, to pitch to pitch to pitch, to client to client to client, and slow down for a minute, which I love. Just have a conversation.
Marc Bitanga (06:19)
And just have a conversation. A non-transactional
lets just have a great conversation.
Tom Hootman (06:24)
Yeah. And the hard part is when I reach out to people to be on the show you know, it's you shoot your shot. It's like anything. You get ghosted most of the time. When you're legitimate, like I'm not trying to sell you anything. Like I really just want to talk to you. And it's like I'm working through all of the it's like it's the fun people, like I don't just talk to marketers. I talk to
actors and musicians and people I really admire. And like I will reach out to people who work in incredible roles with nothing to do with marketing because I just want to meet them. Right. And that's like the fun part of the job. A little bit of fanboying that goes on.
Marc Bitanga (06:53)
Yeah. There's been times where I'm like, Okay, I gotta I gotta ask really good questions as opposed
Tom Hootman (06:57)
Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (06:58)
to like asking what I wanna know that's just unique to me and nobody else wants to know.
Tom Hootman (07:03)
Totally,
We were talking about this. So like we you and I met a long time ago. You've
Marc Bitanga (07:07)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (07:08)
worn multiple hats. So you were in-house when we met, you've been agency side, you've been you've you've been fractional CMO. What I loved about this conversation is that there's a lot of people who've been agency and then gone fractional consultant. There's a lot of people who've gone agency in-house or in-house to consultant. You've kind of like like you've got the bingo card pretty much filled out. So like
Marc Bitanga (07:28)
Yeah, yeah.
That's a that's a polite way of saying it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Tom Hootman (07:29)
But like it no, that's a not
a bad thing, but like I know I've got my like little like spiel when people like ask me what I do. Like when someone at a party asks you what you do now, like what do you tell them in that two sentences, three sentences before their eyes glaze over and they like nod and pretend to know what you do?
Marc Bitanga (07:46)
For folks that aren't in the marketing industry, they would have, this images of madmen style. so you do a whole bunch of advertising? I'm like, yeah, kind of. Like I would hedge it.
Tom Hootman (07:55)
Mm-mm. Yeah,
Marc Bitanga (07:56)
And for
Tom Hootman (07:56)
yeah.
Marc Bitanga (07:57)
a while I would do that. And then I would kind of say, then I try to correct them like, hey, you know what? I spend more time in spreadsheets than I do in the creative brainstorming room. Nowadays I just let the I just let them believe that I'm a madman marketer because I don't want to burst their bubble for some reason. And it just makes it just much more flowing as opposed to like, what a nerd. This guy just dispelled marketing
Tom Hootman (08:16)
Yeah, no, I I do the same yeah.
Marc Bitanga (08:19)
for me.
Tom Hootman (08:19)
I do the same thing. I I do tell people I'm like, it's like they're like so like advertising like, yeah, it's it's it's like mad men sometimes with a lot more spreadsheets, but on the internet. Like, yes, we do pitches and yes, I've had to like I've had a lapel mic in a room, like a giant like we were at University of Chicago in like an actual lecture hall. And I've had some weird pitches that are like very mad men, like standing in front of like a PowerPoint.
And it's most of the time we're sitting in a conference room, yes, and we're talking about what we're gonna do for them, but it's a lot less like pitching ideas, more so than pitching strategy. And then people
Marc Bitanga (08:49)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (08:51)
then nod and wander off with their drink and pretend to know what I do.
Marc Bitanga (08:54)
Yeah. Yeah. I used to try to reframe it and say, No, I do B2B marketing and this is kind of what it's like and and then they just kind of quietly fade into the background like that, Homer meme going into the hedge. Like,
Tom Hootman (09:04)
Just like fade back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc Bitanga (09:07)
I'm gonna move on from this guy.
Tom Hootman (09:09)
Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (09:10)
But ever since then it's just more of like, you know what? I do marketing and I help people, you know, get more leads so they can sell more products. That's basically
Tom Hootman (09:17)
Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (09:18)
it, right?
