Ms. Charli Matthews with Empowering Brands Talks about Building Communities and Culture through Marketing
In this week's Industrial Talk Podcast we're talking to Charli Matthews, Founder and CEO of Empowering Brands about “How Marketing can help Build Communities and Show Your Company Culture”. Get the answers to your “Marketing” questions along with Charli's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!
You can find out more about Charli and the wonderful team at Empowering Brands on the power of marketing and humanizing your culture by the links below. Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2020. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!
CHARLI MATTHEWS' CONTACT INFORMATION:
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlimatthews/
Business Email: charli@empoweringpumps.com
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/empowering-brands/
Company Website: https://empowering-brands.com/
Company Twitter: https://twitter.com/CharliKMatthews
Company Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/empoweringbrand
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empoweringwomeninindustry/
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
marketing, Charli, people, marketers, logistics, podcast, works, pump, sales team, scott, sales, industry, educate, create, tools, innovate, equipment, campaign, industrial, strategy
Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go. Alright, welcome to the industrial talk podcast. This platform is about you, industry professionals. You are heroes. That's why we celebrate you on this particular podcast, this industrial talk podcast because you are bold, you are brave, you dare greatly you innovate like nobody's business. And you're changing the world through the fact that you're changing lives. Tell me why we can't celebrate you. I'm sitting here telling Tell me why. Yeah, of course you can't, because you deserve it. All right, on this particular podcast, we got a great, of course, we got a great interview. We always have great interviews, right? Her name is Charli Matthews, empowering brand is the company. She is absolutely wonderful. We've had a number of conversation. I'm excited for this particular interview. But before we get going, we had some bidness to deal with. All right, a couple of things. You know, I'm all about education. I'm all about collaboration, I'm all about the necessity to innovate. And if you want to survive, rebuild, and prosper into the future, or whatever this squiffy world we live in today, you're going to have to be able to educate, you're going to have to be able to collaborate, get out there and collaborate with people because they're always out there, they want to collaborate, and then you're going to have to innovate, you're going to have to be, you're just going to have to think about not just your human interactions differently, you're going to have to also think about technology, you're just going to have to innovate. And that's why I work with a wonderful organization. And they are called CSI. That's the connected systems Institute out of Wisconsin. They're fantastic. They're all about that, and the you know, what they're changing workforce or are educating the workforce of the future. And also Finally, you know, on this particular podcast, we've had a number of conversations about reliability, asset management, everything and DoD and history for Dotto and everything under Bill under all that. But I want to make sure that you understand something about cap logistics, tap logistics is a company out of Colorado. And they're not just they're great. And when it comes to logistics, don't get me wrong. They're fantastic. They're bar none. They're second another absolutely wonderful, but they're also into the ability for logistics reliability. Now you're saying to yourself, Scott, well, what the hell is that? Whenever you have an outage, whenever you have a turnaround, when you whenever you planning something of that substance, big, whatever that big, big whatever turnaround is, you need to plan for that equipment, you need to plan for that stuff. And I want you to know that cap logistics does a great job so that you don't have to worry about waiting on that equipment. You just don't. It's there. It's ready to go. Theory. They are. Third your right hand people when it comes to logistics. Okay, I'm worn out. All right, Charli, welcome to the industrial talk podcast. How are you doing?
I'm doing great. What a great start. I love the music that starts us off. Thanks for having me.
I'm telling you, it's Riverside, FM. Now, here's the funny thing. So you listeners out there. One of the things that is a challenge with any type of podcasting is is compression, the sound compression, Riverside, I don't know what they do. They got that innovation, they got that technology, right. And it allows you to play music, you can do it live, play music, it doesn't get all compressed and lousy sounding. So that that's Riverside. It's fantastic. I love this. There. Let's just wrap it up now
that we've given them the tools that they need already. There you go. All right.
For the listeners out there, Charli, give us a little background on who you are.
Well, I am the founder and CEO of empowering brands. It's a digital media marketing services company. And the media brand is empowering pumps and equipment. And I've been doing that for 10 years. And this June. And so what that means is I've been sharing content for engineers, operators and maintenance personnel. So that's, I guess what I do, I'm also a mom, I have three wonderful children, a husband that puts up with me and works in the business, and then works at another business as well. So you know, just a lot going on. I love the industry fell in love with it a long time ago. And yeah, that's me in a nutshell. Okay. I
got a question. I understand pumps. I got what's the equipment side? I mean, that could be just pretty much anything.
Yeah, it really is. It's so you know what's connected to it. So when I learned, you know, motor driven systems was a term that came around several years ago, and I realized, you know, something has to connect those two. And now today when we're talking about IoT, I mean, it could really be anything sensors, computer systems, but we're Talking pumps, Valve seals, you know, those those typical parts of the equipment?
