Episode 47  Frederick Dudek (Freddy D)

How to Transform Your Marketing Strategy with Relationship-Driven Insights with Cairo Marsh

Cairo Marsh, an entrepreneur and marketing expert, joins the Business Superfans podcast to discuss the importance of building genuine relationships in business. He emphasizes that successful marketing goes beyond mere transactions; it’s about creating deeper bonds with customers. Cairo shares his journey from working in New York's advertising scene to establishing his agency, Relativ, in Tokyo, where he focuses on relationship-driven strategies. Throughout the conversation, he highlights the power of understanding consumer needs and delivering value through authentic engagement. Listeners will gain insights into how fostering connections can transform brands into advocates for their customers, ultimately leading to lasting loyalty and success.

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Cairo Marsh's appearance on the Business Superfans podcast offers a deep dive into the essence of relationship-driven marketing and its critical role in contemporary business strategies. With a rich background in marketing and entrepreneurship, Cairo discusses how his experiences have shaped his philosophy at his agency, Relative, which emphasizes the importance of nurturing genuine connections with consumers. He articulates that successful marketing transcends mere transactions, advocating instead for a holistic approach that prioritizes understanding and serving customer needs. This perspective is enriched by his personal anecdotes, including insights gained from his family's small business history and his professional journey across various markets, including New York and Tokyo.

Throughout the episode, Cairo highlights the challenges brands face in fostering relationships in an increasingly automated world. He shares compelling examples, such as a marketing campaign for Canadian maple syrup in Japan, that illustrate the necessity of cultural adaptation in branding. This campaign involved collaborating with traditional Japanese monks to position maple syrup within a context that resonates with local culinary values, effectively transforming consumer perceptions. Cairo’s insights underline the idea that businesses must invest in long-term relationships rather than short-term gains to build a loyal customer base.

Additionally, the discussion delves into the concept of 'connectivity,' a framework Cairo developed to measure the strength of brand-consumer relationships. He explains how understanding these connections through both qualitative and quantitative methods can empower brands to make strategic adjustments in their marketing efforts. By focusing on the human element of marketing, Cairo encourages businesses to foster authentic connections that lead to advocacy and loyalty. This episode serves as a valuable resource for marketers and business leaders looking to elevate their strategies by integrating relationship-building into their core practices, ultimately transforming customers into passionate superfans.

Takeaways:

• Cairo Marsh emphasizes the importance of building personal connections with customers for better business outcomes.
• His agency, Relativ, focuses on relationship-driven strategies to enhance customer experiences and marketing effectiveness.
• In marketing, prioritizing relationships over transactions can lead to stronger brand loyalty and consumer engagement.
• Cairo shares a unique campaign about connecting Canadian maple syrup with Japanese culinary culture through monks.
• The concept of 'connectivity' is used to measure and improve brand-consumer relationships effectively.
• Cairo believes that genuine appreciation for customers can turn them into loyal superfans.

Links referenced in this episode:

• www.relativ.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Relative
• Hexclad
• True Aussie Beef
• American Express
• Canadian Maple Syrup

Mentioned in this episode:

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Freddy D: 00:02:28

Cairo is an entrepreneur and marketing expert who is passionate about helping businesses win by better serving their audiences. His company, Relativ, does this through relationship driven customer experience strategies and innovative marketing campaigns.

For the past 10 years, they've helped market leaders and challenger brands in the USA and Asia. Welcome to the Business Superfans podcast show. Today our guest is Cairo Marsh from Relativ Cairo. Welcome to the show and excited to have you.

Cairo Marsh: 00:02:57

Freddie D. Thank you for having me on, Excited to participate and hopefully I can share some points that are useful for you and your listeners.

Freddy D: 00:03:04

We're excited to have you. So tell me a little bit about your story of how you, you know, ended up with Relativ and what is relativ.

So give me the backstory of what got you to where you're at and what it is that this company does. Because from what I saw from the website, you work with some great companies like Hexclad and True Aussie Beef and numerous others.