Tom Hootman (09:18)
Well, what I love about that is that the way this industry has evolved in the past five, six, seven years. And I'm not just gonna say COVID, because I think it there's an evolution there even before then of like consultancy freelancing and like being able to like at Mixtape, we run at that and if there's someone they want to consult with locally that's not a ideal mixtape client, go after it, like do it as long as it doesn't interrupt with your business. Like
So many agencies for so long were like, you can't even say the word marketing outside of this job. Like non-competes tried to be really stringent. So there's this whole like side hustle trap, though, that people fall into. And I talk to people a lot who are like, I'm gonna jump out of what I'm doing and I'm gonna do consulting. When we first talked, you talked about how easy it is to get fooled by early effortless referrals when you do that. I'm curious, like, what's your biggest like
wake-up call once you jump out and the sea's calm and the initial pipeline levels off? how do you approach building a more predictable system? how do you steal yourself to, this is a job, much like any other job.
Marc Bitanga (10:13)
First of all, I'll put a massive disclaimer. It's not like, you know, I've got the holy grail and I'm just kind of keeping it to myself. You know, as you probably know as well, you're just learning all the time. You're just tweaking the machine, adding on, what have you. I remember when I got to a point in my career where, you know, I was Vancouver B2B marketing famous. That's such a niche. It was super tiny, right?
Tom Hootman (10:33)
It's a very niche. Vancouver's a beautiful
city, but it's still very niche, yeah.
Marc Bitanga (10:38)
A marketer who does pretty good work will be known by the right people at some point in time in their career. And I remember I was working in-house. I was at Hootsuite around the heyday of Hootsuite at that time. just to frame it up for everybody who doesn't know about Hootsuite, social media marketing platform or app.
When I joined, we were around 150 people in about four years we're about 1200 people. Yeah,
Tom Hootman (11:00)
I didn't realize you joined when they were that small. I knew you were there a while. That's crazy.
Marc Bitanga (11:04)
The way I described it was like it's kinda like going into hyper drive in space and all the shingles are falling off your spaceship. Like we were moving fast. And so I had a more than full time director of growth role at Hootsuite, where I was working maybe fifty plus hours per week just on my job alone.
And every once in a while someone would say to me, Hey, you know, wanna help me with my advertising or whatnot. And so without any effort on my part to side hustle, they would just come in and kind of just land on my lap. And
it gives you this false sense of wow, this is easy.
The fish just jump right into the boat. Wow, this is great. And when you couple that experience with all the narrative that's the romanticization of entrepreneurship that's online, where everybody's like, it's great,
you can work whenever you want and et cetera, et cetera. When you pair all that together, it kind of lulls you into this false sense of, wow, you know, maybe I should do consulting. Maybe I should
jump into, doing this full time.
Tom Hootman (12:04)
There's a romanticism.
Marc Bitanga (12:05)
Yeah, because like it was easy. It got to a point where I was managing my side hustle at the time
in addition to my full-time director job. I was managing paid media on the side on the evenings and weekends. And I remember at one point in time I took a look at the platform system and I was managing about a million dollars on the side on evenings and weekends.
Tom Hootman (12:24)
Yeah. This is a hell of a side hustle at this point.
Marc Bitanga (12:26)
Yeah it was a growing side hustle at that point. And
I was managing campaigns for Toyota Canada. They didn't know because I was white labeling for another agency, right? And I remember it got to an inflection point where it was like, okay, I could continue down this route with this startup, or I could explore this unexplored route of entrepreneurship. Like I've always been entrepreneurial, I've always been side hustling, but this is the first time where it's like, okay, maybe, I should take this seriously, right?
Tom Hootman (12:52)
Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (12:53)
And not to get through the whole thing with I called it agencio. because I thought it would, you know, we would be taken seriously. It's some made up Italian word of agency, right?
Tom Hootman (13:00)
Yeah. It's good.
