Ever wondered how creativity and strategy can take a business from ordinary to extraordinary?

In this episode, I sit down with David Saxby, a marketing expert who’s known for thinking outside the box and bringing a fresh approach to business strategies. David explains how creativity is crucial, but without a solid strategy and execution, even the best ideas can fall flat. He shares insights from his career, including how his innovative thinking helped brands like Shaw Cable thrive in highly competitive markets.

David also dives into common mistakes businesses make, like trying to target everyone or sending confusing messages. His advice? Find the right market gap, focus on strategy first, and understand the psychology of your customers. Through engaging stories, he breaks down how businesses can better connect with their audiences, especially in a digital world where attention is hard to grab.

Highlights:

• Creativity is just the start — success comes when it's paired with strong strategy and execution.
• Businesses often fail by targeting everyone; the key is finding your niche and focusing there.
• Effective marketing is about understanding customer psychology and how to cut through the noise.
• Building real, human connections with customers is still vital, even in a tech-driven world.
• David’s success formula: strategy first, then creative execution, leading to long-term growth and differentiation.

Connect with David:

Website: sparkcommunications.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-saxby/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100081172687496

Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidsaxby

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/davidsaxbyspeaker

Email: dsaxby@sparkcommunications.com

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AND … Don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and be eligible for my

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listener!

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Music. Hello everyone, and welcome to this

week's episode of relationships rule. My guest this week is

David Saxby, a fellow Canuck. I love it, and he's got a

beautiful background on be which you can't see, but a beautiful

background behind him of the the Rockies. I'm thinking because

David lives in Calgary, Alberta, so it's very pretty to see that

scenery. Welcome to the show, David.

Good to see you. Janice, thank you for the

opportunity.

Absolutely So. David calls himself an

unconventional thinker for unconventional times. I kind of

like that. Can you explain that?

Oh, I think that's been kind of my nature my entire

life, is that I'm usually contrary to what the mainstream

is. Even in business, I've done things that people in the same

industry didn't do or weren't doing, and I think it's just

part of the creative mind is to be able to think beyond the

standard sort of thought process of most people. Well,

I interviewed a gentleman on my podcast a couple

of years ago named Bill Troy, and he I just re aired that

episode last month as one of my encore episodes, and he calls

himself a contrarian, yes,

very similar. Yeah, where the idea came from? Okay,

okay, so, so, always thinking outside the box,

perhaps, right, okay, so as a creative person, okay, so you've

actually kind of been in both worlds. I mean, I see that you

you and from our conversations previous that you are in the

digital world very much. So a lot of your business is done

through digital platforms and so on. You've authored three books.

That's the creative side you, but you and your newest book is

coming out next spring, I think, called Ignite innovative

thinking. Is that correct? Yes, still on track to come out next

spring?

Yes, exactly. And it's that came from the concept

that I always sort of took creativity for granted, ooh,

because I grew up being a creative kid, and I was always

involved in art and music and all those sorts of things. So I

took it for granted. When I got into the ad industry, I started

to think, what happens if it stops what happens if one day I

just walk in the advertising agency? I got no ideas. I can't

figure anything out. And so I started to really study

creativity, the brain, how we think up ideas, how we can

execute ideas, and that sort of thing. And it, it helped me with

my business, because I started out in the creative side of the

advertising industry, and then I Yeah. Mad Men, exactly, yeah.

That's, that's more like a reality show for me. It's, I

watch it, they go, Oh my God, yes. That's the

world was like, yeah. It was brilliant, though,

that show, it was, it is,

yeah. And you know, what's interesting is a lot of

the ads that they put together on that show as part of the

program were actual ad campaigns. And

I think I read, I know we're going aside here, but

I love it, because Wasn't it a woman who was the actual I read

somewhere, maybe in Vanity Fair, that this woman who was that a

big wig in the ad industry, which, by the way, was unheard

of really right back in season, whatever. But she was

responsible for a lot of those big ads. I'm thinking in my

head, Alka Seltzer. I don't know why, but that might have been

one of them, plot, plot, because, yeah, there were some

others. And I think they, they, they the the base of Mad Men,

had some of those things in it. And, and the character, the

woman, character that Elizabeth Moss played, was based on this

woman. Yes, it was actually, I don't remember her name, but

do you she was? No, I don't remember her name

either. You

know what I'm talking about. Then Absolutely.

