The Human On The Other Side - Casey Cheshire - Fractional C-Suite Retreat - Episode # 33

Growing a business is hard, but it does not have to be. Once a week, we take a break from the hustle and bustle in business to talk about innovations and what's new in the C-suite. This is the Fractional C-Suite Retreat, and I'm Joseph Frost. Pull up a seat at the fire, grab a drink, smoke a cigar, and just join me as we relax, learn, and get inspired. This retreat is sponsored by Your CMO, helping organizations grow with better marketing strategy. Welcome. Today's guest, entrepreneur, fun-loving guy, good friend. He's a genius, masterful conversationalist, author of the Marketing Automation Unleashed book and founder, CEO of Ringmaster Conversational Marketing. Welcome, Casey Cheshire. How are you?

I am so excited to be here. I can't wait to just have a jam session here. Man, let's go. I'm so excited. Yes.

It's been quite the bookend because I think one of the very first podcasts I was ever on was your podcast several, several months ago. And, uh, it was a great experience and I'm, I'm hopeful that I can give you the same pleasure that I had as a guest.

I bet, I bet, man. I'm, I'm just excited. Thank you for having me on. It, it is such a small world that, that I was on your podcast. Now you're, you're a You were on mine and now I'm on yours. It just, that's, that's the way this works so well.

Yeah. And it took us, uh, just several months in between we got there. So the question I wanna start with Casey is, as a marketer, uh, and in your role in business, what is one of the opportunities that you see that maybe other C-suite members aren't seeing today? Or maybe they are and, and you just need to reinforce it for them.

Absolutely. We have to talk to our customers and before anyone decides to skip to some other podcast, we all know this, but we don't necessarily do this. And we often— it's because we don't have a mechanism to do this. So I myself am guilty of this. We gotta freaking talk to our customers. And I've hid behind tech, right? Oh, we get the new latest marketing automation tool. Is your CRM campaign hooked up to this campaign? Do you have all the tracking and all the reporting? We've gotten so nerdy and geeked out on technology that we've forgotten just to have a simple conversation, a one-on-one with the person, the human being on the other side who's actually going to be one signing that DocuSign.

Yeah. And it's so simple when I think business owners and founders are younger or newer in their businesses, it happens very frequently. It's smaller businesses. There's a lot of interaction. You're wearing lots of hats. You're probably in sales roles. As this big companies get bigger and C-suites get larger, become further and further removed from the customer. And it's not as easy or convenient. So how do, how do you tell people to intentionally go out there and do it again? It doesn't sound forced or rehearsed or less organic.

Yeah. You need that mechanism, right? And without it, I experienced exactly what you described. I built the company around me. I had people doing the work and clicking the buttons, and I had people ensuring people were happy. And then it was actually my job to stay out of everyone's way. But then the problem is How do I get a conversation with a customer without getting in sales' way or getting in customer satisfaction? Or there are people assigned to different jobs. So how do I get the info? And then what makes matters worse is that, you know, at the head of a company in the C-suite, we're supposed to be creating strategy based on the challenges that our customers are having. But if we're not having those conversations, how the hell do we know what kind of strategy to set? And if we do set strategy, usually it's, it's it can be misguided and off and not really what needs to happen. So what I discovered really almost accidentally and thankfully discovered is that a podcast is absolutely this brilliant way. It's a mechanism to have a one-on-one conversation with not only your current customers, but future customers, people that maybe don't even know you, have never heard of your brand before and would probably in all likelihood say no to a sales call. They're gonna say yes to a podcast conversation. Yeah.

And I think it's such a brilliant way to utilize a conversation and an approach via podcasting to not only get information in that conversation, but then you get great content from it as well that you can share and, and, um, continue to learn and grow that, uh, conversation outside just that one-on-one time.

Yeah. Content for days, Joe. Like that was my initial aim was to just create content and And boy, did it. Yeah, I once had this conversation and we tried to figure out just how much content could come from one hour interview, right? And I think the number we got up to was like 41 different pieces of content from Instagram posts to blog posts and video clips and, and, you know, transcripts and FAQs. And eventually I actually wrote a book on marketing automation thanks to having a podcast. And each month had a theme. And that theme had 4 guests that knew even more than I did about that topic. And then after the course of a year, I've got a 12-chapter book. And so that, that really helped me create that book out of almost thin air just by having conversations.

