The Virtual CMO
The Virtual CMO podcast discusses growth marketing strategies for SMBs and how new technologies are improving marketing effectiveness. Hosted by Eric Dickmann, founder of The Five Echelon Group and a fractional CMO, the podcast focuses on building strategic marketing plans and executing successful growth marketing programs. It includes interviews with industry thought leaders who share their experiences and insights. The show highlights new marketing automation platforms, AI-enabled tools, and other cutting-edge technologies that can enhance marketing campaigns.
The Virtual CMO
Overcoming Barriers and Future-Proofing Companies for Growth with Terry Dry
In episode 99, host Eric Dickmann interviews Terry Dry. Terry is a consumer behavior expert, future-facing marketer, entrepreneur, business coach, Founder, and CEO of Future Proof Advisors. He has over 25 years of experience in leading marketing teams, transcending growth-inhibiting barriers, and developing unique and sustainable business strategies that helps companies grow. Terry prides himself on practicing what he preaches. Not only does he advise existing companies, but he also creates his own. Most recently, Terry co-founded RSVD, a SaaS business that provides digital capacity management solutions and smart queuing tech for the retail, food, and hospitality industries. He also co-founded Fanscape, one of the first-ever social media marketing agencies, which grew from an initial $10K investment to an eight-figure acquisition by Omnicom.
As a member of the Board of Advisors at Loyola Marymount University and a mentor to MBA Students at his alma mater, USC’s Marshall School of Business, Terry sees his mission to foster the development of tomorrow’s leaders. Furthermore, he focuses on giving back to his local community through charitable activities with several homeless and environmental organizations.
For more information and access to the resources mentioned in this episode, visit: https://fiveechelon.com/overcoming-barriers-future-proofing-companies-s6ep18/
A fractional CMO can help build out a comprehensive marketing strategy and execute targeted campaigns designed to increase awareness and generate demand for your business...without the expense of a full-time hire.
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Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast. I'm your host, Eric Dickmann. In this podcast, we have conversations with marketing professionals who share the strategies, tactics, and mindset you can use to improve the effectiveness of your marketing activities and grow your business. Hey, Terry, welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast. I'm so glad you could join us today.
Terry Dry:thanks. Thanks for having me, Eric. I appreciate.
Eric Dickmann:Yeah, absolutely. We're going to get a chance to talk about a fun topic here, which is really future-proofing your companies. And you know, this is so interesting because I think so many people are worried about the day-to-day that they don't often think about the future. And so before we sort of dive into it, I'd love it if you could just give the audience a little bit of your background and how you got into the business of advising companies on how to future proof themselves.
Terry Dry:Yeah. sure. I mean, it's funny I fell into this by accident, it was not the plan. I have been entrepreneurial my whole life and have built companies and sold companies, and involved companies. And then after my last stint, where we went through a really successful sale and earn out, and then becoming the CEO of a digital agency, I was kind of like, okay, maybe it was my version of a midlife crisis. And I was like, I want to try and do something else. And then I kind of fell into, well, what do I really enjoy doing? I enjoy helping businesses sort of pragmatically, but future facing like move themselves forward. So I never set out to do this. I just found my way there, and it's been incredibly helpful. And I guess it come from this mantra of I've been fortunate to be successful, and now it's my pleasure to try to help others be successful. So I come out of the music business then the advertising marketing agency business, and now I'm really helping advise specific businesses, mostly the verticals are e-comm and in the marketing services too,.
Eric Dickmann:I'm curious when a new client comes to you, do they come to you because they've got the mindset of trying to prepare for the future or has something rattled their cage a bit? Have they run into some sort of a problem that says, hey, we're not prepared for the future, and we've got to start looking at this today. What's usually the impetus for somebody reaching out?
