In this episode of the Interesting B2B Marketers podcast, Chris Freeman, Advisor & EIR at Techstars, Colliers Intl., & Food Foundry, shares his experiences as a tech advisor and startup mentor. Chris discusses a case study about a startup that utilizes technology to impact the lives of the deaf and hard of hearing community. The conversation covers the challenges faced, strategies employed to overcome them, and the importance of finding talent within niche communities.

Steve and Chris delve into the significance of effective communication, sales training software, and networking strategies. They also touch on Chris's mentoring work with a food accelerator and his assistance in helping a company find office space. Finally, the discussion explores advertising best practices and the need for B2B marketers to focus on the fundamentals in their tech stacks.

So tune in to hear Chris's journey and the valuable insights he has to share!

Key takeaways:

1. Balancing messaging for different audiences, such as end users/customers and the VC/private equity community, can be challenging for startups. Effective communication and marketing strategies tailored to each audience are important.
2. Effective fundraising for startups requires strong communication skills and the ability to effectively pitch to potential investors. Effective networking is also key, as it can result in meaningful connections and potential business opportunities.
3. In advertising, research and insights are key to creating great work, rather than just relying on pretty pictures. For B2B marketers, it's important to focus on the fundamentals of their tech stack rather than getting overwhelmed by the amount of available technology.
4. Asking questions and uncovering pain points is a key aspect of effective sales training, rather than simply dominating the conversation. Mentoring programs can be valuable resources for startups seeking guidance and support.

Connect with Chris and Steve on LinkedIn.

Disclaimer: The transcription of our podcast episodes has been generated by a third-party AI tool. While we strive for accuracy, we cannot guarantee that all typos, errors, or misinterpretations have been corrected. So, if you come across any blunders, don't blame us. Blame the robots. (Just kidding, don't blame them either. They're doing their best.)

Steve: Hey everybody. Welcome back to Studio 26. This is Steve again with the interesting B2B Marketers Podcast, and I promise you today's show will live up to its title of the word interesting. I am here with Chris Freeman. Chris, welcome to the show. 

Chris: Hey, thanks so much for having me. This is great. 

Steve: The most mis interesting man in the world I present to you. Okay. So we're gonna do a quick 62nd background about you before we jump into cases. So give the audience a little bit of an understanding of who you are. 

Chris: All right. Top down went to, went to military school and grade school.

That's formative. And then had a great bunch of experiences. Went into advertising, was an operator, then got into strategy and started making some movies and films. And on the way to being Martin Scorsese, I ended up starting a couple of fairly large hospitality groups. One local out of Chicago, and then one that went national and got us up to about 46 million in.

Gross revenues doing U S D A Manufacturing Rabbit Hole Magazine, online Lifestyle magazine, and a lot of different concepts which eventually gave way to commercial real estate. Once I divested of all my food and beverage holdings. And that's what I've been doing. And slowly but surely getting into tech advising, mentoring and helping seed and series A startups kind of start up and scale.

I live just north of Chicago. Have a seven, six, and four year old, and have married up with a woman who I've outdone myself by marrying. She's also in, she's also in tech. 

Steve: All right. Awesome. I like the intro. All right. We're jumping right into case study number one. This has got some parallels into what you just mentioned is your background and passion and tech.

So take it away. 

Chris: So I am one of the ex I've worked with and a number of accelerators and incubators, one out of Chicago called Relish Works Food Foundry. Another one is a very interesting accelerator out of Austin called Newchip. I've met a number of companies outta there. One was TIV Technology, and they are basically changing the world for the deaf and hard of hearing, using technology.

Simply stated that they're, they've created a platform that is hardware agnostic, so it can go on iPhones or. For Android or whatever devices. And there's a lot of case studies where the deaf and hard of hearing have difficulty when they get pulled over or when they need a tow truck or out of the car.

If they go to the Peninsula Hotel and they're trying to check in and there's, it's the, the deaf community for the most part, they just want to be kind of considered equal with everybody else and, and not, you know, have somebody behind the counter when you check in and be like, wait a second, I'll go get somebody who's, you know, speaks sign language.

So it's kind of fun and I, I was able to meet with them and we went through our cohort and then we just started kind of working together more and more and they asked me to stay on as an advisor and help them kind of get some money together to help them, you know, to catalyze their growth. And there were some challenges built in there, which we can talk about as part of the case study.