Cairo Marsh: 00:03:25

Yeah, no, absolutely. So I'll start with my personal story and then connect it all to business really quickly, if you don't mind.

I've been doing advertising and marketing my whole career. I'm originally from New York, born and bred, and I've worked at different agencies in Madison Avenue and things like that.

One of the things that I learned, and I think it comes partly from my experience in terms of my, my grandfather owned his own small business and the way that I saw we engage with clients is that there is such a power to personal connections. Right. And I think that power of personal connections I think really elevates business experience, business outcomes and customers experience.

So I always had that lesson with me as I went on my little career journey. And again, I worked at agencies in New York. I worked client side at American express.

And then 15 years of ago I moved to Tokyo and worked at agencies out here in Tokyo for about six years and then was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to start my own venture. And that venture is, as you described, relative.

And taking all those sort of life lessons from my grandfather, from my career experience, what I realized is that a lot of times in marketing we don't prioritize relationships.

We oftentimes prioritize transactions or prioritize creativity or prioritize innovation, but not in a way that creates a stronger bond with consumers.

And ultimately, I think for businesses, those differences that they really strong brand has is that they usually have better bonds with their audience.

So that was really a proposition that again, based off of experience, sort of family observations and experience that led me to form this idea in this agency that we call relative. And relative is obviously for relationships, which is at our core.

Freddy D: 00:05:22

Right. Because that's very important. My years in sales, I started out as an engineer. And as an engineer really I had a small world.

But as I got into the technology sector when I first started and then moved into sales, I had to really change my whole personality and outlook. Because as an engineer you're just a little room and that's it. Now you're in sales, you got to build relationships.

And so fortunately I read a lot of books and stuff and I learned that my success in sales was really the relationships that I built with prospective customers that in turn became my brand fans, or as I call super fans. They would in turn refer me to other business. Typically I was selling in the tool and die world. And so manufacturing software.

And this shop would have overflow work they were sending to the other shop. And they would say, you gotta call John over at this company because we're having data exchange issues.

And my sale time was really writing up the order. There was no presentation because Jack told John, buy this stuff. And John would say, what's it cost me and how fast can you get it here?

Cairo Marsh: 00:06:32

A hundred percent. There's nothing better than that type of virtuous cycle. Right. And that comes from the power of relationship.

And that's true whether it's you as a salesperson or a business's reputation.

And that's how we right now, most of our clients come through referrals because they're either people we've worked with in the past, people who've heard about us from past clients, who bring that in the door.

And those tend to be better businesses for us anyhow because they come in in the same way that I think you experience where they're a bit pre qualified in the sense that they know what we're about, they know how we're going to work and they know what we fight for.

And one of the things that I think really drives that relationship is that when you care and when you invest in your customer, when you invest in your client and they feel that whether you fight with them or not, whether you agree with them or not, whether you deliver for them or not, that's the real difference.

And I think I've been fortunate enough in my career because I'm from New York and I'm out here in Tokyo and Tokyo is compared to New York, uber polite, like New York.

Freddy D: 00:07:37

Yes, I've been there before, as we talked before the show. And it's a very different culture.

Cairo Marsh: 00:07:42

Yeah, we don't we don't do polite in New York. Right. But in Tokyo, everything is polite and orderly and hierarchical sometimes.

And I'm fortunate enough that I've been able to work in Tokyo by virtue of also being myself, which means that I'm a New Yorker. I like to challenge people.

See, I like, I'm not very good all the time at staying in my lane with respect to others, but I always, I think I have something of value to offer. What I found really interesting is that people still respect that.

They know you're doing it for them because you're building that relationship for them. And I think we've been able to build a business really around those principles.

Freddy D: 00:08:17

Yeah.

In my book Creating Business Superfans, it's really one of the things I talked about was really building those relationships and getting out of the features and functions. If you're selling technology or through selling a service and getting into where does that person want to go?

Where do they want to take their business? And we would talk about strategies of where they want to go, how can they get there?

