Foodservice operators are embracing fresh, innovative marketing strategies that are essential for staying relevant and successful in today’s consumer landscape.

This week, Nick Portillo sits down with Kate Finley,  Founder of Belle Communication, to uncover the wide-ranging opportunities for financial growth in the foodservice industry. Kate shares how strategic storytelling and authentic brand communication can set companies apart in an increasingly crowded market. She shares insights from her extensive experience helping food brands build genuine connections with their audiences and explains why transparency and trust matter more than ever.

Listen as Nick and Kate explore the rapid evolution of marketing in the rise of digital platforms.

RESOURCES

Portillo Sales

Belle Communications

CONTACT 

Nick: nick.portillo@portillosales.com

There are a million ways to make money in the food service industry. You just have to find one. On the Titans of Food Service podcast.

I interview real life movers and shakers in the food game who cut through all the noise to get to the top. My name is Nick Portillo and welcome to the Titans of Food Service podcast. Let's jump right into it.

All right, Kate, welcome to the Titans of Food Service podcast. I appreciate you taking time to come and meet with me.

I am looking forward to chatting. I've been following you for a while and this is great to have a conversation.

Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So I've done some research and I've worked with your company a little bit as well. And I'm curious, how did you come up with Bell Communications?

So that kind of goes, I guess, way back, but to jump to where I created Bell. So I had, I had gotten into food service in that space space in college. I actually was going to school for hospitality management.

I wanted to do event planning. There wasn't that degree where I went to school. And I'm like, you know what?

I'll.

I'll manage hotels and I'll get into that. And that was, that experience was awesome.

I mean, I was taking, you know, knife skills classes and, you know, learning how to julienne, learning how to make a bell and like, all those things in my classes. And then as I went through, I realized, you know, I'm a connector. That's really what I love to do. I love communication. I. I love connecting people.

And I changed my major to public relations and did all that. And then my first job, as humble as it was out of college, was working for Chick Fil a as a marketing director.

And it wasn't, you know, their big corporate office, but I had a unit, an operator that I was working with. Had no idea how it would be setting me up, you know, in the future to understand that environment. But so I had that experience.

And in that experience, I mean, I did get to, you know, I met Truett, I went corporate and did all that. And then I stayed and helped do grand openings, build up their catering program.

Look at the boots on the ground guerrilla marketing that it takes to build up a unit.

So it was, I mean, it was sometimes a glorified intern sort of position as, as restaurant jobs can be, but it was a lot of responsibility at the same time. So I was, I mean, I was slinging chicken sandwiches door to door, business to business.

And then I was also building up with, you know, pharmaceutical Reps and catering programs and understanding how the different channels work in communication and, and how do you really market on a community based level, you know, and so that was really, really a wonderful experience. I went from there to work at an agency where they worked with a ton of food brands.

I, I was working with food, you know, pork rind companies to make canned tomatoes, restaurants all over the place and doing public relations primarily.

So I would work with media and had to figure out, okay, how do I tell these stories in a compelling way where whether this is, you know, a talk show host or Rachael Ray, they're interested in these stories. And so it was a challenge, but I was securing anywhere from 25 to 50 media pieces of coverage a week. So it was, I mean, you think about that.

So I'm pitching these stories and I am getting 25 to 50 different journalists to say yes to me every week for the brands that I work with. And that's hard. That's hard business. Yeah, hard business similar to sales. Right. And so I did that and it was a great experience.

But coming out of it, I just realized, you know, and I had other experiences after that. I love food and I love pr, but if I'm going to do it, it has to be in a way that allows me to create meaningful work and thriving relationships.

And everybody watching this, you know, work is, work is great. Hopefully work is very exciting and you're passionate about your work and it fulfills you in a lot of ways. But it's not all there is.

We are people and we have our families and we have our communities. And so how do we create work and make those connections and do it in a way that, you know, allows us to live life and be healthy?

And so that's something I took out of that kind of turn and burn sort of environment. And that's really what Bell was born out of that idea of like, how do we do work that's really meaningful.

