Growing Stronger Brands and Companies | Tim Koelzer of Equibrand Consulting

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[00:00:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: Hello, Tim. Hi, Mike. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for joining the podcast today. Happy to have you on. I'm excited to be here. Tell our listeners what's going on. Hot in your 

[00:00:22] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: life right now. Well, other than the fires here in Northern California, ah, which were definitely hot a couple of weeks ago, so I am a marketing strategy.

And, uh, I had a company called echo brand consulting, and I've been doing that for almost 20 years. Um, and, uh, we work with a variety of companies to help them with what we call upstream marketing, which is thinking about marketing strategy, segmentation, positioning, those kinds of things to help companies grow their business.

A little 

[00:00:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: background. I'm number eight, child. Your number, I don't know. Five, six years, six. Yeah. So remarkably, I guess we're only, it seems like a bigger spread, but we're only two siblings apart. What separated our roads from you being in marketing? And me being in the pharmacy where our grandpa was and our dad was well going into pharmacy.

[00:01:17] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: Yeah. I knew there was a science component, you know, and maybe a math component and that wasn't really my strong suit. And as much as I like marketing, I didn't really like reading. All that much. Um, you know, cause growing up with the store and spending a lot of time there, for sure. I think beginning at age 13, you know, and then, um, so that was virtually every weekend and most days.

The course of the year. And I don't know, maybe it was that much work that Hurley that kind of gave me a bad taste in school. And you do your sports and then you'd have to work at the drugstore from six to 10 at the time PM. Yeah. And if you didn't work, dad knew where you were. Yeah, exactly. So, um, for that reason it was something I really never considered.

I always liked marketing though. I remember, you know, going into. Stores or, um, or looking at products and saying, wow, there's another way to do this. Or wouldn't it be interesting to do that? So I've always kind of thought about helping companies grow. And then I started in advertising, but never really had a desire to do kind of the traditional pharmaceutical retail 

[00:02:24] Mike Koelzer, Host: model.

I hated going into work when I was a kid. I hated anything that had to do with the clock, you know, and I still don't know how I ended up there because the only way that I enjoy it now is when I'm on a project, that's. Clock related also just stand there and stare at it. So. Your love of marketing. Where do you think that was born from?

Do you think it was born from hearing the family talk about the business or do you think it was classes in high school? 

[00:02:49] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: I think it was probably a combination of two things that may be more personality related. One is kind of, just a sense of creativity. I like to create things, whether it's, you know, I like to draw, I like to do music, you know, I like creative things.

So there's that. And then the other side is more of an analytical side, you know, I forget which is left, which is right-brained, but I, but I kind of like to blend both, so I really enjoy the creativity, but I also enjoy the analytical side of business. So marketing is one of those areas, and I know there are others, but that's one of those areas where you get to combine those two elements to get.

You know, there's a creative component, whether it's developing, advertising, developing any products, um, you know, helping somebody sell something, then there's also an analytical side, which is, you know, how do you grow the business? And if you're looking at numbers and tracking progress and those kinds of things.

So the combination, I think of those two. Uh, let's call them personalities, I think was really what was behind the motivation. It seems that, 

[00:03:53] Mike Koelzer, Host: You know, a lot of people end up doing what their fathers have done and so on. And I think part of that is because you're exposed to it and part of it, you know, if your old man can do it, then it can't be that hard.

Right. But I didn't even know a lot of them. These Professions really existed. Did you have a mentor or something that exposed you to this? 

[00:04:11] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: Not really. In fact, my first plan was to become an architect, which is kind of interesting again, because it is a plan that blends that creativity with the analytical side. Um, so there was always that kind of poll, I think, towards a career like that.

Um, and then I went to grand rapids community college and I didn't do well in one class. Um, I forget what it was. Um, physics or something that I knew was a prerequisite for architecture. So I. You know, rather than be diligent about it and say, wow, I really want to do this and get a tutor and figure that class out.

I just kinda said, well, let me try something else. So then I went to Michigan state university and I just started looking in advertising and that they have a program there it's a bachelor's in advertising. That was kind of interesting to me because again, it combined those two aspects. Um, which again is creativity.

And the analytics side actually started immediate planning, which is helping companies plan their budgets basically. So does that differ from 

[00:05:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: a degree in marketing or are those the same thing? Other 

[00:05:11] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: different advertising is more communication related? It's almost as I would say, a stepping stone to marketing and then marketing is broader than advertising.

You know, advertising is kind of what you see, you know, um, um, you know, the TV or hearing the radio, or, you know, the website now, but back then it was all broadcast or print re print advertising, but that's a component of marketing and marketing is broader than that. And, you know, they always talk about like, The four PS product, price, promotion, and place being distribution.

