Content is King with Esther Hall

Content is King with Esther Hall

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 40 of the Business Development Podcast, and on today's milestone episode, we have marketing expert Esther Hall with us today. She's gonna impart some really great wisdom. Stay tuned.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal, and we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In broadcasting to the world, you'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development Capitalbd.ca , let's do it. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host. Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello. Good morning. Welcome to episode 40 of the Business Development podcast. This is crazy. This is like a little key mark episode, actually episode 40. We've made it here today. I have an absolutely amazing marketing and business development guest, the first of of our kind, Esther Hall.

Esther has enjoyed a colorful and diverse career journey spanning from wine brand management to lifestyle, tires, mobility, and now landing in industrial operations and maintenance at Fluor Corporation, serving a variety of business development and marketing strategies through these companies. After studying in Chile and Prague, she obtained her MBA with a focus on international business and also completed a design thinking certification through m MIT as a ferociously hungry, lifelong learner.

She is currently studying through the International Society of Sustainability Professionals to first obtain her SEA, followed by her SEP. Esther embraces humanistic connection as a core of her marketing philosophy with a fervent push to create content to delight and surprise the target audience.

Esther, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Esther Hall: Kelly, I'm so jazzed to be here. Thank you for inviting me and 40 episodes. Congratulations. Thank you. That is quite an accomplishment.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I, so when I start, well, you, you were there when I started this show. I was there. I remember kinda spit calling the idea off of you when I was first getting this going.

For those who don't, Kind of, no. Esther. Esther, me actually worked together on occasion. She is my counterpart at Fluor USA. I do some work right now for Fluor Driver, which is kind of the Canadian operations maintenance arm of Fluor. And so we've had meetings, we've had lots of conversations. And Esther, you really are a leader in marketing and business development.

I always enjoy our conversations, which is why I wanted to have you on this show. I think you can provide so much value to my new entrepreneurs, my new people in business development. I think. This is my first opportunity to really have a business development and marketing conversation. I, you know, most of the people I've interviewed have been entrepreneurs, business owners or experts in different fields.

But today I have a fellow expert in business development, which I'm really excited for. Can you launch us off a little bit into your story? Us in business development, we all have a very unique story about how we found our way here. What is yours?

Esther Hall: Oh, we do, we do. I have a little bit of an outside the box story actually.

I did things in kind of aor first order as it were. I actually started out my career in my early twenties and in the wine industry. And I was selling wine before I was even legally of age to do it. And that is really what introduced me to the importance of brand power because. When you have a wine portfolio, you've got like all these Cabernets, you've got all these like Chardonnays, and so how do you sell this Chardonnay over that Chardonnay, you know, with the competitors on the market?

And then of course, you know, you really discover storytelling and that emotional connection and you have to get the people to like to really connect and understand the brand. And so that is what kickstarted my love and my passion. For marketing, all things marketing. And then in my late twenties I finally was able to finish up my undergrad and then got right into the MBA where I got to study internationally and abroad, as you mentioned.

And then while I was in that program, I had a, like group project where we worked with some people from Michelin. And we had a really good time working together and they were like, Hey, you know, you should totally come work for Michelin. We've got the Michelin guide, you've got this background wine.

It would be a great fit. And so I joined Michelin and I was with Michelin for the majority of my thirties, and that was really cool, just getting them mobility, the experiences, and to serve a portfolio with the expense. You know, just the sheer mass expansion that Michelin has. And then as you mentioned, for the past two years, I came over to Fluor to be the mar marketing manager for North America.

Which is also really fun because talk about a really dynamic brand and you know, with that kind of power in the industry. So it's, it's been really fun. Marketing is super fun. And my obsession with it is because at the end of the day, marketing is just psychology, right? Like, it's just how do you influence people to choose to spend their money with you.

And so it's a real fun, just like human psychology, human connection kind of kinda exercise every day. So it's a lot of fun.

Kelly Kennedy: I love business development. You know, this, you know this about me. I, I really am doing the one thing. The one thing I didn't know that I was supposed to do, but I definitely am supposed to be doing it.

It's so funny. It's like when you look at all the things you wanted to do as a kid, business development was never on my radar. I always like to say that you don't choose business development. Business development chooses you. It just just finds you one day. That's fair. It's like this is what you're gonna do for the rest of your life.

I hope you enjoy it. But it really is one of the best things in any business, like I would argue that being in the business development and marketing side of a company is sometimes better than even running that company. It really is like the freedom to really express yourself, the freedom to kind of do it your way and to help build interest in a company, in a brand.

It is, it's a ton of fun and people don't recognize how much fun it is unless they're doing it. I think one of the challenges that I definitely notice when I'm talking to n new business owners, new entrepreneurs or, or new business development people, is there's an idea now that in the 21st century, we don't have to make phone calls anymore.

We don't have to physically reach out to people or do physical brochure drops or to build real human connection. Me and you both know that's just not true. Can you wanna speak to that a little bit?

Esther Hall: Well, so you can't avoid, like digitization is out there. Right. But one of the things that I find most interesting, that's a new trend right now, and you guys could go look it up, it's super interesting, is the decline in dating apps because people, the, the Gen Zs.