Terry Dry:It's actually exactly both of those things, Eric. Like if you're sitting here, but it would make sense that you know that, cause I know you do similar types of work. But you have this sort of growth mindset entrepreneur. That's like, oh my God, I'm doing things. I'm accelerating. I'm building. I've got one that I'm working with now, who feels like he's buying companies every week. And he's like, but I don't want to create a mess. I recognize how quickly it is the scaling, and I want help in tying those things together, integrating those things, building it in, and essentially ensuring I have enterprise value. Then you have the other side, so that's the sort of go getter, ongoing growth mindset. Then you've got the other side where the last 18 months scared the living crap on it. And they're like, oh my God, you know I always say, COVID accelerated the inevitable. And so all this change that was coming that I thought I might have 10 years, all that happened in one year, and now I'm left going, what is this? What do I have? How do I ensure myself and my company that doesn't happen again, and how do we prepare ourselves for sort of the inevitability of change?
Eric Dickmann:It's so interesting that you say that because I've read that in so many places that there were things that happened because of COVID that weren't necessarily just things out of the blue, they were things that we expected to happen just not quite so soon. It really accelerated a lot of change.
Terry Dry:Yeah, absolutely did. And it's like a good thing and a bad thing. So like there's a lot of, uh, pros that come out of that too with business in particular, because I think there's a whole new world that kind of opened up to many business owners of wait a minute, I don't have to do things the same way. My customers have changed, but also my employees and my workforce has changed. And so right now we're experiencing the great resignation, if you will. But if you look beyond that, as I've been advising people and like it's also a great opportunity. It's a great opportunity to upskill your workforce, upgrade your team, and if you think a little bigger or broader, meaning they don't necessarily have to come into your office nine to five. They could be in another country and have a freelance stability and skillset that's unique and better than what you may have had, there's opportunity there.
Eric Dickmann:Yeah. Well when I think about the future, you know, I'm a technology guy, I'm sitting in my office. But what you can't see is the boxes and boxes of cords and adapters and all of these things from technology of days gone by that is no longer applicable for today, right? It doesn't work. The technology changes quickly. So I think from looking to the future standpoint, a lot of times we can think about those hard assets, that technology that needs to be upgraded and changed and integrated. But what you're really describing is that it's much broader than that. It's people, it's processes. It's how you run your business that you have to look at, not just the underlying systems and technology.
Terry Dry:Yeah. It's all those things. But I mean back to your question, it's really just, we're helping them like unlock, there's hidden value, right? And everyone's got it, but sometimes they're in it, so they don't see it. And then we're helping them transform. Because if you're not transforming now, you're kinda stuck, right? But it's all towards like meaningful growth, meaningful progress, and real outcomes. And so often, and I'm curious if you find this yourself as well, that you go to an entrepreneur or whatever, and they're not even necessarily sure what their north star goal is, what their outcome is. They've been so rattled or so living day to day that they're like, I just want to make payroll, I just want to have this happen instead of going. No, no, there's real value here, there's brand equity, there's enterprise value, there's growth opportunity. But just helping them kind of get out of their own way and see this. But to your point, it's everything from marketing all the way through the process to people, to all those pieces. So that's kind of how we have set ourselves up. My vision of it is what if you could have this great outsource board, you know this board of advisors that were, I always jokingly say, they're like this Justice League of America, like if you could walk in and there are all these superheroes who cared solely about you, were invested in your business, understood your business, and have been there so that they can help you get further, faster. And this all came about because it's what I wish I had 15 years ago when I was kind of flailing, not flailing, but sort of middling in our business.
Eric Dickmann:Yeah, it's interesting the way you frame that too, because I've heard and read so many authors and speakers talk about this idea that you really need to have that vision of what you want your business to be. Even little things, like when I work with clients it's amazing how many of them really don't plan for profit. Profit just happens to be whatever's leftover at the end, but there is no real plan for it. It's like if you don't have a plan for it, how do you know how to price your product? What the margins need to be? And it's amazing that people don't have that forward vision to say, this is the company that I want. This is the business that I want. Now, how do I kind of work backwards from that and figure out what I need to do to get there.
Terry Dry:it's Totally right. And then don't you often also find that they wind up creating the business to sort of serve the life they want to live. And then it's this monster and they wind up serving the business, you know? So for so many of them, I'm an example of this. When I did my first venture, it was like, okay, I want to get out of this, I want to be my own boss, but I wanted to serve the life I wanted to live in. And then I very quickly became like a slave to this business. And that's part of what you're describing is like, are they seeing the profit? Are they seeing the financial side? But also is it serving them and their needs, and their desires for their lives? And many times I find it, I'm curious if you find it Eric, where they're like it's separate. Their businesses is over here and their personal is over here. But those two things, if you co mingle them, they can really help. Help you see have a vision and a plan that kind of serves you and therefore will serve your business.