Steve: Yeah. So let's dive in there. Let's start with the problem. What were they, what were they trying to solve? 

Chris: So they had a couple things going on. You know, a lot of times with startups, sometimes they hire people who they think they need, and they have hired a couple people that they didn't really need and they were spending a lot of money on them.

Some marketing and some others they needed to develop their product and they were doing it without. A great story or narrative. So, you know, working with them, I'm like, you don't have anybody that's deaf or hard of hearing as a part of your company. And, you know, Leif, their CEO, was really getting challenged when we were meeting with venture capital.

Like, all right, how, how did, how did the story come about? And it's a great story. He cares so much about the world and the deaf and hard of hearing, but it's only out of curiosity and an intense interest. He, there, there wasn't a connection there. So we worked on that and we, we, really found some incredible talents that would be catalytic business and, and sales channel wise who had sold b2b.

Within the deaf and the heart of the hearing community is pretty amazing. So their challenge was really having the perception of legitimacy, credibility and really like a foundation from which they could ever grow meaningfully and being taken seriously by the venture community as they were trying to raise money to build their product.

Now and also in the future. One of the challenges was the product they were actually developing. This happens a lot with startups, obviously. They needed to change and I, it, took a while to really work that out and flesh it out because they were trying to start a social network that just wasn't having traction from people who would invest in them and they needed outside investment.

Yep. 

Steve: All right, so what, so, all right, you're putting on your marketing hat. You've identified quickly that, all right, you need to have a little bit more humanity. Or actually the end user needs to have a voice at the table. Give us an understanding of what is. What are you doing? You know, like you, you mentioned narrative.

You, you're fine tuning that. What's the next 

Chris: step? Well, you know, they, it's a great question. So they had a, a great platform and they had kind of a, they had a goalpost in front of 'em, an end zone or whatever. They knew where they had to get to, which was an FCC approval so that they could access. A government sponsored Ameri ada, American Disabilities Act fund that only four companies had access to be reimbursed.

So they were developing this platform and they just had no way to connect with the venture community or investors. And part of it was because of the social network that they were creating. So in our conversations we base, we came up with that this platform that they created would be an incredible B2B play.

Using the exact product that they had for direct to consumer and, and et cetera, and taking that and retrofitting it a little bit for a business to business channel. And what I mean by that is the translation devices that involve a s l interpreter. People who do American Sign Language try to stay away from acronyms.

There we needed a way for. The business community to identify, or the venture community to say, Hey, we can get annual recurring revenues here. We can actually get subscriptions for this service and in, you know, create a foundation of revenue instead of charging by the minute, which is how most of these people do right now.

They charge by the minute and there's, you know, so we ended up going to Marriott and Puma. And Adidas, or sorry, brand name, brand and brand. We ended up going to a number of significant national and global brands. And got traction with a number of brands at retail, a number of brands in, in food and beverage.

And they said, this is great. So this is in the process of happening right now where, you know, there might be a huge burger chain that everybody might know. And you know, we, we approach them and we say, Hey, how about we charge you 20 bucks a month? And you, you, you can embed us in your process at, at retail and you, you're able to say you're ADA compliant.

At that point, you are accommodating the deaf and hard of hearing for 20 bucks a month. We're not charging by the minute as the other competitors do. They charge by the minute. So this is back when you used to pay 10 cents for a text. And then all of a sudden it was unlimited texting. It's loosely arranged or assigned.

Yep. It's kind of that level of innovation that TIV technology's able to do. Yep. 

Steve: Okay. That makes sense. I wanna ask a question on so many things I've seen when you've got two audiences. One is the, one is the end user or the customer. The other one is the VC or the private equity community. How did you figure out how to balance?

Messaging in those worlds, cuz some people get lost, right? Like, I've seen some B2B brands out there. They're looking to sell their company, so all they do is take their customer channels and turn it into investor language. And it, it's, it's horrible when that happens. I understand it, but you've just, you've just ruined that.

So take us through, like, how do you figure out how to talk to two different audiences? It's, 

Chris: It is, it is. Awesome. Awesome question. The, so, you know, being somewhat anomalous, you know, kind of a kook my background, you know, I, I've raised a lot of money for companies that I had a lot and it's, it's a full-time job in addition to your full-time job.