God bless them. I love 'em cuz they are totally transforming just the overall marketplace right now. But they're like, you know, we, we need, we're craving that human connection. We have been in front of the phone and, and like part of this digital transformation since we were literally born. And you know, so they're actually going back to old school, like meeting people at gyms and then happy hours after work.

Amazing. So I found that trend to be. So powerful and poignant into what we're talking about right now. Like, you know, there's some shiny new toys that can come on the horizon, and it's a fast paced, interesting world we're in right now. But at the end of the day, like we're social creatures, you know, and we crave that human connection.

Tell me the story, you know, connect with me. You know, understand my pain points and, and that is really best done, you know, on a, on a more personalized and humanistic level.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yeah. There's no question that we as humans crave interaction with other humans. Right? Yeah. You know, like I talk a lot on my podcast about active marketing.

It, it's, it's what we do at Capital Business Development. It's what we do. We are an active marketing company. Yeah. I always, I always make the argument that yes, you need passive marketing, but it needs to be like, 20% of what you do, the other 80% Yeah. Needs to be directly reaching out to customers. Phone, direct email, doing that legwork that I know that like so many people are afraid to pick up the phone.

Right? Like cold calls are scary for a lot of people. And I talk about it, you know, I grew up, I grew up with anxiety of meetings, like meeting anxiety. It's funny, I'm a bit of an introvert. You wouldn't know it because I've had to. Change in order to do the job that I, that I, that I love. Sure. But I never started out this way.

Right. It was repetitive practice, you know, it's making those calls, even though I never wanted to make them, it was just doing those things over and over and over again until I got good at them and mark my words. You can get good at just about anything. And if you're an introvert and you're like, you're a business owner, and you're thinking, man, I can never pick up that phone and make 20 cold calls, like, yeah, what would I say?

Well, that's it. You don't know necessarily what you'll say, but your pitch will get better and better and better each time, and the better you get at the thing that you suck at. Oh, the better for your business. Cuz the thing that that's, that's holding you back right now, or the thing that you're reluctant to do is like 99% of the time the thing that would grow your business the most.

Esther Hall: That is true. And you get more comfortable, right? Yeah. Like you just have to get, like, once you gain your confidence, then you know, you're like, and hey, I did a hard thing. I did something that's outside of my comfort zone a little bit and it was successful and that's how you boost. Your confidence too. So so yeah, no, I totally, I totally get it.

And as a fellow introvert who, who, you know, you have to turn it on Yeah. In the BDS world, but yeah, it's, I, I understand and completely for sure.

Kelly Kennedy: I wonder what the statistic is, Esther, like how many of us business development people are actually introverted people?

Esther Hall: I would love to run that data for sure. I would love it.

Kelly Kennedy: I, I bet you, it's a lot more than you would think.

Esther Hall: We get accused every day of being like the extroverts of the universe. Yeah. And then, and then people like us that are like, yeah. No, no time too.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's so funny, you know, like I went to school for business admin as well, and when I got out, like in my mind, I never thought about.

It sounds kind of funny. I, I went to school for business admin to get out of sales. Like, in my mind, that's what I was thing. It's like, oh, well if I get outta business admin, I can go to operations. I can go to like, you know, I could become an executive level owned company and we can like, figure things out that way.

What I never recognized was, it doesn't matter what you do, you're in sales. Like it doesn't matter like what position you have in a company. The reality is it is your responsibility. I always say it's the responsibility of everybody in a company to market the company, especially if your client facing .

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that there's, like, there needs to be a little bit more focus on companies to, to involve everybody and to say, you know, like even if you're in the field and you're doing that day-to-day work, if you're having client interaction, you are representing the company. And so on some level, absolutely it is your job to sell for your company.

Like it really is the responsibility of everybody in an organization to, to move that company forward.

Esther Hall: Yeah, I totally agree. And, and I think going back to what you said earlier, like the business development people, you know, they're the ones that are on the ground wearing the brand, you know, they breathe personality into the brand.

And so it's, it's a key, crucial and fun role to be. So, cuz you define who the brand is, right? And that's, there's a lot of pressure, but also a lot of, Freedom and fun.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. I know that like, you know, you're, you do a lot of creative marketing kind of things. I love your newsletter, by the way. Esther sends an amazing newsletter to all Fluor employees every week.

And it's always full of pertinent great information. It's always got a lot of character. I, I think you're doing a great job with that. Keep it up. It's amazing. And it really is you, it's something that, that I feel like the whole company looks forward to seeing whether you're on the Canadian side or the US side or anywhere else.

I, I think we're always looking for Esther's newsletter to see what's new and, and, and hot and what's, what are the hot topics for the week. It's great. Congratulations on that. I think it's very well done. Tell me a little bit about, Your process, like I know I, I, you know, I've met you obviously through our business development chats, through Fluor Driver.

Yeah. But can you maybe tell me a little bit about what your day to day looks like at Fluor?

Esther Hall: Oh, so Fluor is a big dynamic exciting time right now because, you know, as you know, Kelly, like there's, you know, the, the big Fluor EPC brand, which everybody knows and loves. There's not a lot of companies that can do what Fluor does on the scale that it does, right.

But as part of that portfolio floor has a lot of different business units that are within the bigger brand as well. And so where the real excite for me, where the exciting piece is, is like how do you build these into the big story of Fluor and how do you make them harmonize with the big, you know, the big Fluor brand and, and make sure that we're all on the same path together.