Ah, okay, okay. I'm sorry I sidetracked, but that, yeah, so

So you so in your study of the industry and of creativity, you

probably came across all of this. And so you said that it

helps you with your business. But did it? Did your did it help

you stay on track creatively and not, you know, thinking like

feeling more confident that you weren't going to lose that.

Yeah,

and for me, it was like creativity when I was

growing up came pretty naturally, but I realized that

there are ways of prompting creativity. There's ways of

being able to. Feed creativity. And then as I got into business,

I started out on the creative side, like I mentioned, then I

moved into an ad agency, so you had to have both the creative

side, or the right brain thinking, along with the logical

linear side, which was being able to plan campaigns and

organize and all of that sort of thing. And then at that point, I

realized that there was a lot of creativity in the business of

advertising, but the challenge became, if it wasn't tied to

strategy, then it was just a great idea, but had no traction.

Example, well,

yeah, I'm just trying to think of one. The

challenge, being, in a lot of cases, is, is that businesses

came up with ideas that didn't gain traction. Actually, a good

example, I don't know if you're familiar with Quiznos. They were

a sandwich maker, yes, and they came up with an idea based on

the fact that they observed subway, right? And subway didn't

have ovens. So quiznus came along and said, Well, if we cook

the sandwiches, if we toast the sandwiches, people buy it

because they like warm meals, right? Great, creative idea,

right?

Wasn't it? Wasn't it a Canadian company?

I don't recall. I think it is an American company

franchised in Canada, okay, but what was interesting about that

is they found a loophole that gave them a bit of traction in

the industry. The challenge with it is they hadn't thought the

strategy out very well, because all subway had to do was supply

all their franchisees with an oven, and kuznos was toast, no.

And, and so in that circumstance, then they realized

that, oh, they're not getting the traction they expected in

the marketplace, subway was still the number one franchise.

So then they came along with these really wacky ad campaigns

with his ugly looking character with a hat on. Oh, it. It was

actually very like looking at the characters going, Oh my God,

that's ugly, yeah. So, yeah. So anybody thinking about getting a

sandwich, all they could think of is this character, yeah. And,

and from there, they lost a lot of traction in the market. So

creative idea, you know, they found a loophole they could, you

know, saturate the market for what they were trying to do. But

they couldn't carry it out any further. And then they started

doing really crazy ad campaigns that, you know, were, were not

well thought up. Let's

put it that way, right? And so it didn't. So they

died, basically, yeah, yeah.

Well, and one of the franchise when one of the

franchisers who owned several stores actually got so

frustrated with Quiznos and everything going on that he

committed suicide. Oh, dear, yeah, so I mean sad story, and,

you know, again, an example of creativity, but not being

carried through thinking strategy. They weren't thinking,

Okay, interesting anyway, so a little bit of a Segway, but

that's interesting. So do you feel that

the work that you do in your company spark communications

allows you to create, to be still the creative?

Yeah, i i My focus is still coming up with

innovative ideas, and that's another thing. I talk more about

innovation than I do about creativity, because creativity

is a component of innovation, but innovation is creative plus

execution, okay for implementation.

So tell, tell my audience a little bit about

Spark communications, because I have here in my notes that you

help businesses create a strategic advantage over your

their competitors by developing in innovative marketing

strategies which, which is basically what you just said,

and you have that that added advantage of having that

creative background, I think, when you're talking to business

owners about their marketing that a lot of marketers don't

have, if that makes sense, because they're not All ad

people. They're not all people who've created those kinds of

things. So tell me what your secret sauce is with with Spark

communications with your clients.

