In this episode of Miked Up Marketing, Tim and Sarah discuss the common pitfalls in marketing strategies and the importance of company culture.

They emphasize that businesses often overlook the value of their employees and the need to create a positive work environment.

The conversation also highlights the significance of understanding a brand's promise and the necessity of having a solid content strategy.

Tim and Sarah share insights on how to effectively engage with customers and the frameworks that can lead to business growth.

Tim (00:00)
Hey, I'm Tim.

Sarah Faith (00:01)
and I'm Sarah.

Tim (00:02)
And this is miked up marketing, a segment of our brand roots podcast. These are conversations we have anyway, whether we're deep in the strategy call or talking shop after a client meeting, but now we're miking ourselves up and hitting record.

We talk about the ins and outs of running a brand studio, what's working in marketing and what's broken and how businesses can actually grow with strategy that makes sense. So that's actually something we're talking about today. Today's show is all about what doesn't work, what is broken, what's missing in most businesses marketing strategies.

Sarah Faith (00:34)
Yeah, yeah, I feel like this could be like its own pod. Yeah, it could be literally its own series. But for the sake of time, we'll make this short because we've talked about this at length. And Tim and I have had so many different interesting experiences working with companies individually and then actually together before we started our creative and design branding studio Stump and Root.

Tim (00:37)
A series.

Sarah Faith (00:58)
And the first thing that comes to mind with other companies on what they're doing wrong, or just my observation of it too, whether I've experienced it or it's an observation, is there is this weird obsession and focus with business owners in wanting to scale their business and...

wanting to grow, which is it's not inherently bad. Obviously, like naturally, we want to grow our companies. But they are not focused at all on the people who work for them, and they do not care about company culture whatsoever at all. At all. And I it's almost getting like so uncomfortable watching it play out in society and

Like even today, I saw a video of a girl who was fired unjustly by her managers and like they recorded the zoom meeting of it and just the things that they were picking her apart for were actually technically those managers fault. It wasn't actually her fault. And I think that what a lot of business owners, if they actually just fixed this one thing like they don't need a new strategy.

they think they need that. And that's the most important thing. But if they fix this one thing and actually taking care of their team and valuing them and not just having a mission statement on their website and talking about their values, but actually living that out, then their business would blow up in the best of ways. And they would be wildly successful because you're only as good as your team.

Tim (02:23)
you

Sarah Faith (02:29)
You know, like you could be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, but if you piss off enough people and they're walking out, you don't you don't have a company. And that's what I'm seeing so much of is like business owners, they're trying to go from the outside in. And really, it needs to go from the inside out. And Tim, don't know if you have thoughts on that, but that's the first thing that comes to mind.

Tim (02:53)
Yeah, definitely. That's, I mean, that's something we experienced, you know, I remember the one job we were working at together. The owner of the company was like, Oh no, our employees come first. But the deep irony is it's just, it's just, it's something that business owners say because they know that's the right thing to say. You know, they think it's impressive and it's so humble sounding. But in reality, of course he wasn't living that way. You know, like

Sarah Faith (03:03)
Mm-hmm. No, they didn't.

Mm.

Tim (03:18)
when we had started before we even started that company, he had fired the previous marketing team, you know, and

And not that you can't fire people and have a good work culture. I think there are right ways to do it. I think it needs to be real. You know, the things that you have that you say cannot be just some, you know, bumper sticker, some, you know, phrase that you say to get the right, you know, brownie points or whatever, you know, it's and this is from, you know, largely this from a book that I've read a couple of times. I'm rereading again, but culture built my brand.

Sarah Faith (03:43)
Mm.

Tim (03:52)
It's actually a really great book. It reminds me some of like Simon Sinek's. Yeah, sir has it there too Simon Sinek's it the whole point of this part is that there are five key components to your brand and one of them essentially is your company culture everyone usually identifies like Visual identity and logos and stuff as your brand but that's not what your brand is Your brand is who you are and your actions that you take as a company

Sarah Faith (03:58)
I just got it.

Mm-hmm.

Tim (04:21)
and what people say behind your back. There's several components to it, a lot of people, they're not living out what they're pretending their brand is. And your brand is being shaped in front of you. And you do have a part in it. You do have the ability to control it to some extent, but you don't get it by being forceful with it. You get it actually by allowing your team to flourish and equipping them in the right ways. And so...

