191: ‘The Bastardization of Marketing in AEC’, with Kyle Morck

191: ‘The Bastardization of Marketing in AEC’, with Kyle Morck

Evan Troxel: Welcome to the TRXL Podcast. I'm Evan Troxel, and in this episode I welcome Kyle Morck. Kyle is the VP of strategy at Reynolds+Myers, which is a marketing agency that works with small teams in complex industries. AEC among them. His background as both a programmer and a strategist gives him a unique lens into how firms can better connect with their audiences, grow their reputation, and ultimately win better work.

In this episode, we challenge the prevailing norms of marketing in the If you've ever felt like your firm's social media presence is just an internal echo chamber, or that your website traffic stats don't reflect real business impact, you're not alone. And Kyle explains why. We dissect the overreliance on vanity metrics like impressions and likes, the false confidence that those create and why they often distract from what actually moves the needle in a relationship based business.

But this isn't just about company branding, it's about personal branding too.

We explore how the same principles of communication, storytelling, and value creation apply to individuals within firms. Kyle and I unpack how to show up authentically, how to be known for something and how to remain top of mind, whether you're an emerging professional, a leader in waiting, or someone looking to attract the right clients or team members.

A key theme from this conversation is the danger of misaligned marketing, both at the firm and personal levels. if we're measuring the wrong things, we're likely telling the wrong story to the wrong people in the wrong way. And whether you're in a marketing role, leadership, or just looking to grow your own visibility and career trajectory inside of a firm, this conversation offers a wake up call and a way forward.

As always, there's a lot more in the show notes at TRXL.co or in your podcast app if you are a paid supporter. So check those out to go deeper, and you can also help support the podcast by sharing this episode with your network and joining the discussion on my LinkedIn posts or on YouTube, this one lit a fire under me for sure. I love talking to Kyle and I hope it does the same for you. So now without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Kyle Morck.

Kyle Morck, welcome to the podcast. Great to have you. Great to see you again. It's been a little while since we've seen each other in person,

Kyle: Yeah,

it's,

uh, been really great to see you reconnect and Thanks are having

me on the show.

Evan Troxel: you're welcome. I, I am happy to host somebody to talk about. Bastardization of marketing in AEC. Is that the right, is that the right title? I think, I think we're going for clickbait here, but, uh, it's not untrue, right?

Kyle: Yeah, like, 'cause it's the bastardization of marketing kind of across all levels, but it definitely hits AEC hard.

Evan Troxel: Yeah. So let's talk about that. But, uh, before we do, let's get an idea of who you are and what, what you've been up to.

Kyle: yeah. So I'm the VP of strategy for a marketing agency called Reynolds+Myers. And we work with generally smaller marketing teams and what we call complex industries. So any type of industry where you've got long sales cycles, where you're uh, you know, based on relationships, selling through distribution, anything like that.

But we do a lot of work in the construction space, building products, AEC firms, uh, all of those, uh, kind of, you know, just industries where you can't really just make an ad and expect people to

show up.

Evan Troxel: Yeah, and we, we had a conversation on another podcast previously when I was working at Tech, the Startup, uh, and. That's kind of where our conversations about this entire topic started. And then as we recently reconnected, I think this is something that's really interesting to me. 'cause I think a lot of times in AEC marketing really just means responding to RFPs and it's a really reactive

situation instead of a proactive situation.

You know, there's, there's obviously social media component to marketing for firms, but I feel like a lot of times it's just kind of like patting ourselves on the backs kind of thing. So here's, here's the awards we won, here's the promotions that have happened inside the business, but it's not really positioning themselves.

I mean, I take that back on some level it is, it's like, here's our people and, and here are the, we, we, we are celebrating their, you know, ascendants inside the firm. And, and on one level, because this is a relationship business, it's great to know who the people are. And at the same time, it. Quote unquote thought leadership.

Kind of that toxic term that I hate so much is it's like a thing that people participate in to generate SEO to have. And I think this kind of underlies our conversation today, which is like the me, how do you say that? It's like the metric of

Kyle: Right.

Evan Troxel: right? It's like, how can we measure how many people are coming to our websites?

How many post impressions are we getting on these social media posts? And I'm, I'm sure you have a lot of thoughts around that whole topic.

Kyle: Yeah, because what I would say part of the problem is, is that you've got kind of that RFP side of the business, which takes up a lot of time. And you know, there's plenty of people that might, uh, be a marketing role within an AEC firm, that

that's all they do

Evan Troxel: Sure.

Kyle: the proposal

Evan Troxel: Right.

Kyle: But what you find is that, you know, when you wanna start growing, when you're trying to kind of go out and actively find some business and get a little bit proactive about it, uh, what you turn to is a lot, you know, social media or content or ads or anything like that. And. That's the place that I think most AEC firms are really looking at the

wrong

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Kyle: that they're focused on the metrics and a lot of those vanity metrics and, uh, not really a full understanding of like the way in which marketing could really move the needle for their

firm.

Evan Troxel: Well, let's talk about that. I mean, that, that seems like an interesting position to, like a statement to make kind of the, the initial part of the argument here. And so I'm curious why that's wrong to do in, in this kind. Like, because the context matters, right? I mean, you said it earlier, it's like in a relationship type of a business.

So can you go deeper into that?

Kyle: Yeah, so a big part of what it comes down to is that, okay, so if you're within a firm, and you know this applies to even if you're a sole practitioner on where you focus your time, but where you see this the most is you've got a firm that hires one or two marketing folk, that they have kind of a small marketing department. And what you get into a situation of is that you wanna start measuring ROI of, it's okay, we're making this

investment. And

Evan Troxel: Mm.

Kyle: the people side of it and perhaps on a budget side of it. So then you want to start saying, okay, how do we measure. The success of this. But then you start looking at metrics like, how much traffic are we driving to our website?

How much, you know, how many likes are we getting on these social media posts? Are we getting people to our, uh, social media page? And you'll see a ton. Like one of the most common things you see when you start kind of investing in like LinkedIn posting or something like that, is that if you see the people that are liking the post, it's almost entirely like

people from the firm

Evan Troxel: like an echo chamber for sure.

Right, because you kind, there's like this internal pressure. I, I think maybe it's just,

it's just like, oh, I have to do this because I have to basically show my loyalty for the,

Kyle: Yeah.

Evan Troxel: for the firm.

Oh, yeah.

Kyle: don't even think the people that are liking about it are really thinking about it. You know, it's

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Kyle: they see it show

up in their feed, they like

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: if you're the person doing the social media posting and you're like, oh, we got 20 likes on this,

or whatever,

Evan Troxel: Who is it?

Kyle: of 'em

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: the firm.

Evan Troxel: Right,

Kyle: and what it really comes down to is that the metrics that you start to use to kind of try to prove your worth are actually very misaligned from the things that can actually like drive business for a firm. 'cause that's like the, the chances of somebody like seeing a LinkedIn post about flag day or

whatever on your

Evan Troxel: right.

Kyle: page, and then that somehow driving them to, you know, choose to work with you is very

slim.

Evan Troxel: Well, maybe let's take a step back and just define marketing. I mean, because the, my understanding is, and, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw this out there and you can slap it down or, or you can say yes, but the, the idea of marketing to me is. Awareness and marketing. There's a lot of different ways to accomplish brand awareness in the marketplace so that when it's time to make a decision, you are in the short list, right?

Like, to me, that's kind of the, the overall goal because, and, and so measuring ROI, I mean, what I think we'll get there, so eventually, but measuring ROI on exposure is a really difficult thing to do, right? So take, take it from there.

Kyle: Yes. So, and I, I think that brings up an interesting place, like particularly in AEC firms, because, uh. The difference between like marketing and sales is becoming really

muddied

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: the idea has been that, uh, marketing is like a one to many expression where

sales is one-to-one.

So marketing is, uh, going out wide and sales is reaching out to individuals, but especially for like a services firm, you know, like, uh, in my work for new business development for the agency, would consider almost everything I do marketing, but I'm almost always reaching out individually to people to kind of do that work. I'm not trying to make the sale. I'm trying to build relationships and get people to know about us and understand what we are, who we are, all of that. Uh, so I think that that's really muddied. But then in a lot of AEC firms, you know, your marketing folk might be, uh, business development people that really are on

both sides of

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: Uh, so that's the first thing is that I think in terms of like, I, I wouldn't say that that one to many definition is really even right these days. But what I would say in terms of marketing that it is about, uh, getting into that consideration set and then staying top of mind that, uh, when you are, you know, have a project where you're looking for an AEC firm. It obviously depends on who your kind of audience is for your firm, but a lot of times it might be that they need a project done, you know, once every five years or something like that. So, uh, when that trigger comes, what you're really trying to do is that when they start making that short list of who might they be reaching out to for this project, it's that you are at the top of that list and that, know, first you need to know about them, but then you also need to think of them as, you know, the type of firm that, uh, manages these types of projects that align with the type of people that you wanna work with and that you remember them, uh, when the time comes.