Well, I think, as I mentioned to you while ago, we

have a I have a formula that I kind of follow when it comes. To

working with clients, so that the first part of the formula is

strategy first, not tactics. And a lot of businesses make the

mistake is they go out and they do all these things, and then

they go, oh, that didn't work, or this worked and that didn't

work. So if you have the right strategy, the tactics fall into

place, and then the second part for a second. So

I want to make sure I understand it, because I

know we're building up the word spark with the things that you

do. So the strategy, and I'm just going to pull it a little

bit for a second to relationships rule, okay, this,

I would think has, have you already got an idea, or are you

thinking first, okay, this is the type of business it is, and

so with it being, say, an online business or or a brick and

mortar business, the strategy will be different as to how we

promote this business, or how we market this business, absolutely

okay. So strategy first, we haven't come up with the ideas

yet for you

and the strategy, strategy actually comes from me,

observing the industry, looking at, you know, the trends going

on in the industry, the competitors that are in the

industry, and literally looking for gaps, okay, looking at what

the competitors are doing, and going, Okay, where is the gap?

Okay? And so when I find the gap, that becomes an opportunity

to strategically enter the industry. For the business, and

for a lot of businesses, they're commodities. You know, you look

at Pizza joints, every corner you look on in the city is a

pizza joint. So what makes one different from another one?

Okay? And so that's where you start. Okay

with strategy. Okay, go ahead. So

then the second part is positioning. And so

there's an expression that came from the two fellows that first

came up with the concept of positioning recent trout. And

what they basically say is that it's not what you do to the

product or service. It's what you do in the mind of the

customer, sure, perception. It's the perception, exactly and

people, most of us, have preconceived notions of almost

everything in the world. Can I

give you one that's on my mind right now,

that yeah, Rogers and Shaw joined forces? Yeah, so to

speak. Ever since Shaw has become Rogers. I have had the

worst time with them. I cannot get through. I have an hour and

a half to get on, to wait on the phone, to get a customer service

agent to help me with the bill that is wrong that I'm trying to

write because I'm being a good consumer, and I can't get

through to them, and I'm ready to just tear my hair out. So my

perception of this thing is so bad right now?

Yeah, well, here's an interesting story for letting

me vent. Here's an interesting story. Is before Shaw cable

became Shaw cable, they were a little company called capital

cable. They had eight stations in Western Canada, and I was

connected with them through a fellow I knew, through a

volunteer organization, and I became their first kind of

marketing consultant, yeah. So they were launching their

company and going public and becoming Shaw cable.

Oh, you were with Shaw, that's right, I forgot,

yeah. So

when that happened, the first thing that they were

going to do is they were going to put together their annual

report and send it out to potential investors, okay? And

so I was put in touch with the accountant, and he said, Yeah,

we're just going to take the financial statement, we'll slap

a cover on it and stick it in an envelope and mail it out. And I

said, No, do not do that, right? And so we went through a

process, and I told them, you know, basically, I said to him,

what we need to do is we need to tell the story, and we need to

package the story in the way that's going to get these high

value investors intrigued and interested in investing in the

company. Oh, no, we're just going to send out financial

statements. I got a budget of $2,000 yeah. That include

Bailey, yeah, yeah. So that started out, and the first thing

that happened when we we built a proper Annual Report with a nice

cover on it and background story and so on, is that some of these

very high end investors, and we're talking, you know,

millions and millions of dollars very well. A few people wrote a

note back to Jim Shaw and said, fantastic. This is great.

Congratulations on the launch of your company. We look forward to

next year. And Jim and I had a conversation after that, and

every year after that, my would meet with the VP, and Jim would

pop into the meetings. And what are you planning for this year's

annual report? And so we grew the company literally by telling

the story of what was going on,

so interesting that I would have to

vote today. That's so and this, this is even more

interesting is that back when all the specialty channels

launched, this is the late 80s, early 90s. The specialty

channels weren't getting enough traction in the market, and

there was a fear that they were all going to go broke. So the

CRTC, the regulating body, said to the cable companies, you have

to take on these companies and sell them to your subscribers.

So literally, they forced them to take over marketing,

especially companies. So we did a campaign for Shaw to launch

this. And basically what we did was what was called a negative

option campaign. And what that meant is, you got this package.

We're sending out information about these specialty channels.

If you're interested in having these specialty channels, you

don't need to do anything. I

hated that negative campaign. You don't

want them cancel them. Yeah.

