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Album 5 Track 1 - Senior Partner CEO, CMO and Board Practices, Spencer Stuart - Greg Welch - Stories of a Career and Life Truth Teller
You know what a new year means...a brand new album!
We are kicking off the year (and album) strong with a guest unlike any other we've had on the show. Greg Welch not only has extensive brand/marketing experience, he is sharing how his career journey landed him in executive recruiting (sneak peek; it was from his biggest f-up).
Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
DC: Brand Nerds? We've had all manner of guests on our show, but to start off the new year, and by the way, Happy New Year, Brand Nerds.
We have someone in the building who is unlike anyone we have had on our show now. We have been blessed, we've had billionaires, we've had chairman, uh, chair people, we've had entrepreneurs, we've had marketing folks as you know. But we've never had a person who is in the profession of recruiting. And dare I say, Larry, the gentleman that we have in the building with us today, Brand Nerds may be the most prominent recruiter of CMOs on the globe, not in the country, not in a region, but on the planet.
And he happens to be someone that I have had several conversations with through the years when I was on the, uh, on the client side. And he was giving me perspective on my career, which I'll get into a little later. So, Larry, Can you please share with the Brand Nerds who we have in the building with us on this auspicious occasion?
LT: What a way to start 2023, right, D?
DC: Mm-hmm.
LT: We have Greg Welch in the house today. Welcome, Greg.
Greg Welch: Hey, great to be here.
LT: Okay.
Greg Welch: I'd rather be a billionaire though. Go ahead,
Yeah, yeah. Okay, D. So Greg, as you know, is a Hoosier where he, uh, his career started, uh, before, um, actually jumping into the marketing realm where he earns a degree in marketing and advertising from the Indiana University, Kelly School of Business. So after graduating, he goes to work for Nestle on the sales side, working his way up to regional manager. Eventually finds his way to the marketing side, working for CPG stalwart, Colgate Palmolive, where he works his way up to Senior Product Marketing Leader.
Uh, then he ends up going to, to continue on the CPG, great company Fortune 50 Ladder, where he moves over to another blue chip, CPG company, Kraft Nabisco as Area VP. So, okay, Brand Nerds. As you have heard from many of our wonderful guests, there's usually a major pivot in someone's career and this is Greg's where he joined Spencer Stewart for some of our younger Brand Nerds, Spencer Stewart is a global leader in executive leadership advisory, and as DC alluded to recruitment, Greg is recruited to Spencer Stewart by a former boss of his with the mission to build the preeminent CMO practice in the world. So D, and Brand Nerds check this. Since that time, Greg has led several hundred marketing searches, placing CMOs at a wide variety of companies. It would take us 10 minutes to list them all, but we'll just give a few, Target, Facebook, CBS, Patron, Allstate, Hershey, Buffalo Wild Wings, Manchester United to name a few. And oh, by the way, his marketing practice is now, as DC alluded to, the industry leader. So additionally, while at Spencer Stewart, he not only launched and ran the marketing officer practice, but he also ran the Chicago office at the firm's headquarters, and he led the Global Consumer Practice for five years across 57 offices in 30 countries. Greg is now based out of the Miami office and is a partner in the firm. He is also a key member of Spencer Stewart's, CEO , CMO, and Board Services Practices serving a wide range of clients across a diverse range of consumer businesses that are public, private, and PE backed. Greg is a two-time recipient of the firm's Lou Rieger Quality Award, and he is the co-founder of the M50 Marketing Group and the creator of Spencer Stewart's annual CMO Summit, one of the industry's most well-known events.
Greg is also an author serving as co-author, author of the acclaimed book. Good for Business: The Rise of the Conscious Corporation and has written numerous articles and publications such as the Harvard Business Review, Advertising Age, Brand Week, and more. The proud father of four, Greg cares deeply about his work in nonprofit, both here and around the world.
He currently serves on the Dean's Advisory Council at his alma mater, Indiana University, Kelly School of Business, and has also served as a trustee at the Rush University Medical Center. Brand Nerds, with our 100 plus episodes, we have never had anyone who does what Greg does, let alone the best one in the business.
So we think you will really enjoy this one. Welcome to Brands, Beats, and Bytes, Greg Welch.
Well, great to be here. No wonder I got all this gray hair with all that long intro, but thank you. Thanks for having me, guys. Good to see you both.
DC: Greg, these are your flowers. These are your flowers. Now
Greg Welch: I know daggers are coming, right? Bring them.
LT: No daggers.
DC: All right, so, uh, Greg, uh, Next segment is something that we call Get Comfy, and in this segment we have two purposes. One is to have the guests be comfortable. That's what we call it, Get comfy, but also to maybe share something with the Brand Nerds out there that perhaps they hadn't fully considered about a perspective you have.
And so for you, I'm going to imagine that there are few people who have ever lived, who have had one-on-one conversations with either current CMOs or those en route to becoming a CMO. Few people on the on the planet have had these, the number of conversations you've had, both in quantity and in quality.
So you've seen it all as a results to CMOs. Here's the question. For the Brand Nerds out, out there. What have you seen as the most typical traditional track to a CMO and what have you seen in terms of a non-traditional track to a CMO?
Greg Welch: Gr Well, gr well, great question. I've had a front row seat for 20, almost five years here, Spencer Stewart, and watch this and, and through it, as you would expect to see, I've watched the good and the bad, and I've seen some train wrecks along the way, and I don't have to have a lot of original thoughts, but I do watch and observe and I am always looking to see, you know, what that cat has that has something special that people want to follow just because they want to follow, um, for years and, and Darryl, you, you grew up in the packaged goods world at Coca-Cola as an example. Uh, it used to be that we just love the Coke, Pepsi, Proctor, General Mills traditional route up. I think they did and perhaps still do the very best job of rounding product, technology, P&L owners that understand how to build businesses and history would show us when you look at CEO s today, not just in CPG, but when you look in restaurants and retail and you know, life sciences and even financial services, many of them got their started, you know, selling a red soda, uh, early on.
So I've seen, seen that it's been quite typical and I think that will continue. And we've seen other industries outside of package goods look for executives that had early starts like you guys. Um, the fact of the matter is as discussions with consumers have engaged, Um, we are now looking at disruptors, entrepreneurial younger. I talked to a 33 year old CEO I won't name that you probably know, uh, that grew up in some, some businesses and media. And all of a sudden he is the CEO of a really cool billion dollar company and we've got a guy that just hasn't had the opportunity to lead large teams, right? And have the mentors and observers that, you know, if you grew up at Kraft or if you grew up at Coca-Cola, you might have had a chance to see.
So we're spending a lot of time trying to help people put on training wheels to figure out, okay, how do you lead large groups of people? You were hugely successful, uber bright, built fabulous businesses, did it in the modern era. And we're watching this happen as companies have said, listen, I care not as much about age, time and chair.
I'm looking for raw talent. And, and we at Spencer Stewart have developed some really cool tools to do a kind of a brain scan, if you will. We call it, uh, Executive Intelligence. To see does this person have the capacity to do great things as a CEO ?
DC: Hmm. Ah,
Greg Welch: It's fun science.
LT: Can you talk about that more, Greg? Again, obviously if you, if it's confidential, but I would love to hear more about. Uh, yeah.
Greg Welch: What? Yeah. You know, I mean, if you, if you think about traditional executive search, the industry hasn't changed. I mean, we'll talk about some change, but for the most part it's been, Hey, I've got a job. I'm going to the market, who's good? How do you kick their tires, assess them, you know, how do you get them interested? And kind of, it's a two-way street. I've gotta convince the client that, you know, Susie or Jimmy has the right skills. Uh, and along the way, a couple things happened. One, when I got it wrong, or when my colleagues got it wrong, it often was because we had a bad cultural fit.
You know, I screwed up. I I, I'm pretty good at the skills, the competencies. We're gonna bring those and, you know, my candidates are gonna have those. Sometimes we don't get the fit right. And Yep. And we as a firm, and we're a 60 year old firm, but we, we had issues where that would pop up. And we found a, a, a company in Shanghai that we bought, started by two Americans, actually about 10 years ago, that helped us improve our hit rate on culture.
