940: Understanding CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR and smart marketing with data w/ Brian Carroll

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and once again, I'm not the only Brian in today's episode, because we have got, honestly, an incredible guest that I've been so excited to have here on the show today.

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Because, in doing our research ahead of today's episode, something is very clear to me that this guest loves great products that bring great solutions into the world, and he firmly believes in tying that to great marketing.

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Because I actually believe that, as entrepreneurs who have great products and services, we have an obligation to also become great marketers and to have great marketing in order to bring those solutions to the people that we wanna serve.

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So let me tell you all about today's guest.

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His name is Brian Carroll.

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Brian is a seasoned marketing leader with two decades of experience spanning investment management, wealth tech and B2B SaaS companies.

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From launching new products at growth stage companies to building and leading a global marketing team at NASDAQ, brian's diverse expertise has driven success at every single level.

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These experiences inspired him to establish Gray Carroll Consulting, where he helps businesses overcome complex challenges and unlock their full potential.

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We are going to get into all that stuff today so that you'll have those actionable takeaways for your own business.

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Outside of work.

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Brian lives in Atlanta with his wife, carla, and his daughter, london.

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He's a devoted family man, a golf enthusiast, and he values the endless pursuit of learning, which I think so epitomizes so much about what we, as entrepreneurs, are committed to.

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So I'm excited to learn from this guy here today.

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I'm not going to say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview with Brian Carroll.

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All right, brian, I'm so excited that you're here with us today.

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First things first.

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Welcome to the show.

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Thanks, brian, it's great to be here.

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Heck.

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Yes, You've got a lot to live up to today, because I absolutely love the work that you do.

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I think it's so incredible all the things that you help bring to the world these great solutions.

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But before we geek out about marketing, take us beyond the bio.

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Who's Brian?

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How'd you start doing all these cool things that you've gotten into?

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Yeah, I'd love to, you know, give a little bit of background on myself.

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You know, I think, like everyone, our story is unique.

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And if I were to look back, you know, 20 years ago and say, you know, when you're 42, you're going to be living in Atlanta, georgia, you will have started your own consulting company, be married, have a nine-year-old daughter who loves cheerleading, I would have thought you were, you know, telling me a pretty big tale, because when I started out my career, I was really focused on investments and wealth management and I had always had this passion for, you know, for marketing, but also really understanding people and psychology and what drives behavior.

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And it just so happened that after, I would say, a decade or so working and understanding different aspects of finance, investments and wealth management, I had an opportunity to go work more what I would call in the front office or distribution side of a company in San Diego, and that's what really kind of launched my marketing career as it exists today.

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So I would say my career has really been at the intersection of finance, wealth management and technology and it's been really really fun and really cool to work on some really innovative products with some really great companies and really look at what drives customer behavior.

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I won't be.

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We can talk a lot about that today, because I kind of have this thesis that I'm building out and it's it's a new offering that I'm really thinking about launching with my consulting company, which is based on the idea of understanding your customers to a very high degree, which really should set the strategy for any future marketing plans.

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So one of the things that I drew inspiration from was I don't know if you're familiar with Carl Jung in a lot of his writings, but he talks about personas and archetypes and I've taken a little bit of that, that I've studied and tried to build it into some of my business and marketing philosophies, and I'm just now kind of taking off with and running with this with a few clients.

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So I would say that the psychology of marketing and human behavior is really what's catapulted me to be in this position today.

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Yeah, I love that overview and, listeners, that was a little bit of a tease from Brian.

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There we're definitely going to be talking deeper about what drives customer behavior, but before we get there, brian, what really struck me as I was doing my research ahead of our episode here today is that you love great products and I feel like, when we think of great products that we all know and use and I know that you come from the finance back world, so I'm going to use Credit Karma as an example I think that pretty much everyone has a Credit Karma account.

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It's a really great product.

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It's a free solution in a world that I feel like a few decades ago, you had to pay for your credit report.

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It was complex, you didn't know what any of that stuff meant, and so that's a really great product.

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And I think, brian, what people take for granted is that just because it's a great product doesn't guarantee its success.

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Credit Karma and every other product that we all know and love and use, they needed to have great marketing.

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Talk to us about that, because so many times on business podcasts we hear that advice of, yeah, have a great product and the rest will take for itself, or when it comes to social media, put out great content and the rest will take for itself.

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Or, when it comes to social media, put out great content and the rest will take care of itself.

