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The Tracks Nobody Sees, But Every Marketer Should Hear.
This podcast celebrates the hidden gems of marketing insight found across all professions—both within and beyond traditional marketing roles. Just as B-sides on a single contain brilliant tracks that are treasured by true fans, every profession contains marketing wisdom that isn't obvious at first glance but is incredibly valuable when discovered.
Tom Hootman (03:13)
So you and I met at a reception ahead of career day at the Indiana University School of Media.
Brian Talbot (03:21)
Yes.
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (03:23)
and I was fascinated immediately because you know, you, do fractional CMO work.
As well as voiceover work which I want to dive into as well. It's a choose your own adventure book though Brian where do you want to start you want to start talking about CMO or the voiceover stuff is fascinating.
Brian Talbot (03:32)
Okay.
you know, it's, it's, is, it's a, it's a, it's a mishmash. I started out, I came out of IU and I was sure that I was going to be a radio God. And so I came out to work radio. My first job was moving from Bloomington, Indiana to Lafayette, Indiana to go work at a radio station there, which was a nightmare because it's not only the cultural difference. I'm fresh out of college.
Tom Hootman (03:59)
Big move.
Brian Talbot (04:04)
I'm selling radio time, which I'd rather be on the air, right? No one really wants to get into radio sales, but I got my foot in the door that way. And I realized that I'm selling against all the Indianapolis stations because you can still pick up all the signals and all that stuff. It was a big eye-opener into the business world, but it wasn't what I wanted to be doing. So I moved out to LA and ⁓ lo and behold, I picked up
production jobs at two different radio stations and a recording studio. And so all of that just kind of escalated over time. I ended up moving from LA to New York and from New York back to Indiana for personal reasons. Worked in studios all that time, but I also started picking up, I kind of have always done marketing. When I started selling radio time, I figured out the easiest way to sell.
was to go in with a demo script, you know, and this could be you. And they like that.
Tom Hootman (04:59)
like the
way you just slipped into voiceover mode for a second. love that.
Brian Talbot (05:01)
Yeah,
exactly. And then I would voice it. I would go, you know, and I'd do the whole thing. Like, well, that's pretty good. Maybe I'll do that. Like, okay, cool. We're in. And so it just one thing, one thing led to another. I figured out how to do print when I had a client that needed that. I put up my first website for a client in 1991 using Netscape Navigator tools. just, you know, and so
Tom Hootman (05:27)
Nice.
Brian Talbot (05:29)
I kind of fell backwards into marketing and I always wanted to do the talent thing. At one point in 2004, I moved out to Los Angeles and really gave a shot at the acting thing. Got a couple of really small parts and things and nothing that you would have actually recognized. Did some student films and some reality-based TV shows and things like that. ⁓
But I always was able to do the voiceover thing. And so that was a whole lot of fun. And by that time, I had some friends that worked in the production world and one in particular who did a lot of video game work. And so that's how I ended up doing all of the voiceover stuff, the video games, video game direction, talent direction.
and all that, I really, I fell into it backwards knowing that that's where I wanted to go, which was pretty fun, pretty cool, right? The first time I was working at a studio and someone needed a voiceover, they're like, why don't you hop on the other side of the glass? And that's actually a very common, that's a common thing for a lot of engineers.
Tom Hootman (06:29)
Yeah.
Geez Yeah.
Brian Talbot (06:48)
to be in that situation, we just need a quick tag, you know? So that's how it starts. I used to be a long time ago when I was in college, before I got into radio and TV, I was a theater major. And so it's just, it's really easy to create your characters and do all that stuff. The funniest thing is I actually had to, when I first started doing voiceover work, I had to create a character that was
Brian's normal voice. Because I hated my own voice so much that I couldn't just walk into a studio and do it. So I had to create in my mind, and talk about how psychological all this is, in my mind I created a character called Brian's normal voice.
And so it was just simply another character that I would roll into. So a lot of craziness, a lot of fun. Gave me about 35 years worth of fun. And now that whole industry is completely upended. So, yeah.