Yeah, I love your approach because most people look at podcasting as a content tool first, right? And every conversation we've had about podcasting, it's, it's about the value of the time with the guests first. Everything else is just extra.

Right.

And it changes my approach. I only, I get really selfish on podcasts. I only choose people that I'm interested in talking to about, hey, topics I'm interested in. And it naturally makes better content that way, I think also. But the meaningful conversations I have and connections I make from my podcast are the main reason we do it.

100%. And in that curiosity you have, you know, every podcaster I've talked to, And we'll have to have you on this new podcast I'm launching about podcasting, right? So just geeking out on what makes it successful. But you mentioned the curiosity and time and time again, I keep hearing that has to be an ingredient. If you're not interested in the topic and the speaker, then we gotta change the questions. We gotta shift the audience, we gotta shift the guests, whatever we gotta do so that you as the host can stay in that zone where you're just excited to hear What do you think about this? What do you think about that? And really hash out the questions, hash out the answers. And you're right, if you're excited, then the questions will just be great. I once had a podcast where the guest kept saying, that's a great question, that's a great question. And it wasn't a stalling tactic. It was actually, he was just like surprised. But the reason he was surprised is because we were talking about branding. And I was literally, it's almost like free consulting. I'm literally trying to get from him like what I needed to do to change my branding on my own company while I'm interviewing this guy. So these are real questions I was asking. They weren't, you know, oh, this, I thought of this, you know, when I was researching this. No, I really want to learn from you.

Yeah. Well, I think the conversations with customers can find many forms. Podcasting's one. I know for the work that we do with clients, we like to do what's called buyer interviews, which are 30-minute in a very very subjective conversations about their experience. It's actually better when you do it with a non-customer. It's better when you do it with somebody who's bought your competitor's product more recently because you're— and the way we use that approach, it's to try to understand triggers and journey and ultimately what the decision criteria is. And you can have that with your own customers, but there's a bias there oftentimes where they came from. It's not as general or, you not as insightful as a customer of your competitors or somebody who's not a customer yet. So, but that's something we teach our CMOs to do sometimes even for the first time.

Right.

CMOs—

What a great move, right?

—are in the marketing world to do research often, but the idea of a one-on-one buyer interview for 30 minutes is not something that they do every day in C-suite. Right.

And to our detriment, right? If we're not talking to customers, we are just so off base. Yet if we have, you know, to your point, even just the 30-minute sit-down to ask them their questions, I think sometimes, you know, why didn't I do this for decades? Well, I mean, was I shy? Maybe. Was it easier to not talk to them? Maybe. But I also just didn't have a rational reason that sounded good to me to get them on the call. And so You know, I could see with these, with these, these buyer interviews, man, some great questions. And then they just need the backup to know that— are they going to say yes? Like, you know, sometimes I think we in our minds, we have these myths that would they say yes to this call? And I think that's where the podcasting can really help with that is because it really puts it out there as like promotion for the guest. This is going to feature you to your entire industry. Wouldn't you love to join? And I love the fact you brought up asking about the triggers and the journey, and those kind of questions can be interwoven into whether it is a buyer interview or a podcast or whatever you call it, right? The podcast is just a mechanism of distribution. In the end, it's a conversation that you've recorded and however you get it out, the content out, you know, that, that's almost not as important as the conversation. And, and whether it is an interview or a podcast or a show or whatever, asking buyer persona questions. What triggered the search for me in the past or for my company or services like this? You know, I used to ask for my last company, we did marketing automation and I would always ask the guests, what's your take on marketing automation? And I had previously done the research and I knew that that company was using the exact tool that we could help them with. So I already knew that, but I didn't go that specific. I want them— it's like, it's like just because you can cookie people with marketing data doesn't mean you should tell them, you know, that you know their blood type, right? So you don't, you don't share everything, but just to be able to ask, hey, what is your take on this? How do you feel about this? I would get answers back, oh, we love to maximize this, or we've never gotten it to work, or man, reporting sucks on our CRM, you know, and that would tell me exactly how I could follow up afterwards.

Yeah, I still take probably 80 to 90% of the sales calls for our intro calls, first calls for our company. Oh, great. Because I use that as a buyer interview every single time. It's a prospect, you know, maybe they looking for what we do, maybe they're not, but what the questions that I'm asking are much more, so what have you already done to look for a CMO? Like, where have you been? Have you been searching online? Because I want to figure out what my market's doing. They found me somewhere during that journey. I don't know which, where, which place. What triggered you? What's going on in the business? What's making you think about it? And I'm getting all of that market research on my own business. And if I asked a CMO to do that for me, that would also be a good way to get it done. But right now, I just suck that knowledge in. I love those conversations and it helps us then determine where we're going to invest our marketing dollars, where we're going to spend our time and energy. 100%.