What are their challenges that they're dealing with both personally and business wise? Because they're all really intertwined.

And my success would be that I, when I was selling them the manufacturing software and in other businesses was I didn't get stuck into the weeds. We started talking the big picture of where they wanted to be two years from now, four years from now, five years from now.

And what are the challenges that are holding them back from achieving those goals. And once you get into that conversation, it's a whole different conversation. You're a whole nother. You're playing at a whole nother level.

Cairo Marsh: 00:09:18

Absolutely.

I think one of the lessons that I learned, and again like the idea of relative to me, was a summation of all the different experiences I had from things in my family, things in my career. One of the things that I learned in my career though was one of my ex bosses told me, as an agency person, it's my job to be my client's career.

I don't say advocate, but to move, make sure that what I'm doing moves my client along in their career progression. So when we try to fight for the work or the things that we're doing, it can't be for us. Right. It has to be for them for.

For what our client needs to move ahead in their organization to be successful against their KPIs.

And when you are able to convince people of that, then you're able to really have a dynamic relationship and the thing that I find really interesting when we talk to our clients is the fight that we sometimes have is to try to get our clients to also take that approach to their consumers.

Freddy D: 00:10:16

Right.

Cairo Marsh: 00:10:16

To make sure that. Because when the consumer feels that, when the consumer feels a brand is in its corner, that's a world of difference.

Freddy D: 00:10:23

Yep, yep. In there. Recently, previous world, I was in an interpreting and translation business. I helped scale that company and position it for acquisition.

But I got one of the largest accounts that company ever had and the relationship with the director. We would spend maybe five to seven minutes talking about business as everything was running appropriately.

The other 10 to 12 minutes are scheduled time. We were talking about where were you going to go on vacation? What was the other things where you were visiting?

Because it was really building the relationship.

Cairo Marsh: 00:11:01

Yeah, absolutely.

Freddy D: 00:11:02

Just like you said, that's everything is, you know, when you, when people like and trust you.

Cairo Marsh: 00:11:08

Yep.

Freddy D: 00:11:08

That's the game changer right there.

Cairo Marsh: 00:11:11

Absolutely. And I think it's, it's really interesting because these are fundamental human things that we get in these one to one situations.

What the challenge is, I think for sometimes for companies to scale that when you're dealing with a mass market, when you're dealing with ten thousand, a hundred thousand consumers, how do you also get them to feel that way? And I think that's where sometimes all of a sudden, all of a sudden that thing that we all know changes into.

I got my spreadsheet and my numbers and my KPIs and you forget what the consumer wants is for you to be on their side the same way that you do in a one to one sales situation.

Freddy D: 00:11:45

Yep, yep. And that's one of the things that we did, for example, with the interpreting. We had independent contractors that were the language specialists.

Whatever language was, it was Japanese, French, Polish, German, Spanish, Arabic type languages. That was the front line. So we weren't going to the hospital or the law firm or everything else. It was that independent contractor.

So you had to build a relationship with them because they're the brand in that particular scenario. Absolutely, absolutely. So what you're saying is absolutely spot on because that is really important.

Cairo Marsh: 00:12:24

Absolutely.

Freddy D: 00:12:26

So let's dive into a little bit of what is it and how does, you know, relative work with its clients? What differentiate you guys? Why? You know, basically the question why you sure.

Cairo Marsh: 00:12:38

Besides the fact that we're the best, if I can be so immodest. But fundamentally why us?

I think there's a couple of things and one of it we touched on is look, I really truly truly believe we're not in this for ourselves, we're in this for our clients and for the solutions.

And I think like a lot of times, if you are a client and you're talking to different marketing agencies, there's very much a agencies sometimes come to the table with here's what we do and here's the type of work that we want and we value this and we value that and that's great to have values, but at the end of the day, you've got to be aligned against the client's end goals and their needs. And that's the first thing that we do. I don't have an ego around what we do.

I do have an ego that we're effective and that we deliver for our clients. And that's really where our energy and our efforts are focused. The other differentiator around us is what do we try to do?