I gotta put you in contact with a sealed company?
Yes, yes, I love seal. So you can see it back here as well. I don't know if you can see it, it is fluid sealing Association. They really were great at helping me in my personal development. So shout out to FSA.
There you go. I have it. That's it for a shameless shout out. Okay. All right. One of the topics that I'm just absolutely, and I and I love it. And from my perspective there, Charli is I believe that through marketing, through creative marketing through a, I guess, proactive type marketing, and then the strategies around it, right. I think it's just sort of feeds into the sales. And its sales is just a confirmation of what your marketing is. And that's why I'm very passionate about marketing. And I think that, especially today in this COVID world, I don't know, I think that companies are struggling to figure out how to increase sales, but they're not willing, or they're not entertaining to a certain extent, that marketing element. Can you explain a little bit about that? And why marketing is important?
Yeah, well, you nailed it, if you do it, right. Marketing does feed sales, and vice versa. Right. So sales needs to also talk with marketing and get things done, I find that it's always been a struggle. I mean, I started off selling advertising. And I would wonder why in the world, can't they get this ad and that newsletter today? I just sold it I and you know, here's the creative? And what we find is those things are already set in place. Right? marketers, they think of things in the strategy behind it, and plan it out. And that's what we need to get to know i think that that's what we're lacking. Is that conversation with what are we trying to accomplish? Yes, what the sales team is trying to accomplish. But even you know, what is the business strategy as a whole, marketers may not have that information. And so a lot of the times we're not at the table, you know, being on both sides, marketing, and media, I've seen that we're kind of pushed away from that business strategy. Like it's a secret, and we don't want anybody to know it before we say so. So why, why? Yeah. Why? I think I honestly think it's because people don't understand marketing, and its value and how it works. So I've talked a lot about the technical side of marketing. And it's because, you know, just like I said, I didn't know what goes into putting a newsletter together, when I was selling advertising, my job was to talk to the people and get them interested. It wasn't, you know, you know, making things you know, fit into this strategy, or campaign or plan to create results, you know, that, like you talked about leads coming back to me, I thought I had to do that all myself, right. I'm a salesperson, I gotta go out there, and get that lead all by myself. And what we know, especially today, with the things that we can measure is that marketing can help the sales team and it does. And if you're doing it, right, you're making a guess a funnel is the best word for that for your sales team. See,
I look at it this way to me personally, if I'm interested in buying something, right. I don't care what it is. It's just, here's a behavior that I always go through, what do I do? And I think 80 I think the stats are like 85 90%. It's only getting more and more, I'll go out, and I'll try to find information about that particular product. I'll do my pre sales, you know, exercise and efforts before I even call you. Absolutely, that to me is marketing. I'm going to look for that material out on the worldwide web. And I'm going to educate myself, and it's going to be your marketing material that's educating me. And then I'm going to pick up the phone. Hello, Charli, I'm interested in your pump. And I think that I want this pump that pump and all you have to do is saying, You know what? We've got you covered, Scott, you're bald, you're ugly. Yeah, we got you covered. We got a good pump for you. And so that's how I look at it. Do you agree?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think even more so today. You know, I started my I guess I started industry 18 years ago, and completely what to do baby.
Charli, she's
two. No, no, I'm 40 and I just turned 40. So you know that to let everybody know. Oh, no, but I love it, um, life. But anyway, so definitely different. I think that I have a great grasp on kind of this baby boomer world, kind of going into the millennials. I'm the first millennial if you will at 81. And so understanding that and understanding What marketing looks like today, it is different and you have to learn it, you have to be willing to take risk and willing to get out of your comfort zone is a better way to say that right? Like, make sure they learn. Yeah, right. That risk, you know, I think, especially in the engineering world, very risk averse. And once all the details before you go forward, it took it took a long time, I mean, 10 years, I've been teaching people how to use social media, I remember some of the first things that I did was, you know, make sure you complete your profile 100% on LinkedIn, you know, and then, you know, fast forward 10 years, and they're just now really like, okay, I might need to get online and use, you know, this for good for marketing for results. So, I think it's learning. Yeah.
It's, it's like, it's like pushing rope uphill, sometimes, I don't, maybe it's just me. But it just seems like it's like, it's a no brainer, nobody's gonna die, get out there and put yourself out there, nobody's gonna sit there and go, Oh, geez, Charli, you sit, um, and then you wiggled your head, and nobody's like that. Nobody, nobody listened to me.