And I feel like there, A lot is said about that transition in a growing company. As you hit several million, you transition out of all those things that made you grow in the first place, right? And it can be really painful for members in the C-suite to no longer, especially the CEO or the founder, to no longer be doing everything and getting their hands in everything. And so getting them to know that they can actually drive real change for their company doing a podcast for the business development, for the future partnerships, for being the voice of the customer in the next quarterly planning meeting. All these things are possible. And I found personally that I was able to reinvent myself in the C-suite by launching a podcast. And then that was my playground. And, you know, that's the thought leadership. That's everything marketing needed. Everyone's happy and I'm staying out of everyone's way. So I think more attention needs to be given to the transition of when organizations grow to the point where What you did before is not gonna get you where you need to go next. Yeah.

Yeah. And technology has made it so much more convenient with Zoom and people used to Zooming now. That has gotta open up the world of podcasting huge. Before you had to maybe go to a radio station, plug in, rent time. It was a big deal. Yeah. And you and I are sitting on a Zoom call right now across the country from each other. Knocking it out. Right.

And I think a lot of people feel like there's some sort of barrier to entry, but now there isn't. To your point, you don't need the sound studio. You don't need to worry about the crazy mics. I mean, we've got some mics, they're good, but you know, we don't, you don't need the $9,000 mic. Mine just plugs right into my laptop. You know, it's just, you just go and, and it really, even if you just, I don't know if you had the most basic implements, just having a conversation, even if everything else is terrible, but you had that one-on-one conversation, that guest is everything. Yeah.

So you just transitioned your business recently from automation to essentially a podcasting business. What's the— what was the one thing that was— did you expect to be ready for, prepared for that happened and something that didn't, just came out of the blue like you had no idea?? Because being an entrepreneur who started multiple businesses, that transition, there's always some ahas, like, yeah, I knew that was coming and it did, and wow, I didn't see that coming. What, what was your experience?

I think the first thing was my last company was very much, uh, like a, a college freshman, um, in terms of its age, where it was basically doing everything on its own. And, but we'd check in, maybe do some laundry every now and on the weekends if they came to visit, but for the most part it was running itself and then it was just how can I help it grow a little bit more, maybe fund more college, right? So it didn't need, you know, diaper changes and all those kind of things. And so then going to a brand new business, I guess I kind of knew it was going to happen, but it was an eye-opener where you forget how much work a newborn is. You forget how much in the weeds you are in everything when you're supposed to be not in everything, but now you are. And you don't have a finance person yet or you don't have someone in AP and AR and that kind of thing. So I think for me the transition was, Oh, that's right. There's a lot of grind here. And then you had to really, you know, I had to check myself. Is it really worth it? Do I want to be doing this? And thankfully I'd picked a passion where I was just like, screw it, let's do it. I can't wait. I love it. Fantastic. And so I kind of knew that was happening, but also at the same time, not, you know, I'd forgotten, you know, just like, like with a kid. And then I think the second thing would be a little different sales process. So in the last company, very much part tied to partner sales. And a big partner of Salesforce. And so our sales deals were, we kind of had it easy. We didn't have it completely easy, but we had a big partner who was doing the primary sale and we were kind of like an add-on for the most part. That was like a feeder for new leads and new business. And so, you know, it was very frequent to have one call closes and people knew they had to do it. So, and they were recommended, so you just did it, right? So it was a lot easier sales cycle than now where, where I'm really the two different personas that I work with are folks who've never launched a podcast. And there's a lot of explaining to do. And there's also the explaining when they look at vanity metrics, like, well, how many downloads am I gonna have? It's like, actually not about that. It's about that relationship with that future prospect or partner or the guest. So there's a bit of that mind shift I have to do, and I haven't had to do that before. So it's fun, but at the same time it's challenging. And then we're also seeing even more success with people who have existing podcasts. Who already know what it could be like or what it is like. And then you're, and then it's much easier to say, let me take care of that for you.

And we found some real success there. So explain that to me because I was the former, you know, we'd never done a podcast before, so it was very appealing to have somebody that has a system to plug into. I'm curious, someone who's been doing it and has the tech worked out and production worked out, where's the value they see in your organization?

