IAM2290 – Entrepreneur Helps Companies Evolve Their Message for Bigger Impact

Title: Transcript - Mon, 04 Nov 2024 07:12:04 GMT

Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2024 07:12:04 GMT, Duration: [00:16:59.13]

[00:00:00.32] - Zach Messler

I have an advisory service called the Sounding Board. People have ideas, they have great ideas, and sometimes they don't know how to execute them or they just go and do it. And that's great to go and take action. But what if you had 20 years of product marketing experience and messaging experience right on your phone and you could ask a question and get any question and get an answer and get that, have that confidence, get an answer within 24 hours. That's what the Sounding Board is.

[00:00:28.91] - Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relations, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.

[00:00:54.09] - Gresham Harkless

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast. And I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Zach Mesler of ZachMessler.com Zach, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:01:02.71] - Zach Messler

Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks so much, Gresh.

[00:01:04.84] - Gresham Harkless

No problem. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Zach so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And no matter how, no matter your industry, no matter your size, your buyer has changed. They've gotten a taste of empowerment and now they're never going back. That means all the messaging, all that content that worked even just a few years ago, none of it resonates. That's where Zach Mesler comes in. Zach Mesler helps you know what to say and how to say it so you make a bigger impact on the world and of course, your wallet. So, Zach, it's awesome to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the IMCO community?

[00:01:37.54] - Zach Messler

Let's go. Let's do it.

[00:01:39.75] - Gresham Harkless

Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

[00:01:45.84] - Zach Messler

Sure. So I spent 20 years in product marketing for tech and what that largely means is translating. It's translating deeply technical things to a non technical audience and also to a non technical sales team that has to sell to that non technical audience. And so, so I learned a lot about what works, how to communicate in a way that's clear, compelling, and convincing. And the last place where I worked, I worked in an organization where they weren't really ready for a lot of the things that I was doing marketing. Messaging has changed. You just said it. Reading the bio, the way people buy has changed dramatically. And how people consume information has changed because of this thing, the phone, your iPhone, it's changed. And if you don't adapt, if you're using these old school ways, even from B school, from business school, feature benefit or focus on the benefit, even you're missing a nuance there. So what happened was I recognized pretty quickly, yeah, you know, this isn't right. And I started doing things the way I knew was right and it was resonating with the sales team and things started to really happen. I was capped at helping about 200 sales pros. That was it. And I wanted to help more people, so I jumped. So now I help entrepreneurs and I help mostly B2B tech companies. That's where I, you know, the community I came out of. But really any entrepreneurial organization, because the stuff that I work on, the stuff that I teach, the stuff that I do is foundational when it comes to communications, when it comes to engaging and communicating with a buying audience.

[00:03:21.74] - Gresham Harkless

Now I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper. I know you touched on it. Could you tell us a little bit more on like what you do with your clients, how you help them, you know, kind of get that messaging?

[00:03:28.16] - Zach Messler

Yeah, sure. So you said it right. So I help entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial organizations know what to say and how to say it so they make a bigger impact on the world in their wallet. So I do that in a few different ways. Starting with larger organizations. I do workshops. So it's messaging workshops. It's really product marketing workshops. It's laying this foundation for great communications so that everything else that grows from it then is easier, it resonates more, it drives more leads, it drives more buys. It's understanding the audience. So I have a whole process of how to do that. It's essentially when I used to go I B2B tech, I cut my teeth in the startup. I used to start out product marketing organizations. When I would come in these workshops, this is exactly what I lay down in place. Before we started doing all these fancy programs, it's laying that foundation. So that's the workshops then for those clients and also for solopreneurs, for entrepreneurs, small businesses. I have an advisory service called the Sounding Board. People have ideas, they have great ideas, and sometimes they don't know how to execute them or they just go and do it. And that's great to go and take action. But what if you had 20 years of product marketing experience and messaging Experience right on your phone. And you could ask a question and get any question and get an answer and get that, have that confidence, get an answer within 24 hours. That's what the sounding board is. You ask a question about messaging, about product marketing, about marketing strategy, whatever, organizing your product suite, whatever, you get an answer within 24 hours. And then on top of that, we deep dive for a set number of hours a month on anything you want. So you have a marketing plan that you're putting forth. You want someone with marketing experience to really vet it with you. We could do that. It could be as strategic as that. It can be as tactical as, hey, I just wrote a blog post or I just wrote something for Facebook or LinkedIn. I'd really like to take a look at it with you. And we deep dive and I'll ask you questions about your audience, I'll ask you questions about your product, about your goals, about all these different things. And then on that call, we will together collaborate and make it better. So that's the sounding board. And then the last thing that I do, although I'm very selective with who I work with, is I do content creation. And that's really on a case by case basis.