It's making an impact not only to the bottom line, but in life. You know, how are we making those meaningful connections but then still having thriving relationships inside and outside of work?

And so Belle was born out of that. And we have, have evolved, you know, over the years. It's been more than a decade. It's been like more than 12 years. So congratulations. Crazy.

Actually now I look back and go, wow, that is bizarre. But, and exciting and all those things. But really was born out of that. You know, how do you make connections like these?

And, and that's, that's what I think Makes the most impact. Yeah.

Incredible. Where'd you go to school?

I went to school at the University of Akron. So I'm a zip, right? So LeBron and I have Akron, Ohio, in common. I was born in that area.

When you're going to school, you mentioned you were getting a degree in pr. Did your classmates. How many of them went into the food business?

You know, it was such a mixed bag. There were a lot of. I didn't really focus on comms initially because I thought, man, I just see a bunch of athletes in here who are taking it.

You know, they're taking these courses because they got to take something, and. And the teachers will give them a grade because they're doing great in sports, whatever. So I was initially very resistant.

I felt like it was kind of a fluff sort of focus. But then once I, you know, realized, you know, there's that idea you're probably familiar with of the unique ability, like, you. Oh, okay.

So this is cool. This is. So the idea is that each person.

And I think Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach is the one who came up with it, but I'm a big fan of the traction model, which is okay. And so they mentioned unique ability in there. They expand on it in Dan Sullivan's books.

But the idea is that each person has something innate in them, regardless of what they do. You know, are we in food? Are we not in food? We doing what? Regardless of that, there's something that is so core to who you are.

You need to figure out what that is and then just dive into that and stay true to that unique ability. And so for me, my unique ability is really connection, which I mentioned, and then influence. I really love to.

When I find something I love, like a podcast or whatever, I am bringing people along into that and making the connection. And so for me, when I. Back when I was, you know, majoring, I didn't have those words of unique ability, but I realized I was. That was who I was.

Right.

And so regardless of how that played out, whatever degree or whatever job I took, if I went corporate or agency or whatever industry, I needed to make sure that I was doing what just naturally came out of me, you know?

And so I think that's why Belle has been so successful, because I also, you know, in what we're doing, we need to look at our teams and how do we unlock their unique ability. And when we're connecting, you know, you talk about, like, connecting with, you know, operators or whoever, we're trying there.

We're trying to connect with. We need to think about what really makes them and their brand unique and lean into that.

And that's where we connect from, and that's how we make those meaningful connections.

It makes sense. You mentioned getting 25 to 30 pieces of media.

I don't know. I really burned out, man. I was. I was working like 80 or 90 hours a week. It was crazy. But, yeah, that's insane.

I mean, okay, how did you. How did you do that?

Yeah, so you develop a system. Because I worked with.

And, you know, this is the benefit of working with, you know, an agency that specializes because we had so many clients in one segment.

Like, If I had 10, 10 restaurant clients or 10 food clients, I would go through and I would, you know, I would pitch a story angle to the Wall Street Journal or whatever, and if they pick up on it, then I'm connecting them to other stories. So you're finding those journalists who really.

And really, your question, kind of on a practical level, we have, you know, whether it's an emerging food brand or an operator or a large, you know, mega. We've got 500 units, a thousand units. How do we tell stories that spark interest? And journalists pick up on them.

And the value right now in that is only getting. It's only increasing. Because when we look at things like we did a report actually recently.

We'll talk more about that later maybe, but when we look at how noisy things are today, the media landscape is so noisy. How do you stand out? How do you make a connection? Journalists are, you know, they're moving around.

There's a lot of compression happening in the media landscape. AI is disrupting everything. Whole media teams are being swept up. And so for, you know, for me as an operator or as a brand, how do I tell that story?

And it's really about looking at very practically their LinkedIn profile. What do they like to talk about? What do they write about? Okay, now what. What do we really. What's core to who we are?

And taking that, making sure it's authentic, but taking that idea and connecting the dots. So that's really how I did it. I spent a lot of time researching.

