Meet Remso Martinez

Remso W. Martinez is the founder and CEO of Marketer on the Run LLC. Remso's career started in small-scale social media and blasted off in 2019 when he became the social media coordinator for the Washington Times. After a short time in the tech start-up space, Remso moved to Wisconsin in 2021 to relaunch the marketing efforts for a Milwaukee-based nonprofit on the verge of collapse, revitalizing their brand awareness, online efforts, and helping secure the necessary funding necessary to keep going. In 2022, Remso moved into the world of digital publications where he stayed until this year, when he launched Marketer on the Run LLC and made the move into full-time entrepreneurship.

Highlights

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

01:20 Guest Introduction: Remso Martinez

02:06 Remso's Career Journey

07:29 Entrepreneurship Challenges and Insights

14:19 The Fractional CMO Model Explained

18:34 Lori's Reflections on Business Growth

21:34 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Connect with Remso

marketerontherun.com

remso@marketerontherun.com

Free e-book: The Small Business Owner's Digital Marketing Handbook

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the channel that you'll find me on. Search for Lori Highby. You can simply click the follow button as I post daily information about marketing strategy, tips, all podcast episodes and any upcoming events you might find me at. If you'd like to connect, make sure to send a note with your connection request that references Social Capital.

Social Capital Podcast is sponsored by Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency that believes in order to successfully market to your ideal customer, you have to first understand your customer. You can learn more at KeystoneClick. com.

[00:02:06] Remso Martinez: Lori, we planned this a couple months ago and I've been looking forward to it and some behind the scenes. Folks, you got to understand I was, I was racing here, breaking every traffic law, trying to outrun the cops because like always, as soon as you plan something, you're like, I'm running 10 minutes late and you know, I'm glad we were finally able to make this happen.

I'm excited.

[00:02:27] Remso Martinez: No elderly drivers were injured during the disclaimer.

[00:02:55] Remso Martinez: Yeah, the, the lockdowns of 2020, like for everyone else, it completely kind of rerouted my career. I thought, you know, I thought that every place I was going to be at, I was going to be at for some time. When I was at the Washington Times, you know, I was in the newsroom working the night shift typically from like 2 to 9 PM.

So I was like I'm in it. I'm living like, my, you know, social media, Hunter Thompson lifestyle. It was great. And then COVID came and kind of messed that up because the, the news industry, particularly the newspaper space, what was struggling and a lot of folks were leaving and I had to make a very difficult choice.

So I went and had, and I got basically headhunted to work for a tech startup based out of Henderson, Nevada, and the social media space. Anyone that anyone that's ever worked in competitive social media, it's a X and Facebook and everything else. You understand that's probably not the best place to be because it's chaotic. I said that that show Silicon Valley uh, showed way less breakdowns than what you would imagine, but did that for a while. And then I had to basically kind of figure out it's like, you know, I'm a marketer, I want to be in the space, but I need something that is not going to go away anytime soon.

So I got hit up by a nonprofit in a Walker's Point. They said we'll move you out here. We need you to totally flip everything on its head and tell us what we're doing wrong. And there was a lot, which I mean, in many cases, folks look at that and they're like, Oh, I have to go ahead and perform like emergency surgery.

Like the heart's falling out. The foot got amputated by mistake. I thought it was fun. I got to create the inbound blueprint and I was, you know, the photographer, the social media guy, the copywriter. So that was fun for a while, but very quickly I realized that the nonprofit space is different than the corporate world, and I didn't know whether or not this was a culture I necessarily wanted to be in around that time.

I was getting married. And at that point, I was at a decision point because I'm getting married. I also found out that my mother in law had stage four cancer. So while I had this idea, I was like, I've worked with a lot of small businesses on and off. I even took on some celebrity clients for a while. I could probably do this on my own.

People have been telling me for, you know, over two years at that point, you could probably run your own thing. And I was like, I don't know how I want it to look. I don't know what I would typically do. So I spoke with a, with a mentor of mine and he was basically like, you should do what you think you would do if you knew you could not fail. Now, that has been something that has kind of stuck with me, but I was like, there's what I would do if I was my only risk. It's different when you're about to take on the responsibility of, you know, of a life partner, of a spouse, and then you have to inherit all the, all the challenges that come with taking on additional family.

So while I was establishing an agency at the time, a lot of the reporters that I worked with at the Washington Times had heard about what happened. Some of us stayed in contact and they actually helped me get a job at a place called Inner Markets, which was the best place I ever worked. And once again, I'm like, I'm going to be here forever.

I'll ride or die for these people. I'll get the company logo tatted. Like I was, I was in it to win it. And, you know, Inner Markets is a great company. They currently work with me in a different capacity now, but you know, at that point some, some asset acquisitions took place. I went over to another company called the Publisher Desk, which ironically was the place that laid me off and what's actually kind of crazy now, and I could say it publicly as Lori, since they let me go six months ago, guess who came back to me again last week and told me they needed some help with things.

