Dave Charest: Today, on episode 15 of the Be a Marketer podcast, you'll hear from a founder that gets immense joy from watching those around her grow because of what she's built. And I'm sharing why training your staff to provide a great experience makes all the difference. This is the Be a Marketer podcast. B a Marketer my name is Dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, and I've been helping small business owners like you make sense of online marketing for over 16 years. You can be a marketer, and I'm here to help. Hello. Hello, friend, and welcome to another edition of the Be a Marketer podcast. As always, I am grateful to have you here and grateful for your attention. Recently, my family and I spent some time doing one of our favorite activities, which was going to see one of our favorite bands play at a show out in Boston, playing at the House of Blues, which is one of our favorite venues. And this was one of the situations. Our daughters are 18 now, and typically when we go to see a show, it's usually a band that my wife and I like, you know, that have been around for a while, that type of thing. But this was a newer band that both my wife and I and my kids both enjoy. And so they were very excited and they wanted to get there early and stand in line. My wife and I, of course, wanted no part of that, but we did bring them in early, and as they stood in line, we paid a little bit of extra to hang out in the exclusive bar and restaurant that is attached to the house of Blues before the show. And in that process, we had some questions, because when we first got there, the box office wasn't open, and this is how you have to buy those tickets. And so we saw a couple of the staff standing outside of the regular restaurant that is attached to the house of Blues. And we had asked a few questions. We were like, hey, you know, we're interested in going into the foundation room is what they call this other place that's connected to the venue itself. So we were wondering what was going on there. And so both my wife and I were struck by how kind, helpful, and as I'll illustrate in a second, how just you could tell that they had permission to make decisions on their own, which was really interesting and remarkable, which is why I'm talking about it here today, because, you know, we had talked to them about, you know, had some questions about, like I said, the box office, and they gave us the details on that, but then they also let us know we were like, oh, our kids are, you know, standing in line. So we wanted to get them some food ahead of time and be able to bring that food to them. The restaurant itself was a madhouse, so it was going to really take forever. So we were like, oh, we don't really want to wait around for that. And then we were going to go up into the other area where we were going to go in, and then one of the other employees, she was like, I actually don't start for another, you know, whatever amount of time it was. And she was like, if you want, I will. If you bring the food down, I'll run it over to them. And I thought like, whoa, you know, that's really cool. That was really a nice thing to do and helpful thing, of course, because what happens is once you go into the area we were going into, they typically do not let you out. You can't go in and out of that, that room. And so they're like, you can ask, but typically the rule is you can't do that. And so as we were getting ready and going into this room, we were, you know, doing the typical thing where we were showing our ids, showing our tickets, and getting our wristbands and then going through security. And I had asked who looked like, who was in charge, and these were all relatively young people kind of running these things and having each of these jobs. And I had asked, I was like, hey, here's the situation. Our daughters are standing in line to get into the show. We're going to go hang out up here, but we might try to get some, get them some food to go. Would it be okay if I leave? You know, you just go to bring that to them in the line and then bring that back. Now, I was fully expecting to be told no, which I would have been fine with. I already made consolation that that was going to happen. But when I told him the situation, he was like, yeah, you know what? That makes a lot of sense. Like, no worries. I think we could make an exception for that. And he was like, normally, we don't do that. And I was like, oh, okay. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. And throughout the night, even as we got into the restaurant, everybody was just really kind. We had a wonderful waiter. The hostess was really great. As we were leaving the venue, they kept the merch stands open, and they were moving us around, and they let us kind of stand, like normally at the end of the night, when you're in these concert venues, they just try to kick you out as soon as possible. And they let us kind of hang around because a couple of the friends of the girls that were with us also wanted to get some merch. So we were waiting for them to get their things. And this is remarkable because I think, you know, when you start to look at, if you're at a point with your business where you have staff, where you have people that really are a representation and a reflection of you and your business, you really do need to take that time to train them to provide these great experiences for the customer. Because really, if you think about that, the more you can do to give them the tools to provide for your customers, the better chances you have of creating something that is truly remarkable. Well, friend, today's guest, Barbara Gasaway, is the president and founder of the research group and the CEO and president of Observation Baltimore. Two companies started in 1991 when Barbara was just 29. Let's hear more about how Barbara got started.
Barbara Gassaway: We started as the family research group. We had a, in spite of myself, a research facility that grew into observation Baltimore. We hired consultant to brand that as observation Baltimore. The research group, we dropped the family and I started doing a lot more healthcare, education, type of work and CPG. I love CPG.
Dave Charest: What's the difference between the two?