That's something, yeah, like, you know, what you're saying there is like, it's so important to do that and do it well, because with good company culture, you get employees that actually care about the company, the growth and success of it, you know, and, you know, just to kind of take a pause right there, my wife and even your other sister, Anna, they worked at this company where they would sell, well, they were packaging SD cards.

Sarah Faith (05:06)
Mm.

Tim (05:10)
And so they're like a wholesale SD card company and flash drives and all that stuff. And that company was really incredible in so many ways because they really truly valued the employees there. You know, because that could easily be a job where it's like, all right, well, we just hire someone at minimum wage and they package it. And when they get sick and tired of it, we'll just hire new people. But it wasn't that way at all. You know, they had book clubs, had a Discord chat.

Sarah Faith (05:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tim (05:36)
And they were expected to work hard and fast. So it's not like they were extremely lax or anything. But the company culture was so healthy because everyone felt valued. and reading that book, culture built my brand. see so much on the go, man. They did so much right at that company. And, it's not just like pizza parties because I think, you know, that's, that's, that's what a lot of companies do. Like, Hey, we hit 5 billion in sales.

Sarah Faith (05:56)
You

Tim (06:01)
Like, know, Sarah, I you have some stories about that stuff.

Sarah Faith (06:04)
Definitely. There was a Sephora. Yeah, Sephora, the Sephora brand for makeup. They hit Bill. I forget the exact number, but it was billions and billions and billions of sales. And they gave out a stale cookie to each of their employees with a sticker on it wrapped in, you know, cellophane. It said, you know, we hit. I'm making up a number like six billion in sales. Thank you so much.

And it was just like this little stale cookie. And I'm like, you know, you could give a percentage of those sales to those hardworking, you know, they're makeup artists. Like they they really have an art form and, know, they work hard in those in those stores. And that's just one of of many where it's like, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear that you're grateful that I helped you make.

$6 billion. Give me some money. I really feel like, you know, that's what people want. You know, they want to be able to, they don't want another pizza party. They don't want a stale cookie. And I agree with you on that, that place that my sisters worked at, like they just had the most positive stories there and like no place is perfect. But like

Tim (06:57)
Yeah.

Sarah Faith (07:15)
the way that they talked about it, made me want to work there. And I'm like, I don't want to package SD cards all day. But if it meant that I could work in a place like that where there's community. And I remember I was in the car with them. They got like their Christmas bonuses in the mail. like Deborah hadn't even like worked there for a lot of the year because I think she had gotten like, yeah, she had like laughter. ⁓

Tim (07:19)
Yeah.

She was in school.

Sarah Faith (07:41)
Yeah,

yeah, she was in school and like she still got this like huge bonus and I was like, OK, do I need to just like employ myself at this place?

Tim (07:47)
Yeah. Well, that's

it's, I think that's, it's not that throwing pizza parties or stuff is bad. think I love pizza, obviously like look at me, but yeah, I am pro pizza. But

Sarah Faith (07:55)
We're fans of pizza, by the way. We are pro pizza.

Tim (08:02)
But that doesn't make up for bad culture, you know? Especially when it's in lieu of giving, like if you hold value to your employees, then show them the value you have for them. If they're making you millions upon millions of dollars, then you should invest that back into your own company, into your own team specifically, through profit sharing, through bonuses, but also events and activities and allowing them to feel like they're a part of the company, not just a cog in the machine.

Sarah Faith (08:04)
Mm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tim (08:29)
So.

Sarah Faith (08:30)
Right, definitely.

think brands like Tim and I, have similar definitions of what a brand is. I've always said that a brand, not a business, a brand, they make promises and they keep them. And it's not just to the customers, it's to that team. And

when you have a mission statement on your website, whatever that says, it's like, we value integrity and honesty and we value hard work and community. then like your own company doesn't, to Tim's point, have any kind of get together or things that just like bring everybody together.

Tim (09:07)
or volunteering or

you know it's like and people make critiques about churches all the time but like if you say that you love people then are you feeding the poor? Are you giving clothes to the naked? know? Are you doing the things that you're pretending that you care about? And that's a lesson that's not just for business obviously that's for life as well that we should actually do the things that we pretend to care about.