Because there's different messages for different business units that are around Fluor and so where the creative part gets exciting is because, you know, this business unit, it has. It operates in its own little animal in a certain way, right? We have a different customer landscape. For example, my team, we have a different competitive landscape and so how do we make, you know, our message and our story, you know, resonate in, in the marketplace that's in a little bit of a different marketplace than the rest of like papa Fluor big Fluor whatever.

So it's exciting because we're all part of one story. We're all one team. We're all one, one unit, one brand, right? But there's just different little personality elements that make up that big brand in the portfolio, like, Like Fluor so Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: So anyway, it's a, it's a fun time. Yeah, yeah. No, to, I totally understand that.

I'd never worked at an organization the size of Fluor before I got in with Fluor Driver so for me it was a big learning experience as well as to like, how do you navigate that in business development where you're trying to. You're trying to build excitement, you're trying to really promote great things, cuz let's get real, Fluor does amazing things and doesn't matter what branch of Fluor you are in, it's an amazing company.

It's an amazing organization. Surely is. I would argue it's probably one of the it, if not the biggest EPC in the world. It is the second biggest. And yeah, like you said, there's so many. There's so many things going on in Fluor at any given time. What I always found being a little different, working for an organization of that size was essentially having to get approvals for things.

You know, it's not the same as a small company where you can just be like, oh, I'm gonna try this today and it's gonna be great. It's like, no, there's a, there's a visual identity to Fluor. There's certain ways that you have to do things because an organization of that size, the brand is critically important.

So, Can you speak a little bit to brand and, and, and how maybe companies or what smaller companies that maybe aren't thinking about the brand should do?

Esther Hall: So well Fluor is an interesting, so the governance is, is absolutely interesting and it goes into it's a, it's a vibrant conversation right now with all of the marketing and communications people, with the corporate team, right?

Like, like, what is this brand in this. Fast changing environment, like how do we handle all of the different business units? Like how do we grow and, and have like a five year, 10 year forward thinking, you know, brand mentality. And so there's things that are changing. There's recognition that like, hey, we have to modify things.

We have to be a little bit more agile. I think when you get into these really big organizations agility can be tough because you know of the governments and there's a tendency to just rest on what has always worked. Mm-hmm. You know, it's like the soft, warm, comfort zone of an organization. And this is where people, you know, well, this was successful, you know, in ni in the nineties, and it's like, yeah.

You know, 30 years later. And so, so there's a lot of internal education Yeah. That happens even within our colleagues, like, you know, hey, and, and, and again. The fun thing about marketing and business development for the most part is there's no prescription, right? No. There's no bible for what, what absolutely works.

Yeah. And so, so it's just an interchange of like creative ideas and like, can we just move it a little bit, you know, further this way and can we open, you know, these doors a little bit by, you know, changing our, changing our tone, changing our voice, changing our vernacular. You know, entering, you know, connecting with this particular target market that's a little bit outside of this target market and how do we do that and like new collection of buyer personas and, and stuff like that.

And so it's, it's, it's how you choose to look at it, but it's a, it, this is a very exciting time for a lot of these huge, big corporations. Yes. And so for small businesses and entrepreneurs like, man, consider yourself lucky that you have the agility and the freedom to, to not be in that place exactly so.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Absolutely Abso, like there is advantages to being small. Yeah. Don't, don't think that because you are a smaller and newer business or you know, maybe you're a medium-sized organization with say like 50 employees, something like that, you can still maneuver very quickly if things need to change or you need to implement or adopt new processes, that can happen very, very fast in your organization, which becomes much harder.

When you're dealing with a company with 40,000 employees, right? Sure, sure. It's a, sure. It's a completely different monster and a lot more, a lot more thought has to go into something like that and, and you know, Esther kinda hit the nail on the head. There's government regulations, big companies like that get scrutinized.

That just is what it is. Yeah. And there's a lot more thought. That has to go into anything done in an organization like that, which, you know, congratulations Esther. You do an amazing job at what you do and you are having to navigate a very challenging thing that most business development people do.

Never, never get the opportunity to even see. So, you know, congratulations on your success. Congratulations on what you do for Fluor, cuz it is much needed and you do a great job at it. Well kind words, thanks. Yeah, I see what you do. Yeah, you, you do a great job. I guess one of the things that I wanted to touch on with you was in your time doing, doing business development for Michelin and now for Fluor.

Know it's an ever-evolving landscape, which is kind of something that you touched on, but maybe, are there a few things that you've noticed that no matter where you go, they allow you to, you know, to build brand recognition, to make connections with new customers? Are there some like staple things that maybe you can speak to for, for new business development people or, or business development or business owners that might find very valuable that sort of no matter where you've been, you've always found that you can, you can work with them and you can use them to grow the business?

So

Esther Hall: I guess my personal pillars that I rest on every day is just the sort of, the mentality of content is king, right? Like, like really be trying to create content and however you choose to define it. Whether it's like, you know, your social media post your brochures and one pagers. You know, I'm currently in a business to business.

Role right now. So, so my content is a little bit different than some of like the bigger brands, you know, B2C content creations. But, but regardless of, of where you stand in the, in the bds landscape, you know, you have a customer and you have a consumer and they have pain points. And so understanding the voice of the customer, that's always one that I go back to.

