Welcome to the Marketing Minute! We’re a short-form story-driven podcast designed to provide value and industry insight—all in under ten minutes. Every episode, we invite an expert guest to answer three questions: What’s your favorite story for marketing communications professionals? What were the insights gained? Why do you do what you do? It’s all the value and nothing else. Succinct. Insightful. Actionable. Give us a listen, subscribe, and follow! 3-2-1. Done.

Transcription:
Karl Boehm:
All right. What is your most insightful story for marketing communicators?

Jeremy Miller:
Well, this is a bit of a personal story, I think the thing that we all have to recognize is you’ve got permission to change. When I was starting out, I actually started my career as a marketer working for my family’s business. And that first year I worked with my parents was probably the worst year of my entire career. And everything I did didn’t work, sales kept declining. And it got so bad at one point that we actually had that entire sales team including myself, cold calling, and I hate cold calling. It’s so gross. I wrote a book sticky branding afterwards, so that you would never have to do this, but that was that formative moment. I remember sitting down at the end of that first year with both of my parents and it was at the just after our Christmas party, actually I said, This is what it’s like to be in a family business. I can’t do this. I came back, I left a successful career to come and work here. And this last year was horrible. And my dad looked at me and he said, “You know, it’s not about the business you’ve built. It’s about the business you’re building. What are we going to build next?” And that was probably the best quote And I’ll repeat it. It’s not about the business you’ve built is about the business you’re building. What are you going to build next? And it was in that moment, that gave me permission to take a step back. And I started to study our customers, study our market, and study the industry as a whole. And what I realized is we didn’t have a sales problem, all the marketing tactics we were doing weren’t working because we had a branding problem. Our customers couldn’t distinguish us from anyone else. And when we realized that it gave us permission to change & I repositioned my family’s business and we changed the company name for Miller and Associates to Leap Job.

We reposition the business. We built a marketing strategy that was so successful that we actually grew through the 2008 – 2009 recession when the rest of our industry was being pummeled. At the end of it all, I was able to sell that business in 2013, to do what I have now become passionate about, which is build brands. But it was that advice my dad gave me that just set the path forward for me at least.

Karl:
Great. Any other insights derived from that story?

Jeremy:
The key insight that I think really comes out of that story is we all have permission to change, especially when you look at right now we’ve just gone through this monumental event with Coronavirus, changing our entire world. And so as you have to adjust your value proposition, take the advice again, it’s not about the business you’ve built. It’s about the business you’re building. What are you going to build next? And when you look at that, you can actually be very present and helpful. And so right now

What is needed more so than ever, is how do you be hyper relevant for your customers, whether they are going through the crisis or we’re way past this and we’re in a different place. It’s that relevance to constantly reinvent yourself that will always give you a way forward.

Karl:
All right. Why do you do what you do?
Jeremy:
Because I have permission to do it. And I’ve given myself permission to do this. I love helping businesses grow. I am an ideas person. I’m also a strategist and I have been able to architect Sticky Branding to play to those strengths. And I think I have if you look at all careers we’re squiggly, but the thing that gets me up every morning is to be able to help somebody else realize their dreams. I think branding is a choice that you choose to grow a Sticky Brand

And you choose to make your brand something that people appreciate, and love and come back to again and again. And so if I can teach you how to do that, if I can show you the tools and provide you the process to get what’s in your mind down actually into your business, then that is to me the greatest reward of all.

Karl:
Yes. Okay. Who you are, where the audience can go to reach you?

Jeremy:
Okay. Well, my name is Jeremy Miller. I am the founder of sticky branding. I have written two books, Sticky Branding and Brand New Name. And the easiest way to find me is to just Google Sticky Branding. I’m on all the social networks at Sticky Branding or the website stickybranding.com.

I’m Jeremy Miller and this is The Marketing Minute.