[00:05:52.05] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yeah, I love all those pieces, especially the sounding board, especially because a lot of times most entrepreneurial people are creative people. They come up with new ideas or new ways to tackle certain problems. So to be able to have that opportunity to talk with somebody outside of sometimes yourself or your team, to be able to get an idea of, like, where there might be gaps, opportunities, how you're communicating that, things like that is definitely something that's tremendous, I imagine. Now, I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this is what you feel kind of distinguishes you or your organization. So do you have an example you can share with us?

[00:06:24.72] - Zach Messler

Sure. So it's kind of. I think everybody has their own secret sauce, for sure. For me, it's. I love that. First of all, I have 20 years of product marketing experience. Like, I've been living this for two decades. I love this stuff. I love it. Second of all, I just, I just get excited, man. And if I get. It's almost like a superpower, I can't control it. If I'm excited about something, you're excited about something. And that helps my clients too, because it's motivational, it's inspirational. You know, it's. I really, truly love this stuff. And the thing that I get the most joy from, you know, it's nice to make dollars. That's not why I'm in this. I'm in this because I love. I love product marketing, and I love helping people realize this stuff. Usually it's pretty simple stuff. It's not crazy complex, it's not easy, but it's truly, truly simple.

[00:07:17.18] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I think that shows, you know, just, you know, talking with you, but also in. I imagine it manifests itself in your clients. Once you're excited about something, they become excited about something. Then it manifests itself in their product and how they're pitching their product, how they're talking about their product. So that's a pretty great example of a secret.

[00:07:33.22] - Zach Messler

Yeah, it generates action is what it does. It really does. It generates action. And I mean, action is the solution for everything.

[00:07:40.67] - Gresham Harkless

Yep, there you go. There you go. In true entrepreneurial form. So now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but it's something you feel makes you more effective and efficient, 100%.

[00:07:54.62] - Zach Messler

So I hinted. So we talked a little before you hit record, and I hinted at this. And you do this now. Gresh. And you've been doing this forever and ever, I think. But when I started out, I was focused mostly on content. You know, content creation for clients. And I was doing passive referral, and I was relying on that because I didn't want to do lead gen. I didn't really want to do that stuff, and I was relying on it. I know a lot of people are kind of like that. What I found was, though, my business was starting to tank because you get to a point where, especially if it's not active referral, if you're just, oh, I do great work, and so. And so is going to refer me. And you sit there and wait. Eventually it dries up. So I came up with this structure to. It's not even really a structure. It's three letters to resuscitate my business. And you don't have to be in dire straits. This is now something that I do all the time. It's cpr. Cpr. Create, publish, repeat. That's it. Create, publish, repeat. And you have to have a purpose with what you create. But if you're true to your brand and you're true to your company, create something helpful, something useful for your target audience, then publish it. Put it out there. It doesn't have to be perfect. Put it out there and then repeat. Just keep doing it. Create, publish, Repeat. You do that upfront. It's slow. It takes time. You want to give up, you don't give up. Create, publish, repeat. Create, publish, repeat. You keep doing it. And what happens over time, amazing things happen. You, sir, are the perfect example of cpr. I mean, seriously, this entire thing that you built, it's unbelievable. And it is totally because of CPR you created. You publish, you repeat, and you stuck with it, and you still stick with it to this day. That is the greatest hack that I know.

[00:09:47.35] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I love that acronym. I wish I would have thought of an acronym like that. That's amazing. And I love how it systematize everything. Because like you said, at the end of the day, sometimes you just have to have action. Action cures all. So a lot of times, you know, when you know, you might be looking for more business or you might be looking for more publicity, whatever it is, you start to create stuff, and you continue to do that. And then next thing you know, somebody might find something that you wrote three years ago, but because you've been doing that and been doing it consistently, it starts to build up over time.

[00:10:14.87] - Zach Messler

100%.