You know, buyer personas know who you're talking about. What, what are they doing? Where, where are they getting consuming their media? You know, cuz we have the data analytics. I'm such a nerd and such a geek, and so I love marketing research and, you know, pulling data and then analyzing it, and then creating an action.

From it and an execution action from it. But, but yeah. Content is king. You know, know who your target audience is. Like take some time to do a little bit of the buyer personas because the great, you know, and, and always and approach everything with an element of empathy to a point. You know, like what drives you to action, what drives you to purchase decision, what influences you, you know, modify that, but also don't be.

Handcuffed to that because you know, that's still just a very microscopic view of the world. And so you have to get the analytics and the data to really prove, you know, some of your theories on the buyer analytics and the target markets. But at the end of the day, you know, be creative and be fun. Like always think of like new, creative, fun and as you said in the introduction, like delight and surprise, because I think at the end of the day, we're all humans.

We're all people. And we want to be, you know, respected and we wanna be delighted and surprised with, with all of our, our vendors, suppliers, and products that we purchase. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, for sure. I, I totally get what you're saying. Mind you, you have access to data and analytics that world. And Kelly,

Esther Hall: lemme say, I pay for access.

Okay. And this is one of the perks of being in a large government like organization I have. I get to pay for perks like that, so it doesn't just come into my inbox.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Esther Hall: So that is a different, that is a difference. But so much is available online right now. Yes. You know, like if you can take five to 10 minutes and Google some of these trends, like there's a lot of public information as well as, you know, the Mackenzies and, and you know, some of the Bostons and stuff like that.

But like a lot of it is public information and you can follow, you know, the, the public trends as well.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, absolutely. And, and I really love what you said about. Know, know your audience. Right? You know, I talk about this, you know, one brochure does not fit all uses, and I think a lot of companies have it in their mind like, oh yeah, we'll build this great brochure, but you have to keep in mind that, you know what I mean?

I get it. Like in this case, you guys are hearing us talk about a, a gigantic corporation that works across multiple industries. But yeah, you know, you have to think that way because your product or service is probably also usable across multiple industries. And if you only have a, in, in the case of what Esther was talking about as far as like a cut sheet, what she's talking about by cut sheet, it's a, it's a term we use in Fluor.

So I'm gonna just, I'm gonna explain it a little bit. Yeah. It's a one pager. It's essentially a one pager brochure that you put inside of a, of a greater brochure. A more, a more overlapping brochure, but what that, what that cut sheet or one pager is for is we build them for specific industry. So, you know, in the case of whether we're working in manufacturing today, or we're talking to oil and gas, or we're talking to some other industry, We have specific one pagers as to why you should use Fluor why, like, why we're, you know, why we are a leader in that space.

And you need to be thinking about it from that standpoint as well, because when you're marketing your company, the reality is you are likely a leader in your space. But. It's not gonna matter if you're marketing to forestry using an oil and gas cut sheet. Right?

Esther Hall: Right, right. Well, and this is where empathy comes in, right?

Like as you, when you're, you know, when you get a, a, you know, cut sheet or whatever you wanna call it, any sort of marketing information, like, do you respond when it's cut, copy, paste across the board? Nope. Or do you respond when it's so much more personalized to exactly what your day to day is? You know, obviously like we're selfish.

Narcissistic human beings, and we want our suppliers and our customers to know us very well. And so, yeah, talk to me in relative terms Yeah. Produce content that's relative to me and not just like cut, copy, paste across the board to everybody.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, you hit the nail on the head. I don't, oh, man. If I, if I get an email or something like that, and I know.

That it's just a cut copy paste, Esther, I don't even know if I can read it. Yep. It drives me that crazy, especially being in business development and just like knowing that level of personal connection that I want to establish with the people I'm marketing to. When someone does that to me, I don't know about you, but I like 90% of the time, unless I can really see some value in it real quick, I, I don't even read it.

Esther Hall: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It, this is, this is where the changing consumer, you know, is really relevant. I think nowadays and, and just gone are the days when you can, you know, just make blanket statements. Like everybody expects a level of customization and personalization now. And of course it takes intent and it takes time and effort, but I just think it's.

So much more worth it. And it goes back to the human connection piece that we were just talking about. You know, if you can take a little bit of time and you know, do some research, personalize your communications with these guys before you just pick up the phone and say like, Hey, buy this from me. You know, like where do they go to school?

Like, what are they doing in their day to day? You know, how can you really help? Like what do you understand to be pain points of this general industry? You know that you are. Our service solves and, and, you know, talk to them on, on those types of, of really relevant

Kelly Kennedy: terms. Yeah, no, absolutely. When I, the more you can personalize any message, and I don't care whether this is you reaching out, making your initial LinkedIn digital introductions or whether this is you sending a formal email, the more that you can personalize it, the better your response rate is gonna be.

First off, you know, the reality is like if you have to put in time, I think this is the critical thing, is that people don't think about their time. But your time is the most valuable asset you have. And I don't care whether you're an employee at an organization or you're a business owner, entrepreneur, you only have so many hours in a day, and regardless of what you're doing, you are paid to be effective.

Right, Esther? Like at the end of the day? Yeah. Yep. In business development, if we go into business development and we're not effective, we're not in business development very long are we? Right. Right, right, right. And, and it doesn't matter. And if you're a business owner and you are not effective at your marketing, you're not in business very long.