It's very time consuming, you know, but you develop those relationships over time, too. So it can feel intimidating when you're trying to, you know, get even a local journalist to cover you. It's like you're cold calling.

Yeah.

You know, so it's, it's, it's a little stressful. But if you keep it authentic to you and your brand, then it becomes easier because you're not. I always look at it like I'm trying to help.

So for me, I, I look at my, you know, my coffee shop, my pizza joint, whatever it is, like I'm trying to help my community. I'm trying to make that connection. And so in that case, I'm not really selling. I'm bringing those two ideas together.

And I would imagine very interesting too, around AI and oh, I have a lot of thoughts on journalism and, and you know, all those types of things. I'm big into into sports.

Oh yeah.

And you know, reading, I, I, I have writers that I like. Like, there's a guy here in la, Bill Ply. I really like him.

Yeah.

But there's also other writers or other pieces of content that I can, I can read and feel like, did this person actually write this authentic content or was this created by a click of a button through ChatGPT or some medium like that? But on that, I would imagine trying to break through the noise and get to somebody that is in the space or someone you'd want to work with.

They probably get bombarded from potential sources, you know, trying to pitch their stories as well. How do you break through, through that and get to these people?

Yeah, it's really about doing your research on the front end. If you're just sending something out, we call it spray and pray in the industry. You just spray it out and pray someone picks up on it.

You know, if you're doing that, you're not going to see results.

So it's really about looking at, okay, being maybe you pick three people, you know, three publications you want to be in and then you're going to start digging. If it's national, it's, it's even harder local. So either way it takes, it's challenging.

But national is pretty hard because they're getting bombarded with pitches because everybody wants to be in USA Today and the Wall Street Journal and all of, in Forbes and Bloomberg and all of those things. But when you look on a trade level, that's what's particularly interesting. So there's a stat that's in our, our report.

And in that we interviewed operators, we interviewed chefs, we interviewed people in the industry and we looked at, okay, what, how should we be marketing ourselves right now? What is the new marketing mix? And a lot, there's a lot of data in there.

But one of the pieces that really stood out to me is that 95% of people when, when operators are looking to work with a supplier, whatever, they are looking at what their reputation looks like online, they're looking at what's said about them. They're doing their own Research. So 95%, that's the stat, are doing their own research first. They're looking at what's going on online.

And so as a part of that, they're looking in the trade pubs, they're looking at articles about, okay, what are the best energy source sources for restaurants? What are the food trends I need to be aware of right now, what's happening within ingredients.

And so then they're reading these articles and seeing sources cited that are speaking to their expertise in whatever the space is. And then those operators saying, great, you're an expert, let me just reach out to you.

So that sort of thought leadership is really how you stand out right now. And the other thing within AI, AI is pulling from, from media. So when you're using we'll say Chat GPT and you're asking questions about trends.

You want to know how can we, what proteins are the most cost efficient?

When I'm trying to do, you know, vegetarian food or something, or vegan food, you know, like you're looking okay, what proteins take the least amount of time for me to prep for my team, something really like tiny seeming like that, but could have big impact. Little. Every little question you can so orsit and you look through ChatGPT and it is pulling up sources from media.

So then it's say I'm writing an article on, you know, we'll say the best coffees or whatever. Then you're looking at which coffees, you know, cost effectiveness, flavor, all those things for my restaurant. And ChatGPT is pulling those sources.

And so what that means is we need to be in those sources so we can be sourced for the answer when the operator is there. And so I think that's one of the biggest opportunities. Opportunities. And I did see also that 51 of people now are using chat GPT and not Google.

So how we look at SEO has completely changed. The marketing mix is being totally disrupted by AI. And I think one of the things that's being slept on the most is that connection.

It won't be for long, but now's the time to get in. But to get, get in there, get your media coverage, it's sourced through AI.

The operators are searching for it and then the connection is made and the leads are generated and they are more qualified, warmed up and ready to do business.