[00:06:21] Remso Martinez: You understand you people kind of like made things difficult for me, but it was, it was the necessary you know, fulcrum point in which I realized, like, if I'm going to do this, I need to do it hard. And, you know, should I have done the agency two years ago? Probably not. I still think I needed some growing.

I don't think I'm, I would have been as prepared as I was now because the last year I was building up to this point, planning my exit. The last company I was at had a different idea of when that exit would be. But you know, I'm religious and I believe that, you know, God doesn't always give us what he wants, but he will put us in the difficult situations professionally and personally for us to assess.

Are we going to look at this challenge and cry victim? Are we going to make something of it? So, well, I definitely don't get, Yeah, I don't, I don't take credit for the good things that happen. I certainly look at the tough situations and I'm like, okay, maybe this is the moment that's going to change things for me.

And while I might not see it now, I believe that he's got a plan for me. And that's ultimately better than what I imagined. And, you know, thankfully now I'm still building, I'm still doing good. I'm very happy.

[00:07:38] Remso Martinez: Everyone's on crack. You don't know which way is up or down. It's just like, I don't know what's happening.

Well, what, what drove you to make that decision?

I had to go to a lot of folks that had been longterm contractors that had been business owners. And my thing was like, do I quit my job before they fire me? Or do I just, you know, stick it and build it and then leave when it's accommodating for me. And for the most part, I was like, I'm not working very much right now.

And you know, I've always had side hustles, so I can build this at night and do what I need to do during the day to still be compliant. I think a lot of folks, especially uh, when remote work became a very big thing, they had to take on additional work. When I was at the Washington Times, they cut salaries 10%.

And luckily things really worked out. But when I was let go in April, I was probably at like 36 K. And you know, people are like, don't talk numbers, but I'll talk numbers because I want people to kind of understand why I was at, like, I was lucky that I had savings. I had some passive income, but when you don't plan on that, and I was also the sole income, like my wife was just working at the time.

She would get laid off a couple of weeks later, about a week after I did. And luckily now she's going to be starting work in August, a place that's gone, you know, treat her well. She's really excited. I'm excited for her. Quickly, I was like, I need access to quick cash. Uh, I was just starting off. I didn't have a line of business credit left.

So I looked at my wife and I was like, I can keep applying for part time or full time jobs right now, but the company is set up. I have everything I need. What I need is revenue.

So quickly I realized that I could just go in like, you know, look desperate and throw ninja card, business cards at people. Or what I can do is I can try and go learn from people who have been doing this. I can understand what it looks like in more of the agency world, which is very different from corporate, which is what I've had to figure out. And, you know, a form partnerships because you put 10 marketers in a room and they all do 10 different things.

[00:10:31] Remso Martinez: So I started looking for conferences and very quickly I was like, shoot, like this is peak conference season. I need to go to Washington. I need to go Texas. I need to go Colorado. I need to go to Illinois. I need to go all these places. What I figured out quickly was I needed quick access to cash and I needed time expediency.

So quickly we were looking at the money we had and we were like, you know what? We don't want to touch our savings right now, but we have this house fund. And you know, it's, it's one of those things where as a husband, I was very much like, if I do this and I fail, I have completely screwed up. If I do this and succeed, this is going to pay itself off and very quickly. And I thought she was going to argue with me more. She was just like, take the money and do what you need to do. So from like April through July, I was basically like living in like Southwest Group A, I was able to like, I was, I was able to uh, you know, do a lot of work in airport lounges, but very quickly, I was like, the only way for me to meet these people is to physically go meet them.

[00:11:30] Remso Martinez: I think a lot of folks have really discounted meeting people in a physical space and just having conversations. And very quickly, I was meeting with the guy who brought on his name was John Lakefish from the Lakefish group in Seattle. He's the man who brought on Bonefish Grill and Outback Steakhouse online in 2003.

I met the guy who handled Jack Daniel's account for like seven years. I met some wild, insanely successful, smart and talented men and women. And what this did was not only did it teach me what I needed, but I also need to build confidence because for a while I had been playing entrepreneur, but now it was like, shoot, like I have to have some like psycho level confidence to pitch myself to people, especially since I was going to these places,

And had also, like, I was a team of one, I'm a solopreneur and I just started. And I had like three clients. So very quickly, it's like, if I don't develop some confidence, if I don't go and talk to people, because I'm an introvert by nature nothing's, all this is not going to be worth it. Like I might as well have not even come. So it forced me to treat it seriously.