So you only have, let's say 8, 10, 12 hours a day every day. Yeah. To do something great. And if you're gonna send, let's say, 50 digital introductions, you know, if they're just this cut copy paste, they're not specialized, they're not industry specific, you're not putting any thought into them, and you send those 50 out.

And you only get one response versus let's say that you did 25 really highly well crafted emails, thought through industry targeted, targeted to your target audience, and you get. 10 responses back, which one was more valuable? The reality is they both took the same amount of time. Right, exactly. But you have to think about if they're gonna take the same amount of time, which one is gonna be the most valuable for your business?

And that's one of the things that if you're in business development, entrepreneurship, you need to be thinking about that. How do you connect how, and that's something, Esther, that you know you're really great at. You've been working with large organizations for a long time. You've really thought it through, you've figured out what works.

It's this, it's podcasts like this. It's, it's talks like this that we get to chat about. Things that will truly help other businesses. And that's why I'm really happy to have you on today as another business development expert, because we don't get too many of them on this show. And especially not at your caliber.

And so yeah, it, I definitely, I definitely resonate with the connection that you're talking about.

Esther Hall: Yes. I'm, I'm pretty passionate about it for sure.

Kelly Kennedy: I think that I think that most good business development people are, we, we've recognized, I think especially, you know, when you've been in the industry as long as we have.

We've recognized that the personal connection is almost more important than the pitch itself most of the time. Ironically, you know, I have, companies always, always reach out to me and they say, you know, we have this really, really great pitch. It's like incredibly compelling. But if you can't, if you can't personalize, if you can't make a connection, Where you know your customer likes talking to you or, or you, you leave a great impression whether you're leaving a voicemail or whether you're, you're leaving a great, well, well crafted email, right?

If you're not able to put a little bit of yourself into that, have that human connection. It's really hard to sell the rest.

Esther Hall: It is. It is. And back to your point, like when you are the face of business development and sales, you are the brand. Like you are your brand. Yes. And you are the brand of the company.

And so you define the personality, you define the connection, you define the problem solving that you know you're growing, bring forward to the customer.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, for sure. Can you speak to that a little bit, Esther? How, like, how, how do you develop. Your personal brand. If you're, if you're a business development person or you're an entrepreneur kind of launching a new company, what are some of the things that you would recommend to them with, with regards to developing their grant or their brand?

Sorry. And becoming more recognizable.

Esther Hall: Okay. Can we play a little game Absolutely. On this topic? Yeah, let's do it. All right. So I'm going to tell you a brand and you tell me the first thing that comes into your head when I, when I mention this brand. Ok. Okay.

Kelly Kennedy: Patagonia like jackets. Okay. Nike shoes, Lego toys, Tesla cars.

Okay.

Esther Hall: So when you are the brand, what is the one thing that you want your customers to think of? Once you identify and introduce yourself, make that first connection so that when they see your name, that the first thing that comes to their brain like of a assimilation is that is how you define your brand and how you do well.

So like for me, I would've probably said Patagonia all about environment, nature. You know, Nike is all about just do it. Exertion. Yeah. Like, go a little bit further. You know, Lego is all about ex, you know, like children exploration games, gamifying Yeah. Like making everything fun in a game. Tesla is all about like innovation, like strict innovation.

And so that's like, think of the brands that you, that attract you. Yeah. Right. Like what are the elements, what are the personalities of these brands that like, that really bring you to them? And then as you enter the marketplace, both as you Kelly, yeah. And as you, you know, representing. You know, your, your client then, you know, what is the word and the, and the immediate things that you want people to, to stick with once they leave the conversation.

So I encourage that because it's all about repetition, right? Like it takes a ton of repetition for, and, and lots of exposure for like these mental images to come as soon as you see that brand or hear that brand. And so it's, it's a repetition. It's like a consistent delight and surprise, you know? It is.

But, but that's to me, what, what really plays the power of the brand for sure.

Kelly Kennedy: First off, I feel like I failed the test. You didn't fail. There's no pass. There's no pass or fail. I'm such a consumer of these items. Clearly I know, I know what I would buy from them and why.

Esther Hall: There's no pause or fail, but it makes.

You think, because again, as business development and sales and like going back to you are your brand, like think of the brands that you consume and think of the brands that you admire. Yeah. Or that you don't like and you just dunno why you don't like them. Whether it's like public image or whatever, but like, sure.

Take note of those things and make sure that like, again, employer empathy and be like, you know, what do I wanna be to my customers? What do I wanna be to my clients? And then how can I represent myself as such, you know?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. You really hit on something that I want to touch too, especially regarding brand and brand recognition.

And that's like, you know, you talked about, think about the brands that, you know, have a negative association with them. Yeah. And then how critical it is to protect your brand, which is something that I think Fluor does very, very well. Right. Definitely. Like they have, they have their own rules about how we, how we talk about Fluor.

Yep. And how we, how we show Fluor to the world. You know, You talked about some of the ways that companies can start to think about how to create their brand and establish it and establish a connection between your products and say your brand name itself. What are some of the ways that they can protect their image?

Esther, what are some of the ways that a company can work to protect its brand reputation?

So we'll get a little bit edgy, if you don't mind saying Sure. Absolutely. So, cause now it has never been more difficult for a brand to protect its reputation because, because the environment is commanding and demanding responses from dif from companies on a political level like never before, right?

