Reggie James, Founder of digital marketing management consultancy, Digital Clarity, was invited to participate in “Office Hours“ this morning, a successful online podcast by David Meltzer and now in its 610th episode.
David Meltzer, is the Co-founder of Sports 1 Marketing and formerly served as the CEO of the renowned Leigh Steinberg Sports & Entertainment agency, in Newport Beach, California , which was the inspiration for the movie “Jerry Maguire.” Tom Cruise made Jerry Maguire the epitome of sports agents and the model for the career management of premier athletes. Agents are essential in leveraging their clients athletic prowess and leadership into compensation and business ventures.
Published across numerous social platforms including Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Spotify, “Office Hours”is where the brightest billionaires, millionaires and entrepreneurs, in business, sports, and entertainment get together to talk about success, failure, and everything in between. What motivates the best and brightest to make the right choices during their professional lives.
“Office Hours” is co-hosted by Blaine Bartlett, a renowned keynote speaker, bestselling author as well as a highly sought after Executive & Leadership Coach, Bloomberg TV & Apple TV Co-Host.
David Meltzer is a value-based speaker whose combination of successful business experience, inspiration, energy, and pragmatism has led to recognition by publication outlets such as Forbes and Entrepreneur as well as a lead lrole in WGN’s World’s Greatest Motivators.
Named a Top 100 Business Coach by Marshall Goldsmith, Meltzer regularly speaks at many of the top business, sports, technology, and motivational events.
The group discussed authenticity, resistance, and the need for CEOs and leaders to come out from behind the desk and be the face (and force) of their organization.
Reggie James has agreed to participate in future episodes. This is an exciting opportunity for James to share Digital Clarity’s expertise in brand management and how companies and their leadership achieve and sustain competitive advantage.
As a flagship operating company advising and providing clients with unique digital marketing solutions , DC has long stated that a ‘seat at the table,’ is required. “Office Hours” represents a business development opportunity with key decision makers.
To get a sense of discussion flow, attached is an unedited transcript .
TRANSCRIPT
David: Good morning everyone, we are blessed to be here as always with the amazing double Blaine Bartlett – BlaineBartlett. com my mentor for so many years.
People ask me how everything’s growing so quickly it seems so easy what’s the difference and I said well it’s great mentorship and having a mentor like Blaine battle to help me identify how I’ve been limiting myself my own self-image moving possibilities into reality for me let him do it for you.
David: Blaine, thanks for joining me absolutely my pleasure as always good to get out of bed, well you know we’re up early but for Reggie James it’s probably in the afternoon m, he’s already ready to go and have some tea by«– founder of Digital Clarity.
Reggie: Exactly, it’s great the perception everyone on the other side of the pond has of the UK – expecting us all to be wandering around with bowler hats and swinging an umbrella around‚ that’s right – great!
David: I love it, I can’t wait to get back to London as we have a few speaking engagements scheduled there.
David: B2B marketing isn’t talked about as much as the individuals today, what other people call the influencers uh for the real players in the space, I call them enflowers putting people in the flow.
Blaine and my focus is primarily in the B2B side of things at larger Enterprises, perspective offering marketing itself other than individual Brands –
My first question is, in your understanding as a strategist and a leader in the space, how has the personal brand of/for example the executives or other influencers impacted your B2B digital marketing strategy?
Reggie: that is a great question David and I think the lines have blurred incredibly over the last few years, certainly post-pandemic if I can use that terminology, but it’s become less B2C to B2B – it’s very much human to human and it’s always been that way — but there’s been less emphasis on it so we as a business look at what makes people buy, looking – not just at data but a whole host of different things/elements — all these different components and really, you know — that’s a great question to kick off with because that is the one of the biggest changes we have seen.
The CEO of an organization in any medium to large organization is coming out from behind the desk and being a key person of influence.
They have to be the face of their brand, of their organization as a leader and when we speak to we normally advise CEOs, CMOs and more recently, Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) – and help them, sometimes, get out of their own way, and really try and help them.
Marketing is almost a byproduct of that help — by understanding what they do but it’s also all about understanding a little bit about who they are and how that’s reflective and everything…
.and in answer to your question David, it is a one of the biggest areas and it’s the biggest challenge is to try and get people, certainly in the B2B space / the tech space who’re looking to scale, to become far more Audible and Visual in terms of what they do so that’s one of the components that we help them with.
Blaine: You know Reggie, I like this and where this thread is going – I’m working with a CEO right now, that is actually facing this exact issue — how does he become the face of the organization and more specifically not just the organization but the product, you know the service offering so that it becomes/he becomes kind of more an industry icon yeah, would be my word for it here.
He’s not naturally inclined to seek publicity for the sake of you know what he would call in his own publicity why would I want to be known, he’s like, let’s just go get our product out there . How would you work with and how what’s the narrative that you actually will bring to your client, such that they can get over that little speed bump, if you will….?
Reggie: Again, it’s all part of that mix and there’s never ever one straight line of publicity — there are layers, you can go deep and wide and have a CEO or a leader who is very knowledgeable about the product they may not be as dynamic as David or yourself at getting in front of crowds …. but they have something to offer and we normally start those people on — But before they even get to that point, we have a plan that we work with them on, but it’s understanding that we try to meet people where they are and where they are on their Journey.