So advertising would be an element of that, which is probably more of the promotion side. So it's kind of carving out a piece of the bigger marketing pie advertising. Marketing is 

[00:05:51] Mike Koelzer, Host: more like 

[00:05:51] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: strategy. Yeah. There's different sides. And that's where we're different. We talk about two components of marketing and this is really the basis for the cup of work that we do as well as a book that I'm writing, which is upstream marketing different from downstream marketing and upstream marketing is all the stuff that happens before a product actually hits the marketplace.

So it's all the thinking, the strategizing, the planning that goes into that before actually making it available, the analogy. It's everything that happened before the hope was in the water. If you're a fisherman, you know, it's all the planning, the thought process of what am I going to do? Who am I going after?

How do I get them? Highway, project, my, my benefits and offerings in such a way that are attractive. So the last step then is putting kind of the skin on top of it, whether that's an advertising or packaging or whatever else. So all that upfront. That proceeds, that last step is the work that we really focus on, where I really have an interest.

And 

[00:06:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: You and I were prepping a little bit for the show today. I think you mentioned that Mike Brady was a hero of yours 

[00:06:53] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: Mike Brady and the panel, whatever it was. Family room. Yeah. Well, it was funny cause I was mentioning when I was a little kid, I used to watch Mike Brady with, he was an architect and he used to have the plans and they'd go in his office every now and then. I always thought that was pretty cool. And then the other one was Darrin Stephens. He was in advertising for Bewitched and he was part of the, I think it was the McMann and Tate advertising. 

agency agency forgot Truth be told. That's probably, that's probably what drove me to, the advertising But it was, it was interesting, you know, 

I thought that's kind of cool.

[00:07:31] Mike Koelzer, Host: If someone came to you right now and said, where are companies going with? Where are they going wrong with what you see? 

[00:07:38] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: Well, I think there are three things that companies have to do from a marketing perspective and some companies do them well, but most companies don't do them well. Um, and they have to be done together.

So first we call this insight, identity and innovation. Insight is gaining a deeper level of understanding about your customer. And that can be done through a number of ways, as simple as, you know, social media, listening, talking to customers, when they come into the store, you know, observing them doing more formal research, like focus groups or interviews, but really just having insight about your customer so that you can identify trends before they happen.

So it was just a commitment to sensitivity. Of talking to customers every day. And so many people say they do this, but the reality is they don't because they have a hundred things going on. And so they don't have the chance or focus or time to just talk to customers and say, how can I improve this? What do you like?

What don't you like? What can we do better? And that can happen at the large. Fortune 50 companies, everything from down in the corner, grocery store. So the first is insight 

[00:08:46] Mike Koelzer, Host: and years ago you would, that would maybe be a comment line. And now it could be social media in addition to focus groups and so on.

Yeah. 

[00:08:52] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: There are other ways to do it for sure. So, the tools are there and there's data and there's other things that you can do. You know, read through, but there's, there's, there's not really the commitment often, which is why companies tend to hire our firms, that we actually have projects that go out and do that.

But that's insight. The second is identity and identity is really how do you present yourself? And that has to do with things like the brand. And that has to do with things like how you message and how you provide a portfolio of services, your customers, or products when you're doing the right set of things.

So identity is really how you present yourself. And so that gets into things like. No advertising and marketing and messaging and communication things you can see and feel, but it's really the role you have with your, with your customer. That's, you know, we sometimes say brand strategies, a face you put on your business strategy.

So it's, how do you express your identity? And then the third element is innovation. So insight, identity, and innovation and innovation is really how do we create new things? And those things could be new. Products, new services, new offerings, new value propositions, new business models that, um, that appeal to your customers.

So all three of those have to. Work together. You can be great at research, but if you don't do anything with it, it just sits there on the shelf where you can be really good at an identity. You can have a great website, but if there's nothing behind the website and there's nothing behind the business, it's going to say flat and innovation is very important, but it really needs to be based on a foundation of insight and identity.

So those three things work together and the best company. Do them at the same time. Um, when, you know, we study a lot of companies in our work, everything from Apple to Amazon, to Nike, to Starbucks, to Google, and these companies, they have a commitment to their customer. Number one, You know, that's, that's always at the top of their list.

They have a commitment to managing their brand and how they express that. And they have a commitment to innovation and growth, and there's two sides to that. One is more of the strategy and the other is the culture. Culture is very important. You know, a lot of these companies have very strong cultures, but they're really grounded in growth and innovation.

So if you're not doing those three things, um, there's a good chance. You're, you're not maximizing your success. 

[00:11:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: Which one is the hardest for a company? 