So anyway that that gained great traction, we had a

94% subscription rate by default. Rogers came along just

shortly after that with the same kind of campaign, and miserably

failed and had to restart their campaign. So

what was the difference?

Just how they approached it, the message and

literally, how they strategized him. Okay, so we personalized.

And this is, this is really something was quite unheard of

at the time. And this is kind of when my my brain, went into the

innovative mode. Yes, was we personalized every single

person's letter. And in those days, in the early 80s, that was

almost impossible. We went to Canada Post and said, Here's

what we want to do. And they said, we don't think we could do

it. Mail Merge. Yes, exactly, yeah. And in those days, it was

done on a mainframe computer, I know. Oh my goodness. So we had

606 100 and some odd 1000 personalized letters went out.

Okay,

so I'm going to come back to the Shaw Rogers

thing later. Yeah, strategy, positioning,

positioning, yeah. So positioning is, it's, it's

how we, in the mind of the customer, got them to buy into

the concept. And the billboard advertising we had, and the

other promotion we did, we had a picture of a silver platter, you

know, that they use for catering. And it said, think of

it as a smorgasbord. In other words, you've got all these

options. You don't have to eat everything at once.

Okay, so perception was part of that

positioning we come to attracting attention? I think,

yeah, so an attracting attention is really

about, you know, what's your message? What's the media that

you transfer your message through? And it has to be a

place where your customers are. So the target market, and the

concept behind that is that the media will kind of pop up or

come up as you think of how you're going to communicate with

your customers, because nowadays we can research where people go

and find information, whether it's Google or they're going on

to paid ads or they're on TV or radio or print, or whatever

channel they're going through. So the the concept being, is

that once you've done that, then it's a matter of figuring out,

okay, how can we deliver a message effectively? So there's

a there's a rule in the billboard industry way back

when, and that was basically an effective billboard with six to

eight words and an image, that's all you had to work with. Now

that's a slide. Yes, exactly, yeah. So the medium changes, but

the message doesn't, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and then at that

point, it's a matter of moving to the next stage, which is the

resources. And what that simply means is that you've got only a

handful of resources. One is people, the other one was time,

and the third one is your media selection. So if you have the

people, you can do the work marketing wise, internally, but

they need to know what they're doing, and they need to

understand the whole concept of marketing. Uh. If you have the

time, you can hire a consultant, or you can hire a marketing firm

and pay them. But in a lot of cases, people do the opposite.

They figure, oh, we got lots of people. We have no clue what

we're doing, but we'll just use enough people to clobber the

internet with messages,

yes, yes, okay, the last one, okay, yeah,

and that's about keeping the keeping your

competitive edge. What? What I mean by that is just simply

continuing to market. So some businesses are all year round.

Some businesses are seasonal, so you need to be able to continue

being competitive in the market by, you know, adjusting your

budget, adjusting your messaging, determining when the

biggest share of your market's available. So online as an

example. And if you look at LinkedIn, a lot of businesses

are online in the daytime, right? And, you know, generally,

Tuesday, Wednesdays are the best dates of the week to put

messages out on LinkedIn, right? Yeah. So the concept with that

is that, if you're doing marketing correctly, it's an

investment, well, incorrectly, it's a cost,

Okay, fair enough. I do think, yeah, you're

talking about paid ads on LinkedIn, as opposed to posting

and things like that, right?

Oh, no, same, same thing. Okay,

I think today, I really do think that there's

people online all the time, all around the world, so absolutely,

yeah, it really does depend on your audience, and whether it's

global or whether it's local, and so forth as well. Because I

think we get a bit too hung up on that myself, but maybe bigger

companies would have to pay more attention to that. I don't know.

Well,

yeah, and it's also, you know, what's your

industry doing? You take the construction industry, yeah,

what are they doing the warm season? They're going 24/7,

right? They're trying to make as much money and do as much work

as they can, right? So on the shoulder seasons, when they're

ramping up particularly, I mean, you look at Alberta in BC they

can pretty well work all year round. But in Alberta, there's

times of the year where deal with weather, yeah, so, so

that's kind of the formula that I I work to when I'm working

with clients. As I look at that formula and say, Okay, what's

going on in their industry? You know, what's their market doing?