Tom Hootman (07:41)
I could see, Go ahead, sorry.
caved in. Well, you talked
about radio sales. worked in outside sales. I worked in retail and restaurant, and then I worked in outside sales for about a decade. And I was always, and then that's how I got into digital marketing and performance media is on the new biz side, because it's communication. It's a bit of a character you play. It's also, I learned really quickly, like the hardest parts just showing up and being yourself. Like I worked with a lot of, and this is the olden days, a lot of
of guys who had their closes , had practice closes and they read books on like they say this you say that I can't remember what I had for breakfast today I can never think that fast so it was like why are we why are you doing that that's weird like that you're good at it but like why aren't you being yourself and an element of them like playing a character and I remember the radio sales those were like when you tried people tried to recruit you away and this is you know 20 years ago it was always for radio sales
Brian Talbot (08:20)
tonight.
Tom Hootman (08:44)
or insurance and because I didn't have a degree at the time. So it wasn't going to be pharmaceutical and the reps in my business who had degrees, you ended up moving to pharmaceutical. Those of us who didn't, if you left, you went into radio or you went into insurance and authenticity. It's part of what Mixtape Digital. It's like our thing, but also it's like, it's like not bullshit. It's like our thing. Like what if we ran an agency where we didn't just try to sound like marketers all the time and
Brian Talbot (08:45)
Yeah, right.
Tom Hootman (09:10)
the character is actually not a character, it's us. Like what if we created the realness and like unfiltered ourselves from years and years and years of that marketing heavy, marketing laden speak to like actually talk like people. And there's an element of that in what you've done, yeah.
Brian Talbot (09:23)
Yeah,
I I think that is critical and it's even more critical today than it's ever been is finding your authentic self and plugging into it. Everybody has something different that they bring to the table and that's what makes someone engaging and attractive is the authenticity of it all. I talk about that in my marketing.
marketing and branding is you have to find your authentic self. Because in a world of, say, financial planners, how many tens of thousands are there in your area alone, what makes you different from anyone else isn't necessarily the financial products you bring, it's your authentic self and your true interest in the people that you're working with. And why are you doing that, right?
People can tell if you really want to help them or if you're just making money off of them. People are much smarter than what we give them credit for. so that's really that authenticity, especially now with AI. That authenticity is the differentiator.
Tom Hootman (10:21)
Totally.
Totally. 100%. And I think that it's, people are better at reading, it's fight or flight. People's fight or flight is like, is pretty spot on for them. And it's, we call it the vibes, the vibe, part of a discovery call, and we meet with clients and we're perspective clients and we're presenting is like vibe check. And there's, we know when vibes are off and we lose and there's an element of like, you know what? Like the vibes weren't right. Like,
they're great, we're great, we just weren't, we aren't what they're looking for and they're just not a fit for us. The one that is a real kick in the teeth is when vibes are on point and you lose for another reason, right? And so it's like, those are the things you can adjust, our approach, our strategy, fee structure, the variables we can control. You can't control vibes and you can't fake it. And I think that ultimately that bleeds through to people in their fight. It literally, they're...
fight or flight mechanism kicks in. They're like, I don't know. They seem nice, but I don't trust them. And it's like, just have to, you do have to rely on that as a human being, right?
Brian Talbot (11:34)
Yeah. In fact, I've won clients for exactly that same reason. Right. I've gone up against bigger agencies that had a lot more staff, a lot more team, a lot more resources. And I ended up walking out as the winner. They became my client because of the authenticity. And I can say, this is great. And I understand where they are and I understand who they are and I understand what they're promising you.
And I'll tell you, here's the things you should watch out for and here's the things that I'll be able to do and here's some of the things that we'll need to be able to go out and get some additional support for. So when you're honest with people, that makes all the difference, right? It's good to hear people's success stories, but if they never have a story where they fucked it up, then all of sudden,
it becomes less believable.
It becomes far less.
Tom Hootman (12:33)
There's a yeah,
there's a and I'll credit my former president CEO Jeff on this. had a great he instituted this in pitches years ago, where we will define what a bad client looks like for us to the prospect and what a good client looks like. And it's a bit of a choose your own adventure book to reuse the analogy, but also it helps identify and I always like to say like
Brian Talbot (12:36)
Okay.
Tom Hootman (12:59)
When you're talking to a prospective client, they may be talking to a couple other fractional CMOs or they may be talking to a couple other agencies. They may work with one or two agencies, but they don't see what the other clients are doing. So they don't have any view, what's their blinders on to what is too much or not enough if they're being a pain in the fucking ass or whether they're being way too soft on us. And it goes back to like the smaller, like it'll be a small, small client who grinds us up because that's what they think they should do.