So we do a culture assessment of the executive team. We have every candidate go through it. And so that's a pretty quick, easy exercise, fabulous science, but helps us get a better fit. But more importantly, and, and LT I think where your question was, is this what we call EXI, is the most amazing tool that, uh, I dare say is above my pay grade.
So after I do a competency based assessment, we couple that with deep references. Uh, oftentimes when we get down to a, you know, whether it's a big CMO search or CEO search, you know, clients will ask the question, how do we know, how do we know it's right?
LT: Mm-hmm.
Greg Welch: And we can put people through, it's about a three, four hour exercise where it's case-based interviewing, and we can literally, dare I say, undress an executive to see how they think, what motivates them, how they incorporate others' ideas.
And, you know, especially in the marketing world, and, and I love my marketing brethren, but many of them are silver tongued storytellers, really? And they're, you know, they're really good at this. And, you know, ask me, almost like politicians ask me a question, and I'm gonna spin this around as something I can tell you about something that was great that we did at Coca-Cola or whatever.
Um, we take all that away. So imagine this, I, I give you a case study and I'm like, listen, you're the CEO of a glass manufacturing plant. Let me give you some stats about what's gone on here at this business. Let me tell you a bit, couple bits of information and we wanna discern. And so somebody couldn't rehearse this right?
Discern, how do they determine what are important details? Who to trust. How to handle this meeting thing that's popped up. Ah, yeah. And so we, we've got this amazing case and we've run several thousand people through it now. And, and then we back it up by looking at, okay, we put Jimmy in that big job, how has he performed?
And lo and behold, he performed well in our EXI and he's killing it as a CEO. So, fabulous, kind of the science behind the art that I've enjoyed doing for many, many years. And we're excited about what this means going forward. And there's some things that candidates, uh, need to know about these sorts of things that we go forward too.
Maybe we'll have a chance to talk about later.
LT: You know, thank you so much, Greg, for providing the, the texture to that. Because candidly I'm gonna say this, I think there's, in 2023, there's people say, ah, what do you need a search firm for? What do they do? I could just get recommendations from people.
This is why. Yeah, this is the value that you all bring that's proprietary that others don't have. And, you're talking about compensation, you know, when you're getting to the CMO and CEO levels and the millions of dollars as you know, at the end of the day, right? Right. And so you literally and figuratively can't afford to make mistakes.
You know, and we go back to sports a lot. If you draft the wrong quarterback in football, right. It sets your franchise back how many years, right? Uh, and it's sort of the same thing I believe with marketing, because again, yes, we're biased, but us marketers are the ones that generate revenue. That's a hell of a lot harder than cutting costs.
Yeah. And so, you know what? By doing what you're doing as it relates to the case situation, you're undressing folks to really see what they have because they can't be as like, if I'm making this up, if somebody worked at at Coca-Cola and worked on DC Sprite team and they could take credit for that, you know, on a resume.
They, they can't then translate that to your case situation?
Greg Welch: No, it's, uh, you know, I, I, Larry, I, I think of it like going to buy a car when, you know, you go to buy a car every couple of years, who's gonna win that negotiation? You or the guy selling the car? Uh, the fact of the matter is you can't, there, there's a reason that, uh, my hair is gray and there's a reason that search firms exist, right?
And if done right, uh, we have got, I think, and I've got some great competitors too, but we've got a really good beat on what great looks like in the market, what the watchouts are, you know, oftentimes I can look at a category and you two will chuckle about this and say, hey, I've got three guys that are in the oral care industry.
How did each of them grow share? One's at Colgate, one's at Crest, one's at Oral B. How could this be? And the fact of the matter is, we've gotta assess through that. And we've got tools now to assess market share and ROIs and, and stock performance of kegers. And, you know, we'll get to the bottom of it because this is what we do every day, right? And we know who to call to reallys this stuff out.
LT: Super cool.
DC: Yeah, I, I got three D. Reactions to you setting this up, Greg. Let's talk about EXI, uh, specifically. Um, Larry, Jeff and I are the business partner who is our, uh, producer of the show. And, uh, Jade, we talk about marketing, not as the marketing business, Greg, but psychology. Marketing is about psychology and what you all are doing with EXI is you're getting down to the psychology of the candidates, which then can tell you, help you discern culture fit.
So that's first, that's a relatively, um, new thing. How long ago did you all buy this in China?
Greg Welch: Nine, 10 years. Yeah.
DC: Okay, so, so let's call a decade ago. So, um, Brand Nerds, Greg and I have had a few conversations over the years going back to his early days at Spencer Stewart, 25 years ago, 20 years ago. And I want to, I wanna point out something, Greg, that I found different about you that had nothing to do with technology, but everything to do with psychology.
And I owe you a thank you. Number one is, uh, uh, LT, Greg would call me from time to time not to present a job, which is what most recruiters do, right? But to find out, What was I looking to do in my career and why was I looking to do it? Right? We would have that kind of conversation, right? And then when Greg would return with something, he already knew that the likelihood of my being interested in it was high, right?
That's the number one. Nu nu number two is, uh, he gave me a piece of advice. You did, Greg. You gave me a piece of advice that I never forgot and it was not a disparaging piece of advice in terms of career. It was a fact. Now I've been at Coke at this point, Greg, when we had the conversation, which I, I'm sure you, you likely don't remember cuz you talked to, you know, thousands of people.
I, and I was there about a decade and Greg said to me, LT, he said, you know, you've been at Coke for about a decade now. You've done really well. You are gonna have to make a decision. Whether you are going to stay at Coca-Cola mm-hmm and be known as a Coke guy. Mm-hmm. , or whether you're going to, um, add some more diversity to your experience.
And no one had said that to me. No one had said, no one had said that to me. And so, uh, I ended up leaving Coca-Cola, Greg, back in 2004 to a tech startup, uh, uh, boost Mobile, which at the, at the time was only in California. And then we grew that across the, uh, the country and, and ultimately was acquired. I don't know that I'd make that move.
And it, and it wasn't re just to be clear, Brand Nerds, this was not recruited by Spencer Stewart. It's something I found, um, uh, through, uh, through oth through other means. I don't know that I make that move without the, the conversation. So that's, thank you. That's number two. Number three is, uh, is humility. Say as LT, you went through the accolades and accomplishments of, uh, of Greg's career and they are substantial.
Um, Greg and I got reconnected. He was on a podcast and he, uh, I can't remember, it was ANA or something that you did, Greg, uh, a pod, a podcast. And, and then he said to me, uh, he, Hey, I would like your opinion of how I did on this podcast. So humility. So these are the things that I believe Brand Nerds. Uh, you gotta have a combination of the hard skills and the soft skills.
Greg has both. That is why I believe in part, Greg, you have accomplished what you've accomplished. So I just wanted to point those things out about you brother.
Greg Welch: You, you're, you're very kind. I'm sure some of that's true. I, uh, part, part of what I learned and, and it's changed probably in the last decade, uh, I've always found myself to be a truth teller.
Um, I kept, uh, have kept over the years, it's up in Chicago, a stash of letters that I've gotten from candidates over the years. Typically candidates, not clients, where we had some difficult conversations and I had to be candid with them about, uh, where they are, what I think they handled wrong or could have done differently and painful to deliver.
My kids often say, how do you have these conversations with people? I'm telling, you know, and, and I hate to think I've become immune to that emotion that requires to, you know, understands the sensitivity there. But people, you know what I've figured out one day, people appreciate it. Yep. They want you to cut to the bowl and be a truth teller with me.
And once they know, as you two know or three know, when I'm with you, I'm with you. This is not
DC: Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Greg Welch: And, and the spirit of my comments and my counsel and direction, uh, is only coming from a good place. Some may say, Welch, you're crazy and move on. That's okay too. But I've hit some people with some pretty tough feedback about things that I saw them handle wrong in an interview or why they ended up getting fired or whatever.
In the spirit of trying to help, and people appreciate it, and I'm thinking, well, wait a minute, why in the world wouldn't you do that all the time? As long as they're in your circle, right?
LT: Yep. Mm. Love that.
DC: Wow. Nice. All right, Greg. Well, we have now, uh, our podcast has grown to the point to where we have a sponsor.