Yeah, and then where do we go from here? Where do we find the

gap? And so

do you think there's one or two common

mistakes that that people make in like, what you ask people

what their biggest problem might be, or their you know, did? Did

the same ones come up all the time?

I would say generally, yeah. I mean, first

one is they get the wrong target market and or a lot of

businesses. So you ask them, who's your target market? They

go, Oh, everybody, yeah. They have no, yeah, if you got lots

of money, it could be a roof, yeah, yeah. But that's, that is

big, okay, yeah. So that's, I think, a big one, the second one

is confusing messages and and I see this all the time. I work a

lot with professionals, and I see this all the time that they

talk from a technical perspective, or they talk from

industry speak, trying to reach their customers. And you know,

you look at computer technology, when computers became mainstream

and people were putting one in their house, you'd go to a

computer store or a computer sales person, they'd start

talking bits and bytes and RAM and ROM and yeah, all sorts of

technical terms, the customers going, Well, can I type on it?

Yeah, exactly. So that, I think the confusing message part is

the second 1/3, one is they've got a confusing brand. You know,

a lot of businesses use their own personal name when they

start up, you know, a name like Smith. Well, good luck with

marketing that, because there are hundreds of 1000s of Smiths

around the world, so the brand isn't attractive. It does not

have the right message. It doesn't match the thinking and

the mindset, the preconception of what a business should be.

They're not consistent. They don't have a process or a

system. So they're not doing it from a strategic point of view,

they're just throwing things out and seeing what sticks, and then

even more so with digital media and technology. Now they're

doing poor lead generation. They're not using like, you

know, you work on LinkedIn. They're not using the LinkedIn

system to be able to generate good. Eves are just fishing.

Yeah, a lot. Okay, here's a question for you.

Many businesses focus on technology and automation in

their marketing. How do you balance the use of technology

with the need to build meaningful relationships with

customers?

Oh, yeah, that's an interesting one. I think the

first thought should always be, what's my customer thinking?

What's my customer doing? Where does my customer hang out? So

the relationship part comes from understanding the psychology of

the customer, understanding that sociology, that's how the group

thinks the the segment of the market, yeah, and and then

figuring out the demographics behind that market. And there's

an interesting book came out called pre suasion. I don't know

if you've ever read it, but titles cover, yeah, and it's all

about how we influence and persuade customers to buy. And

the first book that it's Robert chial, chill, chill Dini, I

think it is,

oh, C, I a, l, yeah. You wrote

a book before that called influence, but what he

realized was that when it comes to relationships and working

with people and trying to give people to buy into a concept or

a marketing campaign or whatever it is, it all begins with

preparing the audience's mind to receive the message. So the the

challenge there is that there's so much clutter going on in our

heads that, you know, how do we cut through? How do we cut

through that clutter? So, it's about timing. It's about

creating associations with pre, pre seed or perceptions. It's

about framing the concept, the idea, it's about building trust

and connection.

So do you think, though, that that's done better

today, online or in person or face, face to face? Well, face

to face, like even if it's like this, not just, not necessarily

in person, but telephone, I mean, that's it's an old

fashioned tool, but I think it's coming back.

Well, yeah, and there's in the sales process, or

in in selling, one of the things that's challenging for

salespeople is if they can't see the person. So on screen, we're

seeing about this much of us, so if they can't see the person,

they don't know how to read, how the customers understanding the

information. And so in language, using language, salespeople can

break through that lack of visual perception by

understanding the language of the people and what they're

saying and the gaps in in the messaging so and a lot of that

has to do with what's called neuro linguistic program

program, right? And so most sales people, they just, you

know, they hear something, they take it for granted, or they

take it literally. But in some cases, and if you're dealing

with different personality styles, what people say and what

people are actually thinking and doing are different perceptions,

different so in a relationship situation, the context is also a

factor. Yes, yes, right. So it's and, you know, we even when we

went from face to face selling to online doing zoom calls,

again, we don't know. All we could see is this much of a

person. We don't know what they're doing. They could be

sitting there in their underwear, and we have no clue,

but that's okay.

Who cares? Yeah, exactly.

