How Your Business Can Survive the Coronavirus Crisis With Mark Schaefer

Well, I’ve really had a great career. I spent most of my career in marketing, working for a Fortune 100 company, and started my own business about 12 years ago. I am a marketing consultant. Marketing strategy is really what I love most of all. And I love to write—I’ve got a popular blog called {grow}, and I’ve written eight books. My new book is called Marketing Rebellion: Most Human Company Wins. I also host a podcast called The Marketing Companion. I teach at Rutgers University and speak, so I do a lot. I live in Knoxville, Tennessee, and as we’re recording this, it’s springtime here, which is one of the most beautiful times of the year. So it’s a great, beautiful spring day.

Well, that was cool. And I know you’re really into personal branding and how that leverages itself in the marketplace today—that’s a very key idea, and it also connects to some of the ideas I have in my new book, Marketing Rebellion. The two books are almost like chapter one and chapter two of a longer story.

Well, writing is a very difficult process. Writing a book is excruciating for me because I don’t have a plan or strategy. Each book has to start with a big, unique idea, and my ideas come from observing the world and talking to people. I speak and consult with companies all over the world, and I meet interesting people through my work at Rutgers University. When I begin to hear questions and themes that spark my curiosity—things I can’t answer or don’t understand—I get obsessed with figuring them out. It’s like a dog chasing a tennis ball; once I solve the mystery, that becomes the idea behind the book.

The question was: “Can anybody become known in this world?” Being known is a real competitive advantage, so I asked my friends, “Is it possible for anyone to become known?” They weren’t sure, so I got curious. I did a lot of original research—interviewed 97 people in different fields around the world—and found there was indeed a pattern. Certain things everyone did without exception, and that became the core of the book.

For Marketing Rebellion, the question I kept hearing from marketing professionals was, “Why do I feel stuck and overwhelmed? Our marketing doesn’t work like it used to.” My initial hypothesis was that technology was moving so fast we couldn’t keep up. I started researching and writing, but about a third of the way in, I realized I was wrong. Yes, technology plays a big part—it’s a confusing, fast-paced time—but more importantly, customers have moved ahead. Traditional advertising and marketing don’t work like they used to. People don’t see ads, and they don’t believe ads. Two-thirds of our marketing is now happening without us.

So the new marketing mindset must be, “How do we join that two-thirds?” You can’t buy your way in. It’s happening on social media, on review sites, in face-to-face conversations, and with influencers. A brand used to be what we told people it was. Today, a brand is what people tell each other. Control has shifted from companies to consumers, and we need to figure out how to become part of that in an effective, sustained way.

Well, I mean, yes and no, yes and no. If you think about the thousands and thousands of products that you buy in a year, how many of those products do you really have a relationship with? I mean, let’s be honest. In some cases, people absolutely feel they have a relationship—a very personal relationship—with certain big brands. But I think the bigger idea is to respect how the world operates today, and that is: the customer is the marketer. The customer is the one telling their friends, neighbors, and social media buddies what they’re looking at and what they’re seeing.

I call the book Marketing Rebellion because it’s a rebellion in two ways. Number one, consumers are rebelling against us. They’re tired of being abused. They say, “Look, you have to respect me. Stop this spam, stop these robocalls, stop this stupid direct mail cluttering my mailbox. Respect my time, respect my life, respect the environment, respect my privacy.” In old-school sales and marketing, if you take a step back, we do a lot to abuse people.

The book starts with a bit of a history lesson that shows, for the last 100 years, whenever companies take advantage of consumers, the consumers fight back—and they always win. That’s part of the lesson here: consumers are going to win. We have to learn how to connect with them on their terms, not ours. Our marketing should be about them and their story, not necessarily about us and our story. We need to make the customer the hero.

First and foremost, we need to stop doing what people hate. If you’re doing things that annoy people—and you know you are—stop it. Get out and talk to your customers. Find out what their true needs are, the unmet and underserved needs in this new day, and double down on that. I spend a lot of time in the book going through these foundational human needs. Customers are crying out for help in many different areas, and we just can’t keep doing the same old stuff and expect it to work.

The companies that catch on are often led by younger people—millennials, Gen Z—who are starting their own businesses and connecting in a much more humanistic and healthy way than we ever did in the old days of sales and marketing.

I think your example with the call center is a good one because, you know, that’s sort of the same business model as spam, right? It’s like you call 1,000 people and you get one, but you’ve bothered 1,000 people. The same goes for spam and robocalls. And, you know, I’m starting to really pay attention to the kind of direct mail we get. Some of it is just so wasteful and so irrelevant. I think that’s a symptom of the sickness in marketing today. We’re over-reliant on technology. Technology has become the enemy of great marketing because it’s made us lazy. We want to hide behind our dashboards because it’s tangible and we can measure a mention or a like, but it prevents us from doing what we need to do to be great marketers.