We actually have a sponsor, Greg and Larry is going to read the, um, um, the, the sponsor's information. And we, and we like these folks. They're called Specificity and we worked with them before. So Larry, would you do the honors? Please?
LT: Love to. So, hey, Brand Nerds back here to talk with you about Specificity and Brand Nerds.
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DC: Thank you, Larry, and brand nerds, uh, for clarity. Greg Welch and or Spencer Stewart are not promoting Specificity. This is a Brand Positioning doctors and, uh, Brand, Beats, and Bytes partner.
They are sponsoring the show. I just wanna make that clear, uh, clear, uh, here at the end of the read. Thank you, Larry for that, that read. All right, Greg. We are now going to the next segment. It is called Five Questions. Here's how it works. I ask a question. LT ask a question. We go back and forth until we arrive at five.
I am first up. You grew up in branding, but even before then, when you were a young pup, perhaps you had a branding experience that really touched you, that lit you a fire. You just couldn't get enough of it, Greg. You, you, you were involved, engaged with the brand, whatever it may have been. You thought it was 15 minutes, it was an hour and a half.
You were just into this brand. Almost like a first love. What was the first branding experience that blew your mind?
Greg Welch: Gosh, I, you know, uh, when I think about the early days of marketing, and I, I knew I was gonna be a marketer early on. I remember thinking, and I'm dating myself when the pet rock came out, you remember that?
It was just purely Oh, yeah. Oh yes. Like, yes. Like what? I remember just thinking as a kid, like, what is that? You mean you create this concept and people do it. I won't, I won't use that as an excuse, but I would, I, I'd throw out, uh, Sylvester Stallone. I remember in like 1976 as a young kid going to see my first Rocky movie.
LT: Yep.
Greg Welch: And I remember thinking, who is this guy? He's an underdog. And the marketing behind him and what he later did, I don't know if the guy's talented or not. I understand he has a high iq, but it was a, you know, brilliant, if you think about what he did there. And then with the Rambo movies, and I just became a bit of a fan and I realized kind of behind the scenes what the big lights, uh, what great marketing looked like, the brands he promoted and what he talked about.
He was actually the first one that I just thought, okay, there's something about great marketing behind this, whether it's a person or a product or service. And you know, I've, I've just watched him throughout my career and I, I literally is the first thing that came to mind when you read that question.
LT: I love that answer, D. You know, um, the thing about, one of the most interesting things about Stallone too, Greg, I'm sure you know this story, that, you know, he came up with this script that was, you know, sold and was shown to all around all the different studios. And a lot of people were interested in, of course, they wanted somebody else to star and he said, no dice, it's me or no one else.
And he couldn't get any suitors. And I, I love that because again, I think to your point, that's truly knowing yourself. And they didn't use the parlance in those days, but he knew his brand, right?
Greg Welch: Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. I'd been, it's been fun to watch and maybe that's a fun on the backside of his career, but he's, he's obviously built an amazing brand and I learned the power of marketing early on because of him.
LT: Yep.
DC: Greg, we've not heard anyone through our 100 plus episodes mention, um, Sylvester Stallone, and I don't know that we've had anyone talk about an actor before. But when you've mentioned Sylvester Stallone, what I thought about is he may be the best at franchises. Mm. There's some actors that are good in movies, right.
But this dude created multiple franchises. So he is a brand and then the franchise is a brand. So much so now that you've got Creed, uh, right, right. Which, which he has nothing to do with, which is a extension right, if you will, of the Rocky brand that can, that can make hundreds of millions of dollars.
That is interesting. That's interesting.
LT: D, he does have something to do with the Creed, actually. Yeah. He's, he's to, he's still producing that,
DC: not, not the latest one. Not, not, oh, not the latest one. Okay. But he did until, you know, the first two. Yeah. Not Creed three. Not Creed three. Yes. But you are correct know that.
Alright. Uh, anymore Larry, before we go to the next question?
LT: Nope, nope. Let's go to the next question. So Greg, who is had or is having the most influence on your career?
Greg Welch: Wow. Um, you know, one of the things that, uh, and Larry, I think you and I talked a little bit about this. One of the things I worry about for the young people today and the listeners today is they are not getting to see their mentors in the office, like those of us on the call did.
Um, and this may sound a little sappy, but I, I got, my first reaction would be it was my father. And I don't mean it from a sappy perspective, he died a couple of years ago, but he taught me a number of important life lessons, but one that may make you both smile or cringe. And it was the power to say no.
Mm. Nobody wants a mom or dad that's good at, you know, being Dr. No. Uh, my father was the best at saying no I've ever seen, and of course it took me until later in life to appreciate that simple, small word, but packs a lot of power. Uh, in today's day and age, the power for young people and old people to be able to say no to, not only set boundaries, but I wanna stay focused on my priorities and being able to say no to a direct report that wants to do something that's tough to do.
You know, I, I talked a minute ago about being a truth teller with candidates and telling them things and I, I actually think he helped hone that ability to shoot straight, to not always feel like I gotta say the popular thing to go along with the grain, uh, to sometimes shoot down the idea that may be more expensive because it's the right thing to do.
I knew that he was always coming from a good place. It wasn't about running for a popularity contest, and that served me really well.
LT: Woo. I love if you weren't gonna connect the dots, I was gonna do it, you know, because Yeah. What you were saying before about being a truth teller, there's no question you didn't know this, but you were brought up that way with, with the "nos" to, and also it sounds like your dad was really adept at saying no in a way that wasn't off putting, so think about
Greg Welch: maybe sometimes some not always..
LT: By the way, I, your dad passed away, but we love to give the foot, what, what was your dad's name?
Greg Welch: J Jerry Welsh. He was a senior executive at the Upjohn Company that became Pfizer. And he was a tough, badass business guy and he did incredibly well and, you know, proud of him.
LT: That's awesome. Great story.
Greg Welch: Yeah.
DC: Hey, Greg, you see this model in your father of the, uh, the power of, no. You see this modeled out in front of you, but you are your father's son, you're not your father. Mm-hmm. How did you become comfortable with truth telling and saying no, cuz that's not necessarily an easy thing to do. How did you get there?
Greg Welch: Yeah, well, I, I, I think I actually alluded to part of it and it was reinforcement from practicing it. And it was the letters, it was the feedback. And, and you know, you all have gotten good recruiter calls and bad recruiter calls over the years. Yes. You know, I like to make sure mine's a positive touch every time I reach out to somebody.
Um, and to hear people say, you know, I appreciate that you're communicating with me when you didn't have an update. I mean, you know, like every industry, there's, there's good ones and bad ones. And I've tried to make it positive, but uh, I try to be straight. Uh, people appreciate it. And over the years I just realized why am I telling 'em what I think they want to hear instead of like telling 'em what they need to hear?
Let's be honest. I don't have to have a great memory if I'm always telling 'em the truth. Um, and being candid with people, um, nobody likes to question your motivations or what's really going on. And I just, over the years I just said, listen, I'm just gonna be a straight shooter and try to help people along the way.
What you maybe haven't thought about is, let's say, DC you go into interview, you don't do well. You know, as an example, we often hear somebody says, oh, I liked him, but he rambled on. Like, I couldn't get him to shut up.
DC: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Greg Welch: So I got 2, 2, 2 options there. When I call the candidate afterwards and say, Hey, listen, you, you really, you gotta learn to be concise and keep it down.
And they, they felt like you, you rambled. The client may not want me saying that.
DC: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Greg Welch: So I'm in this conundrum between doing right by the candidate, doing right by the client. Sometimes I say to the client, do I have your permission to shoot straight with this person to help them? And, and most say, please do, right?
But, so I've gotta try to balance my, my focus and my clients are the ones that pay us. So my loyalty is to them, but I'm trying to help people here and make friends for the long haul. And, and I've found that, you know, doing what your mother taught you, you know, doing the right thing typically is the right thing to do.
And, and I've found to be candid with people, always the right thing to do.
DC: Alright, so Greg, you describe the. Reinforcement of some of the letters helping you understand the positive impact, if you will, of having been a truth teller. And you, you, you've got, I'm sure a lot of these, uh, these letters, but Greg, I want to take you back before you got these letters when you were doing this Yeah.