And again, as I mentioned, the principle of relative is around relationships unlocking value. And the idea is that a lot of marketing, as I mentioned, is oftentimes transactional.

We want to put our clients in a position where they can make money today, but do it in a way that their marketing dollars turn into an investment, into a longer term connection with that consumer.

So that is around positioning brands in a way that it's clear to the consumer that we as a brand are here to serve you, not necessarily just sell you. And as we serve you over the longer term, we.

You see how that fit falls in your daily life, your engagement and the value you get from interacting with us as a brand. So we focus our brand strategy on finding those sort of service opportunities that lead to sales, both in the short term, in the long term.

Freddy D: 00:14:26

So what you're doing is you're working to them, to elevate them to a whole nother level with their engagement with their prospective customers and maintaining the relationship and the brand relationship with the existing customers.

Cairo Marsh: 00:14:40

Yeah, and what I was saying is not to nitpick words. I respect our clients and I think obviously as an agency we're not.

We don't know everything that they know and we don't know all the struggles that they go through. So I don't even take it from the point of view of elevating our clients.

I think as any organization you become a bit myopic to organizational KPIs and things like that. It's inherently natural.

I think what we do is we offer a pure perspective to say, hey, we can challenge you and say, are you doing the right thing in the longer term? For your consumers, which obviously our clients already want to.

But sometimes within any organization where you get internal pressures, there's a bit of a distraction on that.

So we're here to champion that longer term perspective and champion that consumer for our clients to help make sure that they are doing what they want to do at their highest level.

Freddy D: 00:15:31

Yeah, fair enough. So tell us a little story of one of the success story that you worked with on one of your clients. And then how did that come about?

Cairo Marsh: 00:15:41

What's a good success story?

I think we've been fortunate so far that I think most of our clients would be happy with the work that we've done and the way that we've been able to help them build solutions.

One of the stories that we sometimes talk to is we work with Canadian maple syrup in Japan and we help them do a bunch of their marketing, everything from, from store activation sometimes to digital, et cetera. We're not format, we're not focused on formats. We're focused more so on value and solutions.

But one of the challenges that Canadian maples had in Japan is maple syrup is almost, and this is, it may be a slight overstatement, is almost just a flavor. It's the flavor of maple. It's not necessarily the difference in maple syrup.

So when Japanese consumers sometimes think about sweeteners, they'll go ahead and they'll go, oh, this sweetener is maple. There's another sweetener, honey, there's artificial sugars or whatever that I could use, but they're all sweeteners.

There's no real product difference. And so one of the things we were trying to do is to say how do they start in the longer term? Build a really distinguishing proposition around the.

The maple idea in a way, again, that speaks to service versus just selling sort of consumers.

And so in order to do that, you have to take that maple idea and localize it in a Japanese context and point out value add that maybe they wouldn't perceive, consumers wouldn't perceive from a sweetener the way we did this, and I'll give you, I'm making a long story short, is that maple, because it's natural, because it comes from trees and not any animal products, it falls into a, and I don't want to say organic, but an almost organic category within Japanese cuisine and that category, and I may be embarrassing myself in front of my Japanese friends, so I hope they'll forgive me if they hear this. It's called a shojin yori. Shojin yori is basically food that traditional monks would eat In Japan because it's pure enough to be eaten.

It's not literally organic or vegan in the way that we would think about it in the west, but it's analogous to that. Now, honey is not because honey comes from a animal product. Artificial sweeteners are not because they come from here, they come from a factory.

What we did is to say, okay, great, if maple is good enough for a monk in Japan, but other sweeteners aren't. Let's do a. A, A collaboration with literal monks to sort of bring that idea to life for consumers. Right. So they.

You can see it not in a maple syrup, not in a pancake stereotypical way, but in a way that's relevant to me within cultural levers that make sense and resonate within Japan.