'cause it's not really something that, like a c firm has no real. Ability to like produce demand.

Like they can't

Evan Troxel: Yeah,

Kyle: somebody that they suddenly should be

doing a project

Evan Troxel: need to spend $50 million right now. Yeah.

Kyle: Yeah. Uh, so you need to make sure that you are still top of mind when that time comes, that they do need

somebody.

Evan Troxel: I think there's an interesting parallel here and, and maybe this is. Rabbit hole. But I think there may be people listening who are like, oh, this doesn't apply to me. I'm not on the, I'm not on the overhead side of the business. I'm in the doer side of the business. And I wanna draw a parallel that I think these principles apply to people too inside of corporate environments because there's this evolution on a career trajectory that people go through.

And I think marketing, per personal marketing has a lot to do with that. And I think you could, you could swap out the word communication, storytelling, maybe not swap out the word, but like, those are the, the, the analogies that I think of when I think of marketing. Um, personal marketing. How do you be the top of mind person when it's time for promotions?

How, how do you become the top of mind person when it becomes. Who do we select to be on the A team for this project? Things like that. And so I think these principles still apply on the personal level as they, you know, to the, to the 1, 2, 10, 50, a hundred, whatever person firm as well. Because like, this is a, a long game and just like a projects are are long, right?

Projects take years and so does your career development. And it's not always the most transparent process either, right? It's, and so there's a lot of positioning that happens naturally in capitalism, right? And in corporate America. So

I just wanted to throw that out there now because I think it's important to kind of think about this from your own level as well.

Like it applies to me as a podcast host too. Like how do I. Get on someone's short list of podcasts that people listen to, for example. Right? So how, how do you, Kyle, get Reynolds and Meyers on the short list of people who are looking for marketing consultants or for, you know, the services that you offer?

It's, it's very similar in concept, the, the

Kyle: Yeah.

Evan Troxel: things that you're talking about.

Kyle: Yeah, and I think that's a great point that, uh, so much of the work that we do, it's not just about kind of the quality of the work, it's also about like the context in which you do that work and making sure that that work is, you know, remembered in the right ways when that

time comes up.

Evan Troxel: Mm.

Kyle: it definitely applies to, you know, the firm side and the personnel side. And I'd also say like, uh, from the firm side, even when it comes to things like recruitment, that these are all really important pieces that if you're having trouble finding folks for your construction firm, that this type of work is the same thing

Evan Troxel: Oh,

Kyle: brings people in.

Evan Troxel: I have my hand on my forehead because you just reminded me of like one of my pet peeves that I see, I see this on LinkedIn all the time when people are quote unquote recruiting or, you know, they have openings. And seriously, the, the only text is, and, and I get it, AEC professionals are short on time, right?

Let's be blunt about that. But it just says, know anyone interested. And then there's a link to their, their job opening.

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Evan Troxel: like, to me, again, this goes back into positioning and marketing and

recruiting and how do you evolve as a business? How do you attract the, the kind of people that, that you need to take your company to the next level?

And this was a, a project. I mean, that pet peeve drove me to really. Go inside and really think about how to deal with that and, and be an example of, it's so easy too, to stand out. How, how can you stand out in a sea of know anybody interested or it's like, are you interested? It is like, who's interested in what, what do you stand for?

I don't, I don't get any information from that kind of a post. And then what? I have to click on a link, go look at a copy of a copy of a copy of a, of a job that, you know, a job posting. Right? Which is they, they're all, they all are very similar. Let's just say it that way. Right? So it's like, okay, I'm not really gonna get a sense of the company in here.

Okay. Yep. We want someone who works hard and thinks big and goes fast and knows the tool. It's like you Yeah, I've read this job posting a million times. Right? So, and, and then on top of that, know anybody interested, interested in what? Like, again, like I'll just come back to who are you and. When I was running digital practice at our firm, I took recruitment personally.

I wasn't gonna leave it up to the HR department who doesn't know anything about the roles that I need to fill and went deep into, you know, becoming a YouTuber. Like, that's where this started for me, was I'm going to promote what we're doing and who we are and who we wanna be like. Like not even saying this is who we are today.

No, this is who we want to be in the future. And painting that picture and telling that story so that people could then opt in to wanting to be a part of it. And I think that, again, kind of applying this to different levels like this can apply to you on a personal level. It could apply to a team, it could apply to, it can apply to a corporation, it could apply to a marketing department who.

Is trying to attract future customers, right? It's like you, you need to get good at communication and storytelling, but also be authentic about it and say like, here's, here's who we want to be. Do you wanna opt in on this ride with us and help us build that future? And that's kind of, it's interesting that you, like all of that just kind of flashed back at me as you were talking about, about what you were just talking about.

It's like, oh, I just went down this my, my rabbit hole. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw it out there and leave it there and see, see what? You've got to come back.

Kyle: Yeah, that's like, that's, you hit on something, which I think is really key, is that you talked a little bit about kind of the point of view, and I think that that is one of the most important parts

about positioning

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: anything is being able to have a unique point of view and express that in a way that

gets people excited about, uh, joining you on whatever that might be. And I think the reason that so many firms struggle with this side of things that is, you know, harder to measure and all of that is that it's something that takes time and kind of

a commitment

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: and a commitment to

building and testing and talking to people to see what, uh, really connects on that side of things.

So when you add that in with it being hard to measure, then you find yourself kind of. Looking for the easy button or the silver bullet in a lot of ways that it's, you know, we need business now, not six months from now, but all you're really doing when you're putting that work off is delaying, you know, that

six months that

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: takes to get everything working well. And the other thing that I would add to that side when it comes to the, uh, point of view is that not only can that like. Help you in attracting like outsiders to you, but it also helps you in kind of everything that you're creating, uh, that you're putting outside, that having that kind of clarity of focus in something that you internally can really get behind. It just makes like your day-to-day life so much easier in terms of like prioritization and picking what you're trying to do.

Evan Troxel: You, you're now kind of stirring up these thoughts of, of mine around marketing and wordsmithing and you know, the mic things going under the microscope before they go out. And so I'm curious from your point of view. What about that polishing aspect of marketing materials before they go out versus working in public as kind of another end of that spectrum?

Where do you fall in there?

Kyle: Yeah, I think in general that we're way too precious about our marketing material. Like I, I think we get in our head this idea that we've got like one chance that, uh, we're gonna put

something out in the world

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Kyle: going to see it right away, and then they're gonna make their judgment on that in that second.

But the reality is, is that most people are paying no attention to anything

you're doing

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: point in time.

Evan Troxel: you for saying that.

Totally.

Kyle: and even if they are paying attention, like most people are usually pretty, uh, like. Open-minded about things

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Kyle: see one piece from you that doesn't connect and then six months later you produce something that does connect, they're gonna be paying a lot more attention to that thing that connected than the thing that didn't connect in the past. So yeah, I think that that's a big issue within, uh, marketing in general is that we, uh, do a lot of kind of perfectionism that like, you know, it's very common to have clients that wanna spend like months, you know, going back and forth in internally making adjustments to things before they, uh, ever have a customer actually looking at the piece where the more you can get it in front of customers, get feedback, iterate, the better off you're going to

be.

Evan Troxel: There's an architect that I talked to who I used to have a prolific social media posting, and it was all done by by him and, and maybe his partner, but you know, they had a growing staff. I was, I saw him in person once. Anthony Laney is his name, and Laney la is, is the name of their, their firm. And so people might recognize that, but he super nice, super down to earth guy.

Very, very polished looking social media presence. But I talked to him once about it and he said, one of my rules is that it has to be fast, and if it's not going to be fast, I will not do it right. And he, he recognized kind of the value of his time, number one, but also that it didn't have to be absolutely pixel perfect before he put it out because, and this kind of ties into one of my kind of guiding principles, which is, it's about the, the big picture.

It's about the whole story. It's not about the little pieces along the way. They, they may tie together in weird ways or whatever over time, but. It's, it's like the body of work. It's not the specific piece of work. It's like this podcast is not necessarily about a particular guest or a particular episode.

It's about the entire body of work and the connections that we can draw between those episodes and, and what we, that's to me an interesting, like that's what design is, right? It's like connecting dots that were not previously connected, but also just kind of weaving a story, a new way of understanding because of a different perspective.

And to me that's, that's something to go back to. And I thought that was so insightful of Anthony to say like, it has to be fast. And because this idea of Polish. You can polish forever, right? Before you decide to put something out. And by the time you put it out, it's like, okay, well, number one, the investment's huge into, into getting this done.