Interesting how that works. I, I read this book, I think it was something like they ask you answer or something like that.

And it was all about this, this guy, he owned a pool company and sold like, I don't know if he built pools or what, but his big thing was around media and through his website and everywhere, he would create articles all the time, like, what are the best types of pool toys, what are the best types of pools? All these different things.

So that when someone goes and looks up and lean something for their pool at home or whatever it is, he pops up and, you know, he becomes a thought leader. He talks about the good and the bad in the industry, talks about even competitive his competitors and all these different things.

And so that through search, Whether it's through ChatGPT or Google or wherever you find, maybe even YouTube or wherever you find your, your media or your sources, he's someone that's coming forward as a thought leader. And of course, you know, through osmosis, his business is, is growing. It sounds like that's kind of what, what you do.

Yeah, so that, what that is really focused around is SEO and so that's search. When we're looking at Google now, the AI tools will pull that kind of content because it's valuable content.

And because he's probably been writing for so long, he has authority. Now the challenge is, if you haven't been doing that, because that takes dedication, you know, and a lot of resources.

If you haven't been doing that, how do you get AI to source you? And so the shortcut is the media component.

If you can get media, because they already have credibility, they already have authority, they're consistently being sourced, AI knows that's an authority, which means it'll probably, I'll say probably be quality. So I'm going to source from that.

Now that might not be true all the time, but that's where it's trying to figure out, okay, what with all it's, you know, crazy thinking that we can't even understand. Where, where can I pull an answer that is credible and helpful for you?

And so that's what, that's why I'm excited about this kind of resurgence of pr, because even now there's a method and I don't know how long this will last, but right now, if you're putting press releases out on the wire, AI is, is seeing that as credible and pulling that through so that be can be a quick way to get AI to rank, you know, pull that information. The only thing I'll say too is it's refreshing.

Every 30 days so that means if you're ranking, great, because you got nation's restaurant news to cover your story or your idea, great. But in 30 days it's not going to pull from that anymore. It's maybe not right. It's going to search again and say what else is relevant.

So you have to consistently be getting sourced.

And then the other thing is when you look at, and you can tell I'm excited about this topic, when you, when you look at your own website and your own social channels, this is the spot where there's, we saw quite a disconnect in our report.

So, you know, you're, you know, say you make cheese and you're, you've got your website set up and you're talking about how great your cheese is and all the specs, AI is not really going to source that. And also operators aren't that interested in that.

Like there's, yes, of course we have to have specs, but they're really interested in how does that, what is what translates story wise? Like what are you saying beyond just your spec sheet?

How are you speaking to, if I bring your cheese into the mix here, how is that going to transform my customer experience? You know, so that's the kind of thinking, the shifting. You've talked about this in the marketing messaging.

We can't just be saying the same thing and speaking to specs. We have to speak to the story. And, and so that's a great opportunity as well.

That makes sense. In what I found in working with food service brands.

Pretty much everyone I work with, you know, being food manufacturers and selling their products into operators, into distributors. Yeah, I've got a portion of brands, a small portion of brands that are really big into their brand. They built it in retail. It's widely known.

You would probably know it just by, you know, whether it's through commercials or going into the grocery store or whatever it may be. And that translates into food service as well. But the overwhelming majority of brands that I represent, you've never heard of in your life.

You know, they sell their product in, it's not an unmarked, but it's close to unmarked brown box that's wholesale, that's used in a kitchen, it's used as some sort of ingredient.

Do you find that the, the brands that you work with are, are a lot of them going and trying to get into PR in media or is this a big part of their business that they're missing?

It's a part of their business they're missing. We actually did a webinar And I can share the link with you afterward. But we just did a webinar on how to reach operators in today's world.

You know, the marketing mix, and it was tied to the report, and we surveyed them. And so the traditional metrics, like trade shows, you know, or traditional ads, that kind of thing, they're. They're all over it. Right.

But then if you think about it, everybody's doing it. Right. So it's very saturated. It's hard to sell.