And it's, it's, it's very, there's highs and lows every day, you know, so the, the empathy that's involved and kind of the work ethic and me and mechanism or, or maybe machination of how you. Fundraise I, I was able to bring to the table. And you know it, when I got into commercial real estate doing work with office tenants and whatnot, at, at a, at an elderly age of 42 having, you know, people in the business for 20 to 40 or more years that were my peers, I had to figure out kind of a unique selling proposition.

I had to figure out my place in the world and be really compelling really quickly. Because I didn't want to go through this two or three year run before you start generating an income, which is common in that field. So I said, all right, I'm, I'm gonna parlay some knowledge about tech and fundraising, and I'm gonna go and talk to the, you know, talk to these tech companies.

I'm like, Hey, let me do your lease. You know how you wanna do your, let me do your office lease. They're like, Hey, you're a nice guy. That's great. I'm just, I need to raise money. I'm like, great. All right. I'm gonna go over to the venture side, meet some people and network there, and I'm gonna, 

Steve: Hey Chris, hold on.

Hold on one second cuz we're I, it feels like we're jumping into case study two. Oh, okay. Okay. So let me, I gotta, I gotta wrap up the first one. So let's take it back from the question: Yeah, yeah. The question was, you're talking to like venture capital people, but you also have marketing that's secured towards your customer or client.

How do you reconcile both of those? Like, is it just one message or do you have to have two different marketing strategies? Messages. So you're 

Chris: saying that the client, real quick, just to clarify, so you know, the venture community I, part of my value with with TIV is, I, I get to help them refine their message to the world.

And part of it, I get your point. Part of that message is the message to the venture community and people they're trying to raise money with. And it gets pretty complicated pretty quickly, but you know, there's a message to the consumer and the direct to consumer play. And then there's a message to the business community, like the big brands they seek to align themselves with and get their platform onboarded within.

And then you have to talk to the venture community and say, Basically we're this wonderful company with a lot of the same message, but there's also a really compelling reason to invest in us. Yeah. And all these, you can see how circuitously all these things are intertwined because, you know, the business has to see the venture community.

They're used to saying no first and often. And this has to be unique, compelling and sustainable and scalable, right? And, and trying to play that sheet, you know, that sheet music it, it's challenging, but, you know, for a venture outfit to see a company as compelling you really do have to portray the, I mean the, the investability of it.

That's not a word, but they, they really have to see a trajectory that there's a team, and this is part of what I help them with. You know, the team has to be correct and not only for the company, but for the lens of the investor. Cuz there's a lot of judgment that goes on, right? Yeah. And besides that, you know, you have to have a product that you know has a roadmap and people that are on board that can, can help articulate and form that roadmap.

Does that help? Yep. 

Steve: Yeah. Alright, anything else about the first case study before we wrap it up and jump into two? Any any key 

Chris: takeaways? You know what's interesting? So, you know, a part of Helping, you know, a lot of the startups, they, they would come to me and they're like, Hey, help us raise money.

I'm like, that's, that's now I'm, you know, in, after doing this for a number of years, I'm realizing what I'm good and what I'm bad at, and, you know, go to market as a, as a real win for me in b2b and B2B to c like that is, I'm a hero there. They, a lot of 'em come and they're like, Hey, help me raise money.

I need money. Especially now. I'm like, that's not what I do. Like, that's a wonderful byproduct. I guarantee we're gonna be on a good road and a good path. Yeah, there, but that's not what I do. With tiv initially they were like, that's where they were. They were like, okay. And now we got this deck together, which was wonderful.

We got a message. It's coherent and cohesive, salient and sound. Great. Let's go to Chris. Go. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. There's a misinterpretation here. This is my mistake for clarity going into the arrangement. So we ended up working that out and you know, really I would sit with them and help them.

Present. So I'd be in the meeting with them or I'd connect them to certain friends or, or venture friends or angels that I have. And I would kind of facilitate and sit in with the meeting. Cuz there is a filter, like a, a Rosetta Stone sometimes between venture and the investees. Yep. Whether it's direct to consumer or B2B or whatnot.