And then I've also worked with clients in the tens of millions of media where they're like, hey, we don't wanna bother you. We know you're busy, but can you do this? And you're like, yeah, you're our biggest client. Yeah, we can do this. And it's all the, they don't have the perception. And kind of what we get paid for. But they don't see that view of like what other clients are doing, what great is and what a bad client looks like, the behaviors.
Brian Talbot (13:39)
That's kind of what we get paid for.
Right,
right. Well, and I found through being a fractional CMO that you build those bad clients by allowing that behavior to continue, right? Anytime I felt like I was being abused or, you know, over...
undercompensated and over over taxed right it's because I allowed it and so there's and then I do some coaching for other fractional cmos and that's one thing I always tell them because they're like ⁓ i'm I'm more than double my hours this month and I can't you know I'm like so you need to set boundaries right and if you set boundaries if they're really good clients and good people
They don't want to take advantage of you. They don't want to screw you over. They don't know or understand that what they're asking for is outside of the bounds. And you've allowed it. And because you've allowed it in the past, they don't know where the barriers are. They don't know where the borders are. So it's up to you to tell them and go, hey, you know what?
We're in this together, I love it. I want nothing more than your ultimate success. But I gotta tell ya, I'm working for half price. So we need to figure out how to tailor what we're doing a little bit better. If you can have those kinds of conversations, those are always those eye-opening things. I've never had a client turn around and go, well too bad, that's your problem, not mine.
They've always come back and go, I'm so sorry, we didn't mean to. Maybe we can do this, this and that. And they'll start offering up options, right? Maybe we don't need to have that meeting every week. Maybe it can be every other week. you know, and so one of the most important things about that part of business is business is a partnership. It's a two-way street. And as you said before, fit.
Tom Hootman (15:26)
Very rarely.
Brian Talbot (15:51)
is so vitally important to having long-term customer success.
Tom Hootman (15:56)
I have a wonderful sales coach and peer group that I'm in and they preach.
about growth, sales, it's three elements. It's abundance, detachment, and intent. And I'll set intent aside because it's pretty simple. If your intent is pure, you're clean, right? You should never go in trying to wrangle it. But it's the perspective of a sense of abundance and a sense of detachment that's a healthy, you can't be too detached and you can't be like, fuck it. They come in, they come in, because then you won't add anybody.
But there's an element of when you mention this that we do this to ourselves, that you do it to yourself. I would harbor a guess that the majority of the time comes from a moment where you really want to work with them and you hold back or you aren't as honest and true with yourself and with the prospect or with the client to say, hey, here's what the guardrails look like for a healthy relationship.
Brian Talbot (16:42)
Yes.
Tom Hootman (16:54)
because you're working a bit again, fight or flight out of the fear of losing it. So you're just agreeing with everything. And that happens. It's not that you can, it's like waging war on jealousy. You'll still have those moments where you really want one, but I'm a big proponent of that's on us down the road to have that uncomfortable. I'm like, that's what I get. That's my job. That's what I'm here for. I'm the person who should say, hey, do you have a minute? Can we chat? Can we catch up? Like, hey.
I just want to be honest with you, we love working with you, like you said, but we're working for half price. like the team doesn't feel like you're hitting the mark. They feel they're running really hard. And part of, I like to step into like that separate person. My character is a person looking in on the conversation. This is the part where I have to tell you that like I have to protect the team a bit because you're like diffusing a bit of the me versus you into like, hey, this is part of my role where I have to step in and say the team's losing sleep and dry heaving over.
a perception of missed work. Because when you have a good team too, they care that much. And they're like, not that they're dry heaving, God, I hope my team's not dry heaving, but like they're, they give a shit, right? And like if they, yeah. And also you gotta call it and be like, hey, if I have a team members not giving a shit, that's an internal conversation you have to have where you say, hey, you got him.
Brian Talbot (17:59)
I'm
Yes!
Right, right, right.