Eric Dickmann:Well, you may have seen this too, but a lot of people that I work with that are I don't know that they truly have an entrepreneurial mindset. Oftentimes what I see is they've started multiple businesses over time. They're looking for those ideas, they're looking to build a business, and then either exit the business, sell the business, or have somebody else run it, and move on to the next one. Whereas the people who are really the operators that you're talking about, they are so in the weeds of their business, trying to make it successful, that they ultimately can't separate that life that they want from the business that they're trying to build. And they create a lot of complexity.
Terry Dry:Yeah. And it's important as the entrepreneur or leader of the business to know which one of those people you are. Because I think so often they'll fool themselves into thinking why I'm the entrepreneur, but they're really more of the operator, and that's okay by the way. It's just where it's not okay is if you're not aware and you're kind of running down one path, but you're really more comfortable in another, and that's where it can get messy and also slow you down. And so there's elements, which I know you do as well. Coaching, you know, and just saying like the asking the right questions and get them thinking the right way, and helping. And again, these are things that I was so blind to in my career in building businesses. I didn't even kind of know it existed. And then once I got my own business coach and got surrounded by advisors, I got so much further, so much faster, and that's why I kind of fell into like, Oh, I think I can help people this way. And it's just so much fun.
Eric Dickmann:Well it's interesting too, for younger businesses, it often feels like it's getting the right pieces and parts in place. You know, they maybe very product focused entrepreneurs, so they're spending all their time building out their product, but the other aspects of their business suffer because they don't really spend the time. That's not where their area of interest is. But then I also see older businesses that maybe do have those elements, but they're so stuck in, well, that's the way we've always done it. That they can't sort of adapt quickly because they're so stuck in those processes. Do you see similar things?
Terry Dry:All the time. And those are the extremes, right? Sometimes you have this wonderful technician that's built this amazing product and then are defacto CEO, but really have no idea how to run a company. And quite frankly, I don't really want to, you know? They just want to keep building their thing, but they don't know any better. And then on the other side, there's totally this is where the future-proof concept came in for our namewhich is like, well these companies, they're doing fine, but they're somewhat stuck. And there has to be some level of dissatisfaction with the status quo for it to really work. But sometimes they're just uneasy and you've got to come and maybe shake them up a little bit and ask the right questions and look out forward for them and say, where do you see this going in a few years and look at your competition and is this really where you want to be? And you're going to need to change. And I think to your point, Eric, it's like right now, you know, I use this kind of slogan of like- Change is inevitable, but struggle is optional. And if you can kind of get that in your head, you can change. Cause if anything, these last 18 months showed us is change is inevitable,
Eric Dickmann:Oh, it absolutely is.
Terry Dry:And anyone who says this is just the way we do things, then quite frankly, I can't help them if they're kind of stuck that way and nor do I really want to. But I'm finding a lot of people are saying that's how I think and help me not think that way anymore helped me shape my culture differently, help us evolve. And that's a, that's a fun job.
Eric Dickmann:So do you think that's the bigger challenge in helping people evolve, doing something different than the way they've been doing it in the past, or do you think it's harder to get people to try something new? Something that they've never tried to. You know this is a show primarily about marketing and there are lots of businesses out there that have just never really invested a lot in marketing. So sometimes twisting their arm and saying, you know, this is what's going to help your business grow is really tough. But I'm curious about which do you see is the harder challenge.