And it. It helps. Many times. It helps cuz I was, I am, I have been a founder of several companies. You get caught up in your own music and your own, you know, story sometimes. And when you're talking, you're not listening or seeing, like, I, I haven't told these guys to watch their presentations via Zoom. If they're able to record it tactfully and with permission, watch it without volume.

Because then you see the reactions that you didn't see when you're talking. So it was really kind of a process of working through these guys. 

Steve: Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting, there's, I forget the name of the software, but there's something I remember seeing where it's a sales training software and it records everything and it analyzes the, the percent of share of time the salesperson has, and it's grounded in the insight that.

Your role as a salesperson isn't to take up 90% of the meeting. Like their best practices were kind of like, if you can be talking for 20% as a salesperson, that's pretty good because it's about getting conversations started, asking questions, uncovering pain points. So I, I, I like that example of the Zoom training.

All right. It's always, 

Chris: We're real quick. It's always harsh to like, you know, they need this recording. And that's something I function as as well, because recording a pitch, nobody likes that. And when you're, you're presenting to an investor, whoever they are, this me, you know, this zoom is being recorded.

Not real. It's not really good. You know what I mean? So yeah, that's something else I function with, is just taking notes. And I learned from one of the guys who started a LinkedIn LinkedIn recruiter, I think it was. And he did all right. And he taught me a lot of these lessons about just the 20% or less and, you know, taking cues verbally and, and other, other cues that you can see visually.

And having somebody that's a third person that doesn't talk on the yeah. On the presentation so that they can make a ton of notes, you know? Yep. 

Steve: Yeah. All right. Case stadium number two. We are jumping into the world, which I lived in for a couple years. I was in commercial real estate at the marketing you know, from the marketing perspective.

So you, you are in that space. Tell us how you got started there. 

Chris: Oh, man. Yeah. So I invested in my last company in 2018. And you know, I was talking to you know, my, my, my incredible wife and I were like, I would like something to work on where I can be meaningful and help people and in a field that's pretty different and add unique value with that field.

And I've always had kind of a, not a great impression. Of, of commercial tenant rep brokers, you know, brokers who work on office space, because I had some partners in the past who had a lot of friends that were tenant rep brokers and they, they kind of, you know, they weren't my bag just to be polite about it.

So I'm like, this is, you know, and then all of 'em, a lot of 'em are very, very good vertically in what they do. And they're very good at office space and, and leasing it and whatnot. And there's a lot of people that aren't very good that also make a lot of money doing it. So that's an interesting place to start adding value.

The industry is going this way. I think personally, and I have had it validated, but, you know, adding value that's not just respective to the office space is where, where our trade, where the brokerage trade needs to go if we're going to continue doing things the way we're doing them and, and making a good income 10 years from now.

So when I got into commercial real estate, I decided to go into commercial real estate. I interviewed 31 different firms. Crazy. I, my wife, is like, buy a lawnmower, you know, like I, I over diligence everything. So I, I met up with all these firms and there's some real colorful stories that I have from that, that cavalcade and that tour around Chicago and otherwise.

But I ended up aligning myself with one of the, I mean, one of the best and beautiful teams. Just really, really good people, really, really smart people. I. Within Colliers. And you know, a guy that grew up with my wife, Corby Marks, who I think you might know, and my wife and and Corby grew up together since they were six.

And, crazy little first graders, right? So Corby sat down with me to talk me out of getting into commercial real estate. And by the end of the launch she's like, you need to join my team. You need to work on tech. This is amazing. Oh. So that's how that went. And then, you know, here we are, like over four years later.

And I didn't really, you know, friends of mine are like, you know, you're like anti Nostradamus because I got into commercial real estate a year before Office Space working a year before the Pandemic. Now office space has gone, the demand went down a little bit in 2020. We're still looking into it. Don't know what happened.

Kidding. But you know, it was interesting because, you know, I, you know, I, it was just finding, I. Probably one of the best insights I can give. And, and this really anybody who sells B2B or works on B2B marketing will relate. Like, if you can really identify the value of your network and, and in a very genuine, sincere, and meaningful way, and not just manipulative and, and being a user, right?

You're not using people, not, you know, if you can really forge those relationships and fortify them. Like when I got into commercial real estate and out of food and beverage, I removed 9,000 people from my network. It, and LinkedIn does not make that easy, by the way. Like I don't think I, it's very manual.