And by the end of my travels, I had secured enough clients, I had gained enough knowledge, I formed enough industry partnerships with folks to white label and do other things and just seek general guidance from, because the thing I realized is like, I don't know a lot. I think I told you one time, it's like, Lori, I'm going to ask you a lot of stupid questions because I don't know what I don't know.

[00:12:55] Remso Martinez: But um, it got to the point where it was like, you know, when I finally did the math and when I finally looked at how everything had kind of worked over the last four months, it was like, I've, I've actually done this and it's working and this is gonna be something that's sustaining. And you almost don't believe it until you look at the numbers and you're like, this doesn't lie. Like I achieved my goal. I'm going to be able to put money back into that funds pretty soon. We didn't have to touch a lot of our emergency money. Luckily, my wife was able to get a job soon as well, and I'm doing better than I expected. But you know, it's one of those things where it's like, okay, I can't get comfortable.

Now I'm like, Oh, it was really easy finding all those clients. I say that now, because I work specifically as a fractional CMO. Now I need these people to like me and see the results long enough to want to keep me so I can keep this going. It's been wild, but you know, you see stories on YouTube about people who take wild, stupid chances.

Remso, two years ago, would have never done this.

[00:13:59] Remso Martinez: But it was one of the situations where it's like, if I'm gonna do it, You know, you can make up money. I've been very wealthy in my life. I've also been like dirt broke and it's always been in cycles. My thing is like I can make up money. I can't make up lost opportunities because once those are gone, they almost never come back.

[00:14:23] Remso Martinez: Yeah, so a fractional CMO has actually been around for about a decade and a half. I tell people quite honestly, I, you know, I've been in the marketing space really as a professional since 2019. I didn't know what this was until February of this year.

You know, they know that it's important, but they don't necessarily, necessarily have the funds for it, or if they want to hire somebody, they know they want somebody who's like, you know, a Hussein Bolt, but maybe they have to hire somebody who's like the fifth place finalist at the local track meet. So very quickly, it's like you have high standards, but you're offering very little to get people in.

And in the nonprofit space specifically, you know, you're typically looking for a junior marketer. That's making roughly 60k if they're being generous and they're glorified social media coordinators, but quickly expands onto email, podcasting, videography, photography, copywriting they start doing everything.

So the average burnout rate is 15 months. In the private sector, it could be up to 24 months. So what I realized was that a lot of my existing clients at the time they needed the experience, but they either needed to stick within a fixed budget, but they didn't need a lot out of me and they didn't care if I was exclusive to them or not.

So what the fractional CMO model does for marketers who I say, at least have 10 years or a good amount of, mid to senior management experience of coordinated projects can know enough in a lot of different things to be dangerous, but know when they need to tap out and bring like a specialist for email or bring a specialist for like PPC or something, they can quickly do that because they're not just working on the day to day stuff. They're working on the longterm development. So you're in the team, but you're not there like necessarily every day, every minute, like what most people are. And this is a model which fits for a lot of people.

So what I have is I have my clients, I have those specific things I do. I'm either in charge of everything or I'm in charge of a specific wing.

And, you know, I, I kept my clients because you get to the point where when you're a one man fractional CMO, you can only create so much time out of the day. So it's like, you've got to work within that clock. But with that, you know, I think people develop more trust in you because they know that you're a veteran in what you're talking about.

They respect your experience more and cost wise, you know, you're paying a fraction of the cost. Then what you would do to bring on somebody that within a year, they're going to leave, or you're going to let them go. And then you got to go through the whole rigmarole process of trying to find somebody else.

That's costly for hiring to try and find somebody else that creates continuity issues. Because no one ever wants to pick up the marketing when that person leaves. It's always like, well, anyone can do this. And then they start doing it. And then they're like, this is horrible. Why would anyone do this? And it's like, that's why we exist.

And then when you bring somebody on it, it takes like 30 to 60 days for them to really get in the rhythm. So what have you just lost? You've lost like a whole quarter of progress. The fractional CMO model is good for people that value a lifestyle over immediate growth. They want to stick with certain clients long term and they want to be able to tap into a lot of different industries and different business types to not only keep themselves fresh, but, you know, also build a network where you can bring people in to help each other.

I have clients of mine who I've introduced to each other where, because I know how each of them works, when it's time to collaborate on something I know exactly what they need. And I've got clients ranging from like local laser tag places to expat consultancy firms and super packs and everything in between, because, they are all different, but a lot of the solutions they need can be sometimes pretty cookie cutter. But it's allowed me to really excel and do what I do best, which is helping solve problems for people.

[00:18:34] Remso Martinez: When did you start feel like, like it was real? Like you're at a point where it's like you can give yourself permission to relax and take a day off and maybe delegate that task that you didn't want to. Your, your agency is like a full blown thing.