And so, so you can either go the risk averse route or you can go you know, the. You have, you can, you can join the sides and be, you know, energetic for a cause. But in previous, like even five years ago, this was never really an issue. No. And so when it comes to brand protection you really do need to understand where your brand fits and where you guys fit.

And it goes back into personality because now again, more than ever, even more than five years ago, brands have personalities. And so, and they are being. Forced through, you know, social federal implications to kind of like, define themselves on different spectrums. I personally think that it's, it's tough, right?

Because you're gonna lose some people and you're gonna gain some people. And so you have to understand what is the price of, of the wallet that you're trying to, you know, target. And, and it's, it's tricky. I really don't have necessarily a secret sauce for this and what's going on right now. As far as brand protection, but be true to yourself.

You know, like understand who you are as a person. Understand who your brand is, you know, if, if you have a lot of people yet, you probably need to define where there needs to be. Group consensus on where do we. Sit on a couple of the different, you know, changes that are, that are gonna be pushed onto us because your customers will demand a response.

You know, the, just the social network was gonna demand a response. And so like, what, what is, you know, are you gonna avoid it and just, you know, play Switzerland? Are you gonna choose a side? But you know, it's never been like this before. Nobody really knows how to. Play this playing field because never before in brand history has this been a thing like it's now.

So yeah, no, I'm, I'm totally with you and, and I think like the takeaway that I want my listeners to get from this today is that understand, you know, Esther works for one of the largest corporations in the world and they are struggling with how do we play ball in this new landscape. So like, keep in mind that if you're a smaller company or you know, you're a business development person or a marketer, trying to think of like, What do we get behind?

What don't we get behind? How do we do this? Understand you're not alone. Like everybody is trying to figure out how to do this because you know, the reality is, and I, you know, I hate to sound, I'd hate to sound like, like I don't care about anything. Cause I do, I care about a lot of things, but I think as a business, you know, we didn't go into business to care about different things.

For the most part, we went into business cuz there was something that we were great at. Right. And we knew that the world needed it and I think at the end of the day it's important to keep remembering why you went into business. Even with all of these crazy things and like the world being such a wild place and our access to information and the way things are changing all the time, it's easy to get caught up in this like polarized place, right?

Like that is just the world we live in. I don't care whether you're in Canada, United States. Yeah, our, our countries are polarized, like they've never been polarized before. Polarized. I've never seen Canada like this. I'm sure you've never seen the United States at the level you are at Esther, right? Right.

Remember why you got into business. I think that that's really, really critical as any company that's so important. Yeah. Is is you know, before you start to make all of these claims or what you're gonna get behind or whatever else, think about, was that something that you would've even thought about when you first got into your business?

And is it really that critical to have a side.

Esther Hall: Yeah. Yeah. I also, going back to our conversation about authenticity, right? I think it's okay right now to, to talk about it with your clients too. Like, you know, I am getting this pressure. I'm not really sure how, you know, why I, as a business owner of this particular product or service need to like, take a stand.

And you know, and you can kind of. Declare a little bit your confusion is, and, and, you know, frustration with the, with the general marketplace in this regard. And I think that you'll find a lot of empathy as well, because people are also like, yeah, we don't know which way is up either.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, for sure.

I, it's so funny, like even in the Kennedy household, you know, me and my fiance have chats about, about stuff like this regularly and it's, yeah, it's really hard. It's really hard on all levels. Like you don't. You don't think about how challenging some of these political issues are to deal with, and, you know, we don't get into politics much from this show.

This is just not a place that, once again, it's not, it's not important to the business development world, right? It's not, it's not important. So we don't really talk about it much. But like, do you understand that, like, I understand that in all of your households, these things are, you know, they're becoming talking point issues.

They're becoming, yeah. Hard conversations even between, you know, even between your family, right? So, yeah. Understand that if as a business you're struggling, we all get it, we're all struggling. Yeah. No matter what size of the business, we're all struggling with how to, how to approach these issues.

Esther Hall: And I think it's okay, my personal opinion, right?

Like it's, this is Esther's opinion, but like it's okay to just recognize like, I don't know Yeah. How to be a business owner in, in this landscape right now. And because I definitely don't wanna hurt any people. I don't wanna drive away, you know, customers based on something that is absolutely not part of my business model.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Zero to do with your business or your product or service. Right, right. I think that that's the flip side of it is that, you know, you have to think about does it, does it have any impact on, on what you do? Right. I think that that's definitely a critical, a critical point. And I, and I kind of feel like maybe if it doesn't have any impact on what you do, maybe you are Switzerland, maybe.

Yeah. Maybe you don't have to have a side. Right. Yep. Yeah. Not everything is worth, not everything is worth fighting for. I think that that's another really, right.

Esther Hall: You don't have to take a stand that is outside of your business model. And so, you know, traversing that landscape can be, you know, challenging right now.

But, but I feel like things, things have to calm down, you know? And so just kind of ride. The tul a little bit and, and it'll calm down, but, you know, stick to your guns with Switzerland.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, for sure, for sure. I wanna take us back to back to marketing. Yeah. If, if we, in, in marketing, do you see, like, what are some of the changes or upcoming trends that you're noticing Esther that maybe you didn't see a year ago?