So also, I think, you know, it's that understanding of it and trying to teach a social element of something to people who maybe don't want to be social. So we have to educate people. Right? Like, we have to tell them, this is why we're doing this, this is going to, you know, get your technology out there, this is going to better that pump industry, whatever that y is for people, we have to explain that in a way, which is, you know, one of my things that I've been learning is how to better communicate to the engineering market, for example, but also the operators and and, you know, C suite in these manufacturing companies, it's a different language. And, you know, I've, you know, of course, we go in and internalize, okay, how can I be better? But also, you know, getting in front of those groups is really a challenge.
Yeah, it's, it is a learning experience. And I understand that it's a learning opportunity. And I think that there is some unfortunate baggage that exists with marketing, maybe it just is. But in my short period of time, and doing all of this, I've grown to truly respect and value, the science behind marketing, and how you might phrase a statement or how that information and given the fact that and I'll be the first to admit, I can be pretty anti social, and you say to yourself, Scott, you got a damn podcast? And I said, Yeah, but I'm still can be pretty anti social, and I'm gonna do everything I can. And I will go online, and I will search and that's where you need to be, you need to have that information. If you don't have that information out there, Charli, nobody's gonna find you, you can have the data for cancer.
Yeah, and I'll just add, you made me think about this. You know, one of the best people to do an interview, in my opinion, is an engineer or product manager, somebody that really knows the details. So I would walk around these trade shows, and I would love you know, that first meeting, and they're like, uncomfortable, like, what are you gonna ask me to do you know, and then you ask them about their product. And they can go on for days, and like, remember all the details. So I think one of the best Yeah,
but come on, man. There's a deep dive that happens there, right? It's like, hey, that's just going deep dive into that like, and that Phillips head screwdriver, stainless steel, and you're like, Wow,
well, that's why they need storytellers and marketers to shape it up. Right. That's where we come in.
So let's just say I want to break in and, and a listeners out there saying, I like what Charli's saying. She's, she's spot on. I want to get this information to the C suite. What do I do?
Yeah, so that's a challenge. I said, and I think we do have some examples of things that work. And so doing the research, having mentors and different people that can get you into the room, I think is really important. But also, and I think this has have has really been the case all the time, you have to really find Okay, what is the ROI? What is it? What can you present, what is the measurable results that you have gotten, but it's kind of a chicken and egg kind of thing, right? Sometimes we need, you know, the C suite to allow us to do marketing to then give them the results, but looking for smaller campaigns that you can do smaller. You know, I always like to interview someone and say, that's kind of my in, okay, if I interview them, and they personally get feedback and engagement on their posts that we create for them, it's gonna resonate with them a little bit more. So there's a lot of strategy and different ways you can do it. But at the end of the day, what they're looking at is a business strategy, and you've got to find a way to put that together as a marketer to present That to them, that's going to say, Okay, this is how we're going to better the business, this is how I can bring you leads, this is what I've seen as a successful tool used somewhere else. And so if you can do that, then they're going to be more willing to listen to you. But honestly, we've got to get to that C suite. And, and, and talk to them about opening up to this idea of using marketing tools. And, you know, I think that we're doing that here by having these conversations, but for the marketer out there, it really is about writing it down, putting together these presentations, and, and believing that it works. And so if you don't believe it yet, go ahead and do a campaign maybe not and, you know, ad campaigns are where you have to spend the dollars, but look at what you can do on social media and prove it to them that this works.
I think that there's a need, and I agree with you 100%, I believe that there is a necessity to align marketing with sales and be beat up together. So if I created a campaign over here in marketing, and see how it feeds into sales, and make that solid link, then I think you could say, we did this, it opened up these opportunities, which enclosed these deals. And I think that that's, that's powerful. But we always get you know, nobody, nobody Yeah,
and if you if you get somebody on your team, Brian, I think this is something that marketers really need to strive to do is to make those personal relationships on their team. And so, okay, you know, what this salesperson is trying to accomplish? How can you help them? How can you be there to generate a campaign that's going to, you know, lead to success for them. And so look for something like that look, for somebody that's like, going to believe in this with you, somebody who's active on social is a good idea to kind of pick their brain, but overall, we're looking for a sales strategy, which is generating leads that leads to business. And if you can influence that, you have an idea, don't hold it to yourself, go ahead, and, you know, show them and you're gonna, you're gonna see that they're gonna start leaning on you and leaning on you, because you're creating results.