And so this whole idea of what we call maple monks was really doing this idea where map where we had these monks prepare different maple dishes, be able to share that, showcase that and bring that to an audience in Japan. Now, again, the reason why I think that's really relevant, it's trying to connect maple to a value proposition of eating well.

Freddy D: 00:18:50

And that's really where you're going with it.

Cairo Marsh: 00:18:52

Yeah. It's eating well in a way that only maple can do, but brought to you through a cultural lens that really resonates.

So that's an example that I think has worked really well.

And I think we've been able to evolve the positioning of maple in Japan through that and other activities to start to really distinguish what it offers.

Freddy D: 00:19:10

Oh, that's really cool. It's a great story to tie in the monks. That's really brilliant in an approach.

Cairo Marsh: 00:19:17

Yeah. It's a pretty cool campaign. And the reason it works is because it's genuine, I think. And these are not.

Like, we didn't get a bunch of dudes and shave their heads bald. We actually went out and got some real monks who said, okay, look, I understand the product. I'm willing to support that. Here's what we could do.

Freddy D: 00:19:32

That's really cool because you're adapting to a different culture.

Cairo Marsh: 00:19:35

Yep.

Freddy D: 00:19:35

So it's not a one size fits all. You have to. Especially when you're dealing in a global market, you've gotta be able to adjust to the different cultures. I've been fortunate.

I've traveled to about 32 countries so far. And everyone is different.

Cairo Marsh: 00:19:51

Absolutely.

Freddy D: 00:19:52

And the whole approach, the whole conversation, their beliefs, and you've got to really appreciate where they're coming from and then message to where they're coming from.

Cairo Marsh: 00:20:04

Yeah. And it's Always, like you said, it's always different in any given market. The principles don't change though, Right. How do you demonstrate service?

How do you make sure that it's locally relevant? Those principles never change, but it's going to be. That execution will be different in every single market in the world, right?

Freddy D: 00:20:20

Correct. So let's continue on here and tell a little bit more of you. Talk about some data and some personalized stuff. Let's go into that.

And how do you get that data and how do you maximize that information to generate the results that you do?

Cairo Marsh: 00:21:54

Sure, I think so. One of the things that I think is critical is the old axiom, whatever gets measured gets managed.

And so I think a lot of things that, that whether it's the importance of relationships, et cetera, et cetera, don't get managed because people don't have a clear way to measure it. And what's easy to measure is clicks. Clicks are very easy to measure. Roi, depending on the media, somewhat easy to measure impressions, et cetera.

Very easy to measure relationships. Maybe it's a little bit tough understanding how consumers feel. Maybe that's a little bit tough.

So I think you really do need a measurement framework and a measurement framework that's mapped to actually business outcomes that you want. They give you a sense of that. So we focus on diagnosing relationships through a lens that we call connectivity. And connectivity is literally a.

It's a.

I don't know, it's not an acronym, but it's a play on words about kin, for relate, for family, connectivity in terms of that bond, the energy part of connectivity, to say, what's that energy and bond that brands have between themselves and their consumers. And connectivity is. It's a score essentially, that allows you to say, how well am I doing with my consumers?

You can look at it by segments of consumers.

You can look at it versus your competition or gaps between you and your competition that allow you then to say, okay, great, I am not as strong with the segment of consumers that I really want to grow with. Therefore, what can I do differently? Connectivity also provides some degree of insight on why you may not be as tied to them as others.

Maybe it's because of tangible value that people don't see from you.

Maybe it's because of emotional value that people don't see from you and allows you to then think about what sort of experiences you can use to shift that. The way that we do that. And there's really two ways that we look at it.

One is through a quantitative study that is A proprietary survey of just a few questions that allow you then to classify and rank that sort of bond and you can use that. And we do this for our clients when you benchmark that against other consumers.

We also have looked at how you can measure connectivity strength through aggregation of social media insights and comments that allow you through basically your social listening process, to classify comments and conversations in a way that basically mirrors that quantitative study. So in a more dynamic way, you can start to understand how people are thinking of your relationship with your brand.