Well, that's one of the coolest parts about being a fractional CMO, right? I work specifically with companies between two and 20 million, right? And my promise to them is that I will double your revenue while we work together, right? Because I have systems and processes, I have frameworks that I use to be able to do the discovery, to be able to...
evaluate the market, create ⁓ targeted messages that resonate with your market, and then create a strategic roadmap that goes ahead and implements all of the execution to be able to reach those people and grow and reach your goals. It's all goal-focused, smart goals and all that. And so I work with the market, the message and the map. And I developed this over decades, right? At first I just started doing it.
And I had one CEO that I worked for at two different companies. And one time he brought me in and a client was there and he said, this is Brian. He does marketing magic. I'm like, thank you. It's nice to meet you. It's not magic, right? And it really bugged the crap out of me, quite honestly. was a nice compliment, but it bothered me. like, so how do I do what I do? Because by this time I'd gone into six or eight different organizations and helped them.
Tom Hootman (19:17)
All shucks.
Brian Talbot (19:34)
get unstuck in their scaling efforts. And so I figured out what my frameworks were. And my frameworks came down to the market, message, and the map. And if you do these things and you set the strategic platform from the get-go, that is what made me be able to be successful. And so now I do that with all my clients. And honestly, when you talk about fit, if I have a client that says, no, I don't want to do that,
I just want to start jumping into, because I know that we need this and I know that we need that. I've walked away from those clients before. like that. I hear you. Here's a process I know how to follow. Here's a process I know works. And you know, if you want to do it your way, there's a lot of great freelancers out there that can execute on what you want to do.
Tom Hootman (20:24)
tactics, paid tacticians.
Brian Talbot (20:27)
It's
all about tactics and my success has all come from strategic leadership. And so that's really the difference. Right. So.
Tom Hootman (20:38)
It's interesting because even within that there are vibes because we've we've we've we're excited to work with a new client that we're going to move forward with in the past few days. We got word they're all about speed. Like we they want to accelerate like it's the it's the end of the year. It's December right now. They want to get started. They want to hit the ground running the way they framed it though. Was so positive and level headed versus.
When you read the room and you're like, I'm to walk away from this because I've had those conversations where not that they're just being dicks about it, but they're like, no, we need to move. I move fast. We go here. This is just my, I hate when I, I sometimes it's like the only verbiage I can use, but like, I hate the term startup environment because it's like, okay, that's a, that's a, that's a red flag to me when somebody is a startup environment here. It means like your life belongs to me and it's 110 hours a week. It's like,
Brian Talbot (21:20)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (21:31)
That's what everyone associates it with. But in reality, to me, startup environment is like, hey, like we're building the processes as we go. You shouldn't be working 100 hours a week, right? But like you can tell, you can read that room and know like when you got to cut bait and get out when someone's like, like the slap in their shoe on the desk about like, I want to move fast. I just want to jump in. You gave me a bit of PTSD. Like I just want to jump in here. I don't know how many times I've been in a pitch or like a onboarding. And, and, and this is a note with any CEO who listens like,
If you're cutting the team off who've done all this work with this agency or this fractional CMO to get to this point and you're hijacking a meeting to say, let's just dive in and go, then there's probably an internal issue there that your team is misaligned with you because they've done the due diligence and there's a process that they've vetted you or us on and you're hijacking it.
Brian Talbot (22:22)
Well, and I think that's a really critical point, especially with marketing, right? So many people look at marketing as this giant black hole that they don't understand, and they know that they just gotta throw dollars in and they hope that they get dollars back from it, right? But the reality is, is you have to have alignment from the leadership level on down to be able to make it work. I always like to say marketing is an all-skate. Now that dates me back to...
junior high skating parties, it ⁓ truly is an all-skate. I've had CEOs look at me before going, well, you're the marketing guy. Why don't you just do it all? Because that's not what a good marketing leader does, right? And here's the other side of it. I can do anything I want to do, but if your team doesn't adopt and embrace it, then it doesn't work.
Tom Hootman (22:53)
Okay, yeah, open skate. Yeah.
Brian Talbot (23:18)
If your company doesn't adopt and embrace it, then it doesn't work. There's nothing worse than being able to come up with some great brand messaging and then, you know, people inside your company and they go, you work for that company? What do they do? I don't know. Like knife through the heart. What did you just do to me? But in the meantime, if you have that same conversation, you go, you work for that company? What do you do? And they come into, know, give me a simple statement.
or three things, just give me three simple things that they do and make sure that one of them is the value or the outcome that the company delivers, right? That's when you start the, I know a guy who could probably use you, right? That's when you start the I know a guy conversations. And that's when you really create that advocacy and advocacy is internal as much as it is external.