Barbara Gassaway: So the difference between the two is observation Baltimore is, was a focus group facility. It still is a focus group facility with a two way mirror. We had a bunch of suites because of COVID Recently, we no longer have the focus group facility, but we do have, we can do in person research, because sometimes you need to do research in person. If you have a tangible something to test, you need to test it with the audience. And they need, you know, you have a prototype or what have you. Observational Baltimore. They do everything. They don't specialize in one thing. They do from credit cards to soup to, we do, you know, kiosk testing, you name it, observation Baltimore does it. Whereas the research group, I would never interview somebody about financial services. For instance, healthcare is my bailiwick, but financial services, you would need somebody who specializes in financial services.
Dave Charest: Gotcha. Curious. How did you even get down this path? How did you get into this industry?
Barbara Gassaway: So my undergrad is in marketing and management and my postgrad is in behavioral science. So I fell into it. I mean, you know, to be honest, I just loved it. I love, you know, exploring and discovering things that are going to help move the ball forward. And that makes me tick. So.
Dave Charest: Yeah, well, so you get to this point where, all right, you're going to start your own thing. I mean, was that something you always thought you wanted to do or was that just out of the blue?
Barbara Gassaway: I think it was demand from the client side. Clients of mine said, oh, gosh, you're leaving the industry. You know, you're not going to be around, and so we want you to continue. So that was, it was demand more than anything. It took off. So thankfully.
Dave Charest: Thankfully, right. So, like, what was that? I mean, did you have any hesitations or, you know, pauses in terms of, like, taking that leap to start your own thing?
Barbara Gassaway: I didn't have any pauses. Hesitations. I thought the worst thing I could do was live with family. You know, they restarted me, but no, I didn't have any hesitations. No fear. I took every assessment known to me in because I do. That's what I do for a living. So my fear of failure is nothing. I think about it as, I'm going to die one day, day, might as well do something.
Dave Charest: I love it. All right, so then on that, I mean, here we are like 29, 30 years later. Take me back. What was that first year like for you?
Barbara Gassaway: The first year was kind of different in that I had to find a space and I had to find employees and I had, so that was a different mindset than prior where I was just in the mode of discovery for others and I was in the mood of discovery for myself. So it was interesting. So, and we, we started in this place in Baltimore, and we had to stop the focus groups. We are in the focus group industry. That's what they call, they call everything focus groups, but they can be id eyes, it could be hybrid, it could be lots of different things. So it could be listening sessions, it could be journeys and whatever. So we would have to stop and say, let the fire engine go by. To hold that thought a long time ago. But we moved, I think four times.
Dave Charest: Because you said you were in New York, right? Did you start in New York?
Barbara Gassaway: I started, no, I started in Baltimore. So I worked for a company that was based in New York. I spent a tremendous amount of time in New York and we had toy designers and so, but Baltimore is my home and, and I love it there. I love Baltimore.
Dave Charest: Trey, what would you say? So, looking, you know, you start year one, youve got different things going on. Obviously, youve had some great success. Youve been around for a while now, which is congratulations to you, for one. I mean, thats a huge accomplishment. Of course, if you were to look at it, though, what would you say is your biggest accomplishment?
Barbara Gassaway: My son. I would say raising my son is my biggest accomplishment. So its business wise, if I didnt do this, id do something else. So I think my biggest accomplishment is certainly my son. I would say professionally, my biggest accomplishment is others that have grown because of what I've done. It's amazing to watch people go from this scared person. One of my hostesses, she would never look at me in the eye. She would never look in me in the eye. I guess about three years into her tenure there, she said to me, she said, you're late. You're going to be late. And I was like, you have come so far because you would have never looked me in the eye, you know, let alone tell me I was late. So that was a huge, huge. I think that's amazing when you can touch the lives of others.
Dave Charest: I was gonna say, how does that make you feel then?
Barbara Gassaway: It makes me feel like I could cry. I have a person that is now. He is amazing. He's come so far. When I first started with him. And, you know, looking at him now, he's very confident. And, you know, he uses constant contact, by the way, all the time. And I think he used it today. As a matter of fact, he's come a long way. So I think that the biggest professional accomplishment is leading people so they can grow as well.
Dave Charest: Trey, what do you love most about running the business or owning your own business?
Barbara Gassaway: I should say prior to Covid, because that's a huge difference.
Dave Charest: That's an interesting thing. I think maybe we might want to talk a little bit about that because I'd love to hear how that impacted you. But I think sometimes there's that line free and post, so, yeah, it is.