Sarah Faith (09:19)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tim (09:34)
because

you know we're hypocrites if we don't but but that goes for business if you say you care about your employees care for them because and the benefit really is and the reason that why that's included in marketing is because part of marketing is showing why people should buy from you as opposed to other people you know like why should we go with you because a lot of companies they have a lot of very they have the same product more or less than the next one and

Sarah Faith (09:56)
Yeah.

Tim (09:58)
When it comes down to companies, it's like, what are you doing with the money that you're giving me? Like, why should I feel good about going with you? If it's the exact same product of the exact same quality with the exact same warranty and more or less the same customer service, like what, what am I going to get out of it? Why should I go with you? And I think a lot of times is people buy from people they find value with or resonate with.

Sarah Faith (10:10)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Tim (10:22)
And I know I do that, you know, if I know a company shares my values, I'm much more likely to go with them. Not that every company I buy from shares my values, obviously, it's not the world we live in, but I think it'd be foolish to pretend that we don't do that. And I think that, you know, a good company that does that, like so the company that they worked at is called EBS, the bulk memory cards, they give to charities regularly. They're always doing something like that.

Sarah Faith (10:47)
Mm-hmm.

Tim (10:47)
And

another company is one of our clients, Fisher's Backyard Structures, where they partner with this other ministry that they build homes and buildings in Shigamani. And it's an incredible thing, Manny Fisher at Fisher's, it just shows his heart and how much he really values people. Because to him, it's not just some making money off of people building these things.

Sarah Faith (11:05)
Mm-hmm.

Tim (11:09)
it's so much more to that. And so I think that kind of summarizes that point nicely, which is invest in your people and do things for good, not just because you want to increase your wealth. I think that ultimately that, cause that informs so much of your strategy.

Sarah Faith (11:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, go just work from the inside out. Definitely. Tim, is there something that you're like, you know what, Sarah, this is definitely missing in company strategies.

Tim (11:36)
Yeah, mean, the my big pet peeve, big pet peeve with social media marketing specifically, is that a lot of companies they they upload stuff just because they feel like they need to upload stuff. Like, you know, and usually they will upload like, you know, just a crappy photo of, you know, as an example, like if they're in landscaping, they'll upload a photo of a flee.

or of a really like macro photo of an ant or you know of I'm like why I don't want to see that I don't like bugs they're ugly like you know like this isn't valuable and and then all that to say is that people resonate that people follow companies that they resonate with and they find value from or they're entertained by and if you aren't posting stuff that is important and valuable

then why in the world would anyone follow you on social media? You shouldn't be posting stuff because you feel like you need to. Post stuff that's of value to your customers and the people that would follow you.

Sarah Faith (12:29)
Yeah.

Definitely. Yeah, I think like there's a this like weird misconception about like

It's like this pressure that people feel and like all of a sudden they want to post on like holidays and like all of a sudden like they care, you know, about like their strategy. And I think when you go into, you know, posting about marketing and or sorry about your products and stuff, like you really have to go in with asking the question of like, well, what like who is my

client, who is my customer and what do they want to see? What are the questions that they're asking? And how can I answer those questions? And then how can I showcase my product in its best light? And because if you're not doing that, there's somebody out there, even if they have a lesser quality of product or service than you, they're going to go with them because that

customer is like, you know what, at least they're talking about it. At least they're showing me what they offer. you know, it seems like kind of this no brainer thing, but you'd be shocked at how many companies just like don't do that. And like, they don't think about those things. And they're just shooting themselves in the foot and it's costing them so much money and time. And and then they're also frustrated because they're like, why?

Are we not getting sales? How could we have to just put all this money behind that ad budget to even just like make a sale? it's just like this very vicious cycle that's never ending.

Tim (14:10)
Yeah, so what would be the solution to?

Sarah Faith (14:13)
I would say that you need to first start with your why. Start with why you even have this company and why you offer the products that you do. And then what are those products? What are the problems that they solve? And that again, it might seem very basic, like, I know why I started. I wanted to make money or, you know, we make bed sheets and

They keep people warm at night. But it's deeper than that. Because if you don't know your why, and again, it kind of goes back to that first answer about culture. You have to go from the inside out. If you don't know those answers, then why would your customers and your clients know that? And then from there, you want to figure out, OK, well, then who is actually buying this? And so you really need to

get to know your buyer. I've always said like to get more buyers, you have to get your buyer, you have to understand who they are. And if you could do that, then now you're in a better position, you're actually way ahead of your competition, because so many business owners don't take the time to do this. And if you just get to know that person, then you would understand, hey, maybe they have questions about this.