Marc Bitanga (13:04)
I'd brought on a business partner, she brought on a couple folks, freelancers to work with us. and it really hit me when I'm like, man.
It's one thing to generate pipeline for you as an individual and you have the safety net of a full time job. That is not stress. I thought I was stressed. I was just busy. I wasn't stressed. But when you start to take on the responsibility of, wow, somebody else's livelihood depends on me, that's stress. I remember tweeting one time.
Nobody tells you about the diamond crushing pressure of making payroll.
Tom Hootman (13:34)
There's no textbook,
right? There's no like there's rules of thumb, but no one ever sits down and says, here's what a P N L looks like and here's what your balance sheet needs to look like and
Marc Bitanga (13:42)
Yeah,
I've probably made every mistake that there is. I remember you're gonna laugh at this, you're gonna have a good chuckle at this, Tom, right? So you know, I had massive ego. I was younger obviously at the time, and I was like, I'm good at marketing. I'm just gonna do the same thing that I did for, you know, SaaS products. I'm gonna do it for for my agency in terms of lead gen, right? And so at that time
I treated marketing and lead generation and business development for let's call it services, similar to how I would do it for a SaaS product. It was like a dumpster fire of failure, right? I remember and this is before AI, I had this great idea of like, okay, I was gonna do some light account-based marketing. I'm gonna target specific accounts and then
I created custom audits for these brands. And I'm talking about they had the logo, it was completely custom. This is all the things that you know you could be doing better. Right.
Tom Hootman (14:32)
Like this idea so far. Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (14:34)
And I even got because this is before AI, I got someone on Fiverr to help me out for some research. I probably sent out around 50 and I'd spent probably easily minimum 2 to maybe 4 hours per each one of those.
And guess how many people I got out of that? How many clients I got out of that?
Tom Hootman (14:50)
Zero.
Marc Bitanga (14:51)
I had one reply, and it was Marc, I recognize the game and I just wanted to say thanks for this.
Tom Hootman (14:59)
Someone looked at
it and said, This guy, this is some legit fucking work.
Marc Bitanga (15:03)
And that was a big punch in the teeth of like, hey dummy, this is a different world. You really have to learn about what marketing and business development is like for agency or professional services or fractional. Like it's the same underlying principles, but it's not the same.
Tom Hootman (15:20)
Yeah, it's easy to fool yourself. You lull yourself into a sense of ease when you work for a company. I've worked for two amazing agencies that have had tremendous followings. And the first was PPC Hero. We had the conference. And we tested outbound and SDRs. We weren't an outbound agency. Like the clients who would come to us from outbound were tougher clients. They always are tougher clients because they don't know you. There's no referral, there's no connection. You have to prove yourself.
And they quit sooner because I always say the people who answer the phone like answering the phone. So they're gonna answer the phone after they hire you or the next agency. And we're an inbound only agency and it's hard work, but it's still like the phone's kind of always ringing and they're just like a steady stream. I feel bad for people who think like, I'm gonna jump out and it's gonna be easy. It's not because like that referral network dries up and you really do
have to in my opinion put yourself out there naked and be like this is who I am and here's what we do hire us and know that if you put good out there with no expectations you'll get something back eventually. Your example with the 50 audits is an insane amount of work man and also you say it's a punch in the teeth it's not though it's a sample size of 50 and you got one reply like as a reply rate on an email campaign
If someone sends 10,000 of those, right? Like they would take that all day long.
But on a sample size of 50, homegrown, like rubbing the two sticks together to make the fire happen, it's just the amount of work you put in. It feels like a punch in the teeth. But honestly, it's probably something that formed what made you better long term and made you realize like it's part of what separates you from other people in your line of work, honestly, because
you take the time and consideration to do good work that shows up, it's probably just too small of a sample size. And it was like one of those like early life lessons of like, I'll just pick up the phone and call. 2,000 dials later, you're like, this is hard.
