IAM2313 – Fractional CMO Discusses on Prioritizing Marketing Strategies for Revenue Growth

Peter Murphy Lewis is a fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) with expertise in various industries, including travel, software, and media.

Peter discusses how his business evolved, transitioning from a focus on strategy to a full-service marketing agency with a team of 15.

He emphasizes that CEOs often need support in defining the right marketing strategy before diving into execution.

Peter shares his honest marketing approach, acknowledging when something isn't working and being transparent about his plans.

He explains the value of creating a strong culture with global talent, which can help scale a business while being more cost-effective.

LinkedIn: Peter Murphy Lewis

Website:  GrowthMentor

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Transcription:

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Peter Murphy Lewis Teaser 00:00

Executing extremely well on the wrong priority is not beneficial for revenue. It's great for executing on the wrong priority.

So sometimes you need to slow down and figure out what your priorities are. And if you, and if you don't understand what marketing can get for you, that's where you need a strategist.

And so I my first role before I came up with the title that people understand, which is fractional Chief Marketing Officer was I help people determine what strategy they should get do before they start with marketing.

Intro 00:34

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 01:02

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have an awesome guest on the show today at Peter Murphy Lewis. Peter, excited to have you on the show.

Peter Murphy Lewis 01:11

I'm so excited. Let's talk it.

Gresham Harkless 01:14

Yeah, let's talk it. Let's do all the things. And Peter's doing so many phenomenal things. I can't wait to dive in deep into all the awesome insight and knowledge and experience that he has.

But of course, before I do that, I want to read a little bit more about Peter so you can hear about some of those awesome things.

And Peter is a fractional CMO who's called in when CEOs are buried in marketing data, but can't figure out how to turn it into revenue.

His expertise stretches across industries like travel, software and media, where he's even produced a documentary.

But what really sets Peter apart, he actually lives in a zoo. Yes. While advertising businesses from TV networks to zoos, he's gained firsthand insight into their challenges, proving that managing animals or algorithms isn't as different as you like to think.

So Peter, excited to have you on the show. And one of the really cool things that I found out about Peter is of course he's from Kansas. I was born in Kansas, so I always have to give a shout out to people that are from the Midwest.

And he's also very fluent in both English and Spanish, which enhances his ability to connect with a diverse audiences in the work that he does.

And he has a very compelling story, which I hope we dive into a little bit deeper on how things took a dramatic turn for him when he had some life threatening news. So, Peter, excited to have you on the show, Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Peter Murphy Lewis 02:29

I am, I am. Did you say that I am fluent English? Because I'm from Kansas and not everyone from Kansas is fluent in English

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Gresham Harkless 02:37

Hey, you never know. I got out of there before I could speak, so I never know. So I don't want to judge.

Yeah. But I wanted to kind of kick everything off by hearing a little bit more on how you got started. Can we rewind the clock, hear a little bit more about your CEO story?

Peter Murphy Lewis 02:52

Yeah. I think the dots that I would connect to explain how became founder CEO goes back to my father, who took over a million-dollar bank in the 90s and grew it.

I guess that was bought at a million dollars and grew it to $750 million in assets. And so I was around an entrepreneurial family all of my life. Now, my dad didn't finish college, but he had chops. Right.

He knew how to solve problems. And so, just hearing my dad always talking about how he's trying to help somebody improve the quality of their life in a rural town, small town of 2,000 people today, the bank is still community run, still community owned.

That was kind of my stepping stones into my first job or my first CEO role. When I created my company in 2007, I was 27 years old. I was living in South America.

I was a full time professor. I was a regular on CNN and starting to kind of become a talking head for politics and realized that I didn't want to be an academic all my life.

And no one would hire me because I had a master's degree. I studied my PhD. No one would hire me. So I said, if no one will hire me, I'm a hire myself.

And I created my own travel company with my business partner and that took off. That got us New York Times. We had famous clients like Beyonce and Steven Tyler and Aerosmith.

And I just sold that company 11 months ago. So that those are. I'd give a lot of credit to my dad, my grandpa, and those conversations at home. And then my first job where I just had to learn with my own money.

Gresham Harkless 04:31

Yeah. That ends up being so huge. And I wanted to drill down a little bit more to hear a little bit more on how you're working with and serving clients. Could you take us through a little bit more of like, how you transition and what you're ultimately doing now?

Peter Murphy Lewis 04:41

Yeah. When I got out of a turnaround gig about four years ago, a private equity turnaround gig, I was working, overseeing the marketing, preparing this company to be exited.

It was a company, it was a distressed asset. We had to stop, churn and then rebrand it and sell it. I started to pick up clients on the side who were not hiring me for execution, rather they were hiring me for strategy. And they had some kind of common themes.