Well, normally they don't have it all worked out. And so a lot of it's piecemeal, even if they've got, you know, someone in Fiverr doing this and some other person doing that. And it ends up being not a cohesive process. And usually, you know, the CEO or head of marketing or some full-timers are spending a third of their job doing these things and they're not seeing results. They're not, it's sort of all over the place. It's not focused. And then the show itself can feel clunky and it doesn't feel professional or, and it also doesn't put that guest in the best light. And it's so important that the show makes the guests feel like they nailed it because that's going to just boost that relationship. If they got on that show and it felt hokey and they didn't feel like they had a chance to represent themselves, they were surprised by really random questions. It's like an awkward start to a con— it's like meeting someone at a networking event and it just is awkward and didn't quite work. And so we're in, we're gonna go our separate ways, right? And you don't want that if you're gonna spend all your team's time all over the place. So really, I think where the value for us has been is our cohesive process. And there's usually several gaps that people are like, oh my gosh, you do that? And, and, and I know I hadn't thought of this or this or this, but also just, we actually relaunch every podcast that we work with. Now. So we don't just take on the production, but we actually relaunch it.

So maybe it's the neighbor process. Yeah.

Yeah. So there's, there's a lot to improve. Um, you know, the, the style and the script of the show and, and even just the research. I think without a team behind you that really knows what they're doing, you could end up having to do way more research, uh, to get the same level of familiarity with that, that guest maybe you've never met before. Um, and if you don't do that research on your own or have someone do it for you, you end up showing up and making that guest feel like they're actually not that important. Like maybe it was a trick to get 'em on a sales call.

Yeah. So what's the evolution of your business? Where, where are you going next? New products, new markets, new services?

Yeah, that's a great question. It's, it's really exciting to think about, um, And I am enjoying this process, you know, in the evolution of it. For sure, we're finding that podcasts are like the marketer's best friend, right? And so, you know, the work, and I know you do so much work in the fractional CMO space with all the CMOs on your team. You know, when I was doing some fractional CMO work, it was like, oh, and then I know I need the content and the CEO's in my way and he's getting in the details or she is. And so I found whenever I did one of those endeavors, one of those projects with a group, I would bring in a podcast and then that podcast would take care of so many of the checkboxes for me as the head marketer and kept the CEO focused on something that could really boost the company. And then I was able to use that content and do all the marketing that I needed to do with campaigns and emails. And, you know, lead capture and all that. But I, it was, it was powered. So a lot of my, my I's were dotted and T's were crossed because I had a podcast. So what we're finding is because it's like that best friend, it's very easy to slip into the, we just become your marketer or your marketing agency. And I don't think we would necessarily want to go there just yet. We're going to really stay true to podcasting, but it becomes very easy to add on. Blog posts or add on additional social. We've had many people ask us for additional social or just create those blog posts because you're already listening to the show, you already know the content. So creating the additional content and additional social and eventually even email campaigns, there's a lot there. And I think that's where we'll see even more movement or maybe, you know, it's almost like a second half of the company where one half deals with Conversations and maybe the top of the funnel, maybe the other half of the organization helps you convert those people into the rest of your funnel.

Yeah. So I always had a, a vision for marketing, for content marketing. I wrote a book, New Media Habits, years ago, and there were 3 pillars. And at the time I was in the video production business. So my, my business was producing videos primarily for nonprofits. But the 3 pillars were strategy, content, and traffic. Because I found that content alone was not very successful. Just to make content, just to make a podcast with no, like, why are we doing this? Didn't make any sense. So the strategy was very important. And you've figured your strategy out. Your strategy's about podcasting to have the conversations with your customers. That's the strategy. That's why you do it. And the content is obviously the podcast in your case, but all the other pieces of content, the 41 ways you can use a podcast, you know, the Facebook posts, the tweets, the blogs, the white papers, the video, the audio, the content piece, you could easily expand, I would say, and, you know, as a service offering, being a customer and looking at other people that are in the podcast space. Then the traffic, that's the distribution. That's getting it in front of more of the right people, right? That's kind of that third leg. And for us as a video production company, we have a very strategic approach to video. We made really great video. And then when we got into the traffic side, it became a different business model for us. Now you're doing social media, email marketing, SEO, pay-per-click, and you're becoming a general agency type with all the expenses and overhead and commercial expectations where, and we, so we went into that foray and we went out of it. We went straight back to video, strategic video, because that content piece was, it was a red ocean, whatever they say. It was just sharks eating sharks over there. So that's my bit of experience. I know.