And that's really the goal of what we're trying to do is we're trying to build a story that people can understand and that they can believe in and that they can build trust around. Right? And so if you're doing all that, that's the right approach. But one person hired to be your marketing department, you can't get there from there. So.
Tom Hootman (24:37)
Yeah,
you can't dictate that when you say internal versus external like it resonates, right? You mean you have to, you have to get buy in for prospective clients as well as like your team, right? Like your day to day rank and file everyone on board. And if they can't get excited, net promoter score, right? Is like the benchmark everyone uses for companies, right? Would you recommend us to someone?
Brian Talbot (25:03)
Right. Right.
Tom Hootman (25:04)
And then you
look at everything from eight, nine or 10 or everything below, think seven. And we like the best net, there's an internal and external net promoter score because like that says a lot about your team. If they're in an anonymous survey saying, God, no, I wouldn't recommend us. It's a train wreck, right? Whether they're right or wrong, whether it's like perspective, and I'm sure they color it with their own experience. It tells you where you've missed the mark. That's your obligation.
to fix internally. And when I say your obligation, I don't mean you, Brian, I mean the company's obligation, the all skate to fix it versus, well, I'm sure what you walk into a room a lot of times and they're like, let's hire someone to fix this. And it's like, ⁓ this isn't electrical work or plumbing. Like we all fit under the sink. So like, we're all gonna turn the wrench and fix this. So do you run into a lot of situations, I'm sure you vet that where you're.
You're meeting with a company and you get that, that impression that they're like, come here, you come fix all of it for us.
Brian Talbot (26:05)
Yeah, and that's, I literally have the marketing is an all skate conversation to see if they want to play. you know, and I'll talk about success stories that I've had because of that collaborative effort where everyone felt a part of it. I had one company that I worked with that I, that I, ⁓ after we came up with our brand messaging, we sent it out to everybody, told them to put it on their desk and, understand it and get to know.
at least the three key bullet points, right? And then I went back into my old radio days and pulled out a promotional contest where we would just randomly dial people within the company, you know, internally and say, so what is the company? And if they could knock out, you know, some of the key points, we'd give them all sorts of company swag.
which did so many things, right? First of all, got swag into their hands. Second of all, gave them a reason to care and to think about it. And that actually worked incredibly well. This was a company that grew to a hundred million dollars and got stuck and they had no idea what to do. And so I came in and I did my whole marketing map program and that's when we got everybody engaged.
And we were able to grow that company by 65%. And this is in the technology space during a technology, the technology stall of 2008 to 2012. And we grew, it was an everything stall right? But technology companies especially, and we were able to get them to grow by 65 % at double their,
Tom Hootman (27:38)
Mm-hmm. The everything stall.
Brian Talbot (27:52)
the number of clients they were ⁓ dealing with and got an 84 % year over year continuance on their clients. But it all started with the fundamentals, with the basics, with understanding your market, creating messaging that resonates, and then developing a map to be able to get there. you know, that's the important
Tom Hootman (28:14)
Yeah. You mentioned you
work, it's two to 20 million in revenue. I'm gonna ask this before I ask a follow-up question. Like what is, and I'm not, just don't give me, not give me your ICP, because I hate that question. But what are your favorite types of clients to work with? What industries, regional, national, like manufacturers, technology, local?
Brian Talbot (28:36)
Yeah, I- I-
You know...
Each one is different, right? Local is different than regional, regional is different than national. They each have their advantages. Obviously, it's quicker and easier to grow a local company because you have a smaller bucket that you're fishing in, right? You have a more, a smaller and easier to reach target market within your local. Most locals nowadays, especially in the B2B world,
are at least regional and a lot of them turn into national pretty quickly. Once they start getting success, the growth just spreads. And with technology and everything else that's available to support, it's not as hard to go national as it used to be. It can be a little bit more expensive from an advertising and media perspective.
but the same fundamentals that you use to help grow them locally still apply nationally just at scale. So I like professional services. companies, especially in the B2B space, are very hyper competitive. Everybody who does fractional CMO work, know, ⁓ my specialty is technology.