But you know, Charli, nobody wants it. I mean, it's, it's the, I don't know, I work for free. Yeah, but it's, it's the stepchild is like, Oh, I did marketing, and I don't want to listen, or whatever. And that's it, there's a lot of heavy lifting that has to go on with that. And, and to get to that point of, of aligning and saying, Hey, this is just telling you, nobody's gonna find your deal. If you're not out there. You're not gonna sell much? You know,
you're, you're saying that, and I am thinking of this conversation with a VP of Sales who was was talking about one of their kind of project engineers. And he was like, Well, she's really just marketing. And I was like, blown away, first of all, your dad? Yes, but, but marketing, it's just as technical. I mean, I know it's different, a different technical, but it's a skill, right? It is a skill that you have to learn. And there's a lot of different pieces at play. And I think that again, I think people just don't understand the value of marketing in and what it can do to the bottom line, just like a new product launch. If you've got a great campaign on an old product, then you can really make a difference for the company. And so getting people to get out of that mindset of just marketing is, is the biggest conversation that you know, I'm having these days.
You know, I'll be a truth be told I was probably one of those guys that just like, yeah, marketing, what the heck, I'm sales, you know, when, in a past life, and I'm sorry to say that Charli, and, and I'm coming on this podcast is like, here it is. But what I did, when I started going down this road, I realized that a lot of the tools that are available to market, the powerful, and they're user friendly, you're not going to sit there and think that I've got to learn code, or you got to do all this. There's some really creative and innovative tools out there to up your marketing game that can truly bring in value. That to me, they're not that expensive, too. That just blows me away.
Yeah, just like the podcast tool, right? Like 13 years ago, I was talking to somebody who had a podcast, I'm like, I bet that was like a lot of equipment, you know, very complicated. Editing was not a thing that could be done easily. So So we've advanced a lot and that's just one example. Definitely marketing tools, your CRM that you've got that can feed into all these different systems. We can measure these things and we can create these flowcharts if you want to call it that or whatever that kind of pushes it through to the sales team. And and then you can measure and look back and say, Okay, what do we want to do? How do we want to adjust it? So there's definitely tools like that. Even social media, you know, I love the social media.
So I've read a couple of books. And I, again, like I said, I didn't know too much about it. So I went down this journey. And I, of course, I educated myself and and then I, I started collaborating with people like you and others. And I'm learning, right, I'm trying. And what I've figured out is the level of sophistication that can be deployed at your marketing, and it's not it, and it's science. It's based off a science, right? I just didn't realize how much it was like, again, why just, you know, like, how important a header is. I don't know, I don't know how important, but it's everything. So I just, and, you know, listeners out there don't, don't, don't poopoo this man, this is important stuff. It is? Well, I like it.
Well, I think about the example with the Coca Cola, billboards or whatever. Anytime I see like the picture of a Coca Cola, I want a Coca Cola. So it's advertising, but it's because of that whatever feeling that they have created in you. And one of the things that we have to do as marketers is create a feeling of, you know, you know, we need this or, or they need this or this is important. And so how do you do that in these very, you know, technical industries. But these industry, especially the pumps and equipment, industries, they are, they're so vital to life. You know, we talk about water and power, and especially today when it's snowing here in Alabama, I just say that is that's the story, we have to tell about the people behind the scenes, the essential workers that are out there, creating these products. That's
a truth bomb, baby, that is a truth bomb, I am all about the human side, you know, pre virus, Charli pre virus. It was the same stuff like as he said, it was just it didn't. But in the in the world of virus, I find that people are far more vulnerable. There is a human side of it. And I and I think that we forget, we forget that all of this industry stuff that we're talking about down to the pumps, there's a human component. And I like that
idea. Absolutely. It's my favorite part. I think that I created this empowering pump. So we created that we share stories, we highlight industry, people all of the time. And that's why I'm I think we're different because of that reason.
All right. Charli Matthews is her name. Empowering brands, I love that
every day. Love it.
Thanks for having me. All right,
we're gonna have all her contact. So don't come to me and say, Scott, I can't get ahold of Charli, you're lying. I'm gonna have all of her stuff out on industrial talk.com. Now, I'm looking at your form here and you got a free giveaway of some sort. Can you explain a little bit about that?
That's right. tag us and mention that you heard us on this since this podcast and we're gonna give away an empowering women swag bag. So take a look at that. Same awesome, Scott.
Yeah, see? I like that, man. That is very, very, very cool. All right, let's Miss thank you very much for joining the industrial talk podcast. I love remember. Marketing, baby marketing. Do not shy away from marketing. Where you're going to upset Charli, you don't want to upset Charli. You don't want to upset me either. All right. Thank you very much for joining the industrial talk podcast. We're gonna have another great interview right around the corner. So stay tuned. You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.
About the author, Scott
I am Scott MacKenzie, husband, father, and passionate industry educator. From humble beginnings as a lathing contractor and certified journeyman/lineman to an Undergraduate and Master’s Degree in Business Administration, I have applied every aspect of my education and training to lead and influence. I believe in serving and adding value wherever I am called.