And I appreciate that, right? Because it's always tempting to lose your focus, right? And I think the last company, all we did was part out and we'll help you move off of Marketo and HubSpot and all these, but we would just part out and it was so tempting to say, you know, some clients, we love you, we're moving to Marketo. Well, we'll introduce you to some people who do that, you know? Yeah. Because it was, it, and even then I feel like we were a little broad because there was different things in Salesforce and, and so I, that's, that's such a great reminder to really think about your focus. And, and yeah, it could be a very slippery slope to then being a content agency and then just being a, you know, lead gen marketing agency. Yep.

I think it's, uh, something to be at least aware of when you're going through the process of evaluating what's next. And we've done that at Your CMO. We're fractional CMOs, right? We are not CFOs or CTOs or CEOs. We could be, we could have built, we could have built and still could build an umbrella brand of fractional, but we're very clear internally, we don't want to do that. So what we did, instead of trying to compete or build those extra pieces, we started an association of Fraction professionals, invited all of our CFOs and CTOs and CAOs to join and collaborate and be part of each other so that we could kind of enter into that market per se without being a service provider there. We're also not an agency, so we don't do any of the agency work that a traditional marketing company does. That's where it becomes more and more tempting every day because our customers are always in need of marketing services. They always need a designer and a copywriter and a videographer and a podcaster and all those things. And it would be very easy and it's tempting sometimes to say, we're going to start that. But we have to remind ourselves now we are fractional CMOs. It's the fiduciary value that we bring because we're not an agency is so much greater. Than the extra revenue we could drive from becoming an agency. And so we've stayed out of that space as well and honed in on the fractional strategic advice.

I really like that approach because then it keeps you unbiased and it makes you true advisors. It makes a lot of sense, makes absolutely a lot of sense. And then that way you don't lose that focus. Yeah.

And I know you've been a fractional CMO in your own world and your experience in that world, I'd be curious what your thoughts are for others that have never worked with a fractional C anything O. What should they be aware of that's different, good, better, awful about fractional versus full-time? Yeah, absolutely.

You know, Man, and if I knew as a business owner about fractional roles beyond— I'd worked with a fractional CFO probably for a decade, but if I had just mentally opened my mind and said, let's get some of these other fractional leaders in there, I absolutely would've done that with the last company. And I'm planning to do that with this company because you get to punch so far above your weight class with absolute pros. And Dan Sullivan has that book, Who Not How, right? It's the people. It's not how to do it. Get the right person in there. They'll tell you how to do it. And so being a part of several organizations where I was the fractional CMO and we had a powerhouse, you know, junior marketer who just was hungry to execute, hungry for strategy, needed a mentor, was probably going to leave because they're just getting whapped. And like, you know, marketing without good ROI reporting, You just get beat up. Yeah. And, and so this was happening to a junior person and yet they were told, come up with a marketing strategy. You know, they've never done that before. They're, they're learning HubSpot for the first time. So, so it, it was so helpful for me to then see it from the other side, to be on someone else's L10 team, to attend someone else's Traction quarterly and participate as the head of marketing, not as the CEO owner. Of the company, 100%, totally behind it. Now I've worked with some different fractional roles, and I think the real value, the real takeaway for me on the fractional side is that there is ownership and there's participation in the team. I once was working at a giant company and I was an internal agency for several of the companies that were a part of the big conglomerate, if you will. And so my team did digital marketing for you know, the different companies and it was fun, but we very much felt like an agency. Might as well not even been in the same company because they're not inviting us to the Christmas parties. They're not. And so you're, you're outside of that social realm. And so you're, you're an outsider. And so you would just advise and then call it a day. But I, what I love about the fractional role is you're in it. You're in the org chart. You're doing a one-on-one with the CEO. You're, you, you're doing your one-on-ones with your direct reports. So instead of being an outside consultant, you are it. You're in the mosh pit, you're in there with your team and, and, and you're protecting them and you're advising them and you're coaching them. Some of the most rewarding experiences was actually mentoring young marketers and seeing them just prosper. And one even grew enough to be able to take on my role, take on that head of marketing role. I was able to transition it to her and it was like such a great and rewarding experience. So to have that kind of thing, man, I'm sold on the idea of it. I think fractional CFO is a great idea. Fractional CMO, fractional sales leader makes total sense when you're small and growing and you don't necessarily need a full-time manager for 3 sales reps, right? It's just, it just math doesn't work yet, but you need the process in place. You need those things. That's where people like Valerie Cobb come to mind. And so that's totally huge. I think the one area that I'm challenged by, and I've met a few people that have given me a good, you know, run for my money thinking about maybe changing my mind, but that's like the fractional integrator, the fractional COO. I just, I've had some bad experiences with that, but I've actually since met some great people, Kevin, a few other folks that actually, given the opportunity, I would like to try it with them again. But I think there's much more work when it comes to the integrator. And the COO more so than like the head of a department. Yeah.