But when it comes to things like public relations, which blows my mind that it's this with it, public relations, influencer relations, and social media, it was less than 30% were doing it. And so when I look at that, because, you know, I'm saying I've been doing PR for.

I've been doing PR for 15 years or whatever, I'm thinking of how old I am, you know, right now. 15 years. And this isn't. This has been around for a long time, much longer than I. I've been around pr. Right.

And so why are we not capitalizing on this? And I think there's a bit of. This is how we've done it. We know that it works, even though it's not working as well as it used to, too. Right.

But then, well, we'll just double down and put more dollars into these traditional methods. It's still not working. So at some point, we have to take a bit of a risk. Although I don't feel it's that much because we have data to support it.

Right. And we have to explore these new tactics. Sure. Yes, of course. Do the trade show. Go to the NRA show. Go where you're going.

But how am I going to do it differently? How am I going to create an experience that stands out? What is my. Even with the sales team, what. What is. How does my outreach plan change?

What sort of thought leadership pieces are we developing to help. To help the buyer, to help the operator? How are we helping them and giving things away?

Not just, you know, sampling is good too, but how are we actually giving them resources to become better educated? So thinking about it that way. Also, I think you spoke to this too. Chef influencers. That's another thing that when we, in this report.

So we surveyed 14 different chefs, and they were saying that they're more likely to buy a product if they see another chef talk about that product.

Yes.

Because that chef's reputation is on the line. And so they know you just vetted it for me. I don't have to take the risk. So then what's happening now is. And it's, it's increasing like crazy.

Wow.

That's huge.

So that means people are looking at, wait a second, what can I do here? Chefs are a direct tie to credibility, similar to the hacks. So we'll say these are hacks, right? What's the hack?

So we can jump right into the media and use their credibility. Same with chefs. And so then you can use.

One of the things we do is we work with chefs and brands to create campaigns that are very, they feel very authentic. You have to, you know, do what the chef would actually want to use. The chef has to be willing to do it, of course.

But then you create this partnership and you use it in your trade shows and you use it in your social media and you use it in your sales outreach. So those are the kind of things now that we're helping people expand and explore.

But to your point of, okay, I'm an established brand, I have a big brand, but I'm a, you know, we have some clients. It's like I, I do waste management and it's not very sexy. And, you know, yeah, no one's going to really see me, and that's fine. But.

But I want my buyer to see me. And so in that case, we. It's just about knowing who you're speaking to. Right. What problems.

These are the things our sales teams are doing, but we're making sure. And this is a big one. Your sales team and your marketing team have to be connected. It's so hard.

They're operating in silos, and that is detrimental now. They have to talk. They have to strategize.

If the marketing team is giving you content like they got you featured in, you know, whatever trade outlet was relevant to your industry, they get you featured. Use that, use that to help educate and, and just give value to your potential and current buyers.

So that disconnect is one that is disheartening to me, but I am encouraged that more people are, are working on it and, and trying to connect the dots between or really break down, you know, the silos.

It couldn't agree more. You look at not just the food industry, but other industries as well. You know, the billion dollar businesses, they do marketing super well.

A lot of the clients that I work with, they do production well and they do sales well. And marketing is like this foreign thing to them.

Yes, yes.

You know, they, they see, you know, maybe their kids are, are on social media, like there's some sort of value to that, but they stick to what you said. I do the food shows, maybe I create some sort of coupon, but everyone's doing that. It kind of gets lost in the noise.

It's, it's a thing, it's good to have right in your back pocket to do those types of things. But there's so much more through the Internet, social media, just media in general to get your, your name out there, your brand out there.

But what if I'm someone thinking, okay, I'm sold. All this looks, sounds really good to me, but I'm not Coca Cola or I'm not Pepsi and I don't have the dollars.

What is, how much does something cost to do, you know, to get your name out there? Is it a high barrier entry or can I spend a little? And how, how hands on would I have to be in doing that?

Great questions. And so it depends on what, who you're trying to reach that's going to determine, you know, what sort of campaign I would encourage.