[00:11:11] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: I would say that, you know, insight is foundational. You really have to have that, that. Core because insight what it does is it, it's, there's a bit of an introspection.

Is that the listening part? Yeah. That's really understanding your customers. Yeah. So if you don't do that, you know, then you, you just can't, you don't see their needs, you can't meet them. It's like the notion that fuzzy targets don't get hit. You don't know what you're aiming for. So if you're not really attuned to your customer, it can be difficult to deliver identity or, or, innovation that meets their needs.

So. They're all important. It's a hard question, Mike, because, you know, like I said, you can have this tremendous insight, but if it's just sitting there in a, in a, in somebody's file folder, you know, research reports or insight, but nobody does anything with it. That's why these three things have to work together.

There's a bit of a magnifying effect. Insight informs identity, informs innovation and the cycle kind of repeats. So, you know, they're all important, but you know, there's a lot of companies that are really good at one thing. And so therefore insight and identity innovation, maybe less important, but you see how markets change all the time.

You know, we're out in the bay area here, Silicon Valley's our next door neighbor. Every day, companies are looking at how to, how to take out the one that preceded them, you know, through innovation or technology or a new business model. So, um, you know, 

[00:12:38] Mike Koelzer, Host: they're trying to beat the competition. Yeah, 

[00:12:41] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: yeah.

And try to get a leg up, um, and do it in a more meaningful way. And you know, entire industries have collapsed, you know, the cab industry, you know, I mean, I, I traveled quite a bit. You know, it's amazing. You just see how few carbs are, are, how many everybody's hailing an Uber. I know that, you know, there's questions about certain things, but that, you know, we work was a fiasco, obviously that just happened where they were going to reinvent the office furniture or office space market and, you know, Airbnb, but these things happen and, and there, a lot of companies are looking for opportunities to grow.

And so if you're not looking for that opportunity, somebody else is. You know, so you need to be vigilant. Would 

[00:13:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: Is it a turning of a blind eye or just not being innovative enough? Like the cab industry whose fault was that? I don't think it was 

[00:13:30] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: anybody's fault because I don't think they ever would've thought to do that.

You know, cab cab companies never would have got together and said, Hey, we can, we can do this on our own. It probably never would have happened. You know, it's, it's all about disruption, you know, and it's all about somebody typically that's not close to. He comes in and says, there's a new way to do things here because you know, oftentimes it's you cannibalize yourself and the stronger companies like apple and Google and Amazon, they, they have, they do cannibalize themselves.

They develop new products that are going to put their other ones at risk, but it's just a mindset of how to go about doing that. And knowing that if you don't do this, somebody else will, you know, the old notion of a. You know, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Well, that works until somebody else decides to create something new and then it's broken and you can't fix it.

So, you know, so you need to be first, you need to be looking for opportunities. 

[00:14:26] Mike Koelzer, Host: All right. So I play devil's advocate. These companies pay a lot of money to these executives. A lot of them have chief marketing officers and they're making a lot of money. Why did they hire you? And that's not a slam on you.

It's like, you guys are making a lot of money. How come you can't come up 

[00:14:43] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: with this? Yeah. Well, there's a couple of reasons. Number one is there there's a lot of these people probably could do this, but they don't, you know? And so they get busy and they have day-to-day firefighting and they're like, well, you know, so-and-so customer call.

We have to respond to that. And so it's one of those things they just kind of never get around. And so just for that reason, we can kind of play in arms and legs roll, or it's like, you know, yeah. We could go out and pack the customers, but we have to hire somebody else to do it because we can't take our people out of the field for a week or two or however long it might take.

So there's an arms and legs component. The other components, expertise. A lot of companies maybe create a brand once or never in their business, you know, where they work for. IBM and IBM have the IBM brand. But that's kind of it. So yeah, if you're not creating brands every day, you don't know how to do it. And so a lot of companies that hire us are hiring specific expertise because we do this.

And so we might create, you know, a certain number of brands a year where some companies may not do that in their lifetime, so we know how to do this. And so that's the other real reason, you know, the third, third reason is kind of objectivity at some level. You know, we come in and. You know, we know that, you know, there are personal relationships and everything else, but we, we kind of tell it like it is because we know we'll be gone, you know?

And, and we don't have a vested interest in pleasing the boss or somebody else. So there's uptake activity. Right? Another reason sometimes it just elevates the issue. So we've got the consultants in, so we know this is important. So everybody, you know, focus on this. And so, you know, the different shades of why somebody would have.

And an outside consultant. Um, and, um, you know, but it usually comes down to arms and legs, expertise, objectivity, or kind of elevating the issue. And so we do that. 