The integrator role is interesting as a fractional for sure. Yeah. I'm curious, what do you see appealing to guys like Kevin, other approaches that you've seen working that you feel doesn't work with ones you've seen not as successful?

I think he cares and not all of the fractional I think sometimes people might call it fractional, but it's the idea that they actually care and they want and they own the results. The ownership is really what makes fractional better. And so when I've had bad experiences with any kind of fractional, fractional sales leader who doesn't care, fractional, you know, COO who doesn't really care, it's like a client and they're not really feeling like they're part of the organization. And it might have been, you know, my fault for not integrating them further, but they just, they were on the periphery and maybe they had a couple clients and it just felt like it was, it was convenient. Whereas I know when I was doing it and some of the people I've worked with, you are in the org and just because you're only working 10 hours or whatever the case may be is a week. You, you are in that and nothing like reporting to the CEO and talking about what you're working on and reporting to your direct reports makes you feel more integrated like that. And, and owning that number on the scorecard. Those kind of things made it way different than being a consultant. Yeah.

Yeah. Ownership. I found that, um, the main factor of success, I think, across the board in fractional work is your ability to gen— to develop trust with the C-suite, the other people on the team. That has been within internally my experience and every conversation I have on here with other fractional providers. If that trust is there, the relationship works well. The outcomes develop well. And if they don't, the, you know, the exits goes well. You know, this is not working. If the trust is gone, if it's never established, or if it's established just singularly with like the owner, but not the other team members, the whole thing usually crumbles pretty quickly. Trust is so important. 100%.

I love that you brought that up. I've experienced that and I didn't even think to say that. Tell, what have you seen, if you don't mind me asking, like what, what have you seen that helps promote trust or increase the trust or establish it at the very beginning?

Well, I, I talk, I, I, I give talks. My signature talk is, uh, The Future is Fractional, and I talk about trust a lot. And the, the simple formula that I came up with, at least in the fractional space, is time plus touch equals trust. And when you think about time, intentional time that you have to create as a fractional that you'd usually get as a full-time person. You know, we don't get water cooler time and, hey, I want to knock on the door and jump in and talk to you for a little bit. We have to make that time. So some of that is, you know, planned, scheduled, cadenced type rhythm work, which builds trust anywhere in the organization. But the other time it's, I want to reach out and talk to you and then I want to talk to the sales leader, and then the CFO, and then the fractional CFO. And I'm, that's not my scope of work, but I need to do that to build trust. And then further, I need to do that in person. And that's where the touch comes in. It's no longer acceptable to be remote only. The hybrid world is, it's a requirement within businesses for all employees. They gotta be able to work at home and work in the office. That's the trend. Well, fractionals, it's, you can't also be remote only. You have to be in the office once in a while. So we've established a requirement that all of our new, all of our new UR CMO engagements includes not only a full, you know, visit from the fractional CMO, but one of the two owners is also there for the first kickoff. Smart. And then we're highly pushing for quarterly in-persons, even though in the past we've been very effective with completely virtual and we had to, we realized the value of the trust that's developed is the reason you go in person. It's not any better outcome. The rocks aren't any smarter because you're there in person. Experience is better, but it's the trust that you build that is the real reason you do it. Because when you have that trust and someone has a problem, they're going to reach out and say, hey Joe, it's not quite going well. How can we fix that? The trust is gone. It's like, Joe's screwing us. We're out of here. See ya. Nix it.

Bye.

So time and touch. Time and touch. Those are the two things that I see as what builds that trust in a fractional relationship.

Do we add trust falls into that? Does that count as touch?