The whole piece of it is not just to measure and go, my score is X. But what we found is that score tends to be a leading indicator of either conversion efficiency or longer term sales growth.

So if you can understand where that.

Where you're performing different in terms of connectivity growth or decline versus your competition, it gives you a chance to, what's the right way to say? Intercede before. Before it goes on too long.

So connectivity is a core tool that we try to work use with our clients to help them better understand how they can measure and maintain a competitive advantage vis a vis relationships.

Freddy D: 00:25:13

That's pretty cool. Back in the day, it was just a old gut feel.

When I was selling manufacturing software for years, the way I knew the relationship was going well is when the IT manager was going through a divorce, who was sitting at the bar with them listening to all the stuff? This guy, Absolutely.

But then when it came around to me, hey, Bob was his name, I go, hey, I got this contest and this will put me a number one sales guy in the company. I know you're buying another workstation at the end of the year, but this contest is in June and ends at the end of June. What can we do?

So we brainstorm. He goes, if you can delay payment and delivery, I'll give you the PO now. And that was because of the relationship that we had.

Cairo Marsh: 00:26:02

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:26:03

And that's what happened. I got the plaque on the wall there of being top sales guy. It was because of that relationship.

Likewise, as you were talking when I started working with that one company, and they were my superfam because they helped me sell into large companies like Caterpillar, Heaton Corporation and a multitude of others.

They went from a 40 man tool and die shop to buying the building next door, building a breezeway, and then buying the building on the other side and building a breezeway between the two. And they went to over 150 employees. But it was always talking about where did they want it to go.

Like we were talking earlier and how could I help Them get to where they wanted to go. There was times where, you know, the technology I was offering wasn't viable for them.

And I would go tell them, you need to go look at this other product because for what you're doing, that's going to be a better solution. That just gave, you know, me a whole nother level of credibility.

This is back in the 90s, we didn't have the tools that you're talking about today and the mindset wasn't where it is today.

Cairo Marsh: 00:27:05

But. But I would argue that nothing will ever be a direct interaction, right?

So sitting at the bar with the guy is always going to give you a better read on the situation. Then I don't care what tool you use.

I think in absence of being able to sit at the bar of a bunch of people, our approach is a way to get a good sense of where you sit with your clients and how with your consumers and how that may differ from your competition. But there's never going to be anything that beats that. And I really do believe this.

I think that a lot of the principles that we try to look at are tied to, I think, and again, and I brought this up briefly, like my grandfather, when I was a kid, he owned his own little diner in the Bronx, right. And then he owned a dry cleaner in the Bronx.

I think local stores, in the way that local businesses connect and understand their real customers needs is the best possible way to.

Freddy D: 00:27:58

Oh, absolutely.

Cairo Marsh: 00:27:59

The reality is that if you're a multinational corporation and you're the brand manager and you're sitting in headquarters, you can't replicate that the way my grandfather could. So what do you do to best enact that? Right. To best apply those sort of principles.

I think that's where things like connectivity and other tools can come into play. Because you have to be close to the pulse of your customer.

You have to try to create a sense of service for them in a way that you can't, in the way that my grandfather could. But it's still the right way to do things. And that's still what customers appreciate.

Freddy D: 00:28:31

Oh, absolutely. You got to recognize customers. I always coach people that you got to recognize.

Especially if you're a small to mid sized business, sending a birthday card to that customer is a game changer, recognizing them on their life events. Game changer. You send a birthday card that might be the only birthday card that they receive.

Cairo Marsh: 00:28:51

Yeah, absolutely.

Freddy D: 00:28:52

Or acknowledging them on social media, on an event. This is one of the things I've done. Oh, they got married, they got this, they Got another child.

Hey, take two seconds and say, hey, congratulations on a new family addition. Those are the little things that really in my mind, become the big things.

Cairo Marsh: 00:29:09

Absolutely. And the weird part about when you scale that to a bigger organization is people plug that through marketing automation tools, right?