It feels like a slog, right? To get these pieces put out because they have to be run through four different committees and this much red tape, and this person who does copy and their, their desk is stacked with papers to do copy on, and so they might get to yours someday. Versus kind of this speedy mentality of just get it out, tell the story.

It's like you said, it's not precious, it's just a little piece of the whole puzzle. Um, and, and I, I think that there's some value in that mindset, and I think that also applies kind of, again, going back to kind of personal trajectories inside of firms, if you have to be vocal, you have to be putting stuff out.

You have to be constantly communicating what you do, what you're working on, what you did, what you're going to do. Does it have to be polished? No. It, it could be in an email. It could literally be three bullet points in an email every week to somebody.

But it's like this constant trickle of information and that stream builds into a river.

Right. Like that overall, it's like you making an impact. It's like over time. Right. And so that to me is, is a very important aspect to communication.

Kyle: Yeah. Like that. That's exactly right. And the, the thing that I would want to add is that it's not about quantity of it. And I know

that's not the point you

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kyle: not about like just posting something

for posting's

Evan Troxel: does. It doesn't need to be on a schedule. Right.

Kyle: Yeah, it's all about having something to say and just

saying it, it doesn't need to

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Kyle: doesn't need to be polished, but just having, uh, something to talk about and making sure that people are saying, seeing it is what really matters there. And you definitely, uh, hit on it with, uh, like it's just one piece of a puzzle. Uh, and that's the biggest thing when it comes to talking about the metrics and all of those that so many people are missing is that, uh, anything that you can measure is going to most be such a small part of the overall picture of what actually like led to that business for you. And what you're in danger of is really over-indexing on those measurable parts that, uh, like that. The practice I love to run clients through is just like thinking of yourself in terms of like how you actually buy something. So if you sit down and think about like, uh, you know, a semi major few hundred dollars purchase that you make, that you spend some time thinking about and really try to sit down and understand like, when did I first hear about that brand the

very first

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: What got me thinking about purchasing this in the first place? How long did I spend thinking about that? What type of research did I do while I was thinking about that? And then, you know, what was that trigger that finally made that happen?

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: what do you see? So if you think about that from like the e-commerce side, which is the easiest. way to look at it is that you have a lot of people in e-commerce looking at their metrics and being like, oh, that person clicked on an ad and then bought our shoes, or whatever. So this ad is working really well, but they're missing out on, you know, the brand's 30 years old and they've done all of that work to get 'em so that they know about it in the first place.

That they were already on their phone researching shoes and decided to buy three weeks ago. They researched your shoes because they heard about it from word of mouth, from one

of their friends. And then, you know, that ad might have just been the thing that was the trigger when they were at their computer at the right time to make that purchase.

But then if you say, oh, look at how well these ads are doing, then you stop doing all of the other things that actually led up

to that sale and

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: over-indexing on

that one piece.

Evan Troxel: Interesting. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I'm curious from your point of view, like what is an effective way of getting your story out? Do you feel like the most effective way right now? What do you feel like that is? So like, and I'll, and I'll just throw this out there and, and maybe this resonates with you and maybe not, but for a long time in AEC when I was running digital practice, the term that was being thrown about quite frivolously was like, you're a technology company.

You just happened to do architecture. And it was kind of like this,

this framing of. Where we're headed and, and how you should think about the approach and, and especially as it comes to like delivering projects digitally. Right. Um, and, and one thing that I used to say was we, we, we call this digital practice and some days it's just gonna be called practice.

It was already just the way we did things, but we had to call it something for people to pay attention. And then, and then once we got through whatever we were going through, eventually we could say, yeah, just this is now the way it is. But, but when it comes to that analogy and media, I actually kind of feel like now it is like everybody's a media company.

Every company's a media company. You happen to provide whatever service or products as well. I'm curious if that resonates with you. Like, do you have to be doing this kind of a thing to, to get noticed, to get that exposure? Like, like just kind of give us an idea of the current situation that's going on out there.

Kyle: So the, what I would say is the most important thing is. very first thing you have to do is have a really clear understanding of who your

audience actually is.

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Kyle: actually particularly hard, like, uh, in the architecture side of AEC firms, that there's so many different job descriptions that might be, you know, the ones looking for an architect.

There's so many different kind of places that, uh, like, uh, kind of stages that someone can be

in when they're doing that.

Evan Troxel: Sure.

Kyle: search. So I'd usually like start, if you were trying to really like, think of this from scratch is trying to understand like who have been your best clients in the past. Like what type of people are they from both a, you know, uh, job title perspective or whatever that might be.

But also from like a psychographic perspective of like, what type of people are they that, what was it about you that attracted them, uh, to

you? Uh,

Evan Troxel: How do you find that out? Like do you just go back and ask them like what, or is it like you're, I mean, obviously you're doing some kind of an analysis here.

Kyle: Yeah, like customer interviews is so powerful and it's not just about like your, like, you know, I'm talking from the perspective of past clients you've had, but it's also just anybody that might be a potential, uh, client in some way, shape, or form. And that's part of what I talk about with, uh, marketing and sales side becoming really blurred, is that some of the best marketing you can do is reaching out to potential

customers to interview

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: to ask them, uh, what draws you to a firm?

What's your thought process when you're doing that? And that gives you a good opportunity to kind of start building out that relationship with potential customers. But a lot of marketing folk are really hesitant to kind of have that one-on-one contact with, uh. Clients, whether it's like current former

potential clients.

Evan Troxel: of the, like the vulnerability aspect of it, or what do you think that is?

Kyle: Yeah, I think that it's the vulnerability. I think that, uh, depending on your culture, like if you have any real type of like sales culture, you can feel like you're like

stepping on feet

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: marketer

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: you know, somebody else owns that relationship and you can't get in the between that. Uh, but I also just think that it's something that, uh, is time consuming and scary

in a lot of ways that it's, you know, it takes time to set up those interviews and there's, you know, the vulnerability of reaching out and potentially people

are gonna say no

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: you,

Evan Troxel: want to hear No. Yeah,

Kyle: I think that's a

hard part of it.

Evan Troxel: sure.

Kyle: but it's very worth

the time.

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: And yeah, so, so going back to your original question around the, uh, what's working or like, what I would recommend these days, so like once you understand who your audience really is, and, uh, you know, the, there's a huge importance to niching as well, and this is part of like the marketing side of things doesn't work independently from like the business strategy side of things of understanding, you know, where your market is, where you're making the best profit opportunity, what have you.

So working side by side with your leadership to make sure that you've got kind of a. Perspective on who you should be going after. But that niching side is really important. Even if you're like a super large firm that can take on, uh, a bunch of different types of projects and a bunch of different verticals, you still, for your marketing, it's really useful to like, at least pick a focus for the next

quarter or

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: it's, uh, the biggest opportunity part for you or what have you. And then it's really about just understanding. Where are the people in that audience spending their time and what's a message value? Anything that I could provide to them

in that space.

So a lot of times, you know, that can look like just interesting content on LinkedIn. If your audience spends a lot of their time on LinkedIn, then you know, you could get interesting content with an interesting point of view in

front of them. But if

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: don't, then you need to be thinking in other ways.

And that's where it comes back to, you know, those customer interviews to really understand where they spend their time, where they're finding, uh, new ideas, all of

that.

Evan Troxel: How, how do you define where your audience is? Like what, how do you go about figuring that out? Is it, is it where you're getting engagement because you're putting stuff out there? Or if you're not putting stuff out there, then, then where is it? Where's it coming from? Mm-hmm.

Kyle: so that's a, another side of that like to measure, uh, piece is that, you know, the, if you really think about, so like I, I've hired architects in the past, uh, my past life. I was a, uh, I led some nonprofits. So we did, you know, built buildings that hired architects for, and if you think about like, the way that that actually comes about, like the way you find them, you know, there's the mixture of those little banners that you put up on construction

sites.

Like

Evan Troxel: Just driving by.

Kyle: really meaningful in terms of just that very first,

like, what is

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: if you see those driving

by enough times,

Evan Troxel: I tell you how many times I've seen those signs and the font is so small I can't even read it. Right? And, and so it's like

the, the 55 mile an hour test too, right? It's like driving by, not standing there, not right up against the fence reading it, but driving by at 55 miles an hour. Can I make it out?

Can I remember the three letter name of that firm? What Whatever it happens to be?

Kyle: Yeah. And that's, you know, so the visual design of that, like if it's just intriguing enough that somebody that might be hiring a firm one day

remembers

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: that,

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: can be, uh, enough in that sense. But then once you're doing that, okay, so maybe you go to their website and then when you're on their website, is there something there that is intriguing enough that it's like, I'm gonna keep these people in

mind, you know,

or

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: I'll follow

Evan Troxel: Make an impression. Yeah.