[00:16:39] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. And just on a small scale, I mean, I've never thought of myself. Maybe besides the podcast here as, as being really an entrepreneur, because I came in and I was like, uh, you know, at the pharmacy, the product was already there.

The brand was there. And I guess I've done that in small ways across, but I didn't know how to make a brand really, you know, you know how to run a brand, but I'm sure that's a lot in companies too. Yeah. 

[00:17:03] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: And if you study this, that's true. And then, you know, this is kind of my life's work. And so we have.

Methods and tools and questions that can help diagnose some levels, you know, the medical side to help diagnose issues that if you see them enough, just like a doctor, you say, Hey, there's a problem here. This company's not doing this. Or if they could only do these three things, it would really help them.

And so, you know, you become a bit of a specialist, so we're very much a niche provider. You know, they're much bigger and larger consulting firms. Um, but we do get called from companies that are looking for specific things. And that's where we kind of focus our efforts and all goes back from, you know, the early days where we started it's, you know, creativity and analytics and, you know, spending dollars on behalf of our clients.

And how do we align our marketing messages to be more efficient, you know? The right brands to many brands, you know, are we, are we innovating the way we need to be? Do we have new ideas that are helping us? So a lot of this stuff kind of pulls together in a, almost a process that we've helped develop over the years.

[00:18:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. You've got a process, a system which most people would take their whole lifetime in a business just to make that system. How do you decide when you're at a company? If you say niche or niche. 'cause I've heard niches. You don't have to speak French when you say something or whatever. Well, 

[00:18:24] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: it depends if I use a word process or process first, I don't like to commingle them 

[00:18:31] Mike Koelzer, Host: processes.

Nice, nice processes for our listeners, Tim and I, we camp with our family every, every year. Four or five nights. And every year we add a new word to the, um, to two list of what college professors will say, you know, process and all those words that they say just a little bit different to, uh, add a little bit more panache and mix it up, mix it up.

All right. So when you're dealing with them. Big wigs. And I know everybody that your current customer is great, so we're not going to go there at all. But with what have you seen in the past of people as. Yeah. Cause you were talking about how, as a consultant, you don't have to play the politics so much and you're able to, you know, say what needs to be said and so on. What kind of personality types do you run into that don't want to let you take the credit?

Or do you see that? Or do things run pretty cut and dry? 

[00:19:31] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: It runs pretty smoothly. I mean, the nature of our work is we're not an annuity company where we come in and we'll be with you for four years because most of our work is project-related. So we might come in and do a three month effort, you know, help a company, develop new products or new brands or whatever it might be, and then go away.

And, um, and also because we're not really. On implementation. It's very important that we stick, stick with the company. Otherwise our work is not valued. So as a company, most of our work is either referral work or follow on work. What do you mean by sticking with a company? We're not going to be on contract to them for three years when our project's over, but we know it's very important to have.

Recommendations implemented. So we're always available to talk to our clients to make sure that they're getting the value out of the work that we do. But you know, the nature of project work is, it means you always have to be kind of on your game because you know, like an agency, for example, like a typical average advertising agency might have a client that every month they bill them a certain amount to do their advertising.

And so they, the first year they bill them X and then the next year they roll that over. And then before. You know, five, 10 years down the road, they have this long-term relationship with an agent. Whereas, you know, because they're paying for monthly services, whereas our work has to be more project-based, which makes it a little bit more difficult because you always have to have new projects, but it also makes it more interesting and fun from my perspective, which is why I enjoy doing it because there's always a new challenge.

So next week it might be a medical device company. The week after that, it could be. You know, office furniture and the week after that, it could be, um, you know, consumer products or kitchen appliances. So it's always new and fresh and exciting. So we apply a lot of the same tools, but we apply them to different industries.

[00:21:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: You're not coming in and having to work with these guys, you're coming in basically and saying, Here's my recommendation. And then you kind of go, you don't have to convince these three people to agree. You've already made your recommendation. Yeah. 

[00:21:32] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: But our recommendations are always based on sound.

You know, it's always based on insight. So we will go in and say, here's what we think. We will never do that. In fact, I've worked for firms that have done that. They sit around in a conference room and they. Come up with interesting thoughts and they go out and say, well, here's what we think. We're trying to sell them on that.

And we don't do that. So what we do is say here's what the market thinks. So we spend the appropriate amount of time in the marketplace to really, truly understand that. And so it's not based on what we think we're more of, you know, our bias is really in the marketplace. Like what, one of the questions we asked is what do you know about important customers that your competitors don't know?

And it's kind of a hypothetical question because you don't really know, but it. Forces you to think through number one, who are my important customers. And then what do I know about them that others don't know? And that kind of forces you to say, well, I need deeper insight to do that. Right? Once you have the insight that begins to form the basis of competitive advantage.

