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Hey, what is up?
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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and you all know that I am so biased when it comes to our marketing episodes.
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Why?
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Because I genuinely believe and I know that marketing is the lifeline for all of our businesses.
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This is how we actually grow.
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If you're not out there getting found by new customers and clients, then your business isn't growing.
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And today's guest has just as much energy as I do when it comes to her love for marketing.
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And what I really appreciate about this entrepreneur and guest is that not only does she love marketing because of all the powers that it has, but she loves the results and the growth that it brings for her clients.
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So let me tell you all about today's guest.
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Her name is Leslie Youngblood.
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With over 19 years of experience in advertising and marketing, content creation and business development, leslie has helped transform companies from local startups to nationwide impact makers, using innovative marketing efforts while driving optimal business outcomes.
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Her company, youngblood MMC, stands for Youngblo Marketing, media and Content, and her team delivers high level brand and marketing services to growing businesses across the United States.
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They're bold, they're high energy I can attest to this already.
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They're creative thinkers who love to bring brands and businesses to life and scale their bottom line goals.
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Their creativity is boundless, their grit is undeniable, which is such a core entrepreneurial trait, and they always provide results.
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And this is a fun one for me, because Leslie's used to being on the other side of the microphone.
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She once upon a time interviewed other entrepreneurs and business owners on a weekly podcast, so it's really fun for me to host Leslie in today's episode.
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I'm not going to say anything else.
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Let's dive straight into my interview with Leslie Youngblood.
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All right, leslie, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.
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First things first.
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Welcome to the show.
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Thank you so much.
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I'm so excited to be here.
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Heck, yes, I think our only challenge today is going to be keeping it to 30 minutes, because there's a lot of good stuff we're going to get into Before we do that.
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Leslie, take us beyond the bio.
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Who's Leslie?
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How'd you start doing all these cool things?
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Sure, I'm Leslie Youngblood.
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I'm a proud mom of three boys and so they inspire me every day.
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They're one of the reasons why I decided to start Youngblood MMC, but I've always loved writing.
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That's really kind of where my origin story starts.
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As a kid I loved writing stories.
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My siblings and cousin and I had a magazine, shout Magazine.
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We made movies.
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So I was always creative growing up and really found advertising.
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When I was going into college and I was going to study English at Michigan State University go green and I was in like a introduction to the ComArts College and I heard about advertising and you could be a copywriter and I was like, wait, you can get paid to write for a living and have fun.
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And so it was.
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Really.
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I was so fortunate to stumble upon it because I just knew right away it was the you know the place for me to begin my career and continue my career all over these years and fantastic experiences, fantastic people and so really excited to be doing it on my own in our own unique way now with Youngblood MMC.
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Yes, I love that overview especially.
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No wonder why you and I naturally connect.
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It's because of that love for writing, because that's the power of words.
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Is that words can I mean?
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Mean?
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I'll extrapolate.
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Words can move mountains, words can move nations, words can do so much.
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Talk to us about that love.
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I want that to be the basis of how we start to talk about advertising and marketing yeah, that's so spot on.
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I always felt like, like I said, as a kid, I was writing and I was curious and I was creative, and I was writing, and I was curious and I was creative and and and you know, I felt I feel like, whether it's writing or it's art, it's really the way people express their soul, right, and and how we can kind of tap into our unique gifts, and so writing has always been a gift for me.
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I almost feel like it's a compulsion.
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My kids love Alexander Hamilton, the musical, and they always make fun of me and call me Hamilton, because I'm writing all the time, I'm working all the time, and it's not that I'm a workaholic, I'm just so inspired to capture things and explore ideas.
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And so the way also too, like you said, brian, the way that writing brings people together, whether it's a book, whether it's a song, whether it's a movie, it is just so profound and it moves me deeply and it honors me to have that gift and be a part of an industry that also harnesses that to do good for businesses and other people as well.