Obviously AI is a huge one, but what are, man, what are some of the other things that you're noticing that, that might benefit businesses moving forward if they start looking into it?

Esther Hall: Well, so ai, absolutely. And just Chat G PT and all of, all of the things that are coming in that is fascinating. And, and don't listen to anybody.

Nobody knows what's going on with this. No. Like so just keep your eye out. I encourage everybody to keep themselves educated. Pay attention to it, but, you know, don't like, The sky is not falling necessarily because of some of these things. Like it has been, you know, you've seen and printed with some of the marketing stuff around Chat GPT, and, and just overall ai.

But AI is interesting and again, I feel like it's a, it's a, it could be a great tool. We all are in this same boat where you have to learn how to use it. So everybody, the exciting part is that for the most part, everybody's in the same starting point. Yeah. Which is kinda rare for marketing trends.

Usually there's, there's. Some that are ahead than others, but I feel like we're all kind of in this, in this starting point together. And then the other one, And is sustainability. I think that that is, is super interesting on an international playing field because what, you know, what is your responsibility as a brand to leave to the next generation?

And so, and again, it, it has been somewhat politicized and I wish it, we could take it out of that political spectrum, but like, you know, I do think that sustainability, your community involvement, you know, what are you doing to make the world a better place either through your business or, you know, as a human as.

In part of your business, like, you know, definitely a little bit of community sustainability is, is also a key. And cuz people want to see what you're doing with your brand, your power, your message to make the world a better place.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. And I think a lot of companies, you know, especially when, when they're starting out and kind of building their, their place, that's not really on their mind.

At least not initially, but I think all companies get to a place where it's like, okay, you know what, like. A lot has a lot of great things. People have done a lot of great things for us. How do we give back to the community? Right? Yeah. You know, like obviously with the business development podcast, it, it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a double-edged sword.

Like on the one hand, yeah, I can, I can showcase my expertise in business development. I can help other businesses and I can in some levels advertise for Capital Business Development, which is my company, but, I also recognize the value of the show and, and the point of the show. Really, at the end of the day, you know, the takeaways that you get from each of these episodes will help you grow your business.

It'll help you make better choices. It'll help you make. Choices that, you know, me and Esther had to figure out the hard way. Right, exactly. Right. Like painful, painful ways. Yeah, yeah. Right. Like the reality is, it's like, unfortunately in my life I've had to learn things the hard way 99% of the time. So if I can save even one person a headache from this show, it is all worthwhile.

And you know, we get to have these amazing interviews. One of the great things about the Business Development podcast is that I get such amazing guests, you know, guests like yourself, Esther, are incredibly accomplished working for a gigantic corporation to be able to provide. The level of information that most people just could not get.

That's just the truth. Most people could not get the level of information that they get from these interviews without frankly working for an organization like Fluor. Right? Yeah. Well, yeah, and so, yeah, I really, I really love giving back, and this is one of the ways that I can give back, but I do think it's important that all companies look at how they're doing that, because at some level it is important to give back to the community that helped you.

Esther Hall: Well it is, and then understand also where that fits into the crawl, walk, run, right? Like definitely have your crawl, walk, run, outlined, like get on your feet, you know, build your brand, get comfortable, get a good stride and then figure out, you know, your giving back policy is, is kind of my recommendation.

But But you know, it definitely, people are starting to look at it from a, just an overall consumer trends, you know, back to like, you know, never before have, have people been, you know, forced to take a stand. But they're also, you know, the, the audience, the Gen Zs specifically are looking for what are you doing to contribute to bettering the world or bettering your community?

And, and so it's a good reminder for all of us to just be a good human, this is your contribution. This is. You know, resource and education tool for so, so many people and, you know, encourage, you know, others and some of your listeners and some of your, you know, fellow fan club to, to take, you know, think outside the box and, and along these levels and how you can and impact them.

Yeah, like other people, like what can you do to really impact and, and to make a difference and to, to cause benefit and good change in the world.

Kelly Kennedy: Well., you, I talk about it on the show a lot, Esther, where. Like me and you we're business development and marketing experts. We've been doing this an incredibly long time.

However, we were really only experts until yesterday, right? Like the world is changing so much that to just stick our head in this sand and say that we know everything and we know exactly how it needs to be done. We would fall behind, we would quickly not become experts because what really makes you an expert is the ability to be a lifelong learner.

It's the ability to recognize that you don't have all the answers, but you're willing to find them out. And it's like.

Esther Hall: Humility, man. Absolutely. You ha, humility makes you an expert.

Kelly Kennedy: That's right. That's right. Because you know, it's like what worked for me right up to yesterday is amazing. Like, you know, I love the skills that I've learned in business development.

I think a lot of them are universal and continue, no matter where we go. But like you said, you know, you have to be ear to the ground. You have to see what's coming up, what are the trends changing, what, what are, what are the positions I'm gonna take on certain things, or you know, with ai, how the heck do we use it?

Cause like you said, no matter the size of the organization right now, nobody really knows how to use it. And it's a conversation we have on pretty much every episode because it's so game changing right now for everything. Sure. But, you know, recognize that, that, like Esther said, you know, the, the playing field right now on that side of things is level, but.