Maybe they have questions about that. well, then I should probably make some posts or some videos that answers those questions. And from there, you're now in a much better place to have an actual strategy so that you're not just putting up these random photos of, you know, mosquitoes and ticks. If you're like a landscaping company, which is, you know, we're speaking from experience, we've seen that.

and or you're just posting on holidays or when you have a sale and from there your your customers they're like wow like they're actually taking the time to like show me not just tell me but show me who they are and what they offer and then actually take the time to answer my questions and then also all of a sudden having a strategy is not this nebulous thing it's not I don't know what we should post about well

you're just keeping in mind that client, you're keeping in mind that customer and like what they actually want to know. And then all of a sudden, like sales start coming in and you're like, wow, this is we were making this way harder than it needed to be. Like it's not it's not rocket science, but it definitely takes a lot of intention and a lot of foundational work that most companies, they're just not willing to do or they don't think there's value in it.

Tim (16:49)
Yeah, that's

I would say the solution to this stuff is you just need to have the right framework in place. This is something that we did when we started, we were working at the previous company we worked at together where we were trying to figure out how do we do this? How do we, how do we make sure we're doing this right? And so something that Anna had created was she created this, she called it a static content list or static content sheet document. And what it was was it was a document of

content ideas that you would always need to make content of. tutorial, was specific ideas. And so that you can combine them together so that you never ran out of ideas of what you needed to make as far as content goes for your social media. And I think the reason we were so successful is one, we started with

Sarah Faith (17:22)
Mm-hmm.

Tim (17:40)
the why we started with the story behind the business, the brand and the product. And we knew who we were talking to. And so that informed every single thing we made and did. you know, the most famous book about that is story brand. And so Donald Miller, he kind of sets up this really easy framework and he didn't invent it. It's something that's existed before him. And

Sarah Faith (17:47)
Yeah.

Yes.

Tim (18:03)
And so it's a very easy framework that you can build and then it becomes a tool in your tool belt. It becomes like the layer that you put into all of your content and marketing where it informs how and what you say in your video and your photos and your blog posts and emails and stuff. I think that's kind of where you need to start. You need to start with the why behind your business. You need to get to the root, get to the root of what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Sarah Faith (18:24)
Yeah.

Tim (18:28)
And then, because that informs so much of what your marketing strategy should be. Are you a B2B business or are you a business to government or are you a direct to consumer? Are you an e-commerce? Because all those things, depending on who your customers are and where they are at, that informs your entire marketing strategy.

And if we're just throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks, it's not going to be, it's going to be a waste of time in a lot of ways and resources. And so I would say that's probably the greatest mistake that most companies make when, but it's this easy solution, you know, and that's kind of what we do at something is that we are here to build brands and create strategies that work for businesses that actually help them bloom and grow. So.

Sarah Faith (19:00)
Yeah.

Tim (19:12)
But Storybrand, think, it's one of those tools that really enables businesses to begin the process of creating.

Sarah Faith (19:21)
Yeah, so I totally agree with that, Tim. Having Storybrand and like that framework is so important. It's, you know, we practice what we preach. We literally used that on our own business when we were starting this creative design branding studio and we use it because it works and so many business owners are lost. by the way, this is not

condemning in any way. Like I could see why as a business owner, it would be hard to even think about that because you're stressed about so many other things like legal stuff and taxes and like all this work. But if you work on your business from the inside out, I guess that's the theme of this conversation. Then you're just putting yourself in a position to where it just pays off so much better. And

we just use it on literally every single one of our clients. It's kind of like they don't pass through that gate until we've done that. And we just we know that it works and we use we have like kind of our own frameworks that we use within that as well. And we're always just like refining that and trying to see how could we make this more valuable and better for our clients and

I would say, and I think Tim you'd agree, this is like the unsung hero of people's businesses. I'm talking like the actual brands that we know today and that we love, like they use this stuff. Coca-Cola didn't become a multi-billion dollar company, multi, multi, multi-billion dollar company just by.

adding random posts on their social media and you know, like they really came into it with intention and they use these frameworks. Toyota, like Target, Starbucks, like there's a reason why they're successful. Even Amazon, like companies don't just shoot up like that and they're not just random. They are built from a place of intention and

we're just super, super passionate about finding those frameworks and seeing, how could we deliver that to our own clients and also building them too. Like we've had to build a lot of our own frameworks as well to help them.