It's just, it's, how do you how are it's whether you have the

ability to relate through the screen. That's exactly it,

right? Yeah, and that has never bothered me, but I'm, always I

guess I'm of the generation that the first tool that I would ever

choose would be to pick up the phone, because that's how I grew

up. And I had a funny story my little granddaughter, who's

five, she called us the other night on FaceTime, or my my

daughter called on FaceTime, and my granddaughter wanted to talk,

but when we came and said, Hi, how are you, she had a play

phone up to her ear, and she said, Could you call me back?

I'm on another call.

Yeah, that's funny. I

was like, what could you call me? Back. I'm on

another call, and then I just saw a picture of her. She got

herself dressed, and she has her phone in her pocket.

Hilarious. Wow,

yeah, so it Yeah. Anyway, I want to switch gears

for a second, because I feel that you are a a master speaker

in that you were one of the founding members of your chapter

of caps, which is the Canadian version of Canadian Association

of Professional speakers. And I am in awe of people who have

done a lot of speaking and have been part of that organization,

because it takes a lot to do the kind of you know, to get paid

for speaking and things like that. But are you still involved

with them at all?

Oh, very much. So yeah, I'm not on a board

anymore, right? I probably spent about eight years in my my

career as a board member in some level, okay, and became the

president. And, yeah, yeah.

And so, how would that? How would you say that has

been beneficial in your career?

Oh, well, you know, it's interesting. I started out

having a pure public speaking.

I was actually, Oh, you did okay.

Oh yeah, yeah. When I was growing up, I had two

thoughts about careers. One was advertising, yeah. The other one

was being a professional musician. Mm, hmm. So I was

literally going to music school, and I was I was signing up for

college to learn about the advertising business in the

industry, and I had a group of students I was teaching in

music. We went to a festival like the Kiwanis festival.

What did you what instrument did you play?