Marc Bitanga (17:01)
It is. And I think as marketers, there's advantages going into this world as a marketer with the skills and training experience that you've got. And there's also a disadvantage, right? And the disadvantage is when you're doing inbound marketing and you're doing, you know, you're doing paid media for companies that have millions of dollars,
That's very different if you try to like do that for you as an agency owner or for you as a fractional or for you as a consultant. Meaning, I believe in inbound. I wholeheartedly believe in inbound. But it takes a lot of time for that to build up. And it's not just content marketing that I'm talking about, it's even
your personal name. I won't even call it a brand. It's like your name and reputation and people recommending you. It takes a lot of time. And so there's this period of time where you've got a bunch of referrals because of the work that you did. You're doing great and then pipeline dries up and then your networks kind of you know you've you've exhausted your small network.
And you're not driving enough pipeline from your inbound yet. So guess what? You gotta roll up your sleeves and start doing business development. I When I say business development, you're trying to cultivate relationships and build trust as fast as possible. And the only way to do that is to just do good work, put out great content on how you do it.
and shake a few hands in person, right?
Tom Hootman (18:20)
Like you just talk to people for a living. You have to walk in with shout out to Brian Neal and Blind Zebra. That's a a a sales coaching peer group, right? That do amazing work. But it's like if you walk in with peer expectations, you're clean, right? Like you have to have a healthy level of detachment of I could have six conversations with people in a day and I'm good if nothing happens with it.
And then there are days I have three conversations and three of them refer people to me or to Mixtape. And all nine of those conversations are valuable. It's just some are seeds, some are just catching up with friends. And it's perfectly cool. I love catching up with people. And some of them are faster turnarounds. It's like, but you have to scream into that void for a long, long time and have no expectations, in my opinion.
Marc Bitanga (19:00)
I think the one of the pivotal points for me as an entrepreneur was I read this book called How They Buy and it was about consulting. And it really kind of pointed out the areas that I was just ignorant to, which was when you're buying a product, you can look at reviews, you can look at the specs. There's a lot of different ways to evaluate.
You know, there's their standards they need to meet, right? But when you're buying services, there's not a lot of that unless you've been in the business for quite some time. And so it's really all about building trust. And there's very few things that will shortcut building trust. And that's why referrals are such a great
way because I trust John. John referred me to Jim. John would not screw me over. Jim must be a good guy. Trust transfers, right? And I think that it took me a while to figure that out, that that was the game. And once I started thinking that way, it just gave me a better sense of this is a different world, same skills, different world. You just apply it differently.
I think another one that I learned really quickly was the more conversations you have
you increase your odds of getting a chance at bat. And also it's not like demand generation for a product where it's like, I gotta get people through a funnel. I just gotta get them from step A to step B. Not everybody's ready to buy your services, Tom. It doesnt matter how awesome a person and reputation you have, but if I have no need for your services at the moment, it does not matter how great that email is gonna be. I'm not gonna buy.
It's one of those things that it's
Tom Hootman (20:24)
Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (20:25)
just a different game when you're marketing or doing business development for services.
Tom Hootman (20:29)
Yeah. I mean, in the olden days, and there's still a lot of companies that send mailers out, right? Like how often I get a mailer in like the spring about my H V A C and is it time to like have it serviced? And I have a company and I have a guy and I'm like, this is trash. The reason they're doing that, and part of like just connecting with people, is that it may not be for now, but there may be a day that that arrives and I've called
my guy and my guy's like, I'm swamped, I can't see you for three weeks. And the AC breaks. Like you manufacture a bit of the luck. Like you have to put yourself out there. You have to do something to be able to get your face out there and just connect with people with zero expectations, knowing that that's serendipity. Like, wow, that was lucky. What are the chances? Well the chances are pretty good because you do this every day that you're going to catch someone or someone's going to be like,
Hey Hootman, we talked a month ago and something just came to mind and someone just reached out to me. I think you'd be a fit for. And like I wouldn't be on their mind if we hadn't just caught up and had a coffee or chatted for a bit.