Looking back on it, I didn't identify them at that point, but the common themes were CEOs who either didn't understand marketing or didn't want to work in marketing or didn't think marketing was important, or they have hired and fired many marketing managers and they would bring me in kind of as a trusted strategist and say, like, what are the metrics I should be asking of marketing?

What's a fair goal to ask of my marketing team? Maybe I'm being unrealistic, or am I setting my marketing managers up for failure, like they're just churning and burning type of thing?

So that was the common thing that started to happen. And I realized that over time,  that it was CEOs who needed support with marketing and they didn't want execution support at the beginning because executing extremely well on the wrong priority is not beneficial for revenue.

It's great for executing on the wrong priority. So sometimes you need to slow down and figure out what your priorities are.

And if you don't understand what marketing can get for you, that's where you need a strategist. And so I.

My first role before I came up, with the title that people understand, which is fractional Chief Marketing Officer, was I help people determine what strategy they should get do before they start with marketing.

That's kind of how the agency was born and my role was born. Now today, I have 15 people behind me who do a whole bunch of execution.

So after strategy set up, we turn into son of a marketing agency. But at the beginning, it was just kind of being looking over somebody's shoulder and giving them some advice.

Gresham Harkless 06:51

Yeah. And I almost wonder, is it. Is that like what I would call your secret sauce? It could be for yourself, the business, or a combination of both.

But is it that ability to be able to see the forest, for the trees, so to speak, to be able to realize you don't have to be good at all the things you can lean into, your strength?

Do you feel like your ability to not just see that, but maybe help people to execute on that and be able to strategize around that? Do you feel like that's part of your secret sauce?

Peter Murphy Lewis 07:16

I'm glad you asked this question because I was listening to, listening to a podcast yesterday and the guest told the host, he said, my currency is courage.

And your question Gresh made me think of that conversation in my head yesterday, because when I heard that, I said, what is my currency? My currency to your question is my currency is vulnerability.

And first of all, my vulnerability shows up and that my son trusts me. My vulnerability shows up as currency when I'm doing my first calls with a potential big client, a prospect. Right.

My vulnerability of saying, like, I'm not certain. So PPC is working for you today? The next six months, we're going to work on YouTube, but trust me, I'm going to know within a month or not if this is a failure.

We're not going to go six months into this and we're going to work on LinkedIn. We're going to work on a LinkedIn newsletter or your personal branding or whatever it is, or we're going to work on webinars or we're going to position you in a convention.

That vulnerability for some reason translates a lot into trust. And people be like, this guy Peter never acts like he's the smartest person in the room.

He shares a lot of times what he's plan, planning to do. But he's also smart about pivoting. Like when he fails, he says it out loud and then we move on.

So I think my seeing the forest through the trees, it is being very vulnerable about what I see, writing down out loud what I think we're going to do and being very ready to pivot when we fail.

Gresham Harkless 08:51

Nice. I absolutely love that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

So this could be like an app, a book, or even a habit that you have. What's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

Peter Murphy Lewis 09:03

I saw this question ahead of time, but I like to not overly prepare. I'll say this is such a simple hack and I don't know why people don't get this often enough. It is authentic flattery and it works on social media as well.

So if you look, if you looked at my LinkedIn metrics over the last 90 days, the top 10% performing LinkedIn posts I have is where I tag somebody and I share something that I learned from them.

I share why I appreciate them and I tell the call, the only call to action is to go follow this person and consume their content.

So I think the hack here, like the life lesson going back to being a dad is teaching my son to be the most helpful person in the room.

The marketing or CEO hack is being the most helpful person on LinkedIn, sharing, tagging someone else, making them the leader in the room, making them the smartest person in the room, and then having no call to action for people to trust you as a connector in life, Gresh.

Every single one of my prospect calls in the last month have mentioned that they booked the call because of something on LinkedIn.

Now, it doesn't mean that's where they heard about me, but I'm interested in two things. First, how did you first hear about me?

And secondly, what got you to book a call? Booking a call is them seeing me shout out people like you.

Gresham Harkless 10:32

Yeah, absolutely. That ends up being so powerful.

Peter Murphy Lewis 10:34

Yeah. Oh, I have one more hack for you, Gresh. Can we do a 2.0? I shared with you before we started recording that I'm about to publish a book about finding interns, mentoring interns, younger generation scaling a team with remote.

With remote international global talent. My favorite go to place for remote talent is dynamitejobs.com. I'm not an owner. I don't even. I know who the owner's first name is. His name's Dan.

I don't know his last name. I'm not friends with him. I don't have an affiliate link. But I. Every single hire that I have hired in the last four years, and that's over 100 people and a lot of interns. Dynamite Jobs. That is my favorite to go go to place.