Terry Dry:I think getting them to try something they haven't tried before is usually the bigger challenge. And it comes with you know, I guess for me having a background in digital marketing, a background in social marketing, I'm kind of used to introducing things that aren't like, I always use the phrase- You don't get fired for doing what your boss did, right? But I used to come in always with the new, fresh, shiny thing. And I'm like, no, this thing really works better than what you were doing before, but it is new. But guess what, that's where it's going. And so getting somebody to just get their head around that, and in some cases it's so much more affordable or so much more efficient that they almost can't believe it. And I'm just trying to help them with that. And then I would also say, and I'm curious if you find this too Eric, there's some fundamental things. Like I'll use the concept of listening to your customers, right? Consumer engagement, but listening on a whole other level. Technology affords us the ability to do this so much better, so much deeper, so much more efficiently. But it's new and it's different, and it can throw some people off. Oh, I really can do that. Or why would I invest in them? They're already my customer. I'm like, well, that's the whole idea. Yeah. that can be a bit of a stranglehold. But we usually get over it and then the results are amazing. But I'm curious if you're seeing that too. Just like kind of going back to the fundamental, just listen more to your customer, and understand them better. And you can use tools, whether it's AI or something else.
Eric Dickmann:This is a hot button topic for me. I'm glad we're talking about it because you know, I'm sure we've all experienced this. You call in or you have an interaction with the business, and almost before you can get to your computer, there's a survey sitting in your inbox, waiting for you to fill out how great a job did we do. And whatever happens to that information, because it seems so rare that companies actually take that information and do anything with it. If you really had a bad experience, does your phone ring the next day and the company is reaching out to you to want to learn more, to see how they can fix it? Most of the time, it seems that the listening that's being done is simply to meet some internal metrics, that they want to have, you know, this kind of a rating or whatever, because somebody's performance review is based on that. It's not based on really listening and making change.
Terry Dry:Such a great call out Eric. You're totally right, you know? Somebody is just doing it to do it, and then you've got this pile of data over here and nobody's looking at it, sifting through it, or more importantly, maybe they are, but they're checking boxes rather than going, what's the insight? What are the five big takeaways we can work on here? And that's something we are like, I almost don't want to work with a company if they're not willing to do that and willing to listen, and willing to change. But to your point, what's interesting about those surveys is sometimes they come in they're so self-serving for the company and they're missing like the rule number one of like consumer engagement of like, what's the value for the other person for the end user, for your customer? What value are you providing them? And show them that you're listening to your point. And so many people almost ignore that step. It's like, it's kind of obnoxious, right? And instead of just really, really being, you know, I'll just call it customer obsessed and you walk, you watch companies, whether it's Amazon, et cetera, who just want to learn everything about you. But I think there's a lot more good than bad that comes out of that. And you look at like Etsy, the way they do their marketing after you buy something and the email campaigns, catering things to you, I mean, it's really, really impressive what can be done if you're paying attention and listening. Fundamentally caring more about your customer and showing it.
Eric Dickmann:Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to the podcast. But first, are you ready to grow, scale, and take your marketing to the next level? If so, The Five Echelon Group's Virtual CMO consulting service may be a great fit for you. We can help build a strategic marketing plan for your business and manage its execution, step-by-step. We'll focus on areas like how to attract more leads. How to create compelling messaging that resonates with your ideal customers. How to strategically package and position your products and services. How to increase lead conversion, improve your margins, and scale your business. To find out more about our consulting offerings and schedule a consultation, go to fiveechelon.com and click on Services. Now back to the podcast. Yeah, I agree with what you're saying about so many of these things being self-serving. They put forward a face of listening of trying to be responsive, but yet they're not really doing anything with that data to be responsive. And what's interesting to me also is that if you move away from things like surveys To online reviews, which is another place where people can listen to their customers, right? Well, they don't control the data. You know, they can't hide all that data that they're collecting on some manager's desk. That data is for everyone to see. And so businesses tend to be responsive or they should be responsive to those reviews, right? But by that time, it's sort of the the cat's out of the bag, right? You know, they can't do anything about it other than try to put a sympathetic response out there. So it's good to catch these things early.
Terry Dry:Yeah. And I'm curious if you find this too, but I always find they're terrified. Like they really don't want to know, like they say they want to know, but there's an emotional connection there too, especially with the leader of like this is my baby, this is my company, and somebody's out there crashing it or they don't like it. And look, the reality now is that people now have a voice. People essentially themselves are media. So you have to be conscious of that and you have to be listening, and you have to be open. But I do find people, they don't want to look, they just don't even want to see it. Those who embrace it and just have a different mindset of culture, of like continual optimization we're going to look, we're going to get better. Those are the ones who win. And look, you also have to recognize there's a percentage of people out there too are gonna, no one's gonna always like you, nothing's ever going to be perfect, you've got to kind of weigh that out. And what we've been doing actually with one of our companies we work with in the e-comm space as just comparing sort of their favorability to others and showing them this kind of whole landscape of what people are saying, what they look like, and that helps inform us what can we do future facing? What are they looking for? Because there's so much R&D by the way also that comes from listening, you know? And
Eric Dickmann:Oh yeah.