Kyle: of social, you know, and that's that where it comes back to that point of view.

All of those things that it's like. Is there something that stands out enough to kind

of remember you?

Evan Troxel: Right.

Kyle: then, you know, so maybe you've got an, uh, like email is super powerful, but a lot of people do email really wrong because they focus their email entirely on like, how can I tell everybody about us?

Instead of being like, how could I provide value to

potential clients?

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: maybe you do that Google, but then there's like, Hey, we do a monthly newsletter that's focused very much on this specific, you know, niche idea. Like, I don't know, I don't, it doesn't matter what it is. If you're got a big focus on refrigeration, there's people that are gonna go crazy about your refrigeration news.

You

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: there's something for everybody in that space, but they're much less likely to kind of engage if it's just, here's. You know, some awards we got or something like

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: to find a way to provide them Value is

the biggest piece

Evan Troxel: So, so you have to do that homework part of it, right? Which is kind of have the content there waiting for, and I, and I've even heard, depending on who that audience is, hopefully you have like different landing pages that really hone in on who that is. If, if you can get that specific about it may, maybe your business doesn't allow for that.

But that to me is, is one of the things that the affordances are there to be able to do that it's up to you to execute on that. It's like, like starting a new podcast. You don't start it. You don't publish it out there with one episode because it's like, well what else is there? I'm ready to binge this po.

You have to have stuff there waiting for people before you even promote it in the very beginning or else like you, it is like, what are the chances? Like most podcasts don't go beyond 10 episodes anyway, right? So what are the chances that. That they're gonna stick around if you've only got that one thing to listen to.

And a lot of people will go to a, a podcast listing and see how many episodes there are to see if it even has staying power to see if it's worth their time. Because subscribing to something is an investment, right? It's, it's the same as following somebody on social media. If, if, if people you're hoping people will follow you or your brand on, on social media, it's like you've gotta have stuff there or else like the chances are they're just gonna walk away before, before clicking that button to to follow you.

Right?

Kyle: Yeah. And, and so many people focus like if they, so, uh, you know, content is obviously something that's been around for a long time that I'm sure most AEC firms have a blog or something that they're putting together or toyed around with like an ebook or something like that. The problem most people make is that it's so generic that they're focused on like SEO or something with their blog content, or it's just, you know, cool ideas for buildings or whatever that, uh, their ebook is that there's not really anything that like connects with.

Like, uh, I'm the type of person that would work with

your firm

Evan Troxel: Mm.

Kyle: like, you know, you're speaking to me. And I think that's where a lot of people go wrong around this is that, you know, having a. Ebook that brought in five new clients would be an amazing, like return on investment for the vast majority of firms. And most people are looking at kind of how many downloads is

that getting or whatever. But it would be way better, you know, if you had 10 downloads and five of them converted because it was made so specifically for them versus 10,000 downloads and

nobody cares about it

Evan Troxel: And, and can I, can I like lower the stakes a little bit? I, I feel like obviously that would be amazing, right? If you got commissions based on eBooks, but I think it's like, okay, well what next to me? It's like there's a progression and it's so, it's like the if for for me to sign up for your mailing list and then those people.

Click onto the next thing to download the ebook, and then they click on the next thing to I, you know, book a call. I don't know, maybe that's too much, but you have to kind of think multiple steps down the sales funnel as it were. Right. To, because that's what actually qualifies that ROI, right? It's like you get from, because going from ebook to commission is a huge step.

So what are the, how can we reduce that friction? I mean, I know you were using that as an example, right? But it's like, how, what are, and I'm just saying like, these are the things that people need to be thinking about. How can we reduce the friction to actually see what's working? Because downloads of eBooks, who know, who knows who cares?

Like what did you do with it? Like if it

Kyle: And that, that's exactly the point is 'cause yeah, like none of this is direct

response marketing.

Evan Troxel: Right,

Kyle: nobody's ever going to download something and then, you know, call you, 'cause they have a project that next day,

Evan Troxel: right.

Kyle: well maybe they would, but then they're already so far like. Close to the project that they were probably just, you know, looking at it already after making the choice to reach out to you. And that's another side of, you know, where people start to get misled by the metrics on those sorts of things. But it is, uh, like, I personally don't believe in the idea of the marketing funnel because that makes it seem like it's like a

linear process.

Evan Troxel: Mm.

Kyle: the first thing you do is this, then you do

this, then you do this.

Evan Troxel: Okay.

Kyle: But the like kind of funnel I like is, it's something called the awareness funnel that, uh, kind of every customer or client or potential client is in a place, uh, where they're like, have some type of relationship with you at that moment in time. And the goal is to kind of move them to the next stage of that.

So in the awareness funnel, it's like from, uh. to problem aware to solution, aware to product, aware to

customer essentially. But what's important there is about just kind of understanding that almost nobody that your marketing is going to reach is in kind of the buyer

ready stage. So everything that you're doing is just trying to build up that trust, build up that relationship with you, uh, keep them interested in what you're doing.

So when you're looking at something like an ebook, you know, that can be very powerful tool for getting across your. point of view, and if they then went on to join your newsletter or whatever, that's great. But in reality, it's just like that engagement with that ebook is the thing at that moment. And that's all that really matters is that, uh, category that they're building in their mind around you.

And then the hope is, is that they'll see something else from you at some other point in time because you are staying in kind of the world that they live in online or in the real world or whatever. It reminds them of kind of. That point of view that they have around your firm, and then maybe there's another piece that they engage with there, an event, any, uh, YouTube video, any of those things that it's not about trying to like move them into this funnel and move them down.

It is very much just about like having as many touches as you can that keeps them building up that trust and relationship with you and just kind of affinity towards you so that when they eventually do need your services, you're the one that they think of.

Evan Troxel: You remind me of two things. I'm gonna try really hard to remember the two things when I finally get to the second one. Uh, so hopefully that happens. But the first one is, there's a book I read, marketing Genius, Seth Godin. Right? You, I'm sure you're aware of Seth Godin, but he wrote a book

called, I mean, he's written a lot of books, right?

But the one I'm thinking of right now is called We Are All Weird. And I mean, it's really just kind of about the magic of the internet and people being able to find their tribe out there.

Kyle: Right.

Evan Troxel: And like to your, to your point of niching down, right? It's like people are very, like firms wanna offer lots of.

Project types, lots of verticals. Like we do all these, we can do any building, we could do anything for anybody. And then they water themselves down so much by being everything to everybody that they don't know who they are. Right? It's like, well, we, we do it all and we do, we will take whatever. And so then you have to start, take, taking all these low morale projects, I call them.

Right. Just to feed the beast. And, and so then you get unhappy, uh, staff and they end up leaving. And a lot of turnover because the, you've gotta do the crappy projects. And, and then there's, there's the other types of firms out there who like get weird, right? And by I don't mean that in a derogatory term at all.

I mean, it's just like, well, we do this really specific thing, or we do these kinds of projects for these kinds of people and they're really specific about those kinds of things. And that, that to me is what I'm talking about here. It's like. So, because you're creating an alignment between your Audi, you're, you're being really specific about who your audience is and, and who you are, because these are the kinds of projects you want to do.

And this is something that I forgot to bring up earlier, but I wanted to, which is like when you're looking at who your audience is, knowing your audience, you said, right, like, you wanna know who the best part of your audience is. You wanna know exact, you wanna identify exactly who it is you wanna work with and who the, what the kind of projects are that you want to do.

Because if you need to focus on that so that those become the reality. Because if you don't, you're just gonna get distracted with all the other crap that comes across because you have to do it right now because you've gotta feed them, feed the Beast, right?

Kyle: Exactly. Yeah. There there's two. There's two ideas that I recommend that everybody has and. Definitely marketers, but I think this is something that applies to business as a whole, and that the first one is your ambition. And what's important about this, so like lots of companies will have like their mission or vision or values or whatever, but your ambition is really about like, what type of company do you actually

wanna build?

Evan Troxel: Hmm

Kyle: like the one place that I say this is

about looking internal and not about looking at your customers. It's like, you Know your firm,

Evan Troxel: yourself first.

Kyle: wanna have?

Evan Troxel: Right?

Kyle: are

you trying to make?

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Kyle: do you wanna do? And like the, the example I use is if you're building like, you know, like a consumer package good of some sort.

Like let's say you're making purses, there's a big difference between I want this purse to be available at every Walmart in the country. Versus I want to have a boutique, uh, store in, you know, the four major cities that sell the purse. And like both of those can be very successful, but the type of work that you're doing to get to that point looks very different.

And it's very much about like the lifestyle you wanna live, the, uh, type of work you want to do, the type of, creative,

all of those

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: But it should be a pretty like pass fail thing of like, we either have accomplished this

or we haven't

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: it's. Uh, you should be able to just know in five years time if you were successful doing that without it being kind of

up for chance.