Gresham Harkless 11:19

Nice. I appreciate you so much in sharing that. And so would you consider that to be a little bit more of what I like to call a CEO nugget.

So this could be a word of wisdom or piece of advice. It might be something you mentioned before, but it might be something you would tell your younger business self if you hopped into a time machine or potentially your favorite client.

Peter Murphy Lewis 11:34

Yeah, it's close to nugget, I think. So that's the first cousin. And the second cousin of that is the amount of quality of global international talent that exists out there that costs half the price of what US does, allows you to invest and try different channels. Right?

So you can find, if you could do with five international people that specialize in different things, what you could only do with one or two people here.

So if you know how to create culture and you can use dynamite jobs and you could take this book and you turn into a framework, this term turns into revenue.

This is not just about culture, this is. You have teammates who are going to help your company grow.

So the nugget is create culture by bottom up and do it with international people that you might not think are going to be. That are going to surpass you. Right.

Like, there's. As far as I know, Gresh, there is no one on my team currently right now from the United States.

And all of these people have. They haven't surpassed me already in my knowledge. They're going to in the next year.

Gresham Harkless 12:44

Yeah. And I love that because I think, they always say the smartest person in the room is getting those people around them that are a lot smarter in the room because you don't necessarily have to know all those things.

So I love how that vulnerability and being comfortable in terms of doing that ends up spanning into everything you've been able to build.

And also, recommend that people build as well. Yeah, absolutely. So now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO.

Our goal is to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Peter, what is being CEO mean to you?

Peter Murphy Lewis 13:14

It means fixing a lot of problems and admitting when you're wrong and your face is there when there's a mistake. Right. You eat it.

So, like, it's just. It's the buck stops here, man. Like, it's the insomnia that wakes you up on a Tuesday and you got to get up and you got to grind.

Gresham Harkless 13:32

Yeah, absolutely.

Peter Murphy Lewis 13:33

If you can't. If you can't be the. If you can't be the quarterback man, then the CEO is not for you. And I'm not talking about throwing the ball.

I'm talking about facing the pressure when somebody fumbles the ball. And it's not you, it's your fault. You stand up. Yeah, I'm the leader of this team.

Gresham Harkless 13:46

Yeah, absolutely. And it's so important to kind of understand that it was heavy. Heavy is the crown, heavy that wears the crown.

And I think by understanding that and being able to kind of step into that role and understand that responsibility, it provides a lot of great accolades and opportunity.

But also on the other side, when things don't go the way they're supposed to go, a lot of times it's you that has to step up and kind of own that 100%, man.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Peter, truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more.

So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they can get a hold of you. Find out about your book, all the awesome things that you're working on.

Peter Murphy Lewis 14:23

Yeah, I think my first, ask or call to action is if anything that we've talked about today would be helpful.

Reach out to me on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn is Peter Murphy Lewis. I'm the only Peter Murphy Lewis on LinkedIn as at this point.

If there's another one, I'm going to take them down or adopt that kid. And I give out hundreds of pro bono free work per year. I give out audits.

And I'm on a platform called growthmentor.com where I'm a pain mentee to talk to smart people at Gresh who give me advice and I'm a mentor on there.

And all of that's free. So if anything's helpful, like, we're here to give back. And as I mentioned, where I feel most comfortable is being the most helpful person in the room. I don't feel comfortable asking.

So if there's something we could do, ask me and it'll make me feel good. Help me with my imposter syndrome. That's all I can ask of you.

Gresham Harkless 15:13

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I truly appreciate that. And of course we're gonna have the links and information in the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can follow up with you.

But I appreciate you so much for your time and all the awesome things that you're doing and the impact that you're having upon the world.

I think so many times that what really came up for me, like during this conversation with this, this word ego, and I think so many times we can allow the ego to overtake us.

We have to be the biggest, smartest person in the room. But I think I really resonated with the idea of understanding that we can just be ourselves and understand that we do have the imposter syndrome.

We do have the vulnerabilities. We aren't sure of ourselves. And that ends up bringing us a lot closer to everybody.

So thank you so much for reminding us of how important that superpower is because you're living it and how we need to tap into it ourselves. So thank you so much again, Peter, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Peter Murphy Lewis 15:59

Love it. I'm glad that's what you took away from it because I'm 44, I'm getting older and man, the imposter syndrome doesn't go away, you just figure out how of ways to avoid it.

Gresham Harkless 16:07

There you go. Well, it's good to know that. Take care Peter.

Outro 16:10

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast, powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co.

Also, check out our I AM CEO Facebook group. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless jr. Thank you for listening.

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