The early times. What, what was going on inside of you early in your career when you were doing this, when you didn't have any reinforcement yet? What, great question. What were you feeling? What caused you to, to stick with it? And, and, and, and, and, and before you answer the question, I just wanna say this, there's training in many companies around the world on how to give difficult feedback, right?
Because executives don't want to do it, right? We don't want to do it, Greg. So, I wanna know.
Greg Welch: Yeah. I, uh, I, I guess to take you back and to be candid, um, you all will chuckle perhaps, but, uh, early on when I got out of Indiana University, I started with Nestle and I had a job goal that I wrote on a, on the back of my business card, and I put it in my wallet and make no mistake.
And the funny thing, it was, it was to be Vice President of Sales at Nestle. That was my, so as a snot knows, 21 year old, that was my mission, right? I had a post-it when they first came out on the dash of my car, kind of a reminder. And I was hungry, I was driven, and no one was gonna set me back. So in a sales role, which is where I started, You know, elbow grease and enthusiasm can make up for a lot of, you know, lack of skills and I probably was lacking tremendous skills back then.
Mm-hmm. , but there were very few that were out gonna, gonna outwork me or get to know the candidate client pool better, meaning the customers that I was selling into grocery stores and I worked, everybody, I worked harder than everybody else and got promoted very quickly to, to move up that ramp. At that point, DC, I was just so focused.
Running through people. I don't think I stopped. And some of this is just maturity, I suppose, over time.
LT: Oh, yeah.
Greg Welch: You know, think, think about when you got outta school, you thought you had it going on. And now I look back at that college photo, I'm like, you didn't have any idea. And you know, so I guess as you, as you, as you, you know, grow like a piece of cheese or wine or chocolate, you know, you, you kind of learn over time to, okay, I'm gonna listen more.
Uh, the other thing that I've done as I've gotten older is, you know, try, I, I write more notes, thank you notes, uh, notes of appreciation than I probably ever have. Mm. And. And you know, if you think about who's got time for that, well, who doesn't? Who, who, who, right? Who can't find time for that. And if you're not hugging those that you're loving, you're with the ones that you're working with, how much you appreciate them and taking time, you're making a huge mistake.
And, you know, again, these are things I watched from great leaders. Doug Conan, who was, some of you may know, he was at Kraft Nabisco with us and became CEO Campbells. Uh, he used to send people books with personal letters and he would spend hours and hours each week doing it. And you know what? I think we all kept them.
We all have these letters of encouragement from Doug and, and what a beautiful example he set for many of us.
LT: That's great.
DC: All right, uh, we're gonna go to the next question, but um, I do wanna point this out when you talked about receiving, um, thank you letters from folks that you told the truth to. I wonder to myself, Hmm.
Why are these coming back to Greg? And in part Greg, I think it is that you told them the truth and they were appreciative, but I bet I also have a belief and, um, my intent here is not to get existential, but that the universe is always seeking to be in balance, Greg. This is my belief, one of, one of the things that I live by.
And when you said you write, uh, thank you letters, you, you, you write these letters, then what's happening is that energy you put, you're putting out is coming back to you. Yeah. This is, this is my, my personal belief. But let's move to the next question. Greg, Larry listed your many accomplishments. You have learned a lot.
You were a young pup, uh, with a, with a business card, with Nestle Vice President of Sales on it. You were tearing through your career in the early day. Uh, and you've had a lot of successes, but no doubt, Greg, you've also had some F ups, and so what we're looking for in this question is, What was your biggest, the one that's epic out there in your mind?
And, and it was on you, Greg, not Oh, if the CEO had decided this or my team. It's on you, Greg. And what did you learn from said F up?
Greg Welch: Yeah. Well, when we were, uh, talking about these questions, I, this came, first thing popped in my head. I'm like, oh no, you can't go there. Um, and after sleeping on, and I, yes, I gotta go there.
Um, and you all will laugh because this is when I was in the CPG world, but it had to do with an executive search where I was a. Okay. And I made a major, major screw up that rocked me to my core, and to this day has made me a much better human being, parent, father, brother, wife, husband, you know, executive in every regard.
I was in the midst of final round interviews for a big job, uh, through an executive search. A great guy who's a legend, I won't name him here. He is no longer business. Uh, and he really did a great job of creating mystique around the search process. Uh, you know, this was first class flights, private dossiers and what's going on, private meetings.
And I was going into the final round on interview with the president and the recruiter told me exactly what she was going to offer me and I went in for, but I had to get through this round. I went through the final meeting, uh, sure enough as planned. At the end of the meeting, she said, we'd like you to join.
She slid a piece of paper in front of me and it had a number on it that was different. Not higher, but of course lower. It was $10,000 lower than what the recruiter had told me. Mm. And instead of sitting on that, I said, Ooh, I actually thought it was gonna be higher. And she said, why? And I said, because the recruiter told me.
DC: Ooh, ooh, ooh.
Greg Welch: Did you see where this is going?
DC: Yeah. Yeah. Well, before you go next, uh, Greg, let's just do sound effects here on, uh, Brands, Beats, and Bytes. Yeah. Beep, beep. That's Greg. That's Greg backing up over the recruiter.
Greg Welch: Houston. We have a problem. Yes. So I did this on the spot. She gracefully, elegantly leaned over. Grabbed the letter scratched in the new number.
Yep. Which she, I'm presumably had told the recruiter, I don't, you know, I don't know. And don't, doesn't matter. Mm-hmm. , right? Uh, but I threw this poor man under the bus, um, and we shook hands. She said, congrats. Let's talk about where we're going. She said, I'll get this straightened out with HR, we'll get you a new letter, but consider it done.
I skipped down Park Avenue, walked in, resigned to my boss, uh, said I'm making a move. Uh, got home that night and at that time, an answering machine from the recruiter saying, Greg, don't resign. They're withdrawing the offer.
DC: Oh, oh.
Greg Welch: So needless to say, that was not a good night. My wife and I walked around the woods in northern, uh, Northern New York, and, uh, we're trying to figure out how do we piece this together, man, have I screwed up? . Uh, and I did some soul searching like I never had before. And, and honestly today it was probably the most traumatic.
I mean, I've been through some trauma and all traumatic business thing I've ever had happen, and it shook me to my core and thank goodness it changed me for the better forever. And I learned so many valuable life lessons with that little moment where I let my lips get out ahead of that, what was going on.
I, and, and we could have an exercise on how should you have handled that. Yeah. Yeah. You guys would've had 20 ideas for me on how to handle it appropriately. Yeah, I did not, uh, and forever changed me, and I'm now grateful and I've since told my, uh, my search friend that set this career, and now he takes credit for my career in search, which has been, I've been blessed.
But, uh, uh, that was a major screw up that I'll never, ever forget.
LT: Well, thank you for sharing that, Greg. That's amazing. I mean, that's, wow. You can see how it shake you to the course. So are there one, two, or three things? You said there's many, like, can you cull it down a couple of the big lessons that you take from that?
Greg Welch: Uh, well, my, my mother always told me God gave you two ears and one mouth, use 'em in that ratio. So I was running my mouth, uh, immediately. Quick stream of thought, which I shouldn't have. Um, so pausing to think before you react. Um mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I, I should have, I rushed to go resign. I, you know, so I, of just to fast forward the story, so I did later have to meet with her again and explain the situation and apologize.
And they did go forward with me. So the job did work out, but I always had that kind of over my head. And I, I just learned a lot of things about being honest, being straightforward, uh, having the social IQ to figure out when and how to handle that sort of situation. And I handled it poorly and I, I learned from it.
And I, I try to share those kinds of stories with my kids and others to, to, to hope that other people don't step on the same mistakes I did. But, you know, some of these mistakes that are most painful, other ones you never forget.
LT: Oh yeah. We could feel it from you. Even retelling the story a year later,
Greg Welch: It hurt.
And, and it's just ironic that I've been in search for 25 years now, that that's what, you know, that was the first thing that popped into my head.
LT: Wow.
DC: Thank you, uh, Greg, for your, um, vulnerability. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yes, Larry, next question.