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Yeah for sure, Leslie.
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Hearing your exuberance for all of these things makes me think about the fact that not all writing is equal, and I would argue that part of your love for it is the human emotion that goes into it the way that psychology I mean there's so many layers to successful copywriters that always stands out to me.
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Talk to us about that difference, because you also love business and I so appreciate that about you.
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What's that difference when it comes to writing that just people read and scroll right past, which we all see on social?
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media versus the writing that captivates us and does spark that action.
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Right, that's so interesting that we're talking about this, brian.
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Yesterday, a friend of mine on LinkedIn wrote a post about AI and AI writing, and whether it's AI or whether it's a human, you still have to capture that emotion and cause somebody, you know, stir something in somebody to get them to pay attention, and I love the opportunity that AI provides.
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But to me it's also like a blueprint for writing, right, and then you take that blueprint and you build a house, or you build that plan, or you build that post or script, or you know taglines, etc.
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Like you have to bring it to life too in that way.
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And so in this digital age, I think people crave connection even more.
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But then I also feel like tale as old as time.
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Whether it's AI, whether it's the internet, whether it's TV, radio, et cetera, there's always going to be technology and innovation that gives you an opportunity to tweak how you're able to connect with people, and writing is still at the core of that.
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And so emotion and that human to human connection that's one of the things I love about working with our hospitality clients at Youngblood MMC is it's not just about food.
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It's not just about drinks.
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It's about giving them an experience, about giving them something unique and different that impacts their lives in a special way.
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Yeah, so well said.
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I love the fact that you called that out.
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It's the tale as old as time.
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I feel like being a podcast host.
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I know how many listeners wanna hear about the cutting edge technologies Every conversation.
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You and I will inevitably talk about AI here today, but at the end of the day, humans are humans and people have been buying and selling things for literally centuries, probably thousands of years before us.
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So with that said, leslie, let's really broaden this conversation right here and talk about what is marketing.
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You must see marketing in so many different shapes and sizes.
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What do people traditionally think of it as?
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And I know that you think differently, so what's your take on it?
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I think that most people consider marketing and advertising pushing something on them that they don't want right, like that used car salesman or whether these commercials interrupting my show or you know my movie or you know my scroll.
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But to me and this is also something when I was going into college and that really resonated with me I had a professor, jim Gilmore.
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He was actually one of the original madmen in Chicago.
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Brilliant, brilliant professor.
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I believe he passed away a few years ago, but you know, he really demonstrated to us that everybody and every living thing markets themselves, whether it's a flower blooming and trying to attract a bee, whether it's, you know, birds with their feathers trying to attract a mate.
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It's just inherent in living things, nature to project messages, and so marketing and advertising is really, you know, obviously taking that to a different degree, but to me that's something that is so fascinating, it's that psychology and that really like natural element of it, and so we're providing something that somebody doesn't yet know they want.
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And and again I'll just bring a quote, I believe Henry Ford said it it's, it was something about how, if you ask the people what they wanted, they would say a faster horse.
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But we gave them the car, and so sometimes people don't realize what they want until you give it to them, or that you're in front of them offering up the solution to a pain point or something that's making them feel the way they feel inside or that they want to be as a person, whether it's shoes or medicine, or a course or a movie, etc.
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Boom.
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Leslie, coming in hot with some analogies that I've never heard within the realm of marketing.
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I'm so glad I'm never gonna look at flowers blooming the same way, because now I view that as marketing, because, you're right, they are projecting their value into the marketplace for those bees to come along and pollinate it.
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I love that.
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I also that henry ford quote that you reference is one of my truly favorite quotes of all time, and I want to go there with you because I would imagine that when you walk into businesses, you are growth hungry and they are totally aligned with you.
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It's why you have such a flourishing business at this point.
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But I would also imagine that when you walk in, they don't know what they want or what they need.
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They crave that growth.
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What's that assessment period look like?