You've got a, you've got a machine that you put everyone's birthday in and it sends them off a birthday email and it has no impact because you lose the humanity in that because the person on the other end knows that you don't care. The computer cares. And that doesn't land as well as when you actually take the time to do it yourself. Right.

And using computer tools as prompts for that sort of direct engagement which you just described is exactly right. Letting the machine do it all means almost nothing.

Freddy D: 00:29:44

Right. It's gotta be a blend. I think you need to have the blend. You use the technology to help you, but you still gotta do some old school things.

And that's one of the things I talk about, is in my book and on this show, is that technology is awesome. I'm so excited about where we live today and AI tools and all that stuff.

But still, like we talked earlier about your grandfather and your upbringing, old school ways and means still play a big part in today's world and especially if you're playing on a global scale.

Cairo Marsh: 00:30:17

Yeah, absolutely. Like technology at its best allows us to be more human, not less.

And sometimes it actually makes us less human, which is less satisfactory for our customers and for pretty much everybody.

Freddy D: 00:30:29

Very cool. What's the next kind of adventure you've got going?

What are the new things that you're putting together that people should know about that should be able to reach out to you for your services and things?

Cairo Marsh: 00:30:41

Yeah, we're continuing to build what we do at relative. Like we started relative about 10 years ago. We're coming up on our 10 year anniversary. We've actually recently.

So we started in Tokyo, we opened up in the US based out of Seattle about a year and a half ago and continue to grow that operation. I think obviously I'm from the U.S. it's a great market. It's a place that we think our approach and our solutions have a lot of impact.

So we continue to try to grow that. And we also recently, just as of a few months ago, opened up in Taiwan. We've got one client down there, so we're expanding a little bit in Asia.

But we're going to continue to try to build our offering and how we can better and continually improve how we help Build those sort of connections and integrating more data points to create more insights around some of the, the tools that we look at. But it's really just making sure that we are servicing our clients and we're encouraging them to service theirs. That's our focus.

That'll always be our mission.

Freddy D: 00:31:36

Right. So what's an ideal client for you guys?

Cairo Marsh: 00:31:39

I think an ideal client is someone who just wants to understand different ways that they can better connect with their consumer. And I think we're not, again, we're not platform or media driven. We're really solutions driven. So I think clients who look and go, you know what?

I have a problem with our audience segment or clients who go, look, this audience is resonating more for our competitors instead of us. How do I break that? And we're the type of agency and this, full stop. I told this to two clients just last week.

Look, if you need just some thoughts which are of no cost to you, we're happy to do it. Right? Because, and I kid you not, I love this stuff. Like, I love the work, I love the ideas, I love the brainstorm.

You want to pull someone in for a brainstorm at no particular cost to see whether there's value in our thinking or ideas. We're your guys because it's fun. Honestly, I'm in it for the fun as much as I in it for anything else.

Freddy D: 00:32:39

Yeah, that's when I was growing that interpreting company. I was having a blast. And sales for me is like a kid in a candy store. So I can appreciate exactly where you're coming from. And that's really cool.

Cairo Marsh: 00:32:53

Yeah. Like, honestly, I was talking to someone the other day and they were like, oh, what? I was talking about how we define ourselves, right?

And people say, how do you define yourself? And I said, I'm a problem solver more than anything else. And what that means for me is what I really want for is problems.

I'm like, give me something I could just play with.

So if it's again, in that sort of brainstorm context, whatever, regardless of whether it translates to paying work for us in agency, we're happy to play with ideas, play with solutions, play with problems anytime.

Freddy D: 00:33:22

What that does is it may not be a customer today, it may be a customer down the road, or it may never be a customer, but it may be a super fan that says, hey, I appreciate what Cairo did. And, oh, you know what? You'd be a good fit for this guy. He'd be a good fit for a relative.

And so now they become that super fan that's promoting you just because of the fact that you took the time to brainstorm with them.

Cairo Marsh: 00:33:52

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I also truly believe that if it turns out to be nothing, that's fine, so long as it's a reasonable.