LT: Let's go to the next question. So, Greg, you know, in your career, our careers technology ha for marketers has, uh, been growing from something that was just a little, sort of small part of our jobs to now.
It's just, it's just so huge in, uh, as it relates to anything marketing related. So you've seen. The rise of tech through your career. Can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech versus areas that they should be leery?
Greg Welch: You know, I, I often say that, you know, when you think about the, the, the technology of marketing, I, you know, outside of pure hard tech,
You know, if you think about what A CFO does versus what a marketer does, marketers, our CMOs, the reason these are difficult desks is because the technology's changing so rapidly. When I think about what, Specificity that you just talked about, what they do, you know, how could you operate without getting great external help on these brand new technologies?
And the best marketers I know are the ones that say, listen, I don't have it all figured out. I need external partners to do so. No doubt that has changed. The shift of spending is dramatic. CEOs and boards are asking for us to spend our money differently. You gotta, you can't go it alone. When I think about just how technology has changed, uh, you know, the marketing world in general, I mean, just think about what LinkedIn has done and think about what Zoom has done.
The fact that we can have this conversation today. You know, I was routinely 150 to 200,000 miles a year flying. I'm not doing that anymore. I call it kind of the bronze lining in Covid is the technology that we can do and do it this way. Uh, but the, but the one piece that I would warn our audience, or just be mindful of, and I tell my kids this all the time, is the digital footprint that young people are leaving, not just young people that marketers are leaving behind is gonna cost chaos for many of them down the road.
And today, I talked about one of our tools, our EXI tool. We also have incredibly long arms to do negative press checks and social media findings. And it is appalling to me the things that I routinely get. And back to DC your question about being a truth teller. Typically, when I'm running a candidate and I all of a sudden get back these crazy tweets they've made or inappropriate posts, or things that they've liked, you know what I now do?
I flip it to 'em I say, "Hey Julie, um, I know you're meeting my client next week. This stuff popped up. Yep. In a click for us." Yeah. You know, shame on you. Yeah. Be mindful and usually like, oh my gosh, how did you get that? It's like, oh yeah. It is so easy to find. And I just, yes. The, the point is, I'm not saying don't speak your mind or be passionate about things you care about.
Yes. But these are like tattoos for the most part that are never gonna go away. Yep. And I would encourage people to be really smart before they hit the send button about what your digital footprint looks like and the, I don't wanna call it dirt, but the things I had a A CEO candidate for a search I'm doing right now.
Uh, a rant he had on an airline, uh, last year. Ooh. Um, may have been totally deserved, but this is a CEO and he said inappropriate things and it was published and it's forever out there and Right. He's darn embarrassed about it today, as he should be. And these are, these are all the things that I just, I, I wanna mind people that, that new technology is awesome, but don't let it screw up your career.
And some of these things that are out there, I know people are gonna look back and say, boy, I shouldn't have said those things, cuz they never go away.
DC: Mm,
LT: I'm so glad you said that. Um, I wanna bring up a quick tidbit. Uh, Steve Osano was, uh, somebody who passed away who was a great, uh, friend and business colleague.
He worked for McCann Erickson, uh, and, and, and media was an incredible partner to us in our Coca-Cola days. And, uh, Steve became a good friend and when his son was in college, his son was posting, you know, pictures of beer bongs and everything. And Steve said to him, dude, get that blankety blank off there now, and don't do that ever again.
You have no idea what you're gonna do in your life, but that will always be there. It will always be there. And so, Brand Nerds, especially the younger ones, um, we just had a recent gr guest, Greg, Craig Manassian, who, who said this, you, you should tweet without hitting send sometimes. Yeah, keep it to yourself.
DC: That was great advice.
Greg Welch: You know, it's, it's, uh, I sound like an old fuddy-duddy or we do when we say these sorts of things, but I know we're right. I just, yes, I, I, you know, I, there are certain things and you know, I just look at people and I spend a lot of time with my kids on this matter, just saying, listen, there's no good that's gonna come out of this.
Don't do it.
LT: Yep. Yep.
DC: Wow.
LT: Alright. Do you wanna go to the next question?
DC: I do. Larry. Greg, what are you most proud of? Whew.
Greg Welch: Uh, my, my gut immediate reaction would be my kids. Um, uh, DC I think you know this, Larry, you may, I lost my first wife in a car accident many years ago, and my son, my oldest son was in the car, wife dies.
He lives, actually, it was in Atlanta. Um, and, and that kind of a jot, and, you know, when I think about kind of what's going on in the world today and, you know, think, think about Damar Hamlin, um, you know, and, and how it caused everybody to say, and by the way, I, I got a report, uh, a couple hours ago. I think he's awake and was holding hands with his family.
Yes. So join, join me in prayer. Join me in prayers for, for the Hamlin family. But, um, but that rocked me, uh, as you would expect. And fortunately, I, I married a wonderful new woman who was a college sweetheart at the time. wasn't right at the time, but came back into my life and now we've got four kids and, uh, like you all that are parents, you worry every day about their safety and their health.
Um, and we've tried to nurture them along the way and I'm super proud to say they've gone onto amazing schools, uh, are giving back to society, are shortly gonna start their own families. And, and watching that happen has, has been my proudest moment for sure. Um, wow. So, so we're, you know, you're never done and you never stop worrying. Um, but, but being a, a, a proud papa as those that know me, uh, know how proud I am.
LT: Hmm hmm. What more is there to say to that? That's what, thanks for sharing that, Greg. That's awesome.
DC: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Greg. Um, yeah. Thank you.
LT: D, should we move to the next section?
DC: Let's do it LT.
LT: Let's do it. So what is popping? What's popping, D? What's popping, Greg?
DC: What's popping?
LT: Greg? This is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air something happening in and around marketing today that we think is good fodder for discussion. D, you want to take the first one? Shall I, or shall we have Greg do it?
DC: You know, let's have Greg do it.
Greg Welch: Ah, I knew you were gonna say that. I always get the short straw. Um, let's, so here's, here's one that I'd throw you guys that, that I hate to go negative. I don't wanna put a negative spin on this, but, okay. This, uh, when I first started hearing about this quiet quitting. Stuff. Is that a word? What does it mean? Um, and, and you all know me well enough to know that, that it just sickens me.
Uh, I saw a Gallup poll that said, half of employees are quietly quitting these days. It's like, oh,
LT: Could you just elaborate, Greg, so people understand what you mean by quiet.
Greg Welch: Quiet, quitting is this, and you can Google it and you'll see what Wikipedia says about it. But essentially like, listen, just kind of giving up at work. Just trying to do just enough. I'm not gonna get in early. I'm not gonna stay late. I'm not gonna go the extra mile. I'm not gonna put in the extra energy to hire that next generation team, and I'm just doing it because it's my darn job and I have to do it, and I need a paycheck. But I've lost the mojo about what I do. Mm-hmm. , and sadly, and it breaks my heart to think that half Americans may be feeling some part of that. And as I first heard, I'm like, oh, that's ridiculous. And you can imagine given my world, um, I spent a lot of time talking to people, and a lot of people don't like their bosses. A lot of people think their CEO s are taking 'em in the wrong direction.
A lot of people don't feel good about where the, you know, whether it's a carbon footprint or what the company stands for or what's it all about. And so we found ourself in a and i, it exists, quiet quitting is real. And some of your listeners today probably are finding themselves in, yeah, I kind of don't really like my boss and I'm kind of doing this just to do it.
And, and my, the point to bring it up is not to go negative and shine a light on it, but rather to say, do something about it. Yeah. Life is too short. For some of the conversation that we just had about life. And when I think of about, about Damar Hamlin, you know, laying in a bed, you know, hoping that he makes it through this, uh, life is too short to be in a bad relationship, in a bad job, doing something you don't care about.
And it's okay. You know, I, I do believe diamonds are made from pressure and rubbing and, you know, you need to have some angst in your life, but don't stay in it for too long. And I would encourage people to think about how they take their gifts and everybody's got 'em to a place where they can get passionate about their work, feel good about what the company's doing for them, of course, to take care of their families and themselves.