So I should say, you know, going back to your question about, you know, the three guys. We learn that from our customers, but then we involve those clients and we engage them in a process that unfolds over time and they're with us every step of the way. And so a lot of marketing work happens through iteration.

It's never, you know, here's, here's what we learned and here's the answer. Here's what we learned. Here's what we came up with. Let's go back out and. With customers and see is this resonating. Let's do an internal work session to see if it's working here. Let's revise it. Let's go back to the customer.

So over the course of a given product, Not only are we deeply involved and understanding the customer, but we were working alongside the client. So when we come out of the engagement and let's say it's three months, everybody's clear what the answer is, where it came from and they're committed to moving forward with it.

So it's part of the 

[00:23:19] Mike Koelzer, Host: process. Let's say you were cloned, but you're not talking to your clone. You just, you have the same system. It sounds like both of you would come up with almost the same answers because you're not depending on Time for like these. Great new extravagant ideas. You're really going through this process and coming up through this system, you're finding the answers and the answers are good and reliable answers because you replicated that system over and over again.

It's 

[00:23:47] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: true at some level, but, but you can get deeper insights and you can get insights better than the next guy, you know? And so that's why it all stems from insight. So it's how you ask the questions. And how do you think about things in the analogies that you draw? You know, that can gate, that can provide.

One. From, even though it's the same process with just deeper, richer insight, more thought creativity, 

[00:24:10] Mike Koelzer, Host: you were repeating that though. You're not waiting like maybe a comedian or someone writing a song to have this moment of. Huge insight. You yourself are insightful and creative and you might come up with the same thing each time because of you being creative and insightful along with the analysis and so on.

But you don't have to wait for an idea to pop into your head. You're methodical, you're creative, but you're also methodical. 

[00:24:37] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: There are four questions that we ask on virtually every engagement and the first one is where to play. So that means what markets, what products, what channels. What customers it's symbolic.

What's really what's my playing field? Um, and so if you think about it, like a strategic chess board on the top, you have these markets and on the left-hand side, you have products. And so the intersection of the chess board is where I'm going to find an opportunity. So that's all about where to play.

And that's the first question that has to be asked in marketing strategy because it defines the playing field. The second question then is, well, how do I win? So I know I want to play here, but how do I win? So where to play is like the fishing pond. Um, how to win is the bait. So I have an opportunity to create a product or an offering, but how am I going to win because other competitors might be seeking that same spot.

So that's the second question. And the third question, and this is driven by a lot of work in Silicon valley. There's a question called how might we, and it's really a way to think about focused ideation now, how might we solve this problem? And it would, the reason they ask it that way is because it implies that it's solvable.

It's not what we should do? Or what could we do? How might we solve this? So it's just a question that is really important because it opens up opportunities. And then people said, well, how might we do this? I don't know. Let's try it that way or what, you know, so why is that important? So you're asking why a series of times, you know, you keep asking why, and sooner or later opens up opportunities.

So there's a focus component, the innovation component, which is about how we might be, then the final question is what would have to be true for this to be successful. And it's kind of an odd question because it's like, well, wait a second. I don't really get what one looks like, so you're saying, well, what would have to be true?

For us to do this well, what has to be true, that we have to be able to charge a certain amount of money. They have to be true, that it has to be made available and see certain markets. It has to be true that people have to be made aware of it because a product that's not sold is like a lighter under a bushel.

So those four questions. Where to play, how to win, how might we, what would have to be true are the kinds of things that we help our clients kind of walk through in a structured way now probably makes intuitive sense or logical sense that, yeah, that seems natural. It seems logical, but a lot of people don't really think about that.

And sometimes it's just clarifying thinking, you know, that people find value out of, out of consultants. They think about these. 

[00:26:54] Mike Koelzer, Host: Uh, a novice might say, Hey, let's just break. Let's break these categories up into, um, gender and an age and economic status. But I'm imagining that talking about drugs, for example, that there's a lot more divisions than simply.

Gender and age, what are some of those things? I mean, the, the average person thinks that, well, what are some of those examples of like, oh, I never thought that that's a 

[00:27:21] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: category. There are different ways to segment markets. And one way is, and I actually have this in this book I'm writing one way is geography and that's what Disney does.

So we'll use this Disney example. Disneyland then they had Disney world and they said, you know what, let's go to Paris. Let's go to Tokyo. So they just said, we got the same product. Let's look at our industry and our category from a product, from a geography perspective. And that's our segmentation.