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When you look at a business that you're beginning to work with, how do you start to make sense of their landscape so that you can prescribe the right things for them?
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Mm, hmm, yeah, I think that it's first going really deep and learning that business and really becoming an advocate for that business before you even pitch an idea, right, and so and I think that that should be true for anybody you don't wanna work with somebody that you don't believe in or a product you don't believe in, and so I'm very much a believer in that is that I need to feel excited and connect to the businesses that we work with, because then I can truly become that brand advocate and put myself in the consumers or guest's shoes of that business.
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And then it can be difficult, you know, because, as you can tell, I'm very excitable and and I see the potential and that's something that I love is the potential in so many businesses.
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I can see where they can go and they're here.
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So how do we?
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We see that they can go here, but they have to understand in the right way how to get from here to there, because you don't want to overwhelm them, you don't want to confuse them, you want them to feel like it's attainable, right?
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You can't eat the elephant in one sitting, so how do you break it down and demonstrate that this mountaintop that I see for you, it's not some far-fetched idea.
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You can do it and here are the steps to make it happen.
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And so really, I believe you know it's really becoming passionate and an advocate for them and then breaking you know the steps down for them so they can understand and be confident in the journey that we're going to take together to get them to that mountaintop.
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Yeah, leslie, it's fun having two excitable people here on the air in today's episode, because I'm thinking about all the business owners out there that are saying, gosh, you guys like my business just isn't that exciting.
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I'm a web designer.
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What's exciting about web design?
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Talk directly to those people, because I think you and I find the excitement just in business as a whole.
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How do you make those types of businesses exciting so that it's fun to market them and it's fun to be on the other side of that marketing?
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Sure, I think any business, no matter what you're doing, is exciting and you have to tap into that emotion and that excitement and that desire to bring that to your customer, your core customer, your audience.
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I'll give you an example is one of our customers is Eganics, and they do biological wastewater treatment and solutions, and we always joke how do we make wastewater sexy?
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How do we make wastewater fun?
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Because me, coming in, and you know completely never been involved in the wastewater sector before learning the language, it's like truly learning another language, but it is so fascinating to me and so vital to our everyday existence you don't even realize, when you turn your sink on, where that water goes and the painstaking steps that are taken to make that water clean again and how it goes to the treatment plants and through the lift stations and all.
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It's just like it's a world hidden right in front of our eyes.
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And so I, you know there's whether it's wastewater, whether it's, you know, a winter coat, you know there's something that is that is so inherently human and delightful about services and products, and so I would challenge any business if they're feeling like oh, widgets, you know, what do our widgets really do?
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Whether you need to, you know, step out of the business and take a trip or a vacation or a pause, whether you need to bring your team together and do a brainstorm but really find those.
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Bring your team together and do a brainstorm, but really find what excites you about your business and find that spark, because then it of course makes it easier for a marketer to come in and then you know kind of take the baton and run with it.
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But I think also customers and guests feel that excitement coming through the ads.
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They can feel how passionate you are and that will again just get you further in your path to success.
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Yeah, I love the way you articulate that, leslie.
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It feels like an invitation.
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I'm going to put you on the spot here and ask you something.
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I've actually never asked a marketer and it's a little bit more of an ethereal question.
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And that is what's marketing about, Because I really see that there's three players.
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There's the business itself, there's the product or the service, the solution, and then of course, there's the customer, and they all do this delicate, fun, creative dance together in all of our marketing.
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But I'd love to tap into your mind what percent focus or you don't have to quantify, but how do you entertain marketing across these three players?
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Who takes center stage?
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How do you frame it?
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I'd love to hear the way you think about those three players.
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Sure, Well, I would also say, Brian too, there's a fourth player in there and that's the container or the reality that all these three pieces exist in, Right, and so how do you use those things?
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And I feel like I'm using a crystal ball and it feels kind of weird and creepy, but it's kind of true that you have this microcosm.