But, uh, this quite quitting thing bugs me. Uh, I don't know what I can do about it, but I'm gonna try my darn. Just to get people to think about driving change in their lives so that they don't feel that way and they, so that they feel better about their company and their career. Sorry to, sorry to preach and to go negative.
Lemme throw
LT: that. No, no. I'm glad you brought it up. Any thoughts?
DC: Not negative at all. Um, I do Larry, my issue with the notion of people saying, I'm going to do the least. I'm not going to give my all, I'll come in late and leave early or zoom, earl late and zoom, uh, zoom out early. Um, my issue is with that in part, but my more significant issue is with the term "quiet" quitting. Quiet. I say that because I believe that anything worth doing, Greg and LT is worth doing out loud. Mm-hmm. , uh, managing your career out loud, rearing a family out loud, taking care of your health out loud. Very little gets done. Uh, and that that impacts not only you, but your family and your friends and society quietly.
And so I'm with you, Greg. If you have quit quietly, what are you now going to do out loud? So that's, that's my take.
Greg Welch: No, I love it. That's a good, that's a great add.
DC: Yep. Yeah. Thank you Greg. Larry.
LT: Yeah, I mean, it, it's, I'm glad you brought it up, Greg. It's not negative. It's reality because like you said, it is, it is something that is happening.
I would dare say that it's always been there. It's just wasn't given a term. Right. And yeah, you know, we've all seen people throughout our careers and you go, oh, that, that person's just. You know, showing up. I used to joke, it was the, uh, the, the Flintstones, you know, the like at five o'clock slide down and, and you're gone, right?
And, and we all worked with those people and knew
DC: Larry, that you're dating us, you're dating Greg, and I know what you're talking about.
Greg Welch: Used coat hang where the jacket was. She was like, ,
LT: I'm, but, but anyway, Brand Nerds look up the Flintstones and see what happens at the end. But, um, so, so that's always, always happened.
Now it has a name and a personal pet peeve of mine. It, you know, I look at folks and we all know people who sort of a victim me and they sort of, uh, revel and grovel in their victimhood. We've all had difficult circumstances. Greg shared one that, dare I say, uh, was, was core shifting and, and was incredibly tragic.
Um, and. At some point you gotta pick yourself off the mat, right? Uh, and, and do, like you said, Greg, do something about it. And whether it's professionally or what else. And I, and I think there's a, there's a Greg, sorry to DC and I believe in this stuff. There is a karmic energy to that because if you don't give it your all, something's coming back to you somehow, some way, um, that I just don't think is good for both the individual person and the people around them.
So, that's my thoughts.
DC: Hmm. Yeah.
LT: D, you wanna take, should we move to the next one? That's, thanks, Greg. That was great. Uh, thank you. Or shall I do mine? What do you wanna do?
DC: Hit, hit, hit yours, Larry, please. Okay, cool.
LT: So, Greg, I, D, you're gonna laugh at this because, uh, I'm going right to the expert here. So, Greg, you don't know this, uh, but the first year of our podcast.
We had a question for our guests where we asked, why do you think CMO tenure continues to drop? And it was super interesting for the first year. And while hearing what our CMO guests, you know, the guests were CMOs and marketing folks had to say was really interesting, it was really especially enlightening to hear from their bosses, some of whom had marketing BR backgrounds, some of whom did not.
And we ended up dropping the question, not because it wasn't interesting, but simply because we were getting many of the same answers from our different guests. So as I was thinking about what's popping for this episode, I thought, wow, it would be really great to reintroduce a CMO tenure conversation with you since brand nerds.
Some of you may know this, some of you may not. Last year with your colleague Richard Anderson. Uh, Greg, you co-authored the 18th annual CMO tenure study. For our Brand Nerds. This study is based on the analysis of the 10 years of CMOs from 100 of the most advertised US brands as of December 31st, 2021. And Greg, are you guys doing it again?
I would imagine
Greg Welch: We've been, I started this 18 years ago, so yes, we do it every year. It's the
LT: 19th. The 19th is coming, coming your way later in 2023. So of course we would love to hear some of your thoughts related to the entire study, and especially on CMO tenure being tied with a prior year as, uh, in, in reading what you guys had was the lowest level of CMO tenure in more than a decade.
So we'd love to hear you, you provide some, uh, some coaching, uh, thoughts on that and anything else in, quite frankly in that. And you take,
Greg Welch: Well, let me, there's a lot to unpack there. Let me, let me give you a couple of quick highs and lows out of this. So when I first did this, uh, my business was going crazy and I'm thinking, what's going on here?
Let's look at the hundred largest advertised companies. And when I first did it, DC you'll remember this, it was 23 months and I published something with a large publication, and it took the industry by storm like 23 months. Are you kidding? And we had CFOs going, okay, I'm gonna just wait for your next stupid promotion and then I'll bring in the new guy.
Um, so it, it became, we were the la the Rodney Dangerfield of the C-Suite early on and over time my colleagues and I said, listen, this is not right. This is not an indictment of our work, but rather how do we help build a strong foundation where somebody either promoted from within or externally can come in and do better?
And the reality is it's grown. It's now 44 months, let's call it. Uh, we've never been busier, and I hate to forecast what's gonna happen. We're expanding the study of the Fortune 500, and we're now doing medians just to take out some of the whims that are in there, right? But the fact of the matter is the kitchen's never been hotter than it is right now.
These are very difficult jobs. Uh, I'm proud to say that we're making good strides from helping underrepresented talent step into these big jobs. And so women, for the first time ever make up more than 50%, which is great. And, and my friends from, you know, the African American and Latino and Asian communities are gaining strides.
Not as fast as we want, but we're making progress. And I'll tell you, our clients have been great about this, embracing it, and we're serious about it. But we've had acquisitions, we've had stock performance problems. We've had some trying to bring in. Different looking faces, uh, which has led to this kind of perfect storm.
And, you know, Larry, it's, it's a volatile time. It, it is. And which is why I've never spent more time with new CMOs to say, what's your playbook look like? I've got a playbook that I've authored that I'd be happy to share with you all you can share with your listeners to say, how do you start? Who am I?
What am I about? What can you expect from me? What can I expect from you? Why am I excited to be here? Um, and we're trying to help people get off to the right start. And again, the culture piece I talked about earlier, really an important piece to make sure somebody, it fits what we're trying to do, but these jobs have never been more difficult and I don't expect the volatility to, to let up anytime soon, sadly.
LT: Yep. D, I know you have thoughts.
DC: I do. It's good to hear that the, uh, the tenure is, has, is rising. Uh, and Greg, you and I had a conversation about this probably a couple, couple years ago. , and you were giving me some of the data from the, uh, from the study. But I think what makes the these jobs more difficult is that in the early, uh, days of, uh, of CMOs, um, it was more about the art of marketing.
In the last 15 years, it's been more about the science of marketing. And, uh, Greg, you would know this better than Larry and I or Jeff or J It appears now that one must be, um, uh, uh, am ambidextrous. They, they have to be equal, uh, equally proficient at the art of marketing and the science of marketing, which is another way to say data.
Uh, you, you can no longer as a CMO I, I don't believe go into these roles. and think, well, I'm kind of weak on the science and the P&L of it all. I'll have a good lieutenant there. Or on, on, on the art side. I'm kind of not that strong on the strategy side, but I have a lieutenant there. No, you gotta be able to do these, both of them.
And I think that will then, as we become known as not the Rodney Dangerfields, again, brander, you have to go look up Rodney Dangerfield. Okay? As, as not, which me, which means the less respected, the least respected of the C-suite. Uh, when we have both of these, then we are equal, we have equal dexterity in a, in a room talking to a CFO about the P&L, the balance sheet, uh, CapEx, et cetera.
We, we can have that conversation as well as go into the office of the CEO and talk about vision. So I believe that is where the future of the best CMOs in terms of skillset lies.
Greg Welch: So, so a couple years ago I was reading the, I can't remember the author, uh, incredible book, uh, DaVinci's biography. Um, and about two weeks later I was in Cannes working actually.