I mentioned in the book that, you know, I was inspired to go into marketing when I took my very first marketing class. I opened up my book at the university, and like most of us, that book was Principles of Marketing by Dr. Philip Kotler. Dr. Kotler says marketing is a bunch of definitions in the book, but he also says marketing is a combination of psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Essentially, if you think about that definition, marketing is all things human. But how many people think about it that way today? They’re obsessed with their martech stack, their email campaigns, optimizing their SEO, or whatever. I’m not saying that’s wrong. I’m not saying there’s no place for that—there is. But in our hearts, that’s not what consumers want today. I firmly believe, with every fiber of my body, that in the end, truly, the most human company will win—the companies that learn to use technology to take down barriers, instead of erecting barriers between themselves and their customers.

Oh, I recommend that people just hire me.

Well, let me tell you a little story from the book that really shows the symptom of the sickness in marketing today. I have this friend who is also one of my marketing heroes—a guy named Martin Lindstrom. Martin truly is an anthropologist; he’s written a book called Small Data, which I highly recommend. He’s the kind of person who goes into people’s homes and workplaces, just observing and making small observations that lead to big insights.

He was giving a speech in New York City to about 5,000 marketing executives, and he asked, “How many of you have had a face-to-face conversation with one of your customers in the last year?” Nineteen people raised their hands.

This is a good illustration for a lot of reasons, Shane. You’ve probably seen the headlines I have—where the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is under attack. Big companies like Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson have eliminated the CMO position. Now, if marketing is the lifeblood of a company (as I believe it is), and if you don’t have customers, you don’t have a company, then how can the role of CMO be under attack?

Part of the reason is that there’s a dissonance between the old-school expectations of what marketing is supposed to do and the new-school expectations of what customers really want. Martin makes a great point: the role of the CMO today has to be the glue between the voice of the customer and every department in the organization. They need to be out there constantly, understanding what’s happening—what the trends are, what competitors are doing—and having conversations to represent that voice.

Another thing we’re seeing is the idea that the CMO should become the CXO, essentially owning the 360-degree customer experience. It’s the same concept: you have to adopt this mindset. I don’t like telling people what to do, because I respect that the listeners here are experts who know what works and what doesn’t. But I want this book to be a wake-up call that helps you see the world as it really is and introduces new options to make you more successful in marketing.

By the way, this isn’t just my opinion. It’s based on solid research from places like McKinsey, Accenture, Deloitte, Harvard, and MIT—studies that show, conclusively and profoundly, that the world has changed and we need to adjust.

You know, I had the fortune of studying under Peter Drucker when he was teaching at Claremont Graduate University. One of his famous quotes is that marketing and innovation are the heart of the company—everything else is overhead, because you have to get customers and retain them through innovation, and everything else supports that. I think marketing is more vital and vibrant than ever, but it risks becoming obsolete. People are going to be less useful if they don’t get this wake-up call about where consumers are today.

I think the central message of the Marketing Rebellion book is exactly what’s needed right now: the most human company wins. We’re smashing every rule book and every playbook because these are truly unprecedented times. It’s almost a war-like scenario here in America and in other parts of the world. Even in a war, you wouldn’t expect to shut down Las Vegas or the Kentucky Derby or cancel baseball—but here we are. Everything’s so unprecedented that all the content I had planned for the next few weeks and months is irrelevant now.

I’ve been counseling and coaching a lot of people, and I think the number-one thing to ask is, “Are you relevant at this moment? Do people still care about what you do?” For example, last week a client in Miami contacted me saying, “Hey, we’re thinking about switching some of our social media stuff. We’d like to get you on a call.” I said, “Great. What day works for you?” Then I never heard back. So I followed up with an email, and he said, “Mark, our entire world is upside down. Our supply chain is shot. We can’t get enough trucks. Our customers are in chaos. We’re in crisis mode.” Five days ago, I was relevant; today, I’m not. So we have to reframe our businesses, our skills, and our core competencies to be relevant right now. It’s hard, but we have no choice because we have a new economy, a new country, and customers with entirely new unmet and underserved needs.

Here’s an example: I got an email from a rancher in our county who raises cattle. He said, “I know you enjoy visiting local restaurants, and you can’t do that now. I’ll bring our steaks to you.” Here’s a B2B business—a cattle rancher—reimagining his service in the context of what’s happening. People are stuck in their houses. I’ve self-isolated; we’re basically locked down. When I went to the store, the shelves were empty—no meat, no nothing. And this guy is saying, “I’ll bring it to your door.” That’s how he’s meeting the needs of this moment.