Tom Hootman (29:50)
SaaS Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Talbot (29:52)
Really? mean, maybe. All that tells me is that all the technology companies laid off their people and now they're out going all directional. So, you know, so while I like it and I understand it very well and I try to stay on the front edge of most things technology focused, I don't often play in the technology space anymore. I used to.
Tom Hootman (29:59)
Which is also true, yeah.
Brian Talbot (30:15)
But the other interesting group that really surfaced over time is industrial services. Everybody from commercial roofing to hazmat cleanup. I have a client that manufactures metal buildings.
Tom Hootman (30:21)
as in
Brian Talbot (30:32)
It's those kinds of things. still all in the B2B space. those are interesting clients because most of them have very little marketing that they've done to get to where they are. And so you can make the biggest difference and you can really help educate and inform while you grow them. ⁓
Tom Hootman (30:55)
Totally.
Brian Talbot (30:57)
I stay in the two to 20 million space because that's where I can make the biggest difference. And that's where I can have the most direct impact on founders and company employees. One of the decision points to become a fractional CMO was that in 2016, I left a job working at a 65,000 person hospital group.
And I often talk about it as that was as close to government work as I ever want to be. So after that, I stopped and did ⁓ a little bit of reflection. said, so what do I really want to do when I grow up? And it's like, well, I want to provide those high value things that I learned over time. That's really what's kind of important to me. The things that make a difference, the things that you can't just
you know, go outsource real easy. And I don't want to spend my time in meetings that I don't belong in or, you know, sitting around trying to figure out where we're gonna go to lunch today. That didn't feel like a good use of my time. And so my highest and best value was fractional CMO work that was focused on strategy. So what I really offer is I offer
Tom Hootman (32:07)
Yeah.
Brian Talbot (32:12)
leadership, accountability, and expertise. Because I've been around for a long time.
Tom Hootman (32:19)
years. Two things I love about that, I have a very good friend who runs an agency where the bulk of their clients are in manufacturing. And there's a huge benefit, hidden benefit there in that you mentioned this like a red flag for us is when a member of the C suite knows enough about marketing to be dangerous. And they have a predisposed opinion that
Brian Talbot (32:40)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (32:44)
And it's not their fault because they've been at the C-suite level for so long. It's just antiquated or it's outdated or outmoded because it's moving so fast. Or they grab onto a couple of buzzwords. And the manufacturing clients, just like a restaurant group or anyone provide a services company, they are not sitting in front of a laptop or a computer all day. They are actually like out on the floor providing service. So they're just, they're like.
there's an element of like, help educate me. They're a bit more open to what should I be doing versus here's what I think we should be doing. And then the second piece is, you mentioned technology companies. I mean, I'll be open. We always talk about the word cloud of SaaS technology of like data security, cloud infrastructure. This has to be a struggle when you work with them of like,
Brian Talbot (33:14)
Yes. Yes.
Tom Hootman (33:35)
It's hard to create that statement of differentiation when you kind have a word cloud company, a platform that helps marketing automation, right? Like you're like, what? How do you, it's easier to sell widgets.
Brian Talbot (33:44)
Yeah.
Well, and the biggest problem,
the biggest problem most technology companies get involved with is the fact that they want to sell the features of their technology. When the reality is, and I had a consultant who worked at, ⁓ who was a super smart guy, worked at one of the tech companies I worked with. And he said, nobody wants to pay for a data center. They just want to pay for.
anytime, anywhere access to the information that's in there.
And so if you apply that to marketing, mean, that's really, that's what you should be selling. Anytime, anywhere access, not our servers have, you know, this, that, or the other. And instead most technology companies, you know, they, they fall back on that. It's the difference between say Dell and, Apple. know, Microsoft came out with a fabulously wonderful
MP3 player, the Zune. And it was much better than the iPod except, well, technically, technically it was better. Yes, it had better specs, right? But the reality is, is they tried to sell it based on specs. And Steve Jobs walks out and goes, it's a thousand songs in your pocket.
Tom Hootman (34:49)
The Zune.
Yeah.
It was a fidgeter's iPod, a tinkerer.