Tim (21:30)
Yeah. And.

I would say that with intention and frameworks, think that's obviously the first step, but you really need to provide value for people. think if it's inside out, like, you know, if you want to kind of give a summary of what we're talking about here, the first step is start with the inside of your company. Start with why you're doing this, who this is for doing more or less a story brand for your business, but a story brand, cannot just remain a poster on your wall.

you know, kind of like we were saying with the values of company, like it can't just be something that's theoretical and just stays buried in a drawer somewhere. It needs to be something that's actually implemented. so, you know, another person, a thing that's missing from your strategy is you don't have someone dedicated who and devoted to doing your content strategy or marketing. You just give it to like a salesperson or mark or you give it to a customer service person, but

Sarah Faith (22:02)
Mm-hmm.

Tim (22:25)
If you want to grow as a business, it's online and if you want to grow, you have to invest in that. so whether it be working with someone like us or with a hybrid individual who can at least get that ball rolling for you, it's going to be incredibly important for you to do.

because that having one person in charge of it, make sure that it's getting done. And you want to have someone who knows at least some of what we're through, what they're doing because they won't just do story brand and forget about it. If you hire the right person, if you work with the right people, it's something that informs every single thing you do. You know, when, when we worked with the company that we worked out before with the landscape edging, we

What we did is we put our head down when we first started and we did this hard work. We did StoryBrand, we did several other frameworks that we combined. And because of that, the first video we did went viral. Not that virality is the point or the goal. It shouldn't be. It just happened to be a side effect of what we did. And there's a lot of reasons why it went viral. But all to say is...

we did the right stuff and every single line, every single part of that script for that video was deeply steeped in the story brand that we wrote ourselves. You know, it was steeped in how we talk about the client and who the customer is and how the product solves their problems. that's why I think it's, can't miss this part. You can't miss

Hey, well, we just need to do the free marketing, the free stuff online. It's not, if you don't put value in it, you'll never hold value in it. It'll never be important to you. But understand that what's standing in way of becoming a okay business and being extremely financially successful is by putting a lot of focus and attention into marketing and especially organic marketing. Because paid ads are important, obviously, but...

Sarah Faith (23:51)
Mm-hmm.

Totally.

Tim (24:12)
If you do not understand who your buyer is, if you do understand your customer and you don't even understand your own product in a way that relates to them, you'll never sell, you'll never do well. That includes service businesses too. So I'll just say that. I think that that kind of, you know, summarizes everything that, you know, who we believe in, what we believe to our core.

Sarah Faith (24:31)
Yeah, if you were to just do those two things, you know, like that we said, the the reach that your company could have and the growth of it that you so desire, which is valid, that that could actually be a reality. And it kind of just goes back to like our name of our company is Stump and Rue. And there's a biblical reference to that. But

If you look at like our logo, it's like this little green plant shooting out of this stump. And that's symbolic to us for a number of ways. But it's like where a company feels like all hope was lost and like, you know, they just feel so lost and confused. And there's all this like advice on social media. You don't really know what to what to take. We hope that.

You know, our studio will provide that growth for you. And these are things that we just actively use in our own business. And we see other companies using and they work, you know, and so why why go against that? No business is the exception to that. At some point, you're going to have to pay a price of admission for not doing those things. And so we don't create the rules, but we.

Tim (25:37)
Yeah

Sarah Faith (25:46)
We just play the game and we want to play the game with you too and help you grow in your own business. So we really hope that this was valuable, kind of a shorter episode, but I kind of like the pocket sized episodes. Quick, it's in the point.

Tim (25:58)
Yeah, I would say if you're

a business owner that has any questions about this stuff and you're like, Hey, I don't know where to get started. Just let us know. Or even if you're a freelancer or something and you have questions about doing this for other companies, we are here to help and we love having conversations with like minded people. So please feel free to reach out on our website, stufferroot.co or on LinkedIn. I'm always active on there. So

Sarah Faith (26:14)
Definitely.

Thanks so much for listening, we appreciate it.

Tim (26:22)
and we'll see you in the next episode.

Sarah Faith (26:23)
next episode. Toodles, bye.

Tim (26:24)
toodles.