[00:10:15.99] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

[00:10:26.25] - Zach Messler

Sure. So we hit on this a little earlier in this conversation. Simple wins. Simple wins. You get too close to your product, you get too close to your idea, or even the tactics and the things that you want to do to grow your business, you're too close to them. And what happens is you get in this mire of complexity and you're not going to be understood. If you're down there, you dive into the detail, you get too excited about what your offer is, you're talking too fast, you're getting into the weeds. Nobody's going to get you. Simple wins. And for me, the best way to get to that simplicity for a conversation, for content, it's. And this isn't what you publish, but this is an exercise you can do to get to the right level. It's answering three questions, right? About your offering or about your idea, about whatever it is you want to communicate. What is it? What does it do? And why does it matter to my audience? So what is it? Is quite literally, what is it? So, you know, if I'm thinking about, like, I've used a car as an example, right? This is getting really simple. So if I say to you What's a car? What is it? It's a hunk of metal with wheels and an engine. I mean, that's. That's the level it has to. It's crazy high level. What's it do? It gets you from point A to point B faster. That's what it does. There are lots of nuances, lots of ways you can dive in, but that's what it does. Why does it matter? Well, it depends who you're talking to. You know, if you're talking to the CEO, the I Am CEO podcast listeners, why does a car matter? Well, sometimes in the middle of your day, you realize you got to run to the store to get something, and walking is going to take you way too long. And you don't have the time because you have all these other things you have to do with your business. But, you know, you're out of milk, your kid needs milk, you got to go get it. So you jump in your car, you get to the store so much quicker, you get your business, you get home so much quicker. You just saved all this time. Why does it matter?

[00:12:28.61] - Gresham Harkless

That's it.

[00:12:29.25] - Zach Messler

If you can take those three things, answer those three questions, what is it? What does it do? And why does it matter? To my audience, you're going to be in a way better position to communicate it without getting into the weeds. You let your audience say, oh, that sounds amazing. How do you do that? Or, wow, that's incredible. That reminds me of blah, blah. And then you start the conversation, then you can get excited and dive into the weeds because they want to know. But before they want to know, you got to be clear. That's how you do it. Simple wins.

[00:13:04.01] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I love that. Again, one of the things that you do is you go through this training and you pretty much get all this information on certain products and services, how to sell, so on and so forth. And the first thing you do, the first client you talk to once you get out of sales training, is you do the information throw up, where you literally tell them everything you learned in training, but in reality, they don't want to know all that. You answer those three simple questions that you touched on, and then if after their interest is peaked, then you. You can start diving in and showing them a little bit more about product and service. So I love that. Simplicity. Yes. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition for what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Zach wanted to Ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:13:46.46] - Zach Messler

It's funny. Like, I know I'm a CEO. I don't think of myself as a CEO in the traditional sense, but to me, it's about, I guess you can tell because the examples I'm using. I love to drive, right? I love my car. We could, I could wax poetic about my car on and on. Being a CEO is keeping the car tuned. That's what it's about. It's dry. You know, if. And I drive the car. Car's my business, right? I drive the car. I love it. It's fun. I take it wherever I want to go. I'm in control of it. That's great. But if I don't keep that car tuned, I'm not going as fast as I can go. I'm not going as far as I can go, and it's not as much fun. And so sometimes it's expensive to keep that car tuned. Sometimes it's a pain in the butt to keep that car tuned, but you got to keep that car tuned. And so for a CEO to be a CEO, that's what it means to me. It's making sure that I keep that car in tip top shape so it can do exactly what I want it to do.

[00:14:45.54] - Gresham Harkless

Well, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and then, of course, how best they can get a hold review and get their car tuned.

[00:14:56.39] - Zach Messler

Sure. So the only other thing I'd like to add, I love this stuff. If you're having challenges with messaging, with marketing, you're not sure how to get the word out, you're not sure how to get the right words out. Maybe you have a bunch of products and you're not sure how to organize them. Send me an email ZachMessler.com shoot hop on my website. I would like to offer to CEO Blog Nation. I may regret this, but I'd like to offer a free call to go through a quick problem. I can tell you more about the sounding board and if you're interested, we can move forward. But a call to really dive in on one thing that you'd like help with and no obligation. I'd like to offer that. So email me zack zachmessler.com and mention the I Am CEO podcast and we'll make that happen. And that's about it. I mean, you can reach me@zachmessler.com Zach is spelled with an H. It's short for Zachary Zachmessler.com and I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm prolific, dare I say it, on LinkedIn. My CPR is largely on LinkedIn, so you can follow me there. And the only other thing I'd like to say is Gresh, I said this to you before. Thanks so much for having me on this. I really appreciate it. I'm happy to be a part of it.

[00:16:13.33] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, well, definitely happy to have you on Zach, and I appreciate all the awesome things that you're doing to simplify everything. And yeah, definitely. We'll have your link links in the show notes as well and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:23.39] - Zach Messler

Thanks Gresh. You too.

[00:16:24.73] - Intro

Thank you for listening to The I Am CEO podcast, powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at Imceo 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 Imceo Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.