Like I said, you can have six, eight conversations in a day just catching up with people. And your lizard brains tell us you got nothing done today. You were very unproductive.
Because you're like you aren't moving the business forward. And it's like, but we are. We are moving the business forward. It's just not productive. It's not something that culminates into something today.
Marc Bitanga (21:40)
I think having a system from a marketing perspective and a business development perspective, I think is important, but I've learned that I need to detach from expecting results from those activities. And I'll share a story why.
I would just email and DM people, if I feel like I can help them, if I feel like there's there's something there, I'm not gonna kind of meander my way to try to get an introduction. And I remember I DM'd this CEO. And this CEO said, Yep, Marc we'd love to meet with you. And we scheduled a call.
And then right before the call, he's like, hey Marc, his EA goes, hey Marc, can we reschedule? And we rescheduled. And he did that twice. And I have a rule. If you reschedule with me twice in a row, I'm just gonna politely say, Hey, would still love to talk to you, but it doesn't look like I'm a priority right now. Why don't we reconnect it at a later date?
And I think no one had ever done that with this particular CEO. Based on his response, I I think he was caught a little bit off guard that he would turn away meeting with him, right? Fast forward three years later, like we'd been connected on LinkedIn, we hadn't talked, emailed, or anything for three years.
Tom Hootman (22:43)
Mm-hmm.
Marc Bitanga (22:44)
And out of the blue, he just DMs me, okay, let's work together.
No interview, no nothing. It was just let's go work together. Doors
Tom Hootman (22:50)
Doors open, walk right through. Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (22:52)
are open, walk right through. And I suspect it's because I put out content around the work that I did, how I did it, what have you. and it was just the right time for that individual to need what I was doing at the time. And that CEO happened to be
the CEO of Jay Shetty, the podcaster's coaching school.
Tom Hootman (23:09)
Yeah. That's incredible.
Something you mentioned in there that I do that's very similar that I was taught again by this sales peer coaching group Blind Zebra was they call it the close the file email. Whether you're a biz dev rep in an org or you're trying to build your own business, it's really easy to want to keep something in the pipeline. Like it 'cause if it's it's Schrdinger's opportunity at that point, it neither is nor isn't, but it's not dead.
We don't know because it's in the box. And going back to that detachment, you have to be able to say, Hey, I've reached out a couple times. Obviously something's changed on your end, or it's just not a priority right now. And that's totally fine. If anything changes, let me know. I'm gonna go ahead and close your file. And that's literally what I put in the I'm gonna go ahead and close your file. And the close the file email
snaps people to attention more often than not because you know my last agency a big saying was assume positive intent and I think it's really easy when you're being ghosted and you're being rescheduled and no one's connecting with you to think Dick I'm not important. In reality, honestly, they're just getting torn to shreds and they're so swamped that people literally don't have the time and they have to bump you. They're just busy
And I think that it's a way of assuming positive intent that snaps people back. And a lot of times they'll say, it is still a priority. I'm smoked right now. Can we talk in three weeks? And then they end up coming in in three weeks. And I think it helps bridge the gap on on the internet and when you're communicating via email of those the context that gets lost in the shuffle of like reschedules and ghosting and people just not showing up.
Are there still people that do it? Yeah. But also like by sending that close the file email, much like you sent, you get someone's attention. And I think a lot of people don't do that because a lot of people are addicted to and need that opportunity to be Schrdinger's opportunity and be neither alive nor dead, but just still in the pipeline.
Marc Bitanga (24:53)
As you're talking, you know, my wife she works in healthcare. She does not know anything about the corporate world or marketing. But I jokingly say she's the best chief revenue officer.
Tom Hootman (25:01)
Haha. And a lucky soul 'cause she doesn't know anything about marketing. It's good.
Marc Bitanga (25:05)
And you know, I'll go to a networking meeting. She's So what came out of that? Or like, hey, I'm gonna go to San Francisco. So how many clients do you book?