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You know, business audience, uh, you know, I can't remember the third thing that you said, but was it just the marketing, Brian?
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the products the products, okay, so the products, and then you have, like, this container for it.
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And how do you get, you know, these three pieces to work together and engage and demonstrate that to them?
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And so I don't think one is necessary.
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I think that the true magic happens in between.
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You know, it's in that intangible fourth character, that like realm of which exists, and how you know those, all those pieces interact together because you can't have one without the other.
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They're all intrinsically linked and they all have to work together.
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And then this big, you know, magic ball that they're all in, or this globe, have to, you know, you have to kind of work with them, wherever they are, however, they're feeling right Because it changes.
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Business can change, human emotions can change in a dime and you have this product that's kind of constant, and so how are you navigating?
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It's almost like a game in a way, which I always kind of joke, that business is such a game.
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It's such a game, um, and marketing can feel like a game, um, and I think sometimes not to diminish the importance of it because it is so inherently important and, like I said, inherent to individuals and who we are, but but it's also fun and there's so many opportunities in ways to explore, you know how to navigate the relationship between all those three pieces that I just can never see marketing as boring, or oh well, content is dead, or emails dead, text messaging is dead, like that to me just makes me crazy, because I'm like what?
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Like there's?
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There's no way.
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It's just going to evolve and change and there'll be like new little pieces added to the sort of like globe all around those pieces.
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Yeah, I love the way you answered that, leslie, because I do feel I'm a sucker for quotes.
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But I feel like very often the old adages and quotes and cliches they do a disservice by oversimplifying things, like in the marketing world.
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We've all heard that quote of nobody wants a drill.
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They want a quarter inch hole, and so we make it all about the features and the benefits and that's exclusively what we focus on.
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But that's your creative approach, is the fact that you understand that space in between.
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It's that illustration.
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Obviously, you and I can see each other Most listeners can't see us right now but it's that understanding of the fact that all of this is also existing in time and in space, literally.
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That's why I think about some of my most successful marketing campaigns over the years have been focusing on.
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Here's the reality you know, around election season.
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Leslie here on the show.
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Yeah, we always talk about it's election season.
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Don't worry about that.
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Focus on your business, Like right, right, or it's, you know, Christmas season you have to focus on driving, getting the events at your restaurant, or you know.
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Or it's tax season, so everybody has to worry about taxes and H&R Block and you see all those taxes.
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I mean, there really is so much opportunity in time and you know sometimes what is it.
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You know where opportunity meets, preparation is luck and sometimes you're able to just capture something, the zeitgeist and it's not that you meant to plan it like with the demure, you know, and how things go viral.
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You can't plan for those moments and I'm sure you know, brian, you've had clients and have talked with guests before about you'll always have a client that wants to go viral, or a client that wants to get on TikTok and thinks it's just going to magically bring them purchases or customers, or you know, etc.
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And it's like, okay, those, those things are so few and far between and it's amazing and fun as a marketer to watch them happen.
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But you really, you know that's where in time they, you know, it's just those little like pop-ups, right, and so, to be consistent, and I really feel like consistency is key, right, in anything, you know, incremental progress cannot be stopped, whether you're a marketer, whether you're in business, you just have to continue, you have to be consistent, you have to pivot and learn and stay curious and eventually you know things will come together and you'll hit it yes, leslie, I want to go deeper here, because this is something.
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I don't think we talk about enough in the world of marketing, and this is really the mindset behind marketing.
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You'll like this.
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I saw a quote the other day on Instagram that said I've failed more times than you've tried, and I've always yeah, I've felt that way.
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Forever is that I've been an entrepreneur for 16 going on 17 years now and most of my marketing efforts have failed.
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It's a few things that have really pushed me forward.
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I think most people do believe that Instagram, facebook, tiktok you mentioned Facebook ads, google ads any of these channels themselves are magic pills.
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Talk to me about the successful marketing mindset.