If you're, you need someone who's running point within marketing. So for example, I'll just do this as an example.

We work with brands when they have an established marketing team or at least a marketing point of contact, because you don't want to be working directly with, you know, someone in the C suite because let's be honest, it's not really going to get done. They're too busy. Right. So you have that and then ideally you've had, you know, previous agency experience.

But what I would encourage people to do is explore a pilot, a test. Why don't you try working with one chef? And that's totally approachable. That's, that's, we do that. You work with one chef or three.

Let's try something out.

And then you can see, wow, look at what that did for not only our content, but we warmed up leads, we have content that we can pull through to the sales team thinking holistically. So I would say work with someone who you can do a test with and then once you test it, you can expand it.

You know, that's, that would be my recommendation for that. And I will say to social, so you know this, but social SEO is such a big thing. So we have to remember this is no longer.

It's funny, I would say the boys club of sales, but, I mean, most of the sales guys are still guys. You know, I remember I was in this food service group and it was. I got a guy, and then I joined and, like, I got a guy and a gal.

Like, I was the one gal. Yeah, all those guys. But, you know, things are changing. We are trying to engage millennials in our. Our marketing and our sales. Right.

Those are the people. Those are our. Hopefully our sales teams are starting to incorporate some of those people, but the buyer is more and more often a millennial now.

And what are they doing? They're not doing the traditional. Oh, yeah, I know Joe, and I'm gonna just work with him. No, no, no. They're trying to save.

They're trying to save money. They're trying to be relevant. And so they're using social. They're using social to do that. And from a consumer perspective, our data.

So we surveyed a bunch of influencers and their audiences. That's a. We have a tool that surveys influencers, operators, chefs called brilliant.

And so anyway, we surveyed them and we found that 50, like, anywhere from 40 to 50%, because I don't remember the exact number, but when they were going to choose a restaurant, they were using social to do it, not Google. So it's really important those sort of behavior shifts.

Like, so they were using it to find a new restaurant, and they were choosing restaurants based on not an lto, not a discount, but how their social presence was. And so operators know that that's the environment they're in. We have to. And I know you are a big fan of this.

Think B to B to C. Whatever the consumer wants is what the operator has to give. And so therefore, we must give the operator what the consumer wants. And that is why social is so important and influencer and all those pieces.

I had a guy on my podcast a few weeks ago, and Cali Barbecue Media was. Was the company. He. He started a barbecue joint in San Diego, and he. It was one unit. And he's like, I wanna. How do I explode this thing? You know?

And so he created a whole media company, a podcast. Now it's being sponsored by Toast, and it's really grown big. And all he was was just one location. It's.

It's unique in that when he first started, he's like, I. No one came, no one cared.

But that through the power of social media and getting out there, creating content, being consistent with it, which is the key, right? That's. The consistency is important.

As you mentioned, if something, you could post something, you know, have some sort of media piece, but then in 30 days it's gone, or the Internet's looking for something new. Yeah, there's definitely power in, in doing that, but I think it's just scary maybe for a lot of people. And it is.

I know the people that I work with, it's a lot of times when they think of marketing, it's. They have their sales hat on. Like, what's the return on investment then?

If I know, yes.

And I think in marketing, there's not necessarily a dollar that I can spend $5 and I'm gonna make $100. How do you work with brands on that in terms of looking at what a return on investment could be?

Yeah. So we look at, we look at how much time it takes typically to convert, to capture and convert a lead.

So you get a lead, you're then converting it into a customer. And our goal is to accelerate that.

That's what you should be thinking, that pr, social influencers, these components and, and layering them on to what I'm currently doing should shorten my sales cycle. We. If we're looking at cost per lead. No, no, no, that's not what we're talking about because you'll get leads.

And when you look at an investment within PR and social, whatever, if you look, if you translate that to cost per lead, you're going to say, no, I won't do it every time. Because it's something that is accelerating the sales process. It's compressing that amount of time.

And then your leads are more warmed up, more qualified.