Evan Troxel: And what

Kyle: know

that, oh, go

Evan Troxel: I was just gonna ask, like, well, how do you, how do you recommend people position themselves? Is it, is it really clearly, like I. We do this for, in this way, for these kinds of people. Is it like super specific, like a one sentence? I mean, it's not even an elevator pitch, right? Like to me that's, that's kind of what you're talking about.

It's like when somebody goes to your site, you know, we build websites for architects, it's like something like that's plain speak and that simple, but it's also like, here's who we serve. And, and it, and you could, you could obviously add a little bit to that, but not, you can't go too much because then you'll lose people.

If, if it's goes beyond six seconds of, of reading.

Kyle: There's, there's a framework that I believe this is somebody named Steven Wesner talks about that I would also recommend anyone that's running firms, there's so much good content on the like, marketing and digital agency side of

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Kyle: completely relevant to running an AEC firm too.

So there's lots of good information there. Steven Wener is somebody that's a big person on kind of the biz dev

side of agencies.

Evan Troxel: Okay.

Kyle: but he calls it the x, y, Z framework, which is exactly what you said. Plus one, it's, we do this for this audience to

help them

Evan Troxel: Accomplish whatever. Yeah. Okay.

Kyle: so that, and that's a key part there is that it's not just about the work you do, it's the kind of outcome that you help them get. And having those three pieces together, uh. Really helps people just kind of see, is this for

me or not?

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: that's actually in a really useful thing to have people kind of self-selecting in

that way.

Evan Troxel: Yeah. You're reminding me of like visual, I mean, probably as it counts for many senses, right? But most of the work that's going on is you're filtering out stuff,

Kyle: Yeah.

Evan Troxel: right? And so for you to be able to be that precise with your messaging. Then allows people who are not the right fit to filter it out, right?

But for those who it is the right fit to hone in and say, oh, like, it's so specific. It really helps say, because you can't be everything to everybody. Like let's just say that really plainly, right? You can't be everything for everybody. And so if you're really specific about who your audience is, and, and this again, I think still applies to the, the personal focus working inside of a company or the, the single person, firm owner even, right?

It's like,

Kyle: Yeah.

Evan Troxel: I think it applies, right? Who, who are you, what do you stand for? And like what are the outcomes that you care about? And then crafting that really simple pitch so that people know whether they align with that or not.

Kyle: Yeah, and if you have strong positioning, your close rate should be. 80, 90% because you're never going to be in a position where you're doing proposals,

uh, that

Evan Troxel: no reason.

Kyle: of a good fit, that they aren't already. Uh, like the, the concept is like they're agreed on principle before you actually get to like, pricing and all of those pieces of it, because they are actively wanting to work with you or your firm. that's the other part of niching is that it makes it from a marketing perspective, that you've gotta really focus like, okay, here's the 500 clients that we wanna work with. It's completely possible to, you know, just boots on the ground. Make sure that all 500 of them know who you are. And if you can know that, like, uh. Mix that with your point of view that you know, clearly speaks to that audience, then that's what can really get you into that expert position. It's not about being, you know, LinkedIn influencer famous or whatever, but if you can get all 500 of those businesses to think of you as an expert in that space, then you're going to be winning.

And that's the other side that that niching and positioning helps you with is your focus on that side of things.

Evan Troxel: Do you have like a framework of how to do that? Like what I've used in the past is this idea of like a persona or multiple personas like you who like be, you're not just really identifying who your target audience is, but you give them a name and they have a job. Here's what they do when they wake up in the morning.

Here's what they do throughout the day. Here's what they do before they go to bed. And the reason you go through that exercise is so that you then look at everything you produce or want to produce, think you want to produce, let's put it that way. And then say like, does, does Jennifer actually care about that?

Right? From a, from a personal, like, who is this person? Can we be in her shoes to figure out if she would be interested in this? Do you guys use a framework like that or is that, is that old? Is that an old way to do it? What do you think? I.

Kyle: Like it's, it's definitely, uh, conceptually like the right thing. I personally don't do like full fledged personas because I feel like we get too focused on the. Demographic side of that. So that's like age and things like that. Uh. Where I focus much more is the psychographic side in terms of like, what's their values, what do they care about,

what's the problem

Evan Troxel: Mm.

Kyle: are being kept awake at night about? And that's what I want to have a really clear sense of for my customers. So, uh, when I say like, we focus on small teams and complex industries, there's two sides. To that, the small team side of it, that there's a lot that comes with being a small marketing team and all of the different hats

that you're wearing.

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: we have a really strong understanding of what it means to be a solo or three person marketing team. The complex industry side of it is we know the struggles that, uh, marketing teams have in trying to like, defend their budgets to leadership. We know how hard it can be to, uh, explain just what your product

is and

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: those things, or to track, you know, money's actually moving and what actually moves the needle.

So that's where I focus a lot more. Um, but you know. Starting as simple as like a job title or a vertical can be really useful. So, uh, a AEC firm that I worked with in the past, they just happened to have some engineers on staff that were like experts in refrigeration for

grocery stores.

Evan Troxel: that earlier example, it was a real example. Yeah,

Kyle: exactly. Um, so like that's something that, you know, there's only so many people in the world

that care about

Evan Troxel: I was gonna say,

Kyle: for

Evan Troxel: I was gonna say they care. Yes.

Kyle: Yeah.

Evan Troxel: And we're glad they do.

Kyle: yeah, but that's still. Can be pretty good business if you can make sure that everyone that does care about refrigeration in, uh, grocery stores, knows who you are, that can be a pretty good part of your practice.

So it's those types of things. And then once you get into that, you know, they're gonna have specific pans, they're gonna have specific, uh, things that they run into that most firms that they talk to

don't understand. So your ability to talk their language to address those pains, that's gonna be your strongest selling point in a

lot of ways.

Evan Troxel: Yeah. The, the words come up several times. Now it's sales. Right? And I think for a lot of architects, that feels like a dirty word. And, and I'm just curious your perspective on that because I, I don't, I don't see it that way. I see it as like, yeah, this is what designers do. This is what architects have to do.

Kyle: Yep.

Evan Troxel: You need to sell. And again, it, it maybe people feel. Like use car, car salesman, kind of around that. But, but I don't feel like that at all. Like the, the, this, the world is sales, communication is sales and, and positioning is sales. So I'm, I'm curious from you, you're nodding already, but just go ahead and tell me what, what you think about that word and or, or if there are alternative words that people may accept more.

Kyle: So there's, there's two sides to it. I think there's one is kind of the outbound side of things, and I think on that side, you just have to get comfortable with the idea that you're going out to sell something. But part of your goal should be that like the people you're reaching out to aren't feeling it as you're

trying to sell to them.

Evan Troxel: Mm,

Kyle: about

building relationships that it's about getting to, know them, provide value to them, all of that, just so that they come to you when the time is right. Once you're in kind of the process. Uh, I think that there's nothing dirty about sales because what you need to just keep in mind is that, uh, are providing them That like, if you believe that you can actually help them, then you're doing them a favor by. Leading them through the process in the way that you, uh, believe works best that. You know, if you're like, I guess, you know, obviously some people in AEC sell to homeowners or whatever, but generally it's two businesses that are

working with each other and businesses know they need to spend money.

So there's nothing like kind of, uh, taboo about that conversation that a lot of people are scared to talk about the money or anything like that. But it's just, if you come at it from a place of, you know, uh, you have a problem, I think I'm well. A position to help you with that problem. And through this process, I just wanna make sure that you get what you need out of this.

And that's like a ton of, when I'm doing like, kind of, uh, qualifying conversations with potential clients, like, uh, and it comes back to the positioning, all of that. A good handful of them, I tell 'em like, we're probably not the right fit for you. 'cause either the budget's not right or what you're looking for isn't right. And my goal is really just to help 'em. But if the thing that's gonna help 'em is yeah, working with us is your best fit, then I'm not, you know, take

no shame in

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: that of I want to

Evan Troxel: Yeah,

Kyle: for

Evan Troxel: like you said, you're, you're delivering value. And to me like that, what that ultimately means is what you are giving to them is at least equal to what you're charging, if not worth more, right. Than them going somewhere else to get it or doing it themselves or whatever. Right. And, and so I think a lot of times I think professionals really know this.

I, I, I don't know if architects really know this, even though they're technically professionals, but it's like the value of hiring because architects like to do a lot of stuff ourselves, right? Like, we'll, or we, we can do that. We don't need to hire somebody to build that website or build this intranet or do the marketing or whatever the thing may be.

Right? Um, I, I feel like because we're up for a lot of challenges and we know how to work hard, but. But it's like when you're hiring somebody to, to do something, it's because it's worth it. Right? And, and, and that to me is what we need to understand about ourselves is not that just they have to hire an architect because we can stamp the drawings because it's required by law, but it's way better than that.