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Yeah, I mean, you nailed it, ryan.
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You know everybody thinks, oh, it's just got to be this and I'll just go viral.
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It's really so difficult to plan for that and, like you said, it's consistency, and I was, I truly was just talking with my husband about this and I was saying, you know, you think about.
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You see, tom Brady, serena Williams, these goats, right, and you see all like the headlines of X number of championships, x number of wins, how many games did they lose in their careers?
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Nobody talks about how many times they lost.
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We focus on the positive.
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And then you see, you know whether it's Dan Martell or you know Sarah Blakely, and you see them winning and you're like, oh my gosh, like how do they do that?
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I just want to do that.
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And you don't see when Dan Martell was, you know in juvie, when he was like a young man and he talks about it in his book and you know in his thought leadership on LinkedIn.
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You know you don't see the times where Sarah Blakely was told no, no, no.
00:20:10.253 --> 00:20:13.549
And whether you know that's entrepreneurship and even marketing.
00:20:13.549 --> 00:20:16.837
There are campaigns that aren't gonna work right.
00:20:16.837 --> 00:20:24.164
That may feel like a waste of time, but then I always challenge myself and clients to say, okay, this didn't work or this is not working.
00:20:24.164 --> 00:20:25.951
What can we learn from this?
00:20:25.951 --> 00:20:28.775
To iterate and improve, moving forward.
00:20:28.775 --> 00:20:32.711
So how do we learn from this to change and do something else that might work?
00:20:32.711 --> 00:20:48.026
And when I feel like that again releases a lot of the pressure, whether you're a marketer or business owner, too right, it's just a series of challenges, a game that you have to continue to solve over and over again to eventually get to where you want to go.
00:20:48.606 --> 00:20:50.692
Yes, I love the way you talk about that.
00:20:50.692 --> 00:20:55.391
It reveals so much about your approach because you're just willing to continue playing the game.
00:20:55.391 --> 00:20:57.817
You understand the parameters and you say, okay, let's try to.
00:20:57.817 --> 00:20:59.722
You know, take as many shots as we can.
00:20:59.722 --> 00:21:00.546
You remind me?
00:21:00.546 --> 00:21:06.690
Roger Federer did a graduation speech I think it was two summers ago where he said most people look at my 20 grand slams.
00:21:06.690 --> 00:21:15.156
What they don't realize is, in the entirety of my career as the number one tennis player in the world, I lost 49% of the points that I played.
00:21:15.156 --> 00:21:17.522
That's the best tennis player of all time.
00:21:17.522 --> 00:21:19.086
So it's really incredible.
00:21:19.086 --> 00:21:27.942
Leslie, I want to ask you because you and I we keep dancing around platforms and I'm sure a lot of people that you talk to want to talk about platform specific strategies.
00:21:27.942 --> 00:21:31.491
Our listeners always email us and ask what platform should I be marketing?
00:21:31.612 --> 00:21:31.913
on so.
00:21:32.273 --> 00:21:39.910
Leslie, what's your take on the platform, the channel conversation, versus the overarching strategy that you put together for your clients?
00:21:40.471 --> 00:21:40.833
Sure?
00:21:40.833 --> 00:21:48.506
Well, I think that's a great question, brian, and I'm sure, like you said, many people are curious, right, like, how should I want to be on TikTok?
00:21:48.506 --> 00:21:52.675
But again, should you be on TikTok, is that where your audience is?
00:21:52.675 --> 00:21:53.945
And I'll give an example.
00:21:53.945 --> 00:21:56.270
I always like to explore channels.
00:21:56.270 --> 00:22:05.334
Or, if it makes sense for a client and the product and the audience will, will you know, include a mix like an omni channel marketing campaign strategy.
00:22:05.334 --> 00:22:15.152
Right, I think that's, you know, very effective, of course, but then when you start executing, you're going to learn what channels are performing for you over others.