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It's not necessarily true.

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Talk to us about that importance of plugging that gap with marketing.

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Yeah, so I think, if you think about you know, let's use the movie Field of Dreams, right, what was a very common saying in that movie?

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It was if you build it, they will come.

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And I actually think when we're talking about the world of SaaS and products and technology, it's actually the opposite.

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There's such a low barrier to entry with SaaS and product, particularly today as we're seeing a lot of new innovations with AI and traditional jobs of developers being more commoditized, that it's not good enough just to build any old product and hope that you get some traction in the marketplace.

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It's too easy to do that.

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So what I always try to encourage companies to do founders, whether it's startup, growth stage or even mature companies you always have to have a pulse on the marketplace.

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You have to understand what is the problem that we're solving in the marketplace.

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That always has to be where you start from and those things change.

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Markets change, problems change, technology changes, companies change.

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But if you're originating the point from, what is my company inherently doing?

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Why do we exist?

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What are the problems, the pain points in the marketplace.

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I think that's what really sets apart okay to great product companies and I think using that as a launching point for your product strategy, you're always going to have a leg up.

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Where marketing comes in is really understanding and empathizing with your customers, or trying to accomplish.

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If you don't understand their business model, how they make money, if you don't understand what they are trying to accomplish in terms of their goals, their objectives and what challenges they face, you're not going to be able to create compelling value propositions.

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You're not really going to know how to position yourself versus competitors and all of the downstream, what I like to call marketing execution that comes from that.

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So there really is a big foundational layer that you may even consider somewhat strategic that needs to occur to make products successful in the marketplace.

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Yeah, I'll tell you what hearing you talk about these things.

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Obviously we're using the word marketing in so much of our conversation today, but this really extrapolates far beyond just the world of marketing, because part of what you do with your business is you solve complex problems, and even if we take that very simple statement there, the answer that you just gave us really shows how multivariate the landscape is.

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You're talking about understanding our customers, but you're also talking about understanding the more macro marketplace, the micro marketplaces that we operate within, and all the decision points that our potential customers have within there.

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Brian, how do we start dissecting this with so many variations?

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And I was an econometrics specialty when I was an undergrad and I remember that's where we use computer modeling.

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We try to make sense of multivariate models with computers and with different programs that we use.

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How do we do it?

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As human beings who own businesses and operate in marketplaces, how do we start to make sense of these complex scenarios?

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Well, I think again, it just goes back to understanding your strengths and your and you know to some degree your weaknesses and where you want to focus.

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I think many companies early on you'll see, you know, a lot of startups pivot.

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In fact, I was working with one of my clients not too long ago who had started out in one area and needed my help understanding a completely different area, because they had built a pretty significant technology platform and they had the tech but they didn't really understand where they needed to move next.

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So I think, understanding all the things that we just talked through like here is the marketplace, here are the pain points, here are the things that are of value to these different types of businesses, and you can look at it a number of different ways.

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Right, you can look at geography, you can look at by vertical, by industry.

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I think oftentimes you'll hear people talk about the TAM, the total addressable market, tam, sam SOM.

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I think those type of exercises are good to start out, to give you some directionality, but then it really does get into the weeds of hey, if I'm in business and I am providing a service or a product or a piece of technology, I better understand why I'm doing what I'm doing and then I better have a pretty good understanding of who are the types of businesses.

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A lot of times you'll hear the term ICP.

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In fact, I was listening to your interview with Heidi a little while ago and I think she talked a lot about these concepts of ICPs and target markets.

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It really is a process to go top down to finally get to a place where you have a very good understanding of the different dimensions of a company or sets of companies that make whatever you're offering appealing, and then from there you kind of test and iterate.

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When it comes to marketing, I think a lot of it at this stage is moving quickly, trying different things.

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But until you understand the people that are buying your products, what their role entails, how they're going to be successful, you're going to have a hard time picking the right channels.

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Because at that level you're going to have a hard time picking the right channels because at that level you're just kind of guessing.

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And so the more that you can understand about your target company, your ICP and the specific personas, the better you'll be identifying the collective marketing mix in which channels you want to utilize to reach them.

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Yeah, I really appreciate those insights and, of course, the callback to our episode with the brilliant Heidi Hattendorf.

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Thanks for the shout out there, brian, and I think it's so interesting thinking about your business and the way that you operate.

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And here you are.