That we agree that we'll brainstorm and we'll do that to the fullest extent. If it turns out to be nothing fantastic or you want some ideas, because I think you can't do it expecting something out of it.

You do it because it's something worth doing and that we have the time or ability or passion for it.

Like one thing, if you don't mind, Freddie, I wanted to mention, I think one of the things that we had, you and I had mentioned before the actual interview that I find really fascinating about what you do and how you create these superfans. And one thought that popped into my head is why do people become superfans? And it came out of some of the narrative that you were saying.

And you know that the story of why people like people with blue eyes. Have you heard this? Why blue eyes?

Freddy D: 00:34:43

Perspective.

Cairo Marsh: 00:34:44

So what I read, and I'm not sure if it's true or not, but this is what I read, is that if you look at someone with blue eyes and they're attracted to you, you can see their pupils dilate, right? Because their eyes are light enough to see that.

If you look at someone with dark eyes because their pupils are dark or their corneas are dark or whatever, that irises, I can't remember what part of the eye it is, but are dark as well, you don't actually see that. So the reason why people like people with blue eyes, according to this study I read, is because I can tell if you like me.

It's not really about your blue eyes. It's about the ability to know whether I'm being like.

And I think when you create super fans, you create loyalty, you create engagement by giving and showing appreciation for others and then they'll react however they want. And that's really the narrative we also try to give to our clients.

It says we don't try to get our clients to the idea that the customers are going to wake up and become advocates. Why? Why would they? They won't.

What you need to do as a client, what we need to do as an agency, what everyone needs to do, is give to that person, be an advocate for them. And again, normal human behaviors. The blue eyed thing. You like me. Oh, I like you too. Is how things tend to work.

And I think that's what I think when we do business that way, that creates a better impact and more positive outcomes.

Freddy D: 00:36:04

Oh, absolutely. One of my quotes in the book is people will crawl through broken glass for appreciation and recognition. As you're talking, they're same thing.

You want to be able to recognize that customer or that vendor that you're dealing with on the partnership aspect. They want to feel like they've contributed and by you helping that customer achieve their goals and then recognizing them for that achievement.

Hey, you guys were here and look where you're at. Guys are go back to the tool and die shop that I used to deal with.

I used to go in and last time I was there, they wouldn't let me in because they were saying, you cost us a hundred grand every time you walk in. But I says, yeah, but look at how big you guys are. And we recognized their successes every time.

And I would edify them and says, look, man, you guys went from here to here. And I'd shared a story of where they were and where they went. And so that gave them PR and they became my superfan.

From that perspective, just like you said it was, it's about them and helping them get to where they want to go and they'll take care of where you need to go.

Cairo Marsh: 00:37:10

Yeah, absolutely. Like the. The best way to get someone to fall in love with you is to fall in love with them.

Freddy D: 00:37:15

Yep. Great. Cairo, it's been an excellent conversation.

Thank you very much for sharing your insights, your journey and your expertise and great takeaways today. So how can people find you and reach out to you?

Cairo Marsh: 00:37:32

Yeah, the best way you find us on our VR website or our links to social media or on our website. It's www. Relativerelate no e.com so R E L-T-I V.com obviously you can use that.

We're on Instagram or on LinkedIn using that same name and would be very willing to help or participate or engage in any sort of discussions. As I mentioned earlier.

Freddy D: 00:37:57

Yeah, that's really your free offer is to be able to have a chat with you with no obligation.

Cairo Marsh: 00:38:03

Yeah, brainstorm, whatever. Give me a problem Looking for things to crack. It's a passion of mine, but also Freddie D. I just wanted to again, thank you for having me on.

I think it was a fun conversation. I love some of the ways that you look at this and I really appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts.

Freddy D: 00:38:21

Cairo was a pleasure having you excited our audience because I think that they've got some great insights and some great value. Out of this conversation, and we look forward to having you on the show down the road.

Cairo Marsh: 00:38:33

Great. Thank you, sir.