Yeah. Well, I, I, I don't think I talked to my wife for three months after the kids went to bed because it's, they, you have to remove 'em like 10 at a time. It's bananas. But you know, really, I, I, you know, talked to Chris Freeman five years ago. I thought networking was a name tag, a bar, a big room full of people.

And that's like my kryptonite. And anybody who knows me now is like, oh, you're the best networker. Oh, this is great. And one-on-one. I'm, I'm, I'm, I think I'm really good. Like, I really have a curiosity and I'm a student black. I wanna learn about you. I wanna know what's going on, and I want to help you.

And leading with, with that message of, Hey, yeah, how can I help? People are like, Hmm, really? I'm like, yeah, really? And it's, it's a very long-term strategy, but it was really finding out how to, you know, not to be gross, but like how to monetize my network, but in a very meaningful and sincere way. So I removed all these people from my network, started reaching out and just having 5, 10, 30 hour long meetings with a ton of people in, in 2019, all like, how can I help?

And I'm like yeah, we'll do, we'll get to the office space. They're like, how can I help you at the end of that, if you do it right? Yeah. At the end of the conversation they ask you, how can I help you? I'm like, that's great. And sometimes initially I was like, ah, don't worry about it. And then people smarter than me, I now have a mentor, are like yeah you gotta answer that question.

I. And I'm like, oh yeah, you're right, you're right. So it was, you know, Hey, when the time comes, I'd love an introduction. Or maybe there's somebody I go into that meeting with, I know you're connected to this, this, or this person. Do you know any of these three people? I'd love to meet them, have the same conversation with them without expectation.

I've got network gifts to give. Yep. Maybe even leveraging my background. Of having started over 60 companies, some emasculating failures and some successful Yeah. I can bring some acumen to that, that, that conversation as well and that introduction. Yeah, so 

Steve: It's what's really interesting is like, usually marketers will, the content is the value add, or that's the, that's the pitch, right?

Hey, here's some content, like, we're trying to make this as clean as possible. We're gonna help you solve a problem. You're, you are the content in this example, right? Yeah. You are the living, breathing piece of content. That you're adding value, you're solving problems in real time with, like you said, the good intent down the road.

I hope to pay it back. 

Chris: It is your spot on. And it, it's, there's some good examples of this. I, I can give you one where You know, I, I, I really do over the top want to help. And I, if I could see, a friend of mine, this guy Brian Barr, a lovely dude, has a company called Victory Lap. He, he's like, dude, you know what your problem is?

Oh, oh, please tell me what my problem is. He goes, if you see a challenge, if you see a problem that somebody you're speaking with has, and you can, you have the way to figure out the answer, or you have some, some prospect of an answer for them or solution, you wanna give that to them. Everybody. I say, you're right.

Totally. So I've had, I've had to refine my kind of go to market as well with that and, and just using my time properly and, and, and watching out for my, my tos as well. You know, making sure that I can, I can surgically deploy my time to, to make a living right. And not just help everybody around me. So that's been really interesting.

The one thing I could say is like going into these conversations and you have enough of 'em and you meet enough people. And during the pandemic I was meeting between 15 and 30 companies a week. Via Zoom. Everybody's bored. I barely had time to go to the bathroom. And through that, you know, it was very fascinating.

I was refining how I speak with people, how I present myself. You know, aptitude or acumen and, and kind of what I would like to have at the end of the conversation be an outcome for us both. And that was an interesting year and I met a ton of people. I meaningfully fortified my network within the artery or vertical business I intend to be within for, for a long time, which was tech and.

Tech ecosystems, all series, all investments, all areas, right? So all, all value proposition areas or whatever areas of focus. Yep. Life science, prop tech, InsureTech, ed, tech, you know, everything in between. So now at the end of the pandemic, I was able to meet with people the same way less people and say, yeah, I'll give you an example.

There's recruiting, there's an individual that's a wonderful tech firm. That started up and, and he's been in business for a number of years. He's a shrewd as hell, wonderful person. And he only focuses on engineers, sales, you know, development engineers, sorry, development engineers and tech. And I know another company that focuses on recruiting within tech, everything other than engineers.