Another big point: people are grieving, and we have to approach our world and our customers through a lens of grief. Every single person we know has lost something significant. It’s overwhelming as I talk to people, counsel them, and coach them. One lady I spoke with is losing all her customers. A guy with an upscale men’s store—75 years in his family—can’t pay his employees. Another person’s 92-year-old mother is in a convalescent home that’s locked down, so she can’t visit her. Lots of people are trying to work at home with kids crawling all over them. We’ve lost our social networks: can’t go to church, the store, or the pub. We’ve lost our freedom. So everyone has lost something, and it’ll take time to get through it. We need to use this filter of grief.

I ask people, “How would you sell something to somebody at a funeral? Would you give them a coupon? Say, ‘I’ve got this online class at 25% off’?” That’s not how you talk to someone at a funeral. You’d ask, “What can I do for you right now? How can I help you get through your loss? My business is here for you in this moment.” That’s where our customers are. Everyone is in grief. We need to provide grace to them—we have to care for them—and that’s what will build long-term loyalty. We have to fight through this to the other side, and the only way is to do the right thing, even if it hurts. That’s how you create genuine love and loyalty that will still be there when we come out on the other side.

Well, it is. And I think, like you, my customers become my friends—they’re people I entertain at my house. I’ve written to some of my customers and just said, “Look, I’m here for you. You’re my friend. I’ll literally do anything you need me to do to help you right now. I’ll be praying for you.” Maybe that’s the only thing I can do, since I’m a thousand miles away, but I want them to know I’m thinking of them, and we’ll get through this together.

Honestly, I would do anything to help my customers right now. We just have to band together, because it’s going to be a fight—it’s going to be a war to reach the other side.

Yeah, one of my friends is about to be locked in place in Boston. He posted, “We’ve got 48 hours.” My wife and I are going out for a big steak dinner tonight, and I thought about that too. I live in a relatively safe part of the country—a kind of suburban area near Knoxville, Tennessee. I thought, “Well, maybe we should just go out one more time and have that big dinner.” But then you start thinking about it, and I believe the statistics that say there are probably 600% or 700% more people who have it and don’t know because they haven’t been tested. It’s probably everywhere. But the only real thing I can do right now in this very helpless time is stay home, lock it down, and not be part of the problem. A lot of people have told me, “I’m self-isolating because I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be the person who ends up the epicenter of something.”

Yeah, I was mad at somebody in the store the other day because they were whistling.

You’re blowing your breath all over me!

I’ve got a little bit of asthma that kind of gets triggered. You know, where I live, we literally have the highest pollen count in the country. We just have so much stuff blooming here. And whenever that starts, the allergies start, the asthma starts a little bit, you know—even coughing a little bit on your show, you know—I’m perfectly healthy, but you have this tremendous guilt just coughing in public.

Well, the progression of my career is that I was so fortunate—I worked for a great company. I spent most of my career at Alcoa, which at the time was part of the Dow Jones Industrials. It was a blue-chip company, around for more than a hundred years—a Fortune 100 company that was extremely well run. They had tremendous bosses and mentors who always challenged me. I remember it was a weird experience because I was almost always the youngest person in the room. For the first 15 years of my career, I was constantly wondering, “What am I doing in this meeting?” But they were pushing me to see how far I could go. It was a great place—they even sponsored my graduate education.

Back then, I hadn’t done much writing or speaking, other than giving presentations within the company. Then, about 12 years ago, my company wanted to transfer me to Switzerland, but I had a personal situation that kept me from moving. After six months of going back and forth, I decided I wanted to do something different. I was in a good financial position to try something new, so I started my own company.

What really took off for me was creating content—blogging consistently. It took a while to figure out, because I was new to all this, but I was a consultant and a teacher, and around 2008–2009 I really had to immerse myself in social media to be able to consult or talk about it. I started a blog on a whim, and after about nine months, I realized literally all my business benefits were coming from that little blog. So I doubled down on content, got serious and consistent about it, and eventually the blog led to books. People were interested in what I had to say, and I wrote the best-selling book on Twitter. Then I wrote the very first book on influence marketing, called Return on Influence, in 2012—before people were even using that term. After that, I wrote books on content; one of them I assumed was just about content, but people told me it was the best SEO book they’d ever read. That one was The Content Code. The books have done very well.