It snaps you to attention to say.
There needs to be outcomes out of these activities. And it's this kind of gray area where you gotta keep doing the activities despite the fact that you're not getting feedback whether it's good or bad. Because as a marketer, when you're working in-house, you're dealing with tons of data and you can act on that data. But when you're a solo consultant, one, you don't have enough hours in the day to do everything you need to do. You don't have millions of dollars.
And so you don't have a lot of data coming back at you. All you hear is silence. And you tell all these stories about am I good enough? What am I doing? And it's just like you said, maybe they're having a bad day. They're not replying, not because of you. There's so many other reasons unrelated to your effort and your quality of effort that plays into it.
Tom Hootman (25:51)
You mentioned when you're when you're like when you're a marketer working in a marketing department and you're working with all of these data points. Yes, you don't have any data. Your example of sending fifty audits yourself is a very small data set. And I also would say
in this world where people are detached and they aren't connected, there's a safety in that. Like when you're working with so many data points and your conversion rate is down, or your demo rate is down, it's not Jim and Jane don't like us. It's the demo rate's down. It's impersonal.
There's a safety in that, I think, for some people. When you step out of that and you do something like what you've done, what you did, what you're doing, yeah, there's fear of rejection, but like there's fear of like getting nothing back. Because the other side of that is if you did have volumes of data, you'd likely convert it to a CPL.
And a lead form and it would become impersonal, which would break, in my opinion, the reason why people should hire you or reason why people should come to us is that like it's personal. Like I want people who still think business is personal.
I have a team of amazing people and I want to work with really good people. And it doesn't mean you can't like hold us accountable and if if you're disappointed, tell us, but like don't be a dick.
Because one of the graces of stepping out of a corporate world is not being forced, like to work with people who you didn't want to work with because you just couldn't make the decision. You had to try to save that client no matter what. When you and I both know there are times when you just know how it's gonna end. And I'd rather cut it sooner and preserve the team psyche and make our culture better by effect than to
try to make it work when it really clearly isn't.
Marc Bitanga (27:18)
It is and I would be lying if I said, Hey, you know what? I I had the velvet rope and I never let anybody who wasn't the right fit through.
I think what I've learned out of those experiences of taking on not so best fit clients has been the effect outside of working with that client.
It affects your personal life. It affects, your outlook. They're eating up a lot more energy. And I think the hard lesson I learned is when you make a small compromise and bring on not the best fit client, guess what? They're gonna refer you to other not best fit clients as well.
Tom Hootman (27:47)
It's true. That's true.
Marc Bitanga (27:49)
I'm gonna make a polarizing statement just to prove a point.
If you're working with somebody who is high agency, tremendous, values-based client, they are surrounded by probably the same type of people. If you're working with a person who's mean, guess who's gonna be around that person? They're gonna refer you more to people like them. And so
Those are the hard lessons that that I had to learn along the way That I really had to learn for myself, unfortunately. But those are lessons that I tuck in and like, okay, great, I'm just gonna do better the next time.
Tom Hootman (28:17)
I yeah, and I think that it's I like in those instances, take a chance on people, right? And like say yes, err on the side of yes and assume positive intent. It's a callback,
Marc Bitanga (28:26)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (28:27)
but then also walk into those situations knowing that what you might see and understanding it might be a quick trigger. And actually I have a really good dialogue on my team where we've had difficult clients and I've been like, Hey, like
I don't want to put all of you under strain. We're in a position we could say no to this. You want me to talk to them and like fire them. And the team has talked me out of it and turned it around and crossed that bridge, which I think, in my humble opinion, is like the perfect place to be. Cause if I'm telling them, let's just make it work, then I'm not listening to them and they aren't feeling heard. But if it's the reverse and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, hold on. We got this. It's just early days.