So it's like peanut butter, meat jelly. It was great. Yep. Because I can do that. And now I've done it with people in venture. Big OGs, you know, in, in venture and connecting people from California to New York or every, nobody knows the Midwest. So you know, I come and they're like, yeah, we don't know anybody in the Midwest that's just like flyover cow, town country.

I'm like, actually, you know, you know, there's drive capital, there's, you know, Chicago Ventures there, you know, Mercado for Mountain Utah, and now you, you really up your Q score by the level. You know, one who you know and who you're connected with, fine. But when somebody will take an introduction and you're the one making it, that ups your game a lot and that that, just without you having to say, I'm so cool, I'm so important.

I know a lot of people, I know a lot of stuff. You're like, actually, I think you should meet Joe, cuz you guys both invest in similar thesis areas and if somebody leads, you might follow. What do you think of that? And they're like, I'd love to meet that person. And now it's to the point with some of these cats where they're like, Hey, if you have an introduction, I'd love to take it.

I, you don't need to tell me who it is. Just you've done it enough and Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is awesome. 

Steve: All right. So I'm, I was gonna round out Kasten at number two by asking the outcome, but it's a flawed question because this is a long-term strategy. And, we won't know the outcome. Or maybe, maybe you've already got some wins that came your way, right?

You've, I do. Tell us about that. What's the short term success so far? 

Chris: So, you know, there's, there's it is funny, there's, you know, through this networking thing, you know, I'm in the middle of 2, 2, 3 clients right now. That are meaningful. I mean, from an income standpoint and, you know, it will be meaningful for our team.

And these are people that I met through this process and you know, a lot of times it's, you know, I'll meet with people and it's like, you know, how can I help? They're like, a lot of times they're like, no, nothing. Or are you gonna come and, Hey, listen, I came into this meeting with somebody I want to introduce you to.

Are you game, it seems like you're trying to get into this. Break into this channel, or you're in this channel. I know somebody who could be meaningful as an introduction to help grow your business. Are you game? They're like, yeah, I love that. So right now, you know, there was some mentoring I did. I'm gonna jump to jump topics a little bit.

So, mentoring, I did as an entrepreneur in residence for food Foundry, which is an accelerator that's toasted and sponsored by Relish Schwarz, which is affiliated with GFS Gordon Food Service. They do incredible work. The team over there is amazing. They're all. Super sweet, super shrewd. I love them and I've gotten to know them pretty well over the last probably three or four years.

And this is just something I, I wanted to give and help and, and whatnot, and helped a couple companies, met a lot of really cool companies that I, hopefully I will be doing their office space. And at some point, and I've already done a couple of those transactions, but also for Relish Works itself. You know, I was fortunate enough we called on and they're like, Hey, are you, you still doing commercial real estate?

I'm like, yes I am. I'd love to, you know, help you however I can with an opinion, or you want me to, you know, be our team to broker for you. And we did, and we got them into an incredible space at One North Dearborn. And it's more than just walking around with a lease in spaces. It's like, what's your business about?

What do you need from it? What do you need from space? And, well, you, you gotta be careful about that cuz I know how this real estate factors into your p and l. I know the investment that's required, how it factors into your balance sheet and how you have to portray it to your investors because I've been there.

I, I've, I've done that So that, that the relish works thing was an incredible opportunity and we're, we're really grateful for that. There's a couple private equity companies who I just met along the way because I wanted to introduce companies to them. And now we're doing business for a couple of them, finding them space.

And it's a beautiful space and we just kinda, you know, we work really hard. So that, that's, that, that's been appealing. 

Steve: All right, awesome. Let's jump into q and a. I want to ask you about your first marketing job. And I'm not surprised if it started when it was like when you were four years old doing something, you're trying to sell something to your parents.

Tell us how it all happened. Oh man. 

Chris: All right. So, There's I guess the first one, my mother, when I was 10, so my dad died early, right? So like my mom, my mom, me and my little sister, and my mom's like hey, she had bought me these shorts from like Sears catalog or something, right? I'm like, and I thought they were hideously ugly.

I'm not wearing those in front of my friends. She goes, you could go buy your own clothes. Then I go, okay, so. I started to do that because I got a job. This is, I, I dunno how this was legal, but there would be like nine of us in a van and they would, this sounds creepy already. They would drive us.