Terry Dry:your customers are dying to tell you stuff, and they're out there doing it. It's up to you to listen and engage with them properly,.
Eric Dickmann:Well, and your employees are telling you things too. And this gets missed a lot of times, too when you're talking about future-proofing your company or building a better company, your employees have a tremendous amount of feedback. They're the ones that are in the trenches, working through these processes, and they can oftentimes spot inefficiencies or areas of improvement, right? I used to work for a company that had a pretty toxic work environment and they spent more time and effort trying to manipulate GlassDoor reviews than actually fix the problems that people were complaining about. It was crazy.
Terry Dry:Yup. I see that all the time. And look, we used to have those problems, you know, within the agency world that I was part of. And you're totally right. And I'm so glad you're bringing it up Eric, because move number one is you've got to show all that same care and listening, and focus on your own employees on your own team. And there's this concept that I was fortunate enough to get a little bit of at Harvard Business School training. I'm not a Harvard student, but I was lucky to get some training. I'm not that smart, which will keep kind of coming through here. But one of the things that they teach you sort of day one is their concept of what's the service profit chain? Which is essentially, if your own leadership is happy, your own employees are happy, they are aligned on a mission with a culture and everything, then all these good things will happen. Then your clients are happy, your customers are happy, and you're growing and growing. But it starts internally. And you're totally right that a lot of companies can just almost focus past their workforce, focus on money, revenue, profit, customer, instead of listening to their own team. Because their own team is what's out there representing the brand and the business, if you will. And we are now in an age where the customers care very much who you are, what you stand for, why you do what you do. And it's not just a simple transaction and that should stem from your own team and your own employees. And the more you do that, the more you're going to attract the right kind of people into your culture, because you're kind of putting it out there. This is who we are and this is what we stand for, and you're hopefully going to attract the right people who are kind of bought in on those values. Quote unquote, on the bus with you.
Eric Dickmann:Sort of along that line, I wonder from your experience, what you've seen in terms of these concepts of you know, control versus empowerment, where some of these organizations, they have a very hierarchical control, everything needs to be approved by supervisors or managers versus organizations that trust their employees and say, you're empowered to fix this and make this right. The nature of work is changing for sure. But have you seen real movements in the direction of empowering employees more, or the other direction?
Terry Dry:I'm seeing more on the empowerment front. But it starts with, you've got to have all, you've just got to have it together. You've got to have your systems together, your expectations together, your KPIs, and then somebody can thrive it. Where I find the hierarchal stuff is a mess is companies that are a mess and therefore there's layer upon layer where you kind of throw people or managers at a problem when it's actually more foundational of what's missing of systems process. You know, the bend can lead something. There's a saying I love, which is structure freeze creativity. And it's having that kind of structure in place that's going to then help everyone thrive and then you can empower your team to be great, and it's up to them to be great. And I was guilty of this. I used to throw people and money at all the problems because we were scaling so fast, my business. And I'm like, oh my God, I can't keep up with it. And I was kind of build, build, build, and I wasn't like operationally that wasn't the place I love to live. And like, oh, that person just needs a leader and they'll figure it out. And that person just needs, and I was building that out and it can become problematic if you don't have it all set up right. And everybody's clear on the end goal and the sort of self-governed accountability with the concept where everybody's kind of working for each other, rather than with each other.
Eric Dickmann:Yes. You;re saying.
Terry Dry:Oh, it's hard to do.