And I remember looking up in the DaVinci hotels right there, and I was in the middle of this book and I was trying to think about the analog for a marketer. And if you think about Leonardo DaVinci, on one hand he was a mathematician, an architect, a scientist. You know, this guy who was doing autopsies on people before that was, uh, a thing. And on the other hand, he was a, the world's greatest sculptor. Storyteller. Uh, yeah, yeah. But kind of the magic side. So we have the, which DC what you just said, kind of the math, science, bang whiz stuff, and the creative lighted up the creative. You have got to have both. And so we wrote a piece, um, which I'd be happy to share, called the Da Vinci Marketer, thinking about what these characteristics are.
And, and no marketer I know can check all these bullets, right? But you're, you're absolutely right, Darryl, to think about how do you end up, uh, working on those skills that you don't have surround people that may be better than you, but you better understand it. And, and my clients today want somebody that can do the beautiful Super Bowl ad, but I spend more time talking about the, the science part. The data. Yeah. You know, uh, on how to hit the right customer with the right message most efficiently. Uh, performance marketing is really where we spend the bulk of our time right now. But you gotta have both.
LT: Yep. Got, I have two, two more thoughts I want to add to this. One is, please, I, I think it goes back to Greg, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
What does the CEO and the organization want? Because if you want just quarterly results, To bang those out. That's much different than, as we know, brand building, which takes time. You know, DC got some results on Sprite early, but it still takes time to reposition a brand to then actually execute and learn.
That's a couple of years minimally, and I'm just using that as an illustrative. And so I think part of that is getting the appropriate buy-in from what, what do your bosses want? Right? I mean that's, that's super critical, uh, to the, to this whole equation. And my other quick thought is, and, and then I'll shut up Greg, cause I'd love to hear you talk.
Uh, we've used this before and Greg, you're a sports guy too. I think a lot of what you described comes back to NFL, like an NFL head coach. Um, it's my opinion in the NFL today that you should probably have someone who is an offensive coach first who becomes the head coach. And I put that akin to growing revenue.
It's much harder than the defensive side, which is like cutting costs because in the NFL today, it's rare that a defensive coach is successful. Bill Belichick is a, is a, obviously the most, he's a defensive guy, but he's, he's a different animal entirely. And so I think that as you,
DC: he also had Tom Brady.
LT: Yeah, great point. , and as you described it, that, that strikes a chord with me, so I know I've said a lot, but I'd love to hear your commentary on that.
Greg Welch: You know, the reality is you, you need to have both. I, I I, I don't know. I don't, I don't disagree with the, with the basic premise. Um, the fact of the matter is the very best marketers I know today, the ones that are revered, that I think have done the best job over time, none of 'em are creative geniuses.
Wow. There are great creative agencies out there with Yes, the proper brief can get it done, whether it's on Sprite or Tesla. Yes. Let it, let it go. What we need now is you need a CEO that's like-minded to say, listen, you've gotta double down. The pandemic is coming. There were some brave brands that did invest, but right now, and I'll tell you where this economy is going right now, a lot of companies are, are worried and we're watching the media companies say budgets are being slashed.
You, we all know that's not the right thing to do long term. But life happens. So you've gotta figure out, how do I take those dollars? I do have, how do you put them to work to drive the most revenue, the most return right away. And the good ones are spending a lot of time on the performance side. That's where the action is right now.
And, and as you know, Larry, you can drive growth using that appropriately. Oh, definitely.
DC: Shall I share my, what's popping, please, please. Greg has already touched upon it a few times. Um, Brand Nerds. I want to spend a moment talking about Damar Hamlin. Damar Hamlin is a, uh, professional football player, American football in the N F L. He is a safety for the Buffalo Bills. On Monday night, he made a tackle, a rather routine tackle, and he collapsed on the field.
Uh, CPR was administered. He coded, they brought him back. He then, uh, was boarded onto an ambulance and went to the University of Cincinnati, uh, medical center cuz they were playing at the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bills were. And, uh, he, his heart stopped again and they brought him back. Greg, thank you. Just shared, uh, news on this podcast that he is now conscious.
At one point his ventilators were pumping at 100% yesterday, uh, two days ago was 80%, yesterday was 50%. And now, uh, Greg, we didn't know this. Thank you for sharing the news that he is now conscious in, uh, with his family. Uh, why am I talking about this? Greg, you've also had as a client with Spencer Stewart, ManU, Manchester United.
This is one of the big brands in the world of football as in soccer. Um, and, uh, ManU is one of the, uh, the biggest brands ever. They're, they're like the equivalent of in, in baseball in the United States. The New York Yankees, if you will, or the Dallas Cowboys in terms of, of brand recognition and brand value.
And I believe, keep me honest in this, uh, Greg, it's either Chelsea or ManU that LeBron James has some ownership in. I don't remember which one of the two.
Greg Welch: I don't think it's Manu, but I, I don't, I don't wanna
DC: That's not ManU, it was one, two. Okay. So anyway, uh, so here's the deal. Um, one of the biggest brands and names at, uh, in football, soccer, and a, uh, a former Manu player was Christiano Ronaldo, Christiano Ronaldo.
He decided he no longer wanted to be on the, uh, on the team, uh, be on the pitch for them. So then they mutually, I'm, I'm using air quotes. Uh, Brand Nerds mutually decided to part ways. He has now been signed by a Saudi team. His annual salary for three years, Brand Nerds is 75 million per year. 75 million per year.
So if you add that over four years, that's a cool $300 million. Okay? That's what Christiano Ronaldo is making. Now, let me go back to Damar Hamlin. He's not making 75 million. Uh, you can look it up. I've looked up how much he was. He's not even making seven figures a year. His total contract value is over seven figures.
He's not even making seven figures a year. He had a GoFundMe to provide, uh, to, uh, to his community. He's from Pittsburgh to his community in Pittsburgh, and he was seeking $2,500. Today, that amount is over $5 million. And to, and to that, I, I applaud. I say that's great, but there's this thing called the Bill's Mafia in Buffalo, and they are the fan base of the Buffalo Bills.
Now, this is not to admonish the Buffalo Bill fans because the, these are good people. Why did it take this dude to code twice for him to go beyond $2,500 to 5 million? Here's my point, Brand Nerd, and this is what's popping for me, Greg and Larry, and I'm guilty of this. Why do we see these athletes as something other than human?
Mm-hmm. Why? Why do I look at the entertainment value that they provide? Uh, with brands called the NFL and brands called the Buffalo Bills and brands called whoever happens to be the sponsors of their uniforms. Um, why is it that I, and we did not know about the human called Damar Hamlin and the good that he provided before this young man almost died. You know, that's what's popping from me.
Greg Welch: DC, see, I couldn't, couldn't agree more. And, and, uh, like you all, I, I tried to figure out what's the silver lining in this. I didn't know anything about this young man.
LT: Um, neither, uh, until I didn't either.
DC: This tragedy happened.
LT: And we're all football fans too.
Greg Welch: Yeah. And they're a really good team. And, and I found, I, I posted on LinkedIn a couple days ago, a, a chilling video of this young man, fine, young man talking about, um, his. And there's a quote, if your LinkedIn friends hit me and you'll see it. Uh, but a video of him in the studio saying, you know what, guys? I just got out of a prayer group with my partners, my colleagues.
I am thankful I get to do this. We don't know when the end could come. Tragedy can happen to any of us at any moment, and I'm just thankful for what I get to do every day. This is a man who, and I don't know if it was a month ago or a couple weeks ago when he said this, um, mm-hmm. , but I think it, it needs to slap us all in the face and say, Hey, wait a minute.
Let's just pause for a moment. And Lord knows this country could use some unity, and I hope that $5 million goes to a hundred million dollars for that charity. And, uh, maybe it makes us all just say, nothing else matters right now than this young man health and his family and I, and there was some criticism about the pa, you know, the broadcast and whatever, and, and everybody's trying to do the best they could, I think coming from a good place.
But, uh, I, I hope the positive in this is it brings people together. Uh, my hope is that the league is gonna try to figure out, this was a very random case, um, that, that happens, I think 15 times a year across all sports in America. It's not a, it was totally a fluke, uh, unfortunate, perfect storm. Uh, but I hope we all, and I, I think America's rallying around this young man and I, I, you know, wish him, you know, deep, deep prayers for him.