As the books gained popularity, people became interested in my speaking. I wasn’t a natural speaker—I was terrified at first—but I realized if you have the opportunity to speak in front of a crowd, it’s a wonderful way to build your personal brand. These are like-minded people who want to believe in you. If you can give them something awesome, you’ll create new fans, clients, and people who’ll buy your books. I had to get over that terror. Eventually, I did it enough to realize I wasn’t going to die up there, and I developed a funny, conversational style—maybe a bit unusual or quirky. But the feedback I usually get is, “I paid attention the whole time,” which is rare for some people, and they say they learned a lot and were entertained too.

On the consulting side, I love strategy. I think that’s my gift as a marketer: I can see things other people can’t, like where the trends are going. I have a pretty good track record of documenting what will or won’t work, and where we need to be. That’s allowed me to help a lot of cool companies—Microsoft, Dell, Adidas, the U.S. Air Force for a couple of years, and recently a project for Chipotle. I’ve been able to work with some very, very cool brands, and strategy might be my favorite thing to do because it’s so challenging—an intellectual puzzle to figure out. That’s the kind of challenge I like.

At the beginning, I’d say for the first year and a half—maybe even two years—I was literally terrified. The audiences were getting bigger and more sophisticated. I remember doing my first really big event in Cincinnati, which is a big marketing town because of Procter & Gamble. There were about 300 people there. I was backstage, pacing back and forth, just terrified. Then I realized, “Okay, you’re going to work. This is work. Why be afraid of going to work? That’s silly. This is what you’ve chosen to do. People want you to do this. It’s an opportunity, so just go to work.” That seemed to help.

Another trick I used was realizing if I could get past the first two minutes, adrenaline would take over. So I’d literally memorize my first two minutes—maybe say something about where I am, who I’m with—and if I got that out coherently, I’d relax, and everything would be okay. Of course, now I’ve been doing this more than 10 years, and I’m very comfortable on stage because I’ve done it so many times. It’s like practice—you keep practicing. Anyone who wants to be a speaker should start out humble: take any gig you can, don’t worry about the money, say yes to everything, and learn each time. Something will go wrong, you’ll overcome it, and suddenly people might ask you to do something else. So start small, be humble, and let the confidence build.

Yeah, I do have some ideas for a book, but like I said at the beginning, I need to be really sure about it—it has to be a big, relevant idea. Writing a book is a significant commitment; it’s exhausting. My book Marketing Rebellion has been out for about a year now. I picked it up the other day, and I hadn’t really looked through it in a while. I thought, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I can ever do this again,” because there was just so much work involved.

What I’m really excited about right now is a unique little event I’ve started called “The Uprising,” because every rebellion starts with an uprising. Writing a book like Marketing Rebellion is basically like getting a master’s degree—it required so much reading and research. One idea that really stuck with me was the power of bringing people together to bond in a special way.

I used to have a big event with 600 or 700 attendees, and it was just a blur—stressful, too big, and not that enjoyable. So I decided to do something smaller. I created a marketing retreat that’s limited to 30 people. We go to a lodge in the woods, surrounded by hiking trails, gardens, and ponds, for two and a half days to talk about the future of marketing and the future of business. It’s not presentation-style; it’s more of a retreat where we use the intelligence in the room to teach each other and decide the topics we’ll cover.

I held my first one last year, and it was truly magical. Since it’s limited to 30 people, you really get to know everyone. We do hiking, yoga, enjoy gourmet food, and have music. Unfortunately, because of the current situation, I had to cancel the event scheduled for May, but I’ve already got another set for October, and I’m planning new dates for May 2021. That’s the most interesting and fun thing I’m working on right now.

And, yeah, people have asked, “Oh, are you going to grow this?” And I’ve said, “No, that’s the whole point. It’s going to be 30 people. I don’t want it bigger.” Because something really remarkable happens when you have that small group engaged in meaningful conversations. I remember before the thing even started—like at breakfast—I was trying to go around to every table and say hi, and I couldn’t even break into the conversations. It was like “marketing geek central,” and people were just so immersed in sharing and learning from each other the whole time. One guy told me, “Mark, this is going to be a great conference. I took five pages of notes at breakfast before it even started,” and I thought, “Man, this is going to be great.” And it was.

You can find it on my website—it’s under “Events” on my website. It’s called The Uprising. A lot of the people who were supposed to come in May have moved over to October, but I think we have a few open slots left for October. Then, of course, I’ll be able to post soon about May 2021.

Yeah, I mean, I’m really easy to find. If you can remember businessesgrow.com—it’s almost impossible to remember how to spell “Schaefer,” so that was out of the question. But if you can remember “businessesgrow,” you’ll find my blog, my podcast, my books, and lots of other cool stuff to help businesses of every size.

Thank you, Shane.