Eric Dickmann:Oh, it's hard to do, right. You know, there's gotta be a lot of foundational things in place for that all to work. But you know, one of the things that I talk a lot about with clients is there's a difference between can't and won't. You know so often when you call in to get a problem resolved or you're dealing with somebody, the person on the other end of the phone says, Well, we can't do that. Well, yeah, actually you can. There's very little in business that you can't do, if it's illegal or there's a regulatory reason, yeah, maybe you can't do it. But most of the time it's because you won't do it. And the won't is usually because of policies, procedures, system, limitations, whatever it may be. But it's not a rule of the universe. And, you know, I encourage a lot of customers to basically, really look at what they're saying they can't do because there's probably some underlying limitation, whether it's people don't have the autonomy to do it, whether the systems don't support it, whatever it is, get to that point where you can do things for people.
Terry Dry:Totally right, yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. And that comes back to mindset and culture. Sometimes that's not the right person, right? Like I always ask people when they're working with me, like, are you a self-starter and do you have sort of a can do attitude? And cause that's what I'm going to ask of you and that's the way I am, you know? And what we need. But I agree with you, that's a good question to be asking as well.
Eric Dickmann:Yeah, I think you need to sort of put yourself in your customer's shoes, right? You need to sort of see the world from the way a customer is going to view the world because we can get trapped in our own companies and our own ways of doing things, and oftentimes miss problems that are readily apparent to anybody on the outside, which is great for us coming in as consultants right? Because oftentimes we can see things that companies can't see. But it's a real blind spot.
Terry Dry:Completely. And it comes back to you know, the fundamental change of you have the ability now to communicate with your customers, listen to them more, understand them better, and it's actually really cost efficient too, because of technology and there's just different ways to do it. But if you're not willing to sort of sit in the seat of your customer and really understand them, their life, their journey, their needs, and their value proposition, you're kind of blowing it, you know? And don't just shove down their throat this is what I think they want, this is what they've always wanted, so they must still want it. Instead, just keep listening, keep getting feedback. And it's funny for me, it comes out of I started in the music business and it was always interesting to me how we would pick what the single should be. You know? You'd go to the radio and it was zero science. It was oh, so-and-so's kid like that song or oh, the lead singer will get mad at us if we don't make it that song. And I used to say, well, we could get a bunch of fans in a room, we'd shock them, right? Cause we'd play them the new song before anyone would hear it. This is before you could get everything on
Eric Dickmann:Digitally. Yeah, yeah.
Terry Dry:And then we'll listen. And we'd see what they think, and it was amazing. That just wouldn't happen. And then you'd go spending huge money on ad campaigns, videos, promotion, just based off what people thought was the hit, if you will. And sometimes it was strange. You're like, we're just trying to shove this down their throat rather than listening first and understanding what's going to work.
Eric Dickmann:Yeah, if you can make decisions based on real data and more of an understanding, you're much better off. And so I'm curious as we sort of bring our podcast to a close here, I'm curious if people and their businesses are in a point where they really think that they need to consider some of these issues, how do they go about working with you and your team?
Terry Dry:Well, there's several ways to reach us. I think looking at futureproofadvisors.com which is our website, gives you a great overview of kind of who we are, what we do. You can always just find me, Terry Dry on LinkedIn is also an easy way. But really, I think looking at our website, you can see kind of what our process is, how we work, what we look for, and that's how we can do it. And we evaluate it too. It's a two-way street with me. It's want to make sure that we like you and that you like us, and that there's a value exchange. If it is not going to be, then it doesn't work. And I'm happy to try to direct you to someone else too.But that's the best way to do it. No, I love that. You want to have a good relationship, a good trusting relationship with your clients and with your vendors, right? Everybody needs to be on the same page, exchanging good value. That's the way to engage in a business relationship. So I love that. Yeah, totally agreed.
Eric Dickmann:Hey Terry, this has been a fun conversation. I love talking about the future. We certainly don't want to talk about the past, especially this last year. So anything that's forward-looking is great. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast today. I've really enjoyed our conversation.
Terry Dry:Thanks, Eric. I have to really appreciate you having me. Thanks.
Eric Dickmann:Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Virtual CMO podcast. For more episodes, go to fiveechelon.com/podcast to subscribe through your podcast player of choice. And if you'd like to develop consistent lead flow and a highly effective marketing strategy, visit fiveechelon.com to learn more about our Virtual CMO consulting services.