Another could be age, which is what you're talking about with age or income or demographics or life stage, that's kind of what. Demographics, another one would be then more of the notion of attitudes and motivations of what we were talking about earlier. If you had a hundred consumers come to the drug store and you had to split them into different groups, how might they segment?

Not by age or income, but just how they work, how they, how they behave and what they're looking for and how they approach categories. That's more of an attitudinal segmentation. Uh, that's a really important one. Final one is behavior. That's the fourth common segmenting dimension. It's like, are you a user or are you not a user?

Are you, um, have you purchased this before? Or have you not purchased it before? How many products, how many packages of this? Do you purchase a year? So these are different dimensions by which companies segment markets, and depending upon the business subject. You might pick any one of those segments.

So if you're working, if you're heading up Disney's planning department, you might say, you know what, we want to create a new, a new ride and this, and this particular, this particular Disneyland, or do we want to go to Australia and create a new Disney. You know, so those are the kinds, that's how you think about markets and segments and, and, and that's a major component of, of marketing, you know, it's really kind of slicing and dicing the marketplace so that you can identify where to play.

And then again, all right. So then how do we win? So that's kind of the. 

[00:29:07] Mike Koelzer, Host: Drugs sometimes when they advertise, they're going to be in one of those niches that the regular consumer might not even know that they're being hit. Right. I mean, it might be some obscure feeling or category that the consumer likes, why did this resonate with me?

And they might not even know. 

[00:29:27] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: Right? Yeah. That's right. And it's, and there's actually studies that have been done. Like you probably. Don't realize how often you see a car commercial, uh, on the radio or, or on the T until you're looking for a car and then it's like, yeah, right. Wow. I didn't never realize.

So right now, if you're not looking for a car, there's a good chance. You're not going to realize how much of that stuff is out there. I think it's the same dynamic where, you know, because you're kind of in the market, you're more attuned to it. I think it might be called selective hearing or something like that, but they've actually done empirical stuff.

Margaret says I have that. Exactly me too. So, but the notion that you're now interested, so you have that, that indication or you have that, that condition or that concern, which is why, you know, like a lot of drug companies, when they launch a new category, there's, there's two levels of marketing. One is marketing, the brand, which is Viagra.

And the other is marketing and category, which is EDI and a lot of categories. Have their own advertisement, you would never realize, 

[00:30:28] Mike Koelzer, Host: Is there a benefit for them separating that? Because people say, I don't want to learn about this and also be sold at the same time. I don't trust that they have my best interest in mind.

So are they creating a need and then solving the need in two different ways? Let's say commercials on purpose. Yeah. 

[00:30:44] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: That's exactly the case because some people. Prescription medication. Some people aren't aware of it. Some people think it's going to be too heavy of a cell. One campaign could be about the brand like Viagra and the other campaign could be about the category like ed.

And so you think about how they might work together. So. And you're building the market, which is the generic ed market, creating awareness and familiarity with what that even is. And then on the other hand, you're then taking a piece of the pie, which is the share that you would take from that market. And so they kind of go hand in hand, uh, in certain cases, a company might do this because there's just, it's a brand new category it's never been known before.

And therefore they have to do that. They have to create awareness of what it even is. And it's so hard. For a marketer in 30 seconds or 60 seconds to say everything, they want to say that they may be separate too. So they're trying to build a non-branded category, awareness and familiarity, and then we'll come on top of that and then overlay brand development.

And I know exactly how these things are managed. If you put yourself, if you sign up. Website your email with the category, does that then get transferred over to the brand? And there's obviously a lot of things that go on behind the scenes, but the basic idea of category versus brand is really important, particularly when you're launching a new category and, and the folks that normally focus on the category of those that are the leading business, or either the first product that might come into that category, or they have a larger market share because they know if they expand the.

They're going to stand to win a larger percentage of. With their brand users, as opposed to competitor 

[00:32:27] Mike Koelzer, Host: brand new, they don't want to do it and not be ready or something like that. We see that in the pharmacy world with yellow toenails or, you know, it's like no one ever really thought of before. And you also see that a ton now, like on Instagram, how quickly usually.

Models, you know, a lot of times it's ladies, you know, they talk about new things, like armpit fat or something. It's like, oh shoot, no one knew that was a problem before. 

[00:32:50] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: Right. And I think what they're doing is they're tapping into it. Maybe an unmet need, you know, they're probably doing the amount of research ahead of time, or it may just be.

You know, we've got a product here that can do that. And that's the notion of, you know, we've got a solution looking for a problem. And sometimes that's the case where it's like, oh, we can do a problem there. But typically you're, you're talking to customers to understand what their needs are. 

[00:33:10] Mike Koelzer, Host: What do you not like about running your own consulting firm?