So that's why even though I say start with, you could start with a pilot, you do have to have the mindset that, look at these tactics you've had and how long you've been doing the same tactics. Right. Did those produce for you right away? Probably not. And if they did, that wasn't something you could predict.

But over time, you figured out how to really make the trade show pay off for you. Right.

Or the, or the trade ads, whatever you're doing that, that now is the time you have to take within social and all of that, I will say it's an accelerated timeline. You.

We do see when, when our clients are working on, let's say, a PR campaign, like we were saying, and they want to get featured in outlets like trade or whatever. Specifically trade. I keep mentioning that because it's, it's hot. It's like a hot way to do it, because it returns your ROI so quickly.

So I mean, it's hard to give exact timelines, but for our clients, we do tend to see the first three months, six months, you're starting to get leads. And so that's.

But I will say ideally we want the marketing and sales team working together because one of the challenges I've seen is that the marketing team will secure those, those pieces of thought leadership or leads. And the sales team either doesn't love the quality of the leads. Yes, it's not right.

So there's like this disconnect and so they have to talk, they have to create the plan and be transparent with each other. No longer can we say, well, these are my, these are my leads, these are my prospects. Right.

We need to work together and say, well, let's put them in HubSpot or a CRM. You've got them in your CRM. What are we doing with marketing to connect the dots on that. So that's what I would say.

You need to look at it as a long game, but it does give you pretty quick returns. In my experience, as long as you're working with someone who can show you case studies, that should be your reassurance.

And just, you know, you've got to try. You've got to try. And you have to have the CEO thinking like this too, ideally because then they, they understand that things take time.

But you have to be willing to, you know, you have to take a little bit of a risk.

I've seen it a lot of times where marketing and sales aren't connected. And you're right on.

Sometimes the leads, it's a one unit location that can maybe buy a case of whatever I'm selling a week and, and to go to that operator there, there's an hour and a half drive one way. Is it really worth it to go out there? And so sales complains at marketing and then marketing complains at sales. Yeah, I get that.

You know, kind of having that, the, the marriage with, with the two. I say this, leaving with this. If you were a brand that's done none, no media, what would be kind of the first start?

If I said I wanted to do something. This is interesting to me. I know you mentioned doing a pilot, but maybe expanding a little bit more.

Like what would that look like and what would the timeframe be?

So first, what I would do, I'm such a big fan of when you see people doing something really well, copy them. So identify which brands. When you look and say, oh man, my, my competitor is doing this. Or maybe it's not even a competitor, it's competitor. It's.

They're in a different industry. Right. But you see how they're doing it and you, then you look at what works for them and you try it.

When you're having a conversation with an agency partner, I would say just have the conversation start, like look and see, reach out, have a conversation and they will be transparent about where you should start. For us, what we typically do is we will have specific targets. We go after. So we're saying, okay, let's start this way.

You want to be in these trade publications and we will say, look, you need to have something that is newsworthy, it's timely, it's research backed, it's. Ideally, it would be ideal if it was a little bit unique.

And so we work with them to figure out what is it about you that feels unique, even if it's not exactly unique. Or, or is there a product launch? Is there a specific point in time? That's a wonderful way to start. We have a product launch.

We have this campaign coming up. We really want to make this big and we want to try something new. I would say that's a great way to start too.

Okay. I like it. Well, Kate, I want to say thank you so much for coming on and sharing.

What's the best way for people to find you, connect with you, learn more about what you do at Bell.

So I love LinkedIn. I was saying that in the beginning too. I love LinkedIn, but, but so I'm, I think LinkedIn slash, Kate Finley, but our website is Bell Communications.

B E L L E. My middle name, actually a little tidbit there. Yeah.

And my email is katebellcommunication.com so I really have appreciated this time and I would just encourage, you know, it can feel overwhelming, but just I promise, step by step you can make these changes. It, it is possible and it's, and it's pretty fun and rewarding too. So thanks for your time. Nick. This has been really great. Fantastic.

Yeah, thank you.