Yeah.
had an iRiver, which was ⁓ pre-Zune And the whole reason I wanted it before I was an Apple guy was I built my own PCs. I was a tinkerer. I also was 20 years younger and had all the time in the world. The tinker was a hobby. And I liked that you could wipe it much more easily. And I could, I could upload a UX on it that I liked and make it cleaner, drag and drop in a lot of ways. I liked that I could turn it into an iPod at the time.
And, and but it's the element of control. have friends who find like they either haven't made the jump to an iPhone or they they're still on an Android phone. And it's like, they still have PCs at home. They like they like to build their own machines. And it's like, there's a market for the tinkerer who likes having that control. But it's an island that's shrinking because I think as, as responsibilities expand to fill the space in our life, you hit a point where you're like, fuck, I just can I just turn it on and have it work?
Brian Talbot (36:00)
Absolutely.
That's it. I am so happy that I switched to Apple when I did because I've never seen a blue screen of death on an Apple, on a Mac, right?
Tom Hootman (36:20)
Well,
and when you build your own PC, you're responsible for that blue screen of death. You're like, shit, now I got to figure out what the hell I did wrong. You know, I'm in the bios all day long. Two quick questions and I'll cut you loose. Number one, I ask everyone what a song or songs. You were the first person to answer ahead of time. So I appreciate that about you because you're like detail oriented and diligent. You said, I Won't Back Down by Tom Petty. Love Tom Petty.
Brian Talbot (36:26)
Right, right, right, Yeah.
Tom Hootman (36:47)
absolutely love him. was a horrible year because it was like Prince, Tom Petty and like David Bowie within like a year. ⁓ What made you pick that and why?
Brian Talbot (36:52)
Yeah, all in the same, yeah.
I guess because when I was younger...
I worked so hard to be a pleaser, right? And after I achieved a certain level of success, I realized that my success didn't come from taking orders and pleasing other people. It's from doing what I know is right and doing what I know works, right? So it's really about resolve and having the resolve to stand on what you know and what you know works.
Tom Hootman (37:23)
Mm-hmm.
I love that. Last piece. What's the best way for people to contact you? Where can they find you? Aside from a reception the night before media school day over a beer.
Brian Talbot (37:30)
⁓
That's actually, take me out for a beer. That's the best way to get a hold of me. You'll probably get free consulting while you're at it. ⁓ No, so I'm available at the valuecmo.com. So my phone and email and all that stuff is available there. I also have my frameworks, the market message and map is now available at mymarketingmap.
Tom Hootman (37:38)
Ngh. S-Sold.
Brian Talbot (38:02)
So you can go to that one and that's much more for professional development and there's an online community for marketers. You know, that's part of the, at this point, I just want to help out what I like to call my tribe of marketers who are in marketing, are stuck in tactical execution and have no idea how to advance their career or how to get recognized by the leadership team.
Tom Hootman (38:02)
Awesome.
Brian Talbot (38:28)
Well, it's because you're focused on the wrong things. You're focused on, you know, what is your customer acquisition cost or what is your, ⁓ how many impressions did you get? That's not what gets you to the leadership team, right? Tell me how you're going to double our business. How are you going to help us grow? And all that stuff is all strategically focused. So get out of the firefighting of tactical execution and learn how to become a strategic marketing leader.
That's MyMarketingMap.com, the other one is TheValueCMO.com.
Tom Hootman (39:01)
Absolutely love it. Brian, seriously, it was wonderful to meet you. You were, what I love about you is like I was wandering around with a drink, like trying to like not look obnoxious while I was taking a picture of myself on the Jumbotron to like send to my wife, like look I'm on the Jumbotron. You were like the, you were the first person who was like, hey, what's your name? What do you do? Great to meet you. And I appreciate that for an.
an introvert who has to pretend to be an extrovert. That means a lot to me legitimately that you were you were like, hey, you need someone to talk to. That means a lot. It was great for you to make time to sit in today. ⁓ Love the conversation. I appreciate it. You're taking on new clients still right? Wonderful.
Brian Talbot (39:38)
It's been a pleasure.
Absolutely. Taking on new clients
and looking to help mid-level marketers who feel stuck. ⁓
Tom Hootman (39:49)
love
that. We're all stuck in our own ways. Appreciate the time, Brian. Thanks so much for everything.
Brian Talbot (39:54)
Thanks so much, Tom. Thanks for having me.