Right. And so this ties back into that idea of like, understanding your audience too, right. And niching down because then you're having a value conversation with those individuals about whether they're going to hire you to provide these services and, and products. Right? So

Kyle: Yeah.

Evan Troxel: to me, like it, it all plays into you doing the work that you want to be doing and getting paid handsomely for it so that there is a vitality to this profession, to your business.

That is a success overall. Like I, I feel like there's not enough talk about that in this kind of race to the bottom with fees and undercharging and doing things more efficiently so that we can do more projects. Like, all that to me sounds like, or spending more time doing stuff we don't like that. We, like number one isn't the highest value, but we don't like doing it.

Like, and, and doing stuff that you hate is like literally killing you, right? It's literally destructive to your life force when you're doing those things.

And so when it comes to like understanding that people can actually value what you provide and you can charge more for it because you're giving them a higher value than what it takes to actually do it and, and like it, that relationship gets better throughout that process.

There's a lot going on here that, that's way more than just like what the price tag is.

Kyle: Yeah. And, and all of that goes back to the marketing and positioning and all of those pieces as well. Because what you're when you do that well is you're making it so that people are coming into that sales conversation already, understanding the value that you specifically bring that other firms don't.

So they're already kind of ready for, uh, you know, this is gonna cost more than other people, but I am having this conversation with you because you do this thing that I really value, so it's

worth it to me.

Evan Troxel: And I, and it's not even like an A thing. It's, it's like it's you, it it's personal and, and to me, like the getting back to like building relationships, it's anything that you can do to show people who you are, how you think, why you care about these things. Is that positioning part. It's also, it's like, like this podcast, like people tune into my cus Speak podcast for 13 years because I'm a character in their life.

Right. Because they've tuned in to listen to Cormick and I talk about things over, over a decade. Right. As crazy as that sounds to me. But, but it's, but it's, it's a relationship and it may not be like a personal relationship, but it is a relationship and, and I think that that's such a powerful thing to understand that you could do that and people can pick you out of a lineup because they have heard your voice.

Kyle: Yep.

Evan Troxel: And they, they already know that they want to do work with you. They already know because they've heard you say something else because they, they aligned with something that you said before or they were challenged by something that you said before. It doesn't have to perfectly align. Right. It could just be like, okay, there's this open-mindedness to it.

And the challenge was like, oh, that challenged me to think differently about something or to have a different purpose or whatever it would be. I think that all of that is, is incredible and it leads to you doing the kind of work that you want to be doing because people know who you are. There was a firm that I, I interviewed with back in the day, long time ago, and it was like, okay, well I'm an, I'm a technologist, right?

I'm an internet user, which is, it's like, it sounds so silly to say, right? But it was like, this was back in the nineties, right? And it was like, well, okay, I'm gonna search for who these people are at this firm. And like literally nothing came up. Nothing at all. And it's like, so if you, if nobody can. Find you, how are they gonna have any sense of who you are?

And, and listen to what you have to say and believe it, right? Because there's no, there's not, there's no consensus out there, there's nothing to even go off of. And like you said earlier, people have already done you, you have no idea what they've already done before they come to you. Research wise, search wise, like how, how many times have you gone and you know more about the product than the sales person does, right?

It's like all the time, right? This is how people operate. And so it's, it's

Kyle: also

Evan Troxel: different in this context.

Kyle: that's important there too, is understanding. A lot of times they're doing that research on other sites, on YouTube, on things

you have no control over. So, uh, like the pieces that people are actually looking at before they're making those decisions, you rarely actually have any control over them anyway.

So all you can try to control is the things people are saying about you

elsewhere.

Evan Troxel: Yeah, I'm curious if you have good examples of, I don't know, like if we, if we can keep it in the domain of, of architecture, but maybe, maybe we, we can go outside of it. It doesn't matter to me actually of, of people who are doing this well. Um, brands that are doing this well, what you're talking about

Kyle: I don't, I can't think off the top of my head of any, uh, firms that I would

like point

Evan Troxel: a damning statement, Kyle.

Kyle: yeah, and, and I, I will be fair that I don't pay a ton of attention to, but that kind of goes back to, you know, if we're talking about LinkedIn, for instance, like. I wouldn't really recommend to any firm to regularly post to their LinkedIn page.

Like, you know, maybe post once a month, just so that if somebody's looking, they know that you still exist. Like the importance of LinkedIn is going to be much more like your subject matter experts

and things like

Evan Troxel: People,

Kyle: there.

Evan Troxel: yeah.

Kyle: Exactly.

Evan Troxel: accounts. Yeah.

Kyle: yeah, so there's a lot of people out in the world that are doing this well, that are there making a for themselves and, you know, that comes across to their business that they're attached to. Um, but like, I'll, I'll give you one example that from, so like I, my background is actually as a programmer, I've been building websites since I was like eight. So that's where I kind of started

all of this,

Evan Troxel: There were no websites when I was eight. Kyle.

Kyle: Well, and then I, it was like Angel Fire in Geo Cities when

I was eight. So,

Evan Troxel: All right.

Kyle: I'm not, not that young. Uh, but the, a really great example of this in the kind of d web development space that there's a company, uh, I won't even say the name of the company because they don't deserve it at this point, but, uh, there as a company, they build like a database as a service, right?

So it's like one of the most boring kind of concepts, like even people that are super nerds aren't going to care about their database as a service. But they hired, uh, a great guy called Aaron Francis to run their YouTube channel, and he was able to build this into this like, really successful channel that was all about databases.

So like, one of his most popular videos was, uh. somebody was tweeting about the company and how they were having like a problem with a slow query. So he reached out to him on Twitter and made a whole video about like helping him, uh, troubleshoot this problem and then like, kind of showing that actually it was user error and not a problem with the pro product and all these things, and just doing it in this really personable way. eventually this company that's like, you know, VC backed everything decided. actually we aren't getting any ROI from this YouTube channel, even though you're getting millions of views, we don't believe that CTOs that are who we sell to are watching YouTube. So they, uh, fired Aaron and, uh, his kind of team there and shut down the YouTube channel. Uh, that company's not doing great these days. Uh, but Aaron's doing amazing 'cause he's been able to kind of sell, hey, uh, actually people do buy based on YouTube in this space because the people that are watching are the developers and everything making the decisions and telling their CTOs, this is what you should be looking at, that it's an understanding of how that sale is actually made, that the VC backed company kind of wasn't willing to understand that. That's the type of thing that, uh. AEC firms could really learn from is just like most people would never think that having a successful YouTube channel is going to help your AEC firm. That if you're not like just talking about yourself for

something like that,

Evan Troxel: Right.

Kyle: know, having, you could create a channel, like, you know, I watch a ton of YouTube channels just around like, you know, history of architecture, interesting concepts within it.

Like you could easily create a channel on that that would have, you know, massive ROI for a, uh, AEC firm. If you're able to kind of take the jumps that it takes to understand how that would actually drive business, that it's not about somebody watching a video and then reaching out to you. It's about that long-term

play on it.

So.

Evan Troxel: Man, like I, I talked to earlier about how I started going off onto YouTube and uh, I just, I didn't even ask for permission to do that, but it was obvious to me that my future staff members were going to see what we did there and want to be a part of it. So if you go back on my YouTube channel, you'll see my digital practice videos that I made.

And they were very vlog style, and they were very, like me talking to you, it was like, it was like, you know, I had defined who my audience was and I was speaking to a, a person that represented that audience. And the things that I was talking to them about were where we were headed as a digital practice.

And to me, um, maybe you can't do that anymore, especially in a larger firm, right? There's so much red tape around this kind of stuff. Um, smaller firms can definitely leverage this. And, and so I'm just curious, maybe start to wrap up here, but the, the, the idea of firms not leveraging individuals who are willing to put themselves out there.

I mean, it's, there is a vulnerability aspect to it. It's like not easy for people to sit in front of a camera and talk to it like the, like we're doing here and, and. Get ideas across and, but, but the only way you get better at it is by doing it. Right. And so you, again, it goes back to that preciousness aspect of it as well.

Like they're, they don't need to be perfect. You, you just need to be, make it a practice. 'cause practice even maybe it won't make it perfect, but it, but it makes it something that you can do. And it starts to weave, you know, this rug that we all use that ties all the rooms together, right. But it's like one of these things where you, you don't, I didn't ask for permission to do it.

And like I said, maybe in a big firm you can't do that. But it's one of those things where, where it makes, it can make a huge difference. And a lot of firms, because they have so many committees and red tape and all these things, and they can't. Like, let some person be a quote unquote star or misrepresent them by saying the wrong word at some point or whatever.