What's the worst part of your week? Let's say probably 

[00:33:17] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: the worst part is, is that, um, it, because it's not an annuity, like I talked earlier, we don't have clients, we don't have client on of 

[00:33:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: refills. Like, uh, like a pharmacy. Yeah. We 

[00:33:26] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: don't have refills. So every time it's a new prescription, you know, we have to go home and, um, And we have a lot of repeat work and we have a lot of follow on work, but, but we don't have long term projects for the last year or two or three.

They're typically three months. And the work we do because it's, it's designed to be enduring. You don't, you don't need a new strategy every three months. If you do, you're probably not doing a good job. So you require you, you do projects that are designed to be enduring and you hope this. They work down the road, but many, many of our clients we're working with a medical device company right now that, um, used to work 15 years ago in one of the large pharmaceutical companies outside of Chicago.

And now they work for a different company in medical devices. And so that's based on a relationship that we established in this strong work that we did 15 years ago. We're getting, we're getting work back backwards to them, but it's not kind of an annuity stream. That's probably the most frustrating thing about being more marketing consulting, as opposed to an, to an ad aid to see where they have that stream of revenue.

So that's what can make it difficult. The way to overcome that is just to stay current, you know, and, and, and, you know, so many things are happening with social media and digital marketing. Um, We said a number of years ago. If we want to be pretty good at this, we need to continue to focus and learn ourselves and stay in front of the industry and certainly stay in front of our clients so we can provide, um, perspective and we can provide insights that they can't get elsewhere.

It seems 

[00:35:01] Mike Koelzer, Host: that you could make an annuity thing of some sort, but it seems like, as you said, it seems like it's not needed and it wouldn't be real genuine or something like people could maybe see through that. Have you thought about annuity stuff and it just doesn't work? Or do you find that people kind of get a bad taste in their mouth from it?

[00:35:20] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: Actually we have thought about, and this is kind of my, my Swan song is, um, this book I'm writing called upstream marketing, which is basically a business book, but, um, it has all the tools and the frameworks and the steps and the process to kind of take you from. Where to play, how to, when, to, how might we do what would have to be true?

It's pretty weighty. It's, you know, it's 200 plus pages. Our plan is to move that into more of a workshop and that can be either online or, you know, in your office where we will essentially provide the tools and be more of a PowerPoint, more of an interactive session. Again, either in-person. Online or even kind of self study.

So we are intending to break that down and provide a lot of the insight now, is that the same thing as a large project? No, but it can be, it can get you a way there. And one of the big business concepts that we're believers in is, you know, the 80 20 rule. If you spend 20% of the time doing this, you can get 80% of the value and you're not going to get all the value, but right.

Can get a lot of the value just thinking this way and approaching your business this way can really. Important dividends down the road. If you're, if you're thoughtful about your business and you and you strategize and you plan, and then 

[00:36:30] Mike Koelzer, Host: you implement, if you came in and told somebody, we want to be the person that does this every three months from you, we want it.

We want to be your listeners, or we want to be your every three months, we want to put together a message or something like that. I can see what you're saying. It's like, yeah. But once we have the brand, we have the brand. We're not going to change that brand every three months. That kind of gets in the way too.

Right? We do have clients 

[00:36:55] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: that do call us regularly. We have one client in particular that they didn't know exactly what they were looking for, but they knew that they wanted to remain and stay close to their customer. So every spring we got a phone call that said, Hey, it's time to go out and get smarter about our customers.

So we would do research. We do focus groups or in-depth interviews or ethnographic research. The beauty of it was, they were a company out of Hawaii and they actually make spirulina, which is M and a nutritional supplement that comes from a micro-algae that they grow in these ponds in Hawaii. They do a tremendous job in Costco, um, and they wanted to kind of build their brand and develop new products.

So every year we would get a call and they'd say, Hey, let's get smart together. So we would go and conduct research. Sometimes in Hawaii, which was great in other cases and the west coast and traveled to the east coast from time to time and just got smart about the customer. So we would do exploratory research or concept development work.

When we say concept development work, it's like taking an idea, a nugget of an idea, and then creating a story behind that through, uh, concept boards, concept statements, um, visual illustrations. We can work with our agency and we use that. Call it bait, considerate bait. So we know the fishing pond. These are different ways to get consumers talking about an idea and that's what we did.

And then once we came out of the work, we would provide recommendations and they wouldn't take that. Kind of infuse that into their business, their marketing efforts. And then next year they'd call again. So those customers that do that are great because there's a true commitment to learning from their customers.

And it goes more than just having the data. They actually embed that work into their, into their marketing. Um, and they were a very successful company. 