We just need a level set. We're gonna sit them down. We're gonna talk about like expectations. And then they go and do that. Not only does that empower them to be autonomous and do what they know is best, but it also shows them that they're heard, which they are, and then also that they can fix it on their own. And like it's turned into a great client, right? Like those are situations that we would never go through if all we had were red flags. And like we were like, I'm sorry, you hit four of the seven red flags. You are not allowed to hire us.
I'm curious though, like when you're looking at working with clients, what are some of those red flags you look for? Like have you identified anything that's like interesting or stark that's like, mm, probably not for me.
Marc Bitanga (29:37)
I think it's three.
One is if they don't have any marketing budget. I ask, hey, what's your marketing budget? Well, you tell us what should be in the marketing budget, or like, yeah, you know what, we'll see how it goes and we'll give you more, right? If it works out.
Tom Hootman (29:49)
If you
hit our target, the budget's unlimited. That's always another one. Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (29:52)
Yeah. Yeah.
And when I've mentored younger marketers, and because this is the same red flag I would put if you were trying to get a full-time job, if you're being hired as a head of marketing and the interviewer on the other side of the tables doesn't have a budget, first of all, every business has a budget. There's a line item for things. If they don't have a line item for marketing, they don't believe in marketing.
Tom Hootman (30:11)
It's somewhere, they're just not sharing it with you.
Marc Bitanga (30:13)
And 'cause it's zero or be really, really tiny.
Tom Hootman (30:14)
I was gonna say 'cause
it doesn't 'cause it's so small you're not gonna be able to do shit with it, my friend. Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (30:19)
Yeah,
I think that's one. I think the other one is Like you talk to somebody who's a potential client and they are skeptical about marketing. So I've had people tell me, I don't know if this is gonna work or like someone told me we should be doing this. That's kind of a reddish flag to me.
Because you're entering a situation where now you're on your back heel and now from day one you're not just there to prove yourself. You need to prove that marketing works. And I don't think I've ever been in that in that scenario that that's worked out because they're already looking for where it's gonna go wrong as opposed to where it's gonna go right.
Tom Hootman (30:52)
Fantastic point, accurate red flags. And it's interesting because at this point in my career, we're vetting you today just as much as you're vetting us. And while the predominant majority of the slides we deliver and the content we present to them is our strategy, our approach and why we're a great fit and why they'd be fools not to hire us. Fools.
There are slides in there very much like here's what a great client looks like. And here's what a 90-day roadmap looks like that's realistic. And when we present that, I'll even say, we're vetting you as much as you're vetting us. And this is just to level set, like, because if a client hires you, and we've all had those clients who are like one week in, they're like, Where are my results?
Right. it's just tough. And there's an element of not standing up for yourself, but like just being honest with like your red flags with them, but not just putting a red flag slide in. Right. But like here's what great looks like to us. And if you feel like you fit this, we're ready to go. And then also being comfortable saying, like, hey, I've dug around a bit in like your glass door like
tell me a bit about the culture because I've worked at companies that have struggled and gotten it back and been great afterwards. That could be the case there, but tell me about it. Because like you said earlier, if they're mean and it's a mean culture, there's a lot of times you can pick enough of those pebbles up to figure that out ahead of the curve. And again, it's really easy not to have the conversation. But sometimes having a 20 minute conversation, I think helps level set and set things right at the front end.
For a longer term relationship and in in my opinion, gives you something to tether back to when things get wobbly or if they get wobbly in the future. I don't know how many times that's happened to me where I'm like, Hey, remember when we first talked and we talked about this and you said this? It feels like we're the opposite of that now. Like, what has changed? Just help me figure it out so we can do better for you. And you can usually level set that way.
Marc Bitanga (32:29)
I think you touched on it, culture and values. it's I wouldn't say it's a harder one and that's more of a vibes check more than anything else. If we align on on values, meaning like you treat people kindly and speak kindly to others. I love working with those individuals. I love working with those companies. But if they have a culture that's opposite of that, maybe we're not we're not gonna work out here,
Tom Hootman (32:49)
Maybe we're not good
fit. Yeah.