Um, like they're leaving a lot on the table. And, and like, it always kind of blows my mind that there's serious rock stars working at and at these, these firms. And you wouldn't know it because,

Kyle: Yeah.

Evan Troxel: and, and so like going back to this idea of personal LinkedIn pages versus brand LinkedIn pages and which ones approach like personalities and people are, a lot of the reason why people get hired to do things is because they wanna work with you, right?

They wanna work with that person on a project. And I think a lot of brands are, are, you know, companies are leaving, leaving that leverage where it is like they, they, they won't even use it.

Kyle: Yeah. And I, I, I think there's an understandable level of risk

that firms

Evan Troxel: Sure.

Kyle: of because if you're, uh, really investing in, uh, a employee of yours on them kind of building their own personal brand, the fear is if they leave, they take that with them, right? And that's like, you know, the database company I was talking about.

That was exactly what happened is that they, uh, invested in somebody that built up a great, uh, kind of. Following and then when he was gone,

that went with him.

Evan Troxel: But they didn't, but they fired him.

Kyle: yeah, it was

their choice.

Evan Troxel: Right. Right.

Kyle: I think that that's what it comes down to is that the pros way

outweigh the cons. And the things that kind of mitigate against it is being a good

place to work

Evan Troxel: Right,

Kyle: taking care of your employees in that way. 'cause even if they le leave, if they're leaving on good terms, that's not going to damage your

brand at all.

Evan Troxel: right. Right.

Kyle: firing them, if they were really, uh, somebody that was, uh, drawing an audience is obviously gonna impact you

negatively.

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: of like there's only upsides if you treat them well, essentially, that it might be a short term investment or what have you, but it's still gonna be worth it while it's

happening.

Evan Troxel: Yeah. You think about how there's a lot of times where firms will invest a lot of training into people, whether it's an app like Revit or whatever, and, and those people leave. Like, was that a bad thing to invest so much into them so that they learned the right way to do the things? Like not really. They went somewhere else and they're gonna take a good habits to another place, and that's gonna actually help the profession.

It's, it's not so much about us, us, us. It's about we, right? Like the, the bigger picture, again, that benefited from your investment into that person. And if you can't figure out how to keep them there like that, that's something you should also be looking at, right? It's like figuring out ways to keep those people happy who are truly like a magnifying glass for business development or marketing or promotion or, or storytelling, whatever those things may be.

There's a lot of analogies that you could use there that I think like a lot of times people will look at it this one particular way, which is like, oh, that it's, it's so risky to give that person a voice. And again, kind of going back to this idea that everybody's a media company. Like if, if you don't have, if you have people who are willing to do it and you're not allowing them to do it, of course, like work with them, of course, like set out guidelines and set out like goals and all of those things.

But don't like completely smash it because they'll just go somewhere else where they can do it. Right. Like that. Would people who wanna do this stuff are gonna do it?

Kyle: And what I would recommend too, 'cause I, I feel like people come into this in kind of two states of mind. One is either they're just against it entirely, or the other one is like, we need to be on all of

these different channels, or we need to have

a blog, a YouTube, a TikTok, all of

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: But what I would do is just look inside your firm, see where your talent is, and if you see somebody that seems like they could really excel in an area, if you gave them the chance, whether that, you know, like I wouldn't put much. Uh, stock in an AEC firm's TikTok channel. But if you've got somebody that can TikTok content that gets millions of views around your AEC firm, I would let 'em do it all day. You know, like that's a, gonna be a unique spin that you can really take

advantage of.

Evan Troxel: Right.

Kyle: if they're a great writer or just great at building relationships on LinkedIn or whatever, uh, looking to kind of that talent first is where I would focus on.

Evan Troxel: it, it, you, you're bringing to mind like this idea of again, like where your future clients are and future clients could be in two years, it could be in 20 years. Like the speed at which firms move through projects is not fast, right? So you kind of do have to do a lot of different things because your future, your 20 years from now, customers are, some are in a different place than your tomorrow customers, right?

So if you think about who's buying buildings or these services that, you know, design. Like sometimes the right answer. Well, it's like, yeah, there's, there's multiple categories. The right answer is email, and it is Facebook, and it is Instagram, and it is TikTok because those are different audiences and you actually need to, but you don't put the same content on all those things.

Right. You,

you, you are specifically kind of identifying who those, who those audience members are, and you're talking to them in those channels. If you could do all those things

Kyle: Yeah. And, and the key is that you're not doing all of those things just because you're supposed to be on those places that, so the, i I talked earlier about how there's two things that I recommend everyone have. The first being ambition. The second is what I call like a theory of your marketing, which is having a really clear, like, kind of just path of like, if we do this with these types of people, we think eventually this will happen.

So an example of that. Is. Um, so we work with a firm that is essentially tourism, right? And we, there's like two campaigns on the digital side that work together. One is a YouTube campaign, which is just video ads at the front that are, so this is an Idaho focused, where we live a campaign and it's highlighting like there's great skiing, great mountain biking, great rafting, all of these things in Idaho. And the only metric that we're doing for that is can we see an increase in the amount of Google searches for mountain biking in

Idaho? Things like that over time. Then when you search for mountain biking in Idaho, we have an ad there that brings them to. Our client's site related to that content. So those two things work

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: it's with the understanding that, you know, travel is a, a decision that's made over years.

You know, that people hear about a potential place that they want to travel to and then that goes in kind of their bucket list, but they might not actually plan to. Visit there for five years or whatever. So the first step is getting 'em into that consideration step. And then as they're doing that research phase, then we want 'em to come to our client site, which brings them to a specific part of Idaho.

That's the

goal, right?

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: there's two sides to that, but then it's understanding, you know, the YouTube videos that we target, it's a very specific like type of person that's kind of like an adventure seeking 30 something year old with disposable income. So they're watching videos about mountain biking and you know, knowing how expensive those are and all of that.

We kind of have an idea of the type of person

that is

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: big picture. It's about kind of that overarching like piece that it's not about just being on every channel, it's about understanding like with our overall theory of what we're trying to make happen, what are the channels that really

matter in that?

Evan Troxel: And how long of a time span is that arc that you see doing that, running that experiment for, to start getting some data in that you could actually analyze?

Kyle: Yeah, so we're really looking at like on the like YouTube side, so we're not measuring like the YouTube ads at all because there's not really anything

to measure on that,

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Kyle: Like they are 15 seconds ads, you watch 'em, there's like, we don't expect anyone to click through or anything like that. We just wanna lay that groundwork and then it's more over like, know, six months to a year we're measuring, can we see a lift?

Like is this something that is getting people to search for these terms? And we're not even going to try to say that there's like a one-to-one that our ads are definitely what's causing that. But it's just like, what we know is that when we spend money on YouTube around these topics, we see an increase in the amount of people searching. These terms on Google. And that's kind of where it comes back to that theory, right? Like we can never prove that really,

there's not really other metrics that matter to it. It's more of like, that makes like a kitchen table logic. So then we're gonna see what we can measure within that space. So we call 'em like

indicator metrics

Evan Troxel: Mm,

Kyle: not the thing, the thing we're trying to make happen is actually people considering and researching traveling to Idaho, but this is an indicator of how well we're able to kind of

influence that.

Evan Troxel: interesting. And, and can you put a ballpark number on what it takes to do something like that?

Kyle: It's like what you. Get there. When it comes to like something like ad spend is that first you just want to have, like you, what you have a ballpark number of is much does it cost to get in front of, you know, a thousand people in this space, right? So then that's where you can start to kind of measure, like when we get in front of, you know, a hundred thousand people, this is the lift we see. If we doubled that, you would expect to see kind of a round double that lift. If you don't, then you're reaching probably like diminishing

returns on that, that

Evan Troxel: Mm.

Kyle: more expensive to show those ads to people than the kind of result you get from it. So that's the type of measurement you can do, but it's also just when you know kind of, uh. How much it costs to run YouTube ads. You get kind of a good

sense for it

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Yeah,

Kyle: that's where it comes back to kind of having experts in those spaces can really help on some of these, uh, types of things.

Evan Troxel: social media. It, it, it's interesting because I think there's a kind of an allergy maybe, I don't know if this is just personally, you know, like my age demographic or my profession demographic or if it's an industry demographic, but there's this allergy to, you know, like I said earlier, like this allergy to the words sales, but also advertising, right?

And, and like, uh, AEC like we talked about marketing being kind of just re reactive to RFPs and not like proactive marketing and positioning and. Direct mailers or I don't know what, there, there's a lot of ways you could, you could start to shift, you know, where your, your eyeballs are coming from, um, if you're a small firm, right?

Like when's the last time a small firm sent out mailers to an age and a and a, an income demographic in some targeted area that says, Hey, I do high-end bathroom remodels. Like I specialize in them.