Steve: Describe the van. I wanna know about the van before we move on in this story. I was 

Chris: down by the river. No. Then, they would pop nine little kids in a van. They'd drive us to different subdivisions north of Chicago, drop us off and we go knock on doors trying to sell sun time subscriptions. And you get like five or 10 bucks if you sign whatever it was.

So I go, I'm gonna buy my own shorts now. I mean, that was like a big, big thing. And you know, it went from there. And I, I, I always loved kind of work and general making money and trying to have my own independence and all that stuff. My first when I was eight, I wanted to go into advertising. So I have Jackie Gleason, Tom Hanks movie in Chicago.

And I go, that looks like fun. Tom Hanks was the creative director. I'm like, I wanna do that. So I did 13 internships by the time I graduated college. And then I went to Philadelphia as a copywriter and got a job. Philadelphia's an interesting city. Very different from Chicago. And long story long, I lived in a, in a vacated convent.

They paid rent to the archdiocese. Long story we'll get into later off, off camera. And then I basically came back to Chicago, flip sides. Went to work as In advertising for a company called company in the America building. Now a, a center, a major B2B agency. Cut my teeth in a very meaningful way with some huge brands.

It learned a ton, and was an account manager strategist. And then that kinda led me down for the next, like, probably eight years down the path of a career in advertising. And it taught me where products come from. There's a lot of b2b. All my initial precepts were b2b. So where things started, how they were made, manufactured and how basically they proceeded to be, to find their way to a shelf, and then how they were sold from that point on.

So, you know, there's a major home store in the country that was one of my first clients and it was fascinating, like just, yeah, how cabinetry is made or, or dispo. One of my first accounts was a dispenser with a major brand and sweet. I think, 

Steve: I think I may know that one if you were working in the Ann Center for that agency.

I think I know it, but keep on going. 

Chris: There you go. And it was you know, it was funny cuz my very first account was toilet seats. So all my friends at 22 years old are like, dude, you, you're in advertising. You work at McDonald's and Coke. And I'm like, yes, yes I am. 

Steve: There's a lot of Coke spilled on toilet seats.

So yeah, there is a connection there. I get reminded 

Chris: of this first client every time I go to the United Center or anytime I go to an office building, like right there, man. But anyways, it was a wonderful experience and it really kind of, It filled my ro proverbial Rolodex with knowledge of products and brands and having that, that experience of how things are made and then, you know, from the product management side and if there's a need and how they fill it and how not to get carried away.

Yeah. With over featuring things and, and when that does happen, that contributes now very meaningfully to how I approach my mentoring and advising within tech. Cause when, when somebody got something good, It's so easy to say this, Kim and product teams and dev teams, they're all like, this could be so much better every day.

And good for them. You're, they're probably right. Yeah. But there has to be a roadmap. It has to be very meaningful, you know? Right. Informed in a very intelligent way so you don't just burn out. 

Steve: All right. I'm gonna ask a question about Ed Edward. Say I did, I did 10 years in the advertising industry. Sorry.

I'll, I'll throw, I'll throw my personal. Thesis at you, and I wanna get, I wanna get yours. And I'm, the question I'm driving at is like, what creates great work and my own thesis was as, as much as the agencies that I worked at or worked with were about a process or some special secret sauce. Had nothing to do with that.

It was all about people. And if you could get a couple of really smart people who could solve problems or connect things that were not previously connected, that was when success happened. So that, that's my question to you now is what, when you saw things go really well in advertising, why did they 

Chris: go, well, I've got a great example, or I, I've got a great answer I think for this.

So You know, I worked for a number of really small agencies and then I worked for a really, really big global one as well. And I worked across categories, you know, financial and C P G, and, you know, some B2B stuff, manufacturing, construction, all everything in between. And when really it was the synthesis of everything leading up to the big agency I worked at that helped me with this answer, which is they, the.

The planners and strategists and a lot, you know, there, there are PhDs, you know, within these agencies that, and the, the tools that they develop, I think at, at where the agency I was at, we had a, a tool that was called Lifestyles or something like that. And it's just to inform its data and it was, it was all data that informed research.

And it's true at that point it was trying to make the research as accessible, readily accessible, and, and as immediate as possible so you could, so you could arrive at, in like really meaningful surgical insights. So, and that's how we would win business a lot of times if you don't win the business. I, this is a circuitous way to answer your question, but like, you don't win the business with pretty pictures.