Or, uh, yeah, I look at it as the in-person touch, but that's another extreme for sure. Indoor skydiving. We did, uh, uh, speaking of fun adventures, I just went on a trip to Costa Rica with my family and another family. And we did some rappelling into a waterfall. That was fantastic. It wasn't quite a trust fall, but we were falling down the— crawling down the mountain or on the waterfall and just getting pounded with water. And I had to trust your belay was going to not let you fall all the way to the bottom.

Trust that rope. I haven't been to Costa Rica. Any tips for first time?

That was my first time. Was your first time? I and the family we went with had been there 3 times before. We went to an area called Manuel Antonio. It's a very popular touristy area. It's in the rainforest and it was during the rainy season, but it's very commercialized. Not like Hawaiian like big, huge hotel commercialized, but lots of Airbnbs, lots of great restaurants, a lot of tourists. So it felt, felt very welcoming to tourists for a first-time visit. There was so much to do in and around that area. You could go to the beach, you could go to the rainforest, you could raft. We did the rappelling, we did the ziplining, we did a float down the river. There was just tons and tons of stuff to do. We stayed for a week. We had a beautiful home where the monkeys would come in on our deck during the day and like grab our food and stuff and just hang out with you and then they'd take off. That was such an experience. It was beautiful. The weather, even though it was nice and it was a perfect visit, we were there during the rainy season. So every day it did rain a bit, some days hard. But we lucked out, like all of our activities were planned. We had plenty of warmth and sun. I think in the winter, you know, in their summer or winter, it's a little drier and some people prefer that time of year to go. We were there during our summer, their rainy season. I would say there's another area that some people have been going to called Tamarindo, and that's more in the drier area of, uh, and you fly into Liberia. We flew into San Jose. That's— if I go back, I'll go check that out. But I've also heard from people that have gone there their first time and had a great experience there as well. Okay. Um, it wasn't— it was, it was not super cost-effective to travel to Costa Rica. Sometimes you go third— go out of the country and like, oh, it's gonna be super cheap when I get there. I'm gonna my dollar's going to stretch. Now it felt very much like I was going to Arizona.

I didn't feel like I was saving money. Really?

Because Arizona gets pricey. I know. I didn't feel like I was saving money. Maybe it was the area we were in and they were pricing it as such. We probably could have gone a little more remote and stretched the dollars. And when you have 4 kids and you're traveling with 6, it's 6 times as expensive. Everything you do. Yeah, I went to Philippines recently and man, my dollar went way farther. Oh, no doubt. Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. Where do you like to travel? You know, before the pandemic, headed over to France for the first time.

Oh, wow.

Had never been there. And I think the contrast led to me just enjoying it that much more because you, you kind of heard of like, oh, they're, they're so rude. And if you don't speak perfect French, they're going to make fun of you and And it was all just kind of bad PR, um, or at least I didn't experience any of that. And I got there and I understood a little bit of a culture difference, which is, hey, you know, our core values here in France are, you know, good food, good wine, and enjoying life. And so you being in a rush doesn't exactly fit into that. So try not to be in a rush and, you know, sit and enjoy your coffee. Don't rush around trying to go somewhere with it. Sit in a little cafe, drink some wine. And you know what, I just adopted right away. I was like, okay, I'm in, I'm in. No rush, let's go. And really enjoyed it and had a chance to see a lot of museums and the art and the culture. And, you know, some— yeah, even eating, even eating the food, it felt more natural. And, you know, sometimes, you know, bread over here throws me for a loop and, you know, it's one of those things you love to eat and then you can't really eat too much of it. Over there, not a problem with it at all. So I wonder if it's like just preservatives or whatnot that my body's freaking out to. But over there, just like, yeah, I had a ham and cheese on a baguette, which over here could be dry and tasteless. Over there, it was so good. It was just those simple ingredients. Oh man.

I love to travel and visit other cultures and taste other food and just experience the world. We're all very similar, but the differences are what are super interesting to pick up. I agree.

Yeah, no, and I can't wait to go back. We want to go back and it was cool. We actually were in an Airbnb instead of a hotel and we were a block away from the Eiffel Tower in this quiet little neighborhood in the 7th district. And it was just fantastic. And we walked around, I got so many steps in on that trip. It would be, you know, totally normal to have 30,000 steps in a day or more. And I was like, oh, that's how you stay in shape living in Paris. I mean, you're eating all this crazy good food, but you're also just walking everywhere. Yeah.

Oh, I love to walk when I travel. That's one of my favorite things to do. Rarely do I have a car and I can walk and I feel like I get my steps in. I'm enjoying myself. I don't feel like I have to work out. It's terrific.