Guitar? Okay. Anyway, the night before the the

competition, the band that I was training to perform the guitar

player phoned me up and said, we can't go. And I said, Why is

that our singers lost her voice, his voice, I should say. And I

said, Oh, well, that's going to be a problem. And they said, You

have to sing for us. Ah, and I had never sung in front of 650

people in my life, but they

knew that you could sing like that was, that

was, no, they didn't. I mean,

I would sing, but it was just kind of in the

studio as we were teaching the kids. So the night before I went

home, memorized the lyrics. We went up to the event. It was up

in Edmonton. We got up on stage together and started singing. I

started singing and playing. They they were playing guitar. I

didn't play guitar for that, the power cut. All that was left was

my voice and a set of drums that we're doing back in the USSR by

the Beatles. When I walked off that stage and I said, Screw

this music business I can't do. It's way too stressful. Oh, my

goodness, would not get on a stage again. Then I got into

business, and I went, Okay every night before I have to do a

major presentation, I was talking to guys that were old

enough to be my dad or granddad, about parting with millions of

dollars of ad campaigns and I would be sweating bullets a

night before I'd show up and as best as I could present, and

most of the time it went well, but I said, Okay, I can't deal

with this. I I've got to learn how to do presentations. So I

joined a group called The JCS Junior Chamber of Commerce. They

had an eight week program, yeah, and I went through that program

and learned, you know, what it takes to put together

professional presentations. And what was interesting is, when I

first went in, I said, the guy leading the program, I said, I'm

just sitting at the back here taking notes. And of course,

who's the first guy he picked on? Yeah. And when we finished

the program, he said, I want you to lead the next one. And I

looked at him, I said, No, I got my notes. I'm good. I'm out of

here. He said, No, I'd like you to leave the next one. I said,

No, we're not doing it. And he said, How about you and I lead

it together? So I said, Okay, well, yeah, we can do that. So

we led the program together. The next year he came back and he

said, I'd like you to lead the next program. Interesting. And I

said, we already had that conversation. Yeah, I got my

notes. I tried it once I'm out of here, I'm good. And he says,

Well, no, you have to. I mean, I have to. And he said, you're the

only guy that knows the program I'm leaving the country. And

that was my introduction to speaking. So I did training for

volunteers and and through the through the group. And then I

got people asking me, would you come out and do a presentation

for our business or not for profit organization? And started

to do that. And. Then the next thing, one day, I woke up, just

shortly after I had the marketing the advertising agency

went, you know, I could probably get some clients if I went out

and did presentations, right? So started doing that, and, of

course, attracting clients. And that's how I built the marketing

firm. Sure,

interesting and and, of course, you're, you are

a doer, obviously, because once you got involved, then you had

to get involved, right? Like, yeah, that was interesting. Um,

no, it's fascinating. I, I've dabbled a little bit early on in

Toastmasters, and I have experienced a little bit of caps

in Vancouver. They have a pretty strong group here, but yeah, and

I have spoken on big on bigger stages, but I never had any

training. And so I think the piece that's missing for me is

how to tell a story properly, and that I know is is so

important in speaking on stage. So

story is a big part of it. And actually, you know,

flipping back to the whole aspect of marketing and

advertising is used to be, if you had a catchy slogan and a

brand, you could get traction in the market. People buy your

product or service. But now it's more about telling the brand

story. Yeah, you know Simon cynics, yeah. Why? Why? He's all

about why are you in business? Why are you doing what you do?

Yeah, why do you sell what you sell? And it's telling the story

of how that came about, or why your business does what it does.

Mm, hmm, yeah,

yeah. Times have changed, but we also have a lot

more competition. There's a lot more information thrown at us

daily as well, and all this stuff. So we have to, we have to

be, I think, stand out from the crowd, being sincere and being

caring. I really think that that, that, to me, is the major

difference. I had it. I'm not going to go into it. I'll tell

you another time, but I customer service, for me is so vital, and

when I come across customer service that isn't they don't

care, it drives me insane. We just had a 10 day vacation. We

stayed at this really cool boutique hotel in North

Hollywood. And yes, it's a really cool hotel. And every

person that I came across there that worked at that hotel was so

good they'd step out of the way if you were going to the

elevator. They wouldn't get on with their big carts with you.

They'd always wait. They'd say, how are you? They'd be it was

all every single person was. Was that's what you want. You want

that feeling absolutely that you're being cared for. Anyway,

we talk for hours, and I have to wrap this up, because time is of

the essence. Here, fabulous to speak to you today. You have a

free ebook. I understand that people can access, and I need to

make sure I have the link so I can put it in the show notes.

You want to tell us about it?

Sure? Yeah. The the ebook is really an overview of

the things that I do marketing wise. It's called spark

innovative marketing, yeah, and so it's it basically

encapsulates a lot of the things that need to be done in the

process of of developing marketing strategy and then

carrying it through. And I think the big thing, if I was to leave

people with anything, is that marketing is a process. It's not

an event. Most people think, Oh, I did, did something. It's done

like in Yeah, early on. So it is a process. And in that book, I

talk about some of the different ways that you know you can be

effective at marketing and advertising and all of the

different aspects of marketing. And I think the second thing, in

conjunction with that is that marketing and sales need to work

together. I don't know how many businesses I go into, the

marketing departments one end of the hallway, the sales

departments at the other, and they pass each other in the

hallway and don't even talk to each other,

and some people who think they're both the same.

So have another conversation about that. Another day. I'll

bring you back, because I think that's very important. Yeah,

yeah, they

cross over the words marketing and sales and

branding and throw them all into a mix and understand any of

them.

Yeah, exactly so. And you definitely have the

background, have the experience, have the wisdom to help people

who are in business today. I know that from talking to you, I

know that from looking at your work, and I also feel the the

caring that you have for what you do, the passion for what you

what you do, and and I'm sure you've helped a lot of people

along the way. So. That that will speak to that.

I'm hoping so, yeah, I've, I've made some plans

fairly rich. Let's put it that way.

Yeah, okay, so they can find you at Spark

communications.com, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,

and your email, if I may, put in the show notes as well, if

people are for sure, yeah, okay. And your free ebook is on your

website, on a specific yes

it is, yeah. And I think I sent you the link as

well in your

well, I'll double check with you after for sure.

Yeah. Well, thank you, David. Thank you for being here, thank

you for sharing and thank you to my audience again for being

here. Remember to stay connected and be remembered.

Thanks. Jess, you're welcome.