LT: I agree. Yeah, there's not much more for me to add to that. Uh, I have deep prayers for him and, uh, it's, it's just tragic and you just hopefully, like Greg alluded to, and you know, by the time people hear this podcast, hopefully he's really up and I and out of the hospital because, uh, it's, it's one of those things, and you could tell by the reaction of players too.
And I give them, and their coaches is a lot of credit. I don't even, I'm not, we we'll find out a lot more, but the fact that they just like, we're not playing. Like, how could you? Right. Um, and I have nothing. And D, that goes to the premise of what you were saying. These people are human beings. They're, they're not machines.
And after watching that and experiencing that, as traumatic as it may be, to see one of your brothers go off the field with a torn ACL or even a head injury, right? Like, It's now that's, those are awful, but this was a whole different thing. And you could just tell by the reaction of players and even like the broadcasters who were players, right?
Um, they'd never seen anything like this. Booger McFarland was like, he didn't know what to say almost, right? Like you could see he was really emotional because he could totally feel it. Um, so tragic and hopefully will end for good. As you said, Greg, the silver lining I think will hopefully be good from the dollars spent to maybe us rethinking about, as DC alluded to, seeing these folks as real human beings.
DC: Prayers for Damar and his family.
LT: I think that's our, our thoughts on it, right?
DC: Yeah, it is.
LT: Okay, Greg. Dude, this has been fantastic. We can't thank you enough. We are at the show close. Um, and so, uh, what we do is posit our learnings from the show close. And D, I assume you would be good with me going first.
DC: I am indeed. Thank you.
LT: Okay, so I have, uh, Jeff Shirley would be happy.
I have an odd number. I have seven quick ones. Okay. So number one, like Greg, be a truth teller. Um, we've discussed this before, Greg, but I'm so glad you brought this up because I, I think it's one of those that can't be said enough. No matter what stage you are in, in your career, find a great mentor and keep them close.
That's second. Number three. How can you be comfortable with saying no and doing it a way that lands "okay" to great with people. That's the talent that Greg and his father had. And that's something Brand Nerds you should think about as it pertains to yourself, both professionally and personally. Number four, write thank you notes in whatever form they be may be if people get the message. That's awesome. Number five, when in doubt about saying something, pause. And if you have pause, don't say it. Uh, and that goes to Greg's, uh, valuable lesson and his biggest f-up. Number six, be mindful that your digital footprint never leaves. So when in doubt, don't hit send. And last but not least, number seven, if you are stuck in the mud in any part of your life, just simply do something about it.
Don't wallow in it. Do something. Those are mine.
DC: Fantastic Larry. Fantastic Greg, brother. Um, Um, we're not friends, we're not buddies, but we've been acquaintances for a very long time on this podcast. Uh, I Brand, Beats, and Bytes, I get to do something that I didn't realize that I would even get an opportunity to do, and that is to better understand the human that is in front of me. And
LT: Watch out, Greg. He's scary. Good. Okay.
Greg Welch: He's not gonna try to kiss me, is he?
DC: Uh, and I do so by, uh, understanding this human in front of me, not only, um, by discerning what they say, but what they mean. There's a difference sometimes between what people say and what they mean. So I'm gonna attempt to do that with you now, Greg. So, Brand Nerds. Greg talked about a tool they have at Spencer Stewart called EXI.
Echo, x-ray, uh, indigo, and it helps them determine culture fit for the folks that they are recruiting in order to heighten the, uh, the probability of success of not only the candidate, but also the client and company. It's called EXI. They bought a company outta Shanghai about a decade ago. I'm going to attempt, uh, Greg, uh, if you will, a table, a kitchen table version of EXI with you.
So I'm gonna start, I'm gonna do this in three different sections. The first sections are what I heard you say, and, uh, truth telling. What, what is the definition of truth? It is the quality or state of being true. Where did that come from? From you? Second point came from Jerry, your father. That's where that came from.
So you saw this modeled, learned it, honed it. And now this is one of the things that makes you, uh, unique in your truth telling. You said to us, you tell people what they need to hear, maybe not necessarily what they want to hear. And then you gave us a incredible story about your biggest F up, which is this backing up over the recruiter after getting an offer that had a number that was $10,000 less than what you had been told about, uh, what the offer would be.
And then you said to us, Hey, we could go over like how you might have handled that. But I wasn't thinking about if you did it again, how you might have handled that. I was thinking, why did Greg do that? Why did Greg do that? And I believe Greg, the reason why you did that, there was some nobility in in that that you may not even be aware of.
I believe it's because you are a truth teller and that was not the truth. What was slid across from you, Greg, was not true. It was what she was doing in negotiation. You heard the truth from the recruiter, so Brand Nerds. What I want you to take across from this first section for Greg is that sometimes our strengths when taken to an extreme can become a weakness.
LT: Yep.
DC: Greg has figured out a way through these experiences to have the, the strength give many benefits to himself, to candidates and to his, but watch Brand Nerds. If you take something to the extreme, it might bite you in the ass. So that's my first takeaway.
Second takeaway. I'm going to quotes now. This is what has come to my mind when I thought about you. The first quote is from Nelson Mandela and it it reads. Honor belongs to those who never forsake the truth, even when things seem dark and grim, who try over and over again who are never discouraged by insults, humiliation, and even defeat. The point here, Greg, is that truth has a cost and you have been willing to pay that cost in order to tell the truth.
One more quote here. You mentioned Leonardo DaVinci when I talked about art and science, a quote from Leonardo DaVinci. Beyond a doubt, truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness. I'm gonna read that again. Brand Earth beyond a Doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood. So truth is to falsehood as light is too darkness.
LT: I love that, D.
DC: Yeah. Thank you, uh, Larry, which now brings me to my third and final takeaway when it has to do with you, you talked about Sylvester Stallone and how he was a brand and he and I added in the franchise. Um, Greg, you too have a brand, and your brand is, I believe, a light of truth that is your brand, a light of truth.
What a light does is it can shine light into blind spots of candidates, blind spots of clients. Oh, you may not be seeing that there. Another thing a light can do is that when it's shown super bright, sometimes we're not ready to see it, Greg, and we look at the sun, oh, it's too bright. But at some point we must raise our eyes to this light because in your case, your light is a light of truth.
That is my takeaway from being with you today.
Greg Welch: You're kind. It's great being with you guys, and I love kicking it around, and I'll bring a cup of coffee next.
LT: That would be great. Greg, did you take anything away that you'd like, uh, to share with our Brand Nerds today?
Greg Welch: Nah, you know what, um, what, what I would say is what a, what a refreshing, I've, I've heard a, a couple of these, but, um, what a refreshing moment to step back from our busy world and just kind of shoot the bull about things in life and truths. And I found myself in this conversation as DC and Larry, you guys did, took me to places I'm not accustomed to going and, and I attempted to be vulnerable, which is I think always the right way to go. Um, but I've enjoyed it, uh, and as is often the case, it's been fun hanging with you two and learning more about you all and maybe self reflecting at the same time. So thanks for the opportunity. It's been fun to do it.
LT: Man. You were great. Uh, we, the brand nerds out there, we had a, we, we do our prep with our guests and, uh, and we always, we talk about being vulnerable and I was saying to Greg that, you know, quite candidly, 90% of our shows have been really good. And it's be, it always goes back to being vulnerable. And if our guests are vulnerable, we have great shows. And Greg, you were, you were huge check mark on both. We really thank you for that.
Greg Welch: You know, as I, your Mandela quote, DC reminds me, and I'll probably butcher, but there's an old African, uh, proverb that says, says something like, if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you wanna go far, go as a team, uh oh, oh nice. And we're better together. Right? Um, so thanks for the opportunity.
LT: That is a mic drop Brand Nerds. And Jade, that is a mic drop to go to the, to the real close. So thanks for listening to Brands, Beats, and Bytes recorded virtually on Zoom and a production of KZSU Stanford 90.1 FM Radio and worldwide at kzsu.org.
The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, Larry Taman, Haley Cobbin, Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro.
DC: The pod father.
LT: That's right. And if you are listening to us via podcast, it would be great if you can please rate and review us. Additionally, if you do like the show, please subscribe and share.
We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing with another great business leader as our guest.