Somewhere they’re looking to break through or not even looking to break through but know that they may have to do this to help and build their organization to get to a certain level under pressure from shareholders to do this or whatever it maybe we have to deconstruct where they are, as much as we can and help them define the best way to actually approach.
That’s part of our Discovery piece that we do we called a Diagnosis Workshop, where we get all the key stakeholders in the room and try and understand their business first, and where they fit into that business, and what they actually do and you’d be surprised or maybe you wouldn’t be surprised, if you get five Executives in a room and ask them all to write down what it is they actually do as an organization , they’re all different.
So yeah, we all have different perceptions of what the business does, but also a perception of how we come across, so we help, not necessarily help them find their true voice but try and understand who they are and what’s the best way to fit in.
You guys have an abundance of this and it was Miriam Webster’s word of 2023 “authenticity” / “being authentic” and there’s no point in answered your question Blaine the person who’s has resistance to do something we have to find the flow of where they’re going to find something that fits with them and develop that because that is an equally strong building block in terms of what people engage with as long as it’s real and people will buy into that he a lot more spot on thank you just and just to finish up with the last question uh obviously the authenticity in the essence is a key in the discovery process in any digital marketing strategy uh but you mentioned another key word which was not Miriam Webster’s word of the year uh but it should be the word of the for so many people because it’s resistance and uh.
I was in the ‘early adopter phase ‘of the internet of the middle of space of transcoding the internet into the data side of the internet all through my first 15 years of my career before I was blessed to work for Lee Steinberg talk about resistance and then it mirrored itself again now with digital marketing and I still see mid-market and large companies resistant to you know the idea of digital marketing compared to traditional marketing the same way people like Justice Scalia telling me the internet will never be used for research that you need books uh that’s the type of resistance we faced in 1992.
I see the same resistance in from Fortune 500 CEOs that I coach and they’re like well I can’t do , you know the company can’t do what you do .Dave you know you’re very Nimble ,you’re a personality whatever excuses they give it’s a necessity How much resistance are you receiving today?
I know it’s less , but are you still seeing a lot of resistance in the B2B side of a digital marketing strategy 100% I mean the resistance is real um it and as we all know that part that resistance is more an internal thing rather than anything else a resistance of themselves um because they’ve never done it before and there’s also the other word the f word fear in terms of that particular f’ word where they though it could relate to both but it’s kind of one of those things where there’s that that thing we always feel that the strength of resistance .It goes to Isaac Newton’s almost second law of forces.
There are equal forces resisting as there is pulling . If you can find a way of understanding that piece and actually getting deeper into that individual or a group . and actually where that resistance is you’ll find that the inertia is equally strong to do something if you can unlock those areas that actually find that path . I think that’s one of the roles we see ourselves as we’re an advisor we work in a very commoditized space our approach is totally counterintuitive to the way most marketers approach business they always go for product first or get yourself onto LinkedIn you know in the B2B space we’re very counterintuitive in the sense that we you have to do things differently and we’re always talking about, you know in terms of resistance there’s a time period that takes time you know for people to develop especially leaders because they’ve been they’ve got years of stuff that’s been poured into their into their head it’s great to see David nodding there because he is he’s obviously an expert this but what we find is that there’s that resistance. comes from a very internal piece but also it takes time for it to develop everyone wants the sixpack but they’re not always willing to do the work. They’re not going to get up at 5:00 in the morning not going to do the run they’re not going to do this you know eight hour sleep change the nutrition they want the results but are they willing our program is very much a doing program and people get far more fulfillment on it you know there is no magic bullet . You need the war wounds, I was going to say .There’s very few guys over 70 there’s only one in this group , but there’s very few guys over 70 that are going to wake up at 5 am to do a show – yeah you know be consistent – we’re on show #610 and you know people are, you know of this one show and it’s interesting because you know they’re just not willing to do it. And you know for me and you, we know the strategy and the numbers are huge when you get to the bigger companies.
I just think it’s funny because as much as it used to frustrate me, the resistance with the bigger companies, now I love it because every day they resist, it’s more time for me to realize all the billions of dollars they’ve spent on marketing and cannibalize IT into my social Silo because I am willing to wake up every day and make sure that I’m pouring into the community and my community had never had I’ve never had the ability to build a community like we did and you know just it’s just amazing the traditional stuff as you then you know I cook the Fan median we’re touring together my kids are like Dad how the hell are you going on tour with Dane Cook you know at the YouTube theatre and Carnegie Hall, and I said because I cannibalized you know all the big companies audiences because they’re still resisting the fact, that wake up and pour into your community and a portion of them will respond.
Anyway Reggie we’ll have you back – let’s make sure when I come over the pond that we have some tea in Mayfair and I’ll introduce some really cool people.
Reggie: I would love to do that David.It’s been an honor to be here on the show, and Blaine very nice to meet you too.
David: well great catching up with you in person, thank you Reggie James . I know Blaine what a great guest.
I know when people saw me having a new guest , Reggie James on they probably thought it was a quarterback for Green Bay, they had no idea the elegance and class. We thought we got another football player you know Reggie James is coming on — nope it was a different Reggie James. Great!