Barbara Gassaway: There's a tremendous difference between, you know, pre Covid and post Covid. But I would say my favorite thing. I mean, again, I go back to watching people grow, but it's because of mentors that I had, and it's all a part of, I think the people I've met, you know, is my favorite part. And it goes back to mentors and also to employees to. So my one mentor is no longer here. She is the only person I know that died directly from COVID She trained me when I was with my former company, when I was with child growth and development. She's just amazing. I mean, she's my Oprah, if you can even imagine having someone like that. And, you know, when I called her during COVID and I called her and I said, hey, I left a message and I knew she would call me right back, she goes, I'm in the car. Go she was always there for me. Always, always, always.
Dave Charest: So, you know, since we were kind of on this already, how did Covid impact your business?
Barbara Gassaway: Oh, my gosh. So, Covid, I had 26 employees. Now I have two w, two s, and I have everybody else's. 1099. I had a call center prior to Covid. I did a lot of shopping at Costco. I made sure they were eating. I think Covid, you know, I'm working virtually because of COVID which has pluses and minuses. I was featured in a magazine for pivoting. I pivoted well. But I think that Covid has changed the way businesses conducted, period. I think it's impacted everybody. So I'm very fortunate, and I've always been very fortunate, so I just try to help others.
Dave Charest: Yeah. I mean, if I were to ask what was the scariest or most challenging time with your business? I mean, does this get us to Covid? Or is this. Is there something else?
Barbara Gassaway: I think it's. Well, I don't know. I've been through 911. I've been through. So my facility had a. We were downtown Baltimore at the time, and there was an explosion in a tunnel that impacted. We had rented the focus group facility to another client, and it went dark. So there were people in the conference room, and it went dark. So I think that certainly that stands strong as a memory that was not easy to go over. But I think Covid has impacted the entire industry, not just my little snippet of the world. It has really impacted, I think, a lot of businesses.
Dave Charest: How do you feel about, I guess, where you are now, then seeing the difference between having the number of employees that you had and then down to now, just two w two, and, of course, 1099. But it seems like you have to change a lot, right?
Barbara Gassaway: Hugely. So I think that the difference. Thank God for leadership training. I have to. Bill Clark is Clark. Leadership is my leadership training. He's a girl. And, you know, thankfully, I had that training that gave the steps to grow people, whatever the circumstance. I think I had senior vice presidents reporting to me, and now I have people in their twenties reporting to me. It's a huge difference.
Dave Charest: When you think about, like, just where you are right now, what would you say are your top priorities now with the business?
Barbara Gassaway: Top priorities are sustainability, being able to sustain. I think growing people has always been my love and my, you know, when you see the difference between people, you can't. It's amazing. So. And I think discovery with my work is probably the top three.
Dave Charest: So how. So what do you mean there.
Barbara Gassaway: So there are golden nuggets of information that can be learned from customers or target audiences of customer segments, if you will. So having discovered that and having a company adopt that and move forward is incredibly rewarding.
Dave Charest: Yeah, I was gonna say that's probably one of the challenging parts, though, right? Is to get them to actually adopt things that are being learned or.
Barbara Gassaway: No, I would say you have to have a skilled researcher to be able to do that.
Dave Charest: Yeah.
Barbara Gassaway: You know, I've never blown smoke up. I am amazed at the people who survive and can navigate their way through and not be honest, you know, candid. And so. I've always been candid. You like it or don't like it, but it will save you money in the long run if you don't go this way.
Dave Charest: When you think about what success looks like, what is that for you now? And do you measure it?
Barbara Gassaway: We measured everything prior to Covid. I would say, no, I don't have a metric that I'm a success metric. I would say success, remaining happy, remaining thriving in the, you know, this crazy environment and industry. And so there are positive things from working from home, and there are positive things about COVID Even the market research industry has received positive aspects of COVID The geography for this venue, this zoom venue is spectacular. Geography is not. No longer an obstacle. You can. I interviewed a nephrologist in Paris. You can. Geography is not an issue anymore.
Dave Charest: Yeah. So what does a typical day look like for you now, then?
Barbara Gassaway: Typical day? I start my day early, from 08:00 in the morning until, I don't know, sometimes I like tonight I'm doing yoga, and so a typical day, I do more administrative work than I used to, for sure. And I had other people to do administrative work prior to Covid, so I do more administrative work now than I did before. So I would say a day, you know, in the life of Barbara, it's changed drastically from COVID until now, but I would say more administrative, which I'm not fond of but have to do.
Dave Charest: So pre then what was different there?
Barbara Gassaway: I was more strategic. I could be more planning forecasting space than I could be in the admin space, actually doing it.
Dave Charest: Do you see any challenges for yourself as you try to achieve what you're trying to do for 2023 at all?
Barbara Gassaway: I would say marketing is certainly a challenge in this environment, and it's, you know, you can't just be behind the computer and I'm so sorry, but constant contacts, not the being on end all.
Dave Charest: Sure.