Marc Bitanga (32:50)
Yeah,
maybe we're not a good fit. That one's a little bit tougher, I
But those are the three that I've learned along the way.
Tom Hootman (32:55)
Yeah. Along the same lines and like what you've learned along the way like you've had a very successful and varying career. I'm curious, like what's a belief, like a core belief that you held earlier in your career that you start to now think might be bullshit or that you've changed from?
Marc Bitanga (33:09)
I think it's related again to entrepreneurship. I used to think you need to have a big personal brand and an amazing content machine, and you need to have a social media presence to be a successful agency or a successful consultant or a successful fractional.
And I've met so many successful individuals who do those things, who hasn't updated their LinkedIn in 10 years, who've never been on a podcast. So I think that's one of those things that I've learned that it's great to have those things. Those work in your favor, but don't think that that's the only thing that you need to be successful.
Tom Hootman (33:43)
No, that's pretty solid. That's really solid. I think that in especially in our business, there's like the three or four core channels. You mentioned a couple of like podcasts and LinkedIn presence. Like that matters a lot in our business, in marketing.
There's a lot of people out there that we don't run into every day who have insane networks and have built amazing businesses who don't prescribe to the formula, formula airport.
Marc Bitanga (34:03)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (34:04)
Whatever it is.
Last question for you, I'll cut you loose. It's one I ask everybody,
Marc Bitanga (34:08)
Sure.
Tom Hootman (34:08)
because it's Mixtape Digital, music, all that's good stuff. And my first job was at like a Sam Goody in the mall. So this is near and dear to my heart. If your career or your current role, like your professional life had a two to three song playlist, what songs would you put on it and why?
Marc Bitanga (34:22)
When I saw this question in the kind of pre-interview, so to speak, I was like, man, what is it? And I'll give you I'll give you four. and
Tom Hootman (34:26)
Well it's hard. Yeah ooo bonus.
Marc Bitanga (34:31)
I'm I'm a big rap and hip hop fan, right? So first one is
Rick Ross Hustin. So every day on hustlin, so that's one.
Tom Hootman (34:37)
Mm-hmm. It's a great choice.
Marc Bitanga (34:39)
the other one is by the Clipse Grindin'
Tom Hootman (34:42)
I don't know that one.
Marc Bitanga (34:43)
I'll send you the link to that one, right?
Tom Hootman (34:44)
Send me a link to that I'm jotting it down.
Marc Bitanga (34:45)
Yeah. Pharrell Williams, Freedom. The George Michael one's great, but Pharrell Williams is the one I'm gonna use for this one.
And the last one is by Mac Miller, Self-Care.
Tom Hootman (34:54)
Ooh.
Excellent choices, my friend.
No, there's a theme in there. And I also appreciate that you didn't jump around. A lot of people jump around. It's like a classical song, a Britney Spears song, a Slayer song, and like a random Taylor Swift song. And I'm like, I get a little bit of whiplash in that question sometimes because I'm like, what? Then what? And now what? And then also there are a lot of people who have some varied tastes and lists.
It's like three songs I've never heard of and I'm jotting down and I'm trying to listen to later because I'm like, How did I not know of any of this? Cause I live on Spotify. Amazing playlist. I love it. Great choices. And I like the thematic, like blatant thematicism. Is that a word? Throughout. Really good.
Marc Bitanga (35:32)
yeah, you made another word. that's yours now.
Tom Hootman (35:34)
That's mine now.
Marc Bitanga (35:34)
honestly listen to these at at least once a week because you just need something.
Tom Hootman (35:38)
You need something. You need something. That's a great way to wrap it, my friend. you need something. Marc Batanga, thanks so much for making time for me. I really appreciate it.
Marc Bitanga (35:47)
Really enjoyed this conversation, Tom.
Tom Hootman (35:48)
Great. Catch up soon.
Marc Bitanga (35:49)
Take care.