My Crux of Marketing!

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”  James 1:2-4

I am a husband, father, son, brother, friend, consultant and business guy.

There are not many things in life that bring me more joy than seeing a person succeed at whatever it is they have a passion for.

This relates to all areas of my life. My wife, my kids, my parents, my business, my friends and everything else under the sun that has to do with humans, emotions and the pursuit of dreams.

We all have or have had dreams. We all have or have had aspirations to reach limitless goals. As children those can be totally imaginary, as adults, they can still be imaginary!!

Going back to my childhood, I loved to read. I bought Lord of the Rings, the 4-book set in the summer before 6th grade. I read all four! In 6th grade we had a running, year-long competition for reading, and I won, having read over 20,000 pages. Since then, I’ve read a ton of books. I don’t have an exact number, but it would be in the high hundreds if not over a thousand.

But there is one that I read everyday, without excuse: the Bible. I’ve read it through probably 20 times or so, but I’ve read the Book Of James at least 200 times. Why? Because I find so much wisdom in it for what I do. I see the correlations daily in my workplace and with what we deal with on a daily basis.

James talks about having joy when going through trials. Going through those trials develops perseverance. Perseverance leads to maturity and completeness. There is so much correlation between these verses and marketing.

Great marketing comes from testing, refining and then perfecting. Adding joy to the mix, creates amazingness.

My Crux of Marketing:

To me, marketing is all about heart. See, I can go help a company put together a marketing plan, start doing the entire funnel of marketing, social, SEO, ads, landing pages, lead capture, websites, radio ads, TV ads, Facebook ads, blah, blah, blah, but if I don’t have heart, I get in a rut and my client suffers.

It took me a long time to find out what I was good at. I’m really good at caring for people and wanting them to succeed. I don’t care what field they are in, I just want them to succeed. And in that, I found my heart for marketing.

Without truly caring for your client, above everything else, you won’t get the job fully done. That comes through telling your client the truth of time involved, in a world that wants results yesterday. It’s telling the truth of analytics and what is really happening behind the screens of all those ads. It’s fine-tuning and always changing as a marketing company, so that you are consistently doing the best job for your clients possible.

It’s truly about caring. It’s about going on the journey with the client. Going through the trials, fighting with perseverance, pushing to maturity and completeness. It’s then not getting complacent, but always pushing to be better.

Marketing – The Long Journey:

We are all marketers to some degree. Whether we own a marketing company, whether we are a stay-at-home parent, or a teacher, we market who we are. We talk about it to friends, we mention it in passing. We may not be trying to sell anything but we are marketing.

It’s not bad whatsoever, it’s what makes us who we are. People may differ in my opinion on this, but in the end, it’s a logical mindset! And truly it doesn’t matter!

Crux 1:

 So, for the last 18 years of my life, I have worked on marketing people. Not in a crazy business sense of the word, but really finding out what they are about and then helping them be the best at what they want to be. That takes time. It takes commitment. It takes consistency. It means walking through life at times and pushing through barriers, hopping over walls, to get to the next level.

It is a form of discipleship without the doctrine. It is seeing needs, assessing the needs, finding the correct path, then taking that path. Once on the right path, through the loyalty of commitment and consistency, it’s walking with that person down the road that they were meant to take.

I find so many people caught in their own head. Fear grips them, life gets too busy and they never live the life of purpose they were truly meant to live! They leave so much of their God given potential hidden in some dark corner of their being!! It’s grievous! So, I wanted to see if I could make a difference.

It started out with two different groups, three guys in one and four guys in another, all my own age. Listening, giving advice to one another, going through all our problems, together. Meeting for breakfast throughout my junior and senior years of high school. Working out life together. It taught me a lot about the depth and needs within each of us.

Crux 2:

Into college, I took on some younger guys. Six in all. I had two groups. One was just two guys and the other was four. I walked along with them through life. The group of two were sophomores when we started and I still talk with them all these years later.

The other four, one of them the younger brother of my first group, got to spend time together for four years. It was a process. It was learning from them as much as they learned from me. I would go on events with them, work through issues with them, help them with their parents. It was learning what they loved and hated, why they were angry or upset. Through it all, I kept pushing them to be better, supporting them through every issue and helping them see their potential.

Crux 3:

The next phase for me was working with my father. He owns a construction company and I got to see a man who had done much with his life but had not had the relationships and discipleship I worked so hard to be a part of.

I walked with him through one of the hardest moments of his life with the financial crash of 2007 through 2010. It showed me a man with character and what it took to be loyal, persevere and fight through a time when many people gave up. I watched him push through and become even more mature and complete, not lacking anything, and you know what, having a joy that was unfounded!

Crux 4:

 I stepped away from my Dad’s company in 2011 and took flight. I quickly found my next person, John Watson. He had no one loyal around him, had been taken advantage of, was falsely self-confident, hiding a menagerie of hurt, behind a hard and defensive exterior.

I instantly could feel the hurt and frustration within him, could see he just needed loyalty and consistency to help him be the genius he is! We began the process in June of 2011 and that friendship and discipleship is still carrying on today.

He has become the man he was supposed to become. We have walked the valleys, caves, a lot of low places and he has come out renewed! He is on the path that he is supposed to be on, he has made a name for himself and carries the necessary tools in that mind of his to help anyone around him. We are as iron sharpens iron.

Crux 5:

Communication is a huge part of any partnership. Alicia and I working, communicating, growing in route through the air to meet with a new client.

My next person in line has been Alicia Ellen and Mastodon Media. I recently became the managing owner of this fine establishment, helping Alicia from behind the veil.

I’m excited to be here because its function is about what I’ve always loved…marketing!! Alicia loves marketing and I love marketing…and we both love people. I am bringing systems, people and a love for order, she is following through on relationships, sales and passion that is second to none.

I have been helping her through some bumps in life, as we all have, and helping her create a legacy. She is helping me relax and breathe, trusting the process and knowing that not everything can be perfect. We balance each other.

Analytics are what we are building for our clients at the moment. Being transparent, is the key in any relationship and that’s what I love at Mastodon. We are transparent. This is my path, the road I’m actually on currently. It is up and down, like everything in life. It is beautiful and frightening all at the same time. One of the most important parts, is that John Watson, mentioned earlier, has teamed up with Alicia and I. So now, through this relational marketing, I get to work with two AMAZING individuals, not just one. We also have a group of individuals, second to none, helping push the momentum of this machine. We are 11 strong and growing. We know it can’t be done with just one, so we have expanded and brought on amazing talent.

So, what does this have to do with marketing?

Well, marketing is about people. It is about finding out the needs, the road they are taking, the process that needs to be taken and the testing to get to the right outcome.

It is a step-by-step process. See, if you can be loyal to people and help them walk through life, companies are not much different. The crux of it is really hearing their needs and treating them as a person. Not a company, not a paycheck, not another one to hit a goal, but a person. A caring, feeling, hoping, incredibly hard-working person. They are entrusting us with something very important to them: their brand. Their lifeblood. We are that joy.

That face that will see it through the ups and downs. When we understand and take on the mindset of caring that way, we become the ultimate marketing company. It’s the crux of Mastodon Media.

Are we there yet? No. Are we on that journey? You better believe it!