[00:38:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: You are hired by your company. What areas can you do better in that? You might not be practicing. What you're preaching, what 

[00:38:49] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: they would say if you guys, you got a great product.

You don't do so well. And staying in contact with your old clients. You know, it's just, it's as simple as a customer relationship management, a CRM process or something like that. And it's just something that, um, you know, maybe, maybe my personality, I tend to get more into the work and less into the selling.

We do a great job. But we don't have that ongoing point. And so that is one of the other reasons we're writing this book is so that we can provide something, some value to people and send it out or make it available online or whatever that we can. Essentially the work that we do, but you know, there's no, there's no commitment.

So we just thought that that would be a nice way to kind of distill a lot of our thinking down into something that's a bit more manageable. What, 

[00:39:36] Mike Koelzer, Host: what is your favorite, um, 10% of your week, let's say you're working 40 hours a week. What's your favorite four hours? And you can't say lunch. 

[00:39:45] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: It's not four hours.

That would no, I live in Northern California and I live, you know, and I used to travel all the time. And so now. Pretty relaxed. I wake up in the morning and I grab a cup of coffee and I'll sit down at Starbucks and my email and a lot of people need a lot of people around, you know, whereas for me it's different.

We interface with our clients and we spend a lot of time with their customers, but we have a small team. So. You know, throughout the course of the day it's, it's, it's a pace now that that is, um, much easier. And we've got really strong people that work on our behalf or with our company. So, you know, probably the most fun is actually talking to consumers, learning something new.

So that doesn't happen every day because that typically only happens when we're out, but learning about something new. And, um, we have a friend who's a copywriter and he said, Tremendous at cocktail parties, because he could talk about anything, but only like, you know, Uh, paragraph D cause he writes in Paris, so he knows a hundred different categories and anything you can imagine, any medical condition or financial services, aspect, or insurance or healthcare or pharmaceutical, he knows a little bit about everything.

And that's kind of interesting, you know, and that's one of the reasons I left advertising is because I had worked on one product for. Sometimes it's like, well, this isn't going to change, but this business is very different because we work across categories only on the marketing side. So that's probably the most gratifying thing is learning new stuff.

Yeah. If 

[00:41:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: You had a year that you had off from the business and you couldn't spend it on the business, And you couldn't spend it on your book or really anything marketing related. You got to take off in a week and you can't come back until week 53. What would you do? That's a 

[00:41:34] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: good question. I like to be home actually.

So I might struggle with that a little bit. Cause I'm usually good for about 10 days on the road, then I want to come 

[00:41:41] Mike Koelzer, Host: back well and not necessarily go anywhere. Maybe you're just at home. I used to do a fair 

[00:41:46] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: number of triathlons. So I'd probably get back into that. That takes some time. I still swim most days.

And, uh, but I haven't run. I mean, when I trained for a half Ironman, a number of years ago, you'd be surprised on the weekends, how you can two up two hours pretty quickly. So I definitely like working out, but I'd probably go. Spot it's called the Angola, which is done on the Caribbean swear person. And I went on her honeymoon many years ago and, um, that place holds a special place in my heart, the beautiful water and the sand and great restaurants.

I'd probably definitely spend some time there. I'd probably just go on many vacations. You know, I love Disneyland. I love Disney world. I love Northern Michigan. I love Chicago. I will probably spend that. Probably what I do. Mike I'd probably go off for two weeks. Every two weeks, spend two weeks in a different location.

Come back. Decompress. Or home and then go out again. I was sure I could find 20. 26 places across the U S where I could spend a couple of weeks. 

[00:42:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: Margaret bought me a book a few years ago. It was called like, I think it was called 36 hours. And it was, I think it was an article in the New York times, but they had, I don't know, 50 places that you could go for 36 hours, which is kind of short.

That's not two weeks, but I think I could do that. But no one's offered that to me yet. So maybe 

[00:42:58] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: if my book's successful, 

[00:43:00] Mike Koelzer, Host: we'll be waiting for it. Tell us your website for the 

[00:43:02] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: listeners. The company website is echo brand consulting equal brand is EEQ UI B R a N D. consulting.com. And that's our company website and kind of like we were talking about non-branded sites such as upstream marketing, upstream, marketing.com.

And there's a little bit of the flavor of our book on there, but it hasn't been published yet. So that's still pretty skinny, but over the course of the next year or so we should be building that out in a more meaningful way. 

[00:43:31] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Yeah. All right, Tim. 

[00:43:35] Tim Koelzer, Equibrand: Thanks, Cher, Mike. I really enjoyed it. If I have an opportunity to come on again, let me know.

I'd love to do it. All right. Thanks Tim. Thanks Mike. Have a good day.