Specifically niche down. Right? How many people are considering doing that? Well, probably quite a few, right?

It's a big value raise for the home. You know, especially if people have lived there for a long time, you know, they're gonna need to, like, it's, it's repeat work. Uh, it's a cool design problem every time you do it potentially. Um, when, how often are people doing that? Probably not very much. Right? They're just waiting for someone to call them based on some, you know, low ranking Google search.

'cause they're not doing Google ads or anything. Um, I think there's a lot of easy low hanging fruit when it comes to this kind of thing.

Kyle: yeah, and that's the thing when it comes to advertising that again, it comes back to that kind of positioning and value, that if you have nailed that positioning, you're going to be getting in front of people that have, that actively have the problem that you're trying to solve. And they're going to actually value seeing a potential

solution for it.

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: you're, uh, in that bathroom remodel pace, like if you're finding the right targeting of the type of people that actually want to remodel their bathroom, and you know, it's also fine. Like, uh, when you're. Are kind of looking at ad spends or things like that. You actually don't want to get hyper targeted.

You just wanna make sure that everyone that you wanna reach is

kind of within that.

Evan Troxel: In the pool.

Kyle: if you know, if you're sending out 10,000 mailers or whatever, if only 500 of 'em are the people you're trying to reach, it's fine that the other 9,500 see that or whatever. It's not a waste of

money, it's just

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: it takes to get in front of

those 500. But those 500, they're the ones you care about and they're going to be like, yes, this is exactly what I

was looking for.

Evan Troxel: Right. I'm curious what you think about, okay, so going back to this idea of, of brand versus, or company versus personal LinkedIn pages, uh, boosting posts. Uh, what if, what if per, you know, somebody works for a company, they're putting up something that could potentially start to tell the story about attracting, you know, future team members.

Um, what about boosting those kinds of posts for, you know, $10 a day for seven days and seeing what those numbers bring back?

Kyle: Uh, so are you talking about Facebook specifically

Evan Troxel: LinkedIn,

LinkedIn,

Kyle: Yeah, so a few things to it, uh, that depend on the platform, but in general, like I think that paid social media is going to always perform better than organic social media,

and

Evan Troxel: I,

Kyle: there's a

Evan Troxel: I

Kyle: reasons

Evan Troxel: tell you, like, I totally agree. I, I read something recently, like somewhere between one and 3% of people who quote unquote follow you or are your connections on LinkedIn, uh, you know, a professional social media, the quote, air quotes, you know, there. But, but this idea that that between one and 3% of your following is actually gonna see your posts.

I mean, it's, it's built around what we're talking about right now, right? Which is boosting posts.

Kyle: what it comes down to, and this is like something that's really important for any marketer that's getting any into any sort of like digital ads, anything to understand is that the way that the giant media conglomerates make their money something you need to be fully aware of. Anytime you are, uh, doing

something on their platforms, that Facebook makes their money through the ad.

So they're very incentivized to not show your posts. Uh, LinkedIn kind of similarly is really focused on trying to, uh, kind of build up. The platform is this

relationship

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: there's been studies that show that like, I think personal pages or something like four or five times more likely to have their posts shown than

like business pages.

Like I follow very few businesses on LinkedIn for that reason. But, uh, you almost never see them in your feed and that's just what the incentives are for both of those. So it is kind of pay to play really if you're a business. Um, so I would say, you know, that you don't. I wouldn't spend a lot of time or effort on organic for the business page on either side of that on Facebook.

If you think your audience is on Facebook than it can be worth looking at paying some money to get in front of that audience on LinkedIn. I think that it's way more about like you're way more likely to get a showing of a good personal post on one of your

employees that

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: have something

interesting to say

Evan Troxel: Yep.

Kyle: anything you pay

for.

Evan Troxel: And that's the reason I bring it up is I think companies could be bo boosting people who, who work for them, who are posting things that could. Add to their brand, but, but then they're, they're footing the bill. But, but because that's a really effective strategy to get things out in front of people.

Kyle: And there's actually a new ad placement from LinkedIn to get very, you know, on the executional side that allows for businesses to boost

personal posts. So it shows up as like, you know, uh, the name of the person, but then it says like, architect or whatever at blank firm

sponsored by

Evan Troxel: Oh, nice. Yeah.

Kyle: So that's a great way to kind of, uh, if you wanna start, kind of boosting a, the profile to kind of kickstart the organic side of it that might get them some followers that can then lead to more organic

growth for them.

Evan Troxel: Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of people are probably thinking, uh, this feels gross. Uh, but I'll just say like, this is a game and you play the game or you don't play the game. And, and so what, what the angle I'm coming at this from is like playing this game. So to work to your advantage. And there is something to be said for social media platforms, knowing their audience, like they know more about you than you probably know about you than, than your close relationships know about you and.

They are very, very effective for targeted advertising. And like, don't dis like, so like the reason I prefaced this whole section of the show around an allergy to this kind of thing, like we kind of have to get over that. I think if you really want to be known, and that's all I'm just saying is like, like there is value in being known, right?

Going back to the whole premise of this episode with marketing is just being known for whatever it is. And so these are really, really, really, I think, effective ways to do that and using these tools for what they are absolutely built for. You think Facebook is meant to get you to connect with your family?

It is absolutely not. Like that's where it started, but that was in service to building what it has become. Right? And so, I mean, Kyle, you're the expert here, but what, what do you think about what I just said?

Kyle: Yeah, I think you're exactly right. And if you feel gross about it, it comes back down to like, if you are the business you're doing, if you think that it matters, if you think that you are, you know, bettering the world through the work that your firm is doing, and you're not being, you know, unethical or lying or whatever in your advertising, then. know, that's what it takes for your firm to win and do more of the work that you want to do, that you think is

bettering the world.

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Kyle: you can't be kind of afraid to get in and play the game, as you said, if the, uh, even if it feels, you know, 'cause like it's not, I don't think anybody has a problem with it from like an ethical sense.

It's almost more from like a brand sense or something that it's like if I'm out in the world actively looking for business or something, that, that reflects poorly on us. But that's why it really comes down to like that value side of it that, uh. know, clients can smell a desperation if you're coming in into something like desperate to get them to come to you.

But if you're going out and providing value and just knowing like, Hey, eventually this will come back for us, then that's just a win-win

for everybody on it.

Evan Troxel: Yeah. Well, Kyle Morck, thank you for sharing your expertise with us today. The company is Reynolds+Myers. Is that right? Did I say it in the right order?

Kyle: Yes,

Evan Troxel: I, I think about it in the opposite order. Reynolds+Myers, and, and I mean I'm just gonna pitch TRXL podcast right now, is a great place for AEC and technology companies to get in front of an audience of people who care.

And I think Reynolds+Myers is also in the same boat. Like, if you like what you're hearing from Kyle and you like what you're hearing here on the podcast, reach out to us. I mean, and, and should we be ashamed to say this? I don't think so. Like this is exactly what we're talking about and we've worked hard to get to this point, and I really appreciate you coming on the show to talk about this subject.

Um, I, I know more about it than I probably should know, but at the same time, like, I don't know. There's so much that I don't know. So I'm really happy to have you come on the show and, and share.

Kyle: Yeah. I really appreciate you having me. And I think to the point you just made, that that's part of it is that, uh, the world makes marketing seem way more complex than it actually is or should be. So a lot of people like feel like you, that there's a lot you don't know. And, uh, I think that's a big part of what I try to do in the world to just help, you know, guide 'em in the right direction and let 'em know actually it can be simpler than, uh, it's been made out to be.

So with that said, you know, I'm happy anyone who wants to reach out and chat, I'm always happy to help 'em through their marketing and just help set 'em in that right direction. So please

feel free.

Evan Troxel: Yeah, there's a lot of architects who are gonna take this on themselves because that's what we do. Right.

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

Evan Troxel: but to the point that we talked about earlier in the podcast, like reach out to an expert who knows what they're it, it saves so much time. It saves so much pain of learning. That whole craft from scratch and not having the time to do it and all that stuff that comes along with any of these really specialized roles.

Like you bring a lot to the table, right? Like, and that to me is, is really where the value is. And I'm willing, I'm willing to pay for that kind of a value if I can to, to get somebody to is a literal shortcut to,

Kyle: Yeah.

Evan Troxel: to something else.

Kyle: And, even for me, you know, even if there's no potential work from it, if a 30 minute call can help somebody from, you know, wasting a bunch of money going in the wrong direction or chasing after shiny objects, then you know, that's a value I want to provide to the

world regardless.

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Kyle: always happy to do

it.

Evan Troxel: Cool. Alright, well I'll have links to Kyle and Res Myers in the show notes for this podcast among many other links and, and things based on what we talked about today. And, uh, until next time, Kyle. Thank you. All

Kyle: Thank you so much