Make sure that you're not just implementing AI to have shiny things. You know, I had a, I had a conversation with Joel Magalnick and he was really talking about like, don't just implement things to implement things. It's like, don't, don't just have the shiny new toy if it does no benefit to you. You have to look at everything that you implement for your business and remember, like take it back to what I was talking about before, is you only have so much time.

You only have eight to 12 hours a day to do your job. Right. Make sure that if you're implementing AI, it is genuinely saving you time. It is genuinely doing things that take things off your plate because to implement AI or different technology just to do it is silly. You need to have purpose behind it.

Esther Hall: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm curious to see how the marketplace is gonna react because it goes back to the personalization, you know, like, and of course as AI develops, like it will start to take on a little bit more of that humanistic vernacular. Yeah. But. You know, it, it's definitely not as personalized and is, and, and it definitely lacks that human connection that we were talking about earlier.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally, totally. What I've found you know, my cost, we, we used Chat GPT at Capital. You know, I've used it, I've used it to help me craft emails or different things. However, I do not use it and then just say, yep, this is perfect. We're firing this out. I change an absolute ton of it. I think it's really great to organize a great pitch or to organize.

And communicate something in a way very well. However, AI embellishes pretty much everything, so I find that like a lot of the, the verbs or like action words that it uses, I have to kind of go in and be like, yeah, that's a bit much. I'm gonna tone that back. Or is this something that Kelly would say? I think maybe that's a question you need to ask yourself when you're gonna write an email or when you're gonna create a post.

Just say like, look. Is this me? Is this something that I would say? And if that answer is no, make enough changes until it is something that sounds like you.

Esther Hall: Totally agree. And, and going back to like, you know, use the free resources to, to do some research and ana analytics on, on a lot of like whatever topics Chat GPT and ai, open AI is a great research tool, but fact check, so, so absolutely fact check. Don't take it as a gospel truth when it, you know, types out or the response.

Kelly Kennedy: You know what's kind of funny, Esther, I, I watched a video and they were talking about how. When AI makes things up like that, how it'll just like create its own references and stuff. They actually don't know why it's doing that, which is a little bit terrifying.

Esther Hall: They'll, they'll cite like legal documents that are just, don't make them up completely. Not true. Yeah. And so it's, its wild. Like it can sound so convincing, but yeah, it's really, it's so interesting. It's an interesting time. It's an interesting time right now.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it really is. And you know, like we could get into the, the.

Philosophical things behind AI all day long. But one of the scary things about that, you know, is that they don't know why it's doing that. Why is it making up, like, is it just I have to create an answer? And so it's, it's making like, I feel like that, that definitely gets into the terminator level of things, where it's like maybe we need to, like, we need to take a step back until we figure out why these things are doing what they're doing.

Esther Hall: It's, it's a beast, man. Can we tame it? I don't know. We'll see.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think what's, what's amazing, and you know what I talk about on the show is that we're basically at iPhone one, right? We're at iPhone one in ai, and the stuff that it's doing already is. Unbelievable. You know, some, I would say some of the time savings just in, in the podcast itself, helping me do summaries helping me do my transcriptions for the show, like I.

The time savings alone is next level. Like the, the AI has probably saved me four to five hours of time savings for every episode. However, yeah, it's like, and it's only gonna get better and better I guess over time. But I guess what I'm getting at is it's like you, you need to see is it actually saving you the time.

I think that's, that's one of the takeaways I kind of want to get from this episode is that, Implementing new things is great, especially in the marketing world. We have to be ahead, we have to be ahead, right? When you work for a company, when you work for a large corporation, or whether you work, work for a small company you have to be innovative.

You can't get stuck in your ways, and you have to be forward thinking. But just make sure that you know, technology's changing quickly. Make sure that whatever technology you guys are implementing really has true benefit to your business. Because unless it's saving you a a lot of time, or it's creating a product that is, is amazing compared to maybe what you were doing before.

You have to ask yourself, I is the cost worth it? And I get right now, you know that cost might not be high, but over time, you know those costs add up. So you have to look at everything you're implementing and ask yourself, what value does this drive for my business?

Esther Hall: The core of economic principles, right?

Is the opportunity worth the cost? And it I'll reflect back to what we were saying when it's like, you are your brand. You know, make sure that AI is not your brand. Make sure that you keep the, you in your brand. And don't, you know, you know, just keep it in balance in check right now. So that's all.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely, absolutely. Esther, it's been an absolutely amazing episode. I've had a great conversation with you. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Esther Hall: I have been thrilled to be here. Thank you so much, Kelly.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it's so great. It's so great to have another marketing expert to kind of bounce these things off of.

It's it's a great conversation. Do you have any questions for me before we wrap up today's episode?

Esther Hall: I. I don't, I just want to work more with you. So when are you gonna come to the US and hang out?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, well we're we're doing things over in Canada, so when they let me, how about that? That sounds great.

That sounds great. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on this episode, Esther, especially such a key point episode, episode 40. Very cool. Very cool conversation.

Esther Hall: Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. Happy 40th. Kelly, truly, truly a great acomplishement.

Kelly Kennedy: Hopefully it'll be my 60th soon.

Exactly. It's coming up. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, this has been episode 40 of the Business Development Podcast. We have had an amazing, amazing conversation with Esther Hall, who is a marketing expert with Fluor Corporation. Esther, thank you for coming on the show. Until next time, we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation.

And business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca see you next time on the Business Development Podcast.