You've got people you're responsible for and people you have to develop trust with. When did you start feeling like you actually got to the point where it's like, Oh, I built something that's not only good, but I don't need to be in it like every second in every way.

[00:19:07] Remso Martinez: I would just jump into the deep end.

And I was just kind of in this, like, do I know what I'm doing? Is this the right decision? Should I just go work for somebody else? But then shortly after I was going through this, you know, mental, shenanigans I had won a very large contract for a global company to redo their website.

And I was like, well, that answers my question. If I could win this kind of business on my own, by myself, but this thing, this machine that I built, then I know that I've got the capability, the know how to be a real legitimate business. So, that felt pretty good. That was kind of that little, I guess, turning moment of, do I know what I'm doing to, yeah, I've got this.

The marketing, And I always knew I was good. Not, not to blow smoke up my rear, but I always knew I was good. This was the area where it's like, even still, it's like, okay, I'm, I'm better than I was six months ago. I hope I'll be better than I am now, six months from now. But you know, it's still at the point where it's like, it's real. Breathe, Remso. You're, you're like actually doing it now.

And I still learn things, like I said, so, yeah. All right. So, thank you for that. That was a really fun question to answer.

What, what, any final words of wisdom that you'd like to leave with our listeners?

The thing that I wish I had known was that I don't have to offer everything. Learn what I'm good at. Outsource what I'm not good at. Everyone's going to be happier. The other thing I've also had to still continue to work on is boundaries. I very much got caught up in that and very quickly, you know, a mentor of mine asked me, it's like, Remso, do you want a growth business or do you want a lifestyle business? And he was pushing me more towards growth. But as he was explaining it, I'm like, that's that I don't want that. I'm very happy with just doing what I want to do.

And maybe I don't make like a bazillion dollars in a year, but I know what I want. And if I can hit that, I'm totally fine because you know, my thing was like, I had to, I had to buy back my own time. It was like, okay, get eight hours of sleep, eat a salad, go to the gym, go like, you know, go look at a duck at the Lake or something.

Like I, it's like I almost had to remember, it's like I didn't want to go back into the corporate space because I was tired of feeling like I was, I was either taken for granted or being mistreated because toxic workplaces are real, but very quickly I realized that I was treating myself. Which I am, I, my biggest resource, my best employee, I was treating myself like my worst employee.

I was treating myself horribly and very quickly. I was like, would I ever expect anybody to work and treat themselves the way that I'm treating myself right now? And, you know, that I had to change my inner monologue in that sense of, you know, just like work until it's 1am. But very quickly, I was like, my work and my results are going to struggle for people.

And my clients genuinely like me. And that was another thing too. It's like, my clients treat me better than any of my employers I've had. So very quickly, I was like, if I have to tell them I'm going to delay something, or if I have to tell them I don't like how I did this, I want to redo it. They trust me.

Yeah. And that's what they, what you get as a fractional CMO. They're regularly in contact with you. They know the process. They know that you've taken the time to really understand them. It's personal. It's kind of like the personal trainer of marketing. It's not just a one and done thing. You lost the weight The next thing is okay.

What's the next goal? And it's a life cycle thing. So I wish I treated myself better I'm working on that. I wish i'd taken more chances because if you don't like they'll disappear. And it's one of those things where it's like, you got to adapt my, the way my business looks right now is not how I thought it was going to be at the beginning of the year, but quickly I had to assess it's like, is this how I'm going to do it or not?

And it's different, but it's what it needs to be.

[00:24:36] Remso Martinez: Marketerontherun. com. That's marketerontherun. com where they can just shoot me an email at remso, R E M S O at marketerontherun. com.

No, I appreciate it. And for your listeners, I went ahead and included a link that I sent over. It's a free downloadable copy of my free ebook called The Small Business Owners, a Digital Marketing Handbook.

My thing with a lot of small businesses is that they spent a lot of blood, time, sweat, and tears building a business. They don't need to know how to do the marketing. They have to have an understanding, but I want them to be empowered of knowledge so they can actually have a conversation with me. And we feel like we're speaking the same language and we're not speaking marketer ease.

So this is a beginner level, basic reader's digest guide to understanding what you need to know. So whether you want to insource it with your team and bring things in house, or whether you want to bring on some of the folks at Keystone Click, or maybe you want to look at fractional CMO, or maybe you just need somebody to just do a couple of things and you like doing the rest.

You'll be empowered with what you need to know.

Yeah. Awesome. We'll include that information in the show notes as well. All right. This wraps up our episode of Social Capital. A huge thank you to Remso for taking the time to connect with us. If you have a burning marketing or relationship. Just reach out.

I'd love to answer it on the show. And as mentioned before, let's connect on LinkedIn, connect with Remso, connect with myself, looking forward to hearing from you shortly. And I hope you enjoy today's show.