Right.

Yeah. There's something else I wanted to ask you about because it came out of the blue in the last year that I've been following you. What's this ski patrol thing you're doing? Yeah.

You know, I skied all my life and then family happens and you know, kids and life. So I got out of the habit and, and so it was, it was 2 years ago, or it was actually during COVID where I was like, hmm, outdoor, you know, stay away from everybody and you're skiing. Hey, why not try it? Get back in there. See if I can do it, you know? And it was kind of like riding a bike for me. So I enjoyed that, had a good time. Uh, but it also got to the point where, you know, sometimes my little brain wants to calculate things out. As we sometimes do. Well, okay, that lift ticket was $80. How many runs did I get in? If I got 10 in, it's less than, you know, $8, $9 a run. So I'm doing all this math, but then my goal became just get as many runs in as possible, right? And maybe not enjoy it as much. Um, and then along the way, I, you know, I'd see a couple ski patrollers and I thought, huh, I wonder, you know, I wonder if I could do that. Is it— I wonder how hard that would be, or is that crazy? I don't know, man. Just on a whim, I just, um, I contacted a bunch of mountains in the area And one said, yeah, come on over. Let's, let's interview you. And they also, they interviewed me and I hadn't been interviewed in a decade for a ski patrol job.

Yeah.

And oh, it was cuz the mountain that I'm at, Crutch Mountain, got bought by Vail. Okay.

Right.

So, which is like big company and so they have a little bit more process now. But so I go over there to meet them. They're great people. And, and they had, and they watched me skiing. Right. And, you know, I've skied a lot and I'm very, I'm pretty good. I'm very, it's a very relative scale. I'm pretty good at it. Um, but having someone watch you and evaluate your skiing, you know, you can be as cool as you want to be, but then when they're, they're staring at your technique, ooh, it gets nervous. But I was kind of nervous on that interview, but they said, yeah, this is great. And so then I went and I got, um, there's a medical program where you go and you get certified as essentially like a first responder. Yeah, um, it was special ski patrol version of that called OVC. And, and that was, that was a lot of book work, but it felt kind of cool to have a giant book like, you know, some of the nursing students I had seen with their giant trauma book, and, and to go through that and practice it. And man, I, I immediately found that the, the other people in the classes and eventually who I'd meet in the, at the mountain, we all had the similar culture. We all were showing up on a Saturday for a class, you know, at the expense of our Saturday to nerd out on how would you take care of someone who's hurt, right? And so we were like literally studying, and a lot of these people are just volunteering. And I actually started thinking it'd just be a volunteer job, and Vail decided they wanted to pay all their ski patrollers, which is fine by me. Uh, but you know, we're all just showing up and we want to help people. And so for me, this has been one of the most rewarding things. I earned my jacket And I, I couldn't believe I got all that medical information into my brain without it coming out the other side. And I feel really equipped to help people out and respond when necessary. And, but man, there's something about taking things offline and, you know, just like we have these conversations, there's something about, you know, I've sold software and I've done digital consulting, but there's something about helping someone when they are not in a good space, when they are physically injured and maybe unable to help themself, and you're there just to say, hey, this is going to be okay, we're going to get you down, hang in there, right? It's like, it's just so rewarding.

Did you have any big saves, any big, uh, memorable experiences?

Yeah, I guess thankfully no, not—

yeah, yeah, I guess that's much.

But at the same time, man, we're ready, right? It's so— it's that weird thing where you're like, I'm ready, I don't want anyone to get hurt, but if they do, I'm ready. But we have had some, you know, some head injuries. And I think what was interesting to me is when those injuries, you hear about it in the book that they're going to loop their speech patterns and they'll say, you know, where am I at? I'm at Pat's Peak. Or no, you're not. You're at this other place. They forget different places. They forget their name. I once was helping someone out who forgot everything except his first name. So didn't know last name, didn't know what month, day, year, didn't know where he was at. Kept thinking he was in a different place, kept looping his speech. Hey, am I at this other place? No, no, no, you're at this place. Hey, I'm at the other place. No, no, no, you're at this place. He just kept— so he was in a bad state, so we had to get him some help. Um, but yeah, thankfully nothing, uh, too much more than that.

Yeah, that's a big deal, the head injuries. My daughter was one of her first skiing experiences. She left and went with my brother-in-law and his family and my other