Barbara Gassaway: No, yeah, everything. So, you know, and neither is LinkedIn or so you have to come up with creative ways to market. I would say that is my biggest challenge.
Dave Charest: That's funny, because I wanted to go there next. So I guess, how often are you marketing the business? And, like, what are some of the specific things that you're doing?
Barbara Gassaway: I have a person who markets the business, thankfully. So he's a proposal writer and marketer. So we write blogs. I would say that's so my blog, the research group's blog is perspectives, and it's all about being happy. It's not about, you know, consumer behavior. So observation. Baltimore's blog is much more related to consumer behavior and, you know, marketing trends and that kind of thing. So I would say I think it's relationship building more than it is. I don't consider it marketing, but I would say that relationship building is probably the most important part of marketing than I do.
Dave Charest: Well, I mean, it is, though, right? Like, I think that's kind of the, we've had some conversations, right? And people have often said that, like, kind of everything you do is marketing, if you really think about it, because it is about that. It's how you're communicating with people. It's when you're meeting people. It's those relationships. I mean, I would even argue constant contact is even founded on that idea of being able to build and grow those relationships you do have with your customers and your prospects and being able to do that. So are you involved at all? Like, do you, is somebody using constant contact for you? Have you used it at all?
Barbara Gassaway: Like, I have used it all the time. So we use constant contact. Again, I upload my perspectives, and it's all research based. And I'm very familiar with Constantin contact. I love it. It's very user friendly. It's very easy to use. It makes it so easy to communicate with a lot of people in a very succinct point in time. It's also easy to schedule. We can schedule it. So if, I know I'm slammed next week, but have, you know, newsletter deal so I can do it this week and schedule it for next week. Social share is amazing. I love social share. It schedules it for you. I think that it replaced, like, a lot of work, we can just put our contacts in one place and have it send out.
Dave Charest: When you think about if you had to choose your favorite feature of constant contact, what would that be?
Barbara Gassaway: I think it's to be able to search through content very quickly. You can search for content. Have I done this before? Have. What did I say? You know, how many years ago and does it need to be updated, that kind of thing? I think the report feature too is very nice. It's very quick to understand how you did. Well, we get reports all the time. So which one performed, which subject matter performs best? And we look at that all the time.
Dave Charest: What kind of people do you think would get the most value from a tool like constant contact?
Barbara Gassaway: Anyone who wants to reach a large number of people. We don't have that many contacts. We have about 3000.
Dave Charest: I would say, though, that 3000 is also nothing to balk at.
Barbara Gassaway: Well, it's 3000 that we've culled down. And we know they're regular readers and we know they're in the industry. They're interested in what we have to say. So those 3000 are cherry picked?
Dave Charest: Yeah. Which is what you want, right?
Barbara Gassaway: Correct.
Dave Charest: What would you say is your, if you were thinking of another business maybe similar to yours, what would be your number one tip in terms of using constant contact?
Barbara Gassaway: I would say I have my own little rhythm. You know, I put it in word first, I spell check it, I proof it, and then I put it in constant conduct. So my number one tip would be, it's very user friendly, I think, having the templates. So constant contact did my template. That's so much easier than having, and less expensive than having your marketing person or your agency do it. It costs a couple hundred dollars, right, to have them, you know, customize your newsletter. So I would say, I think customize, you know, customize your newsletter is certainly important.
Dave Charest: When you think back to just everything that you've learned kind of over the years of doing this and having your own business, what would be your best piece of business advice to someone, maybe.
Barbara Gassaway: Just starting out, understand your audience, understand who's buying your service, and walk in their shoes. You know, have empathy.
Dave Charest: Why is that so important?
Barbara Gassaway: You have to know where they stand. You have to know what they do, what they want to do next, and the reasons they want to perform that way, it's critical.
Dave Charest: Well, friend, here are a few things I'd like to highlight from that discussion. Number one, find a mentor. In so many of these conversations, I've heard about the importance of a mentor, someone who can offer advice and perspective and can really help you reach the next inflection point in your business. So don't overlook the importance of finding someone who can help you in this area. Number two, invest in training. Barbara mentioned how grateful she was having had leadership training, which helped her weather the storm and pivot through Covid. It's always a good idea to invest in new skills as you never know when you may need them. And number three, lead with the intent of helping people grow. Create an atmosphere for people to become better at what they do. When you do this, you'll end up with stronger employees that are invested in their work and deliver great experiences for your customers. Here's an action item for you here today. I'd like you to check out constant contacts professional services if you're looking for help with your marketing, or maybe you would like to have a custom email template created for your business. Whatever the case may be, constant contact can help. I'll be sure to include a link in the show notes for you. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. If you have questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me directly at dave.charest@constantcontact.com. if you did enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. Well friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.