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I mean, we can talk about my episode with Heidi because we're talking about some of the marketing fundamentals, your ideal customer persona.

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There's so much that goes behind it, but what I think is really unique about you and I'm a little bit jealous because I think this is such a cool part of your business is you do work with startups, but you also work with those established players in all different types of markets.

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I'm curious, from either a fundamental perspective or a scale perspective, do these problems change?

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Are the solutions different?

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Are the things that you assess different?

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Walk us through how these things change with regards to where we are in our own growth journeys.

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I think you'd be surprised that some of the bigger, more established companies still struggle with a lot of these concepts.

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I don't think it necessarily changes the approach in terms of let's first understand the market that you guys are operating in.

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Let's really get a good understanding of do you know what makes up your ideal customer?

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Do you really understand your target market and why is that and how well is that documented?

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Early companies may not have a CRM.

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If they do, a lot of times the data is very unstructured and messy and so you have to do a little bit of fact finding.

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Larger companies oftentimes have a little bit of that more structured, and they may have some processes and admins to kind of sift through the data.

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But nevertheless, the approach is still the same from my perspective.

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I think we still want to go through the process of understanding how well they know the market, their customers, their personas, and oftentimes what I see is, uh, when it comes to this information, it becomes a uh inside out exercise, meaning they have an idea of these things, but it's derived either from the CEO or executives who may say, hey, I've worked in this industry for X amount of years, or I started this company, so I know our customers, I know our personas, I know the people that buy our products, and that can only really take you so far.

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I think what you have to do is get in a good practice of doing voice of customer, and really what that is is you're interviewing clients, prospects, people in your target market to solicit feedback, and it could be for a number of different issues.

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You could be user interface from a product perspective.

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You could get feedback on different aspects of the product.

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You can do it to actually build personas.

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You could do it to understand why you win and why you lose deals.

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But interjecting that level of data that's third-party, objective information often alleviates a lot of the biases that are in-house and can serve as hard empirical data in lieu of just having anecdotes or people who are maybe shouting the loudest in a room full of opinions.

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So what I have found is that, irrespective of the size of the organization, the process is really the same.

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It just may be that certain data sets or the ability to scale or document things are a little bit different, but I think it's still the same process at the end of the day.

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The big word that a lot of people talk about and I feel like not enough people go into it which is data.

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Of course, in our businesses, we have more data now than, quite frankly, we've ever had at any point in history, which is a blessing and a curse.

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I say a curse because if we don't do anything or we do the wrong things with it, then none of that data is actually helpful to us, and I think it's something that really stands out.

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When I was ahead of our conversation today, when I was going through your website and the work that you do, it's so clear that KPIs are important to you is that you want to be making the right decisions that actually tangibly affect the bottom line, and who would have thunk?

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That's the goal of business and it's overlooked so frequently.

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So take us to those data points, take us to the KPIs that you feel are relevant and, most importantly, here's the part of the question that I'm so excited for you to share with listeners is what are those actionable data points, or kpis, and what do we actually do with them when we see them?

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Because a lot of listeners, when they reach out to us, brian, they say I'm looking to increase my revenue, and that's the number everyone's obsessed with, but obviously there's leading and lagging indicators around it.

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So walk us through that minefield.

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Yeah, so I think when you look at KPIs, there are some aspects of them that can be.

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You know, you'll hear the term vanity metrics right, and I think in marketing, a big metric that's used is something called an MQL Marketing, qualified Lead.

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But if you kind of unpack that, what could be underneath it are leads that may serve as an MQL but actually aren't qualified leads because of the way that you have set up the architecture of that particular MQL, way that you have set up the architecture of that particular MQL, and so there is a little bit of data architecture and really understanding how you are grading and scoring different leads that come in that determine if it's qualified or not.

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That's a bit in the weeds, but I would say just stepping back a little bit.

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If you're looking at KPIs for a marketing organization, as much as you can attach things to revenue and qualified opportunities, things that are actually setting up your sales team for success, the better off you're going to be.

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It really depends, again, though, on your goals and your objectives.

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So, for instance, I'll give you an example If you're focused on net new logos as a big driver of your growth, as opposed to something that's more upsell, focused on book of business, then your KPIs need to be centered around new logo activity, so you could be looking at things that are more in line of the number of opportunities created, the number of SQLs, sales, qualified leads.