00:22:15.152 --> 00:22:24.212
And if you didn't want to do that, you could also just step back and look at your target audience and say, well, what channels are they on, what is a day in their life like?
00:22:24.212 --> 00:22:38.193
Which, I think, is why you know, creating your customer archetypes is so essential, because you need to understand where they are, what they do in a day when they're on a channel, what time they're on a particular channel, because then you can, you know, your campaigns are more optimized.
00:22:38.193 --> 00:22:39.796
And so I'll give an example.
00:22:41.419 --> 00:22:48.249
We have a client, a live music venue in Northville, michigan.
00:22:48.249 --> 00:22:48.691
They opened last June.
00:22:48.691 --> 00:22:50.297
We helped create the brand, we helped launch the brand.
00:22:50.297 --> 00:22:50.940
They're doing great.
00:22:50.940 --> 00:22:55.369
We're just expanding to additional days this month actually, because it's doing so well and looking at a bigger space for it.
00:22:56.251 --> 00:23:07.066
But we were sure that we were going to that Instagram was going to be our biggest channel, okay, and so through like a couple of months, we're looking at the data and we're seeing great engagement.
00:23:07.066 --> 00:23:08.690
So we had Facebook and Instagram.
00:23:08.690 --> 00:23:19.358
We knew that the audience and the community in that area was more of an older, married family, you know, higher middle-class type of customer.
00:23:19.358 --> 00:23:29.691
So just kind of understanding that we're like, okay, they're probably not on TikTok, maybe some of them are on TikTok, but really en masse we're going to look at Facebook and Instagram for our core customer.
00:23:29.691 --> 00:23:34.553
And we learned after a few months that Instagram was not where it was at for us.
00:23:34.553 --> 00:23:37.465
And we, you know we're growing a following, we're seeing good engagement.
00:23:37.465 --> 00:23:40.153
But Facebook was blowing up for us.
00:23:40.153 --> 00:23:54.051
People were commenting and engaging and sharing and checking in and and then we were like, oh my gosh, it makes so much sense Because of our target audience, knowing their ages, their income, you know their demographics.
00:23:54.051 --> 00:23:56.509
It was like a light bulb, like, oh my gosh.
00:23:56.509 --> 00:24:02.597
So now we were then able to reallocate budget time energy strategy towards the channel that was working.
00:24:03.065 --> 00:24:24.230
And so, again, it's like that iteration you have to learn, and so anybody that's trying to figure out what channel to be on, I would start with one or two that you feel like is where your core customer is, and then iterate and then learn, and if those are working and you feel like is where your core customer is, and then iterate and then learn, and if those are working and you feel like you can add another one and you want to explore an additional channel, add a youtube shorts, add a youtube, add tick tock.
00:24:24.230 --> 00:24:29.290
You know, um, there's so many opportunities to learn and grow and iterate.
00:24:29.290 --> 00:24:44.615
You always want to be looking and understanding the data and making sure that it works, and I, and I feel like too b what I said before is something at Youngblood MMC we're not just gonna give you a beautiful campaign, we're going to make sure it works and if it's not working, we're going to change it.
00:24:44.615 --> 00:24:52.367
And it was something that would always drive me a little crazy when I was in the agency world is you do a beautiful campaign or you would do a postcard test?
00:24:53.308 --> 00:24:54.849
Great, signed off client loves it.
00:24:54.849 --> 00:24:58.114
In a couple of weeks they'd be like so which one performed better?
00:24:58.114 --> 00:25:00.715
I'm dying to know, and they'd be like I'm not.
00:25:00.715 --> 00:25:05.721
I don't know, we don't have access to that data, and I'm like what I must know.
00:25:05.721 --> 00:25:09.614
Right, I just like needed to know because I was just so curious at like the outcome.
00:25:09.614 --> 00:25:18.969
Is it really driving people to your product in your doors, into your website, to convert to sales?