You probably know this as well. Yeah, we got a cool campaign. Oh, isn't that catchy? It's, oh, a neat picture, neat logo. You know when, when we pitch a global shipper, It's so hard being agnostic with these brand names. When, when we were pitching a huge global, one of the biggest global shippers shipping companies, we were like, all right, well, nobody's done this before.

Nobody's worked on any type of account like this before. So what do we do? Well, we have to come up with the insight. And we do that by way of research and we have to come up with something super shrewd about their business because then when we go pitch their team and say, Hey, yeah, we've got all the pictures.

We're gonna put those over here. Here's the deal. Your category of business has been experiencing this from this to this. Over the last two to, or five or 10 years, we've identified a gap and, and a really good one for you to focus on over the next year or two. And we've estimated through all our team and all this stuff that your business can probably increase four to 6% if you focus on this gap.

And here's some pretty pictures that help us focus on that gap. Yeah, so it shows them how you think. Yeah. And the team behind you and how they think and kind of says, okay, no matter what we can give you, you're gonna help us think through a solution, which is arguably what I do now with, you know, yeah, there's commercial real estate, but man, I, that is so over here for me.

Like, ooh, over here. What I want to do is help you first with. With what you're facing. And commercial real estate's a wonderful byproduct. And it's almost like, Hey, an attaboy, here you go. Th here's the, here's the commercial real estate project that we'll give you. Thank you for helping us with our business.

And it's a very long-term strategy, and it's not a common one. It may not be a good one. It has served me well so far, and it allows me to, to help. It allows me to help and to monetize that help at some point. 

Steve: Yep. All right. Last question. A lot of B2B marketers are drinking from the proverbial fire hose today as it relates to their tech stack.

Right. Five years ago it was kinda like, all right, we have our 6, 7, 8, 9 pieces of tech that we can work together now. Now it's outta control. What's your advice for people as they look at tech stacks these days? What, what are some of those, just the fundamentals that they should focus on? 

Chris: That's a really big question.

You've got 30 seconds to answer. 

Steve: Go. Okay, 

Chris: good. No, I mean, It's so easy, and I can, I can reflect back on even my work within, within food and beverage and restaurants and we, we had a pretty, my last group is a pretty big one across 10 states, craziness. So we needed a lot of tools and a lot of tech tools to help organize us.

But it was so easy to, you know, everyone wants to give you a free trial and everyone, you know, you can dip your toe into a lot of different things and it's very easy to get carried away. And then it's so hard to get to. It's kinda like hurting cats, right? Because all of a sudden you named it, it's like, You have six tools you're using very quickly.

It could become 15. And my friends of mine, their companies use sometimes eight or 10 or 12 different, you know, tools in their tech stack and try to get a hold of really identifying the value and doing a ritual. Check in on your tech stack. Yeah. Cuz it's so easy to, you know, we're used to work, work, work, generate, generate, go, go, sell, sell.

Oh, oh. Fix, fix, fix. It's not often you can, you know, assign somebody with the, or charge them with the task of checking in every three months or six months to identify the efficiency and utility of all of them because all of them are changing individually as well simultaneously. So there might be some interesting integrations or interesting additions to their car, their capabilities or capacities that might take out some of the other tools in your tech stack because now they, you have one, you have three tools that are doing the same thing.

There's all kinds of crossover. So that's something I've found a lot in with some of the nascent startups I work with is, they just assume that they have to plug into all these different things. But you know how tech goes, it's like three months, everything changes. And a lot of these assumptions are, are based on last year and a lot has changed since last year.

Yeah. 

Steve: Yep. All right. Awesome. Chris, you did not disappoint you. You have taken the title for most interesting guest on the show, so thank you for that. I'm gonna thank everyone for watching or listening today and. I am not gonna take the long-term give approach with my, with my closeout today. I am gonna get very direct response oriented.

So here's my message to all the listeners is to ask them, do you know someone who is really interested in the world of B2B marketing? And if you think they might be a good guest on the show, have them send me an email, Steve, at 26 characters.com. So that's how I'm closing out. Chris, thanks for joining.

Such a pleasure. Thank you, Steve. All right. Take care everyone. Until the next time. See you on interesting B2B marketers. Alrighty, let me hit stop.

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