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You could be looking at metrics that are sales cycle related, so leads that come in, how quickly they convert over the course of a sales cycle.

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These are the types of things that you really want to correlate back to your business objectives and you can you know, I think in today's age you can Google what are the right marketing KPIs.

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I'm actually less concerned about finding out a set of 10 KPIs that you know, you could read a definition on, as opposed to really connecting said KPIs to the business objectives, because if you're not really looking at marketing as part of the revenue engine, then you're going to have a disjointed team when it comes to your marketing versus yourselves and the rest of your revenue engine.

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So I think the biggest takeaway for me when I'm looking at this is let's look at the business plan, let's look at the objectives for the year, let's look at some of the revenue goals and then, based on that, let's determine what the right marketing strategy needs to be and then, given that, what are the points that are going to tell us that we are moving in the right direction or not, and then we can take action on those, to kind of adjust based on that?

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Brian, just right there in that one answer, I feel like you just exposed a lot of us tuning into today's episode, because you've such a data-driven approach and it is always so much of that answer keeps coming back to the objective why the heck are we doing this and how can we move things in the direction of what our actual tangible objectives are?

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So, listeners this is just a quick aside for me that the transcript of this episode is on our website, so if you want to go back and see this list, see the way Brian talks about these metrics, don't be shy about going there, because clearly we all have a lot of homework in our businesses and, brian, with that in mind, I know that tech is a big part of the way that you operate and people always want to talk about tech within the context of marketing and obviously AI.

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It's a big elephant in the room.

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In so many conversations these days.

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Talk to us about how AI has enhanced and how it helps the work that you do with your clients to ultimately help them grow.

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Yeah, it's a great subject, Something that over the last, I would say, 7 to 12 months, I've spent a lot more time digging into At the very high level, I would say.

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For marketers, ai is a great efficiency tool and it augments a lot of things that marketers do on a day to day.

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It's not a complete replacement, at least not yet, which is good news for all of us who still want to be employed in this function.

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For me personally, my assist of using a lot of chat GPT I use the paid version, the 4.0.

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And sometimes, which I'm using less of, just because I think GPT has gotten so much better I don't need the marketing skin over it.

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I've gotten better and better at prompts that I can build a library in GPT that does the job.

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I do use a tool called Otter, which is a transcription tool.

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So a lot of what I do for clients is talking to their clients.

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So I'll do a lot of VOC what I just described and I'll use different ways to record it.

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I use Zoom.

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I'll dump it into an AI transcription that I'll go through and I'll dump that into chat GPT.

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I'll give it some prompts that'll spit out some of the key takeaways and executive summary, and it really has automated a lot of that workflow.

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So that's just a quick example, but I think, in general, you'll see marketers using these tools to eliminate some of the inefficiencies or redundancies and to help them produce a lot better content quicker at scale.

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Content is the name of the game right now.

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Right, I think if you are doing any kind of inbound, you have to have good content, and so I think that's where AI is really supplementing marketers.

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I'm starting to do a lot more on YouTube.

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I'm launching a channel next month, and there's some great AI video tools that are out there as well.

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So you're seeing it in all different facets of content creation, and I think it's going to be this thing where we're just going to have to try and play catch up and pay attention until it reaches some level of plateau, which I don't know that it ever will, but you're going to have to have your pulse on it, and I think staying curious and willing to invest in new skill sets is going to keep you relevant.

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Yeah, brian, I'll tell you what you said.

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It's a quick example.

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I think that's a really powerful example that you just shared with us Gaining that customer feedback over zoom, dumping it into otter for transcription and then feeding that into chat GPT to get some actionable takeaways.

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It's a brilliant workflow and I think that for most service-based businesses, it's something that they can mirror.

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So, listeners again, brian's bringing you all the homework here in today's episode and I absolutely appreciate that.

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But time is also flying by, so I don't want to let you go without us getting into what drives customer behavior.

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It's something you tease and I know it's something that you're actively thinking about and working on.

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So introduce us to that framework, brian, and the work that you've done there.

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Yeah, so I think I've probably touched on a lot of it just throughout the conversation.

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But what I would really you know, employ marketers, cmos, ceos of small companies to consider is really focusing on your customers and really building out those buyer personas.

00:24:29.278 --> 00:24:36.421
And I'm not talking about I think we've all seen the academic exercise of a buyer persona and they went to this school and they make this much money.

00:24:36.421 --> 00:24:37.932
That's not what I'm talking about.

00:24:37.932 --> 00:24:44.471
I'm talking about doing actual interviews with people in those roles that you know you're selling into.

00:24:44.471 --> 00:25:07.355
So, for example, if I'm a company that sells into CFOs, interview 5 to 10 CFOs Really understand their objectives, their pain points, how they're measured in their job, understand what type of information they consume, how do they like to consume information.

00:25:07.355 --> 00:25:14.698
All of these things will actually help you build a model and an archetype for how you need to market and sell to someone.

00:25:14.698 --> 00:25:42.598
And, for example, if you know that CFOs ignore emails, if you know that they're just pushing the delete button I'm just saying this hypothetical, I'm not saying this is actually the truth, just to make a point If you know that channel is kind of dead to them but they really like learning from their peer sets and they do a lot of networking, then focus on those channels where you're going to be more effective, instead of just applying this kind of vanilla SaaS demand generation playbook.

00:25:43.038 --> 00:25:49.820
It's kind of one thing that I'm starting to work through with clients is we don't need to take something off the shelf and just think it fits every company.

00:25:49.820 --> 00:25:57.124
I think what we need to do is really understand who we're selling to and what do they like.

00:25:57.124 --> 00:25:59.535
How do they like to consume information?

00:25:59.535 --> 00:26:00.857
How do they like to buy?

00:26:00.857 --> 00:26:02.982
Where are they going for information?

00:26:02.982 --> 00:26:15.063
I think we're at the stage now where we need to be hyper, hyper targeted, not only with the messaging, but with how we can reach these people in a non-generic way.

00:26:15.430 --> 00:26:16.916
I'm sure you get sold to all the time.

00:26:16.916 --> 00:26:18.517
I get sold to all the time.

00:26:18.517 --> 00:26:36.911
I think there's just too many channels, there's too much noise, and if you focus on the people who are actually buying your solutions instead of a generic profile of that person, it's just going to make your marketing and your sales efforts that much more effective.

00:26:36.911 --> 00:27:05.172
So it's something that I'm starting to build out in terms of like a service within my business where companies can just get that information directly through interview, voc, feedback, and it's something that they can say is very specific to their organization and how that particular person views their particular technology or product within the context of everything else that that company is utilizing.

00:27:05.874 --> 00:27:07.357
Yeah, really well said.

00:27:07.357 --> 00:27:16.903
There's something I want to call out there because you threw a subtle dig there, brian, but I think it's such a powerful one that we all need to ask ourselves that question of am I doing this academically?

00:27:16.903 --> 00:27:29.878
I feel like on every YouTube video about business, every business book, every podcast, we talk about these exercises, the ideal customer persona as one example but are we doing it academically or are we doing it with that outcome in mind?

00:27:29.878 --> 00:27:36.101
And it's so evident here today in this conversation with you that you always have that outcome in mind.

00:27:36.101 --> 00:27:37.876
So I really appreciate those insights.

00:27:37.970 --> 00:27:46.138
But I always love in these conversations transitioning a little bit and not tapping into your mind as a subject matter expert, but as one of us, as a fellow entrepreneur.

00:27:46.138 --> 00:27:50.799
And in your case, what I really love about the way you do business is clearly you're so data driven.

00:27:50.799 --> 00:27:59.875
Clearly you're really analytical and you have a strong ability to make sense of complex markets, products, messaging there's so much that goes into it.

00:27:59.875 --> 00:28:10.553
I want to ask you a little bit about your secret sauce there, because I know that you and I were talking off air about you being an introvert and obviously you have a lot of really strong listening skills and those analytical skills that we talked about.

00:28:10.553 --> 00:28:19.438
What are some of those ways that you found work for you and your clients that you bring to the table that make your approach a bit unique for them and really effective for them?

00:28:21.441 --> 00:28:23.944
Well, I think it's probably what I just described.

00:28:23.944 --> 00:28:46.166
My, you know, I've got this kind of weird niche that I've worked in and because I've worked in wealth management investments you know finance, you can call it as a broader term I really understand the different types of companies.

00:28:46.166 --> 00:29:03.692
I don't want to bore your audience, but specifically I'm talking about hedge funds, investment management companies, some of the big corporate and public pensions endowments and foundations of the world family offices, endowments and foundations of the world family offices.

00:29:03.692 --> 00:29:09.336
That's a very you know kind of niche but important category in terms of the broader capital market system.

00:29:09.336 --> 00:29:18.201
And so, you know, for me it's not so much anything that I want to attribute to.

00:29:18.201 --> 00:29:30.627
You know, I'm so smart or I have this really, like you know, unique skill set, as it is just my experience and really knowing where I can add value to an organization.

00:29:37.309 --> 00:30:10.814
And that's a big reason why I started my consulting companies, because I mean part of it, quite honestly, was I was getting burnt out on the corporate grind, being a VP for a number of years, and there were aspects I really loved, but there were others that weren't, and someone once told me some very sage advice, which was wherever you go, there you are, and I always took that to mean, even if you get a new title or a new job or a raise or whatever it may be, the things that really aggravate you about a particular corporation or where you are in life are still gonna be there, even though you're changing teams or putting on a new jersey.

00:30:10.814 --> 00:30:20.239
And so I always thought that was an important element when starting my consulting company, because I could focus on the work that I love.

00:30:20.239 --> 00:30:29.261
I could choose customers who I knew I could help and bring value to, and I think that's something that sets my business and myself apart.

00:30:29.261 --> 00:30:42.955
But it's more about I can come in and really add value to a company and it's not going to be this ramp up time and all of the different tactics and skill sets and things that we were just discussing kind of come with that.

00:30:42.955 --> 00:30:51.396
But I think it's more about understanding what my unique value was to a subset of the marketplace and really trying to focus and hone in on that.

00:30:51.416 --> 00:31:05.115
And I didn't get there overnight, obviously, but it's something that really, when I talk to clients that are in this space and I can speak the language, it goes super far and it adds credibility kind of in an instant.

00:31:05.115 --> 00:31:14.513
So for people that are thinking about doing this, maybe taking the leap and starting it doesn't have to be a consulting company, but just an entrepreneur.

00:31:14.513 --> 00:31:23.681
One piece of advice I would give is really understand the value that you can bring to the marketplace and kind of double down on that.

00:31:23.681 --> 00:31:39.758
You're going to figure out things as you go, but if you have a passion for something and if you really understand a marketplace or a client set or a piece of technology or service or whatever it may be, that's going to be your biggest strength and your biggest value.

00:31:40.538 --> 00:32:02.340
Yeah, Brian, speaking of doubling down, I feel like you double down on all of these skill sets of yours that I've been bragging about for you here on the air, because that was a very analytical answer where you're able to look at the realities, the landscape of the industry that you personally work in and you can very clearly identify the gap that you plug with your skills, with your perspectives and your experiences.

00:32:02.381 --> 00:32:03.432
So I absolutely love that.

00:32:03.432 --> 00:32:10.178
But I will say, with such a strong answer and so many tips and insights that you've given us here today, I don't know how you're going to top that.

00:32:10.178 --> 00:32:13.982
For my final question, because I always ask guests what's the one takeaway?

00:32:13.982 --> 00:32:31.846
You've given us so many takeaways and I always love thinking about the listeners who are probably in the gym or pretending to work at their nine to fives, or maybe they're in the car where they're tuning in and they're going to feel a lot of excitement and incentive and motivation to take a lot of action from what you said.

00:32:31.846 --> 00:32:39.413
But if there's only one thing they remember from today's episode, what's that one thing you want to leave them with, wherever they are in their business growth journey?

00:32:40.916 --> 00:32:42.058
Yeah, I love the question.

00:32:42.058 --> 00:32:51.622
I think if I was to give one piece of advice, and a lot of what I talk about obviously is marketing.

00:32:51.622 --> 00:32:57.501
But if you want to be a great marketer, put yourself in your client's shoes, or your customer's shoes.

00:32:57.501 --> 00:33:00.032
Empathy is critical.

00:33:00.032 --> 00:33:11.123
If you invest time in understanding their needs, their pain points, their behaviors, what really drives them, you're going to be a lot more successful.

00:33:11.123 --> 00:33:24.103
I think for me, this is the foundational knowledge that will really set companies apart from being just okay to really great, and customers will appreciate that.

00:33:24.103 --> 00:33:27.700
I think you'll be much more personalized and successful in your approach.

00:33:28.650 --> 00:33:30.196
Yeah, I love that advice, Brian.

00:33:30.196 --> 00:33:41.924
I'll tell you what I know, because I hear from a lot of listeners that a lot of people, when it comes to marketing, they want to talk about marketing channels and different strategies and ad copy and hooks and angles.

00:33:41.924 --> 00:33:45.055
But the reality is you have brought to us the real stuff today.

00:33:45.055 --> 00:33:50.063
This is the stuff that marketing is all about and these fundamentals so much of what you shared with us today.

00:33:50.063 --> 00:33:50.885
I'm going to piggyback.

00:33:50.905 --> 00:33:52.030
I use this quote often.

00:33:52.030 --> 00:33:56.652
It's my favorite Albert Einstein quote where he said if you want to impress someone, make it complicated.

00:33:56.652 --> 00:33:58.678
If you want to help someone, make it simple.

00:33:58.678 --> 00:34:04.596
And I feel like so frequently you bring the conversation back to these fundamentals, even up to that very last answer.

00:34:04.596 --> 00:34:06.016
So huge kudos to you, brian.

00:34:06.016 --> 00:34:24.545
I know that listeners will be keen to see your work in action and if they're sitting here and obviously they don't have the visuals that I have being on your website and seeing your work in action, but there's so much that you lay out and so much food for thought about go-to-market strategy, messaging and positioning, all the important stuff that goes into the projects that you work on.

00:34:24.545 --> 00:34:26.108
Drop those links on us.

00:34:26.108 --> 00:34:29.980
Where should listeners go to find more information about all the great stuff that you're up to.

00:34:31.391 --> 00:34:36.824
Yeah, I think the biggest place you can go is my website, graycarrollcom.

00:34:36.824 --> 00:34:38.789
I'm on LinkedIn as well.

00:34:38.789 --> 00:34:40.635
You can search for me, brian Carroll.

00:34:40.635 --> 00:34:51.338
I also have a company page there, and then I don't know when this episode is dropping, but I'm going to be launching my YouTube channel, probably the end of August.

00:34:51.338 --> 00:34:53.663
Great Carroll Consulting at Great Carroll.

00:34:53.663 --> 00:34:56.536
There's going to be a mix of content on there.

00:34:56.536 --> 00:35:12.715
A lot of it's going to be product marketing, go-to-market focused, but I am going to provide some material and some tips and some advice for entrepreneurs, particularly those that are looking to build more of a lifestyle business as opposed to a huge corporation.

00:35:12.715 --> 00:35:27.463
Something that I'm passionate about is designing your life, not your work, so to speak, and so those are probably the main areas that people can can find me to learn more yes, listeners, you already know the drill.

00:35:27.483 --> 00:35:47.856
We are making it as easy as possible for you to find all of those links, including by the time this episode airs, if you all want to go deeper into the brian carroll rabbit hole of his marketing brilliance but even more than just that extrapolating out to life and building a business that complements the life that you want you just heard it from him then that YouTube channel is already live.

00:35:47.856 --> 00:35:49.541
So definitely go check out the show notes.

00:35:49.541 --> 00:35:52.815
You'll find a link to his website at graycarolcom.

00:35:52.815 --> 00:35:57.632
It's G-R-A-Y and then Carol, with two R's, two L's it's Brian's last name.

00:35:57.632 --> 00:36:00.077
You'll see it in the episode title greatcarolcom.

00:36:00.077 --> 00:36:01.079
Or scroll right on down.

00:36:01.079 --> 00:36:06.833
You'll find that link, a link to his personal LinkedIn and a link to his YouTube channel, which I will be subscribing, brian.

00:36:06.833 --> 00:36:11.512
So thank you so much for coming on to the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:36:12.596 --> 00:36:14.000
Thanks, brian, it was a pleasure to be here.

00:36:15.103 --> 00:36:20.697
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:36:20.697 --> 00:36:24.643
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:36:24.643 --> 00:36:33.858
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

00:36:33.858 --> 00:36:42.590
There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

00:36:42.710 --> 00:36:44.715
These are not sponsored episodes.

00:36:44.715 --> 00:36:46.318
These are not infomercials.

00:36:46.318 --> 00:36:49.793
Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

00:36:49.793 --> 00:37:00.751
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

00:37:00.751 --> 00:37:09.237
So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

00:37:09.237 --> 00:37:10.574
We also have live chat.

00:37:10.574 --> 00:37:15.197
If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

00:37:15.197 --> 00:37:16.601
Initiate a live chat.

00:37:16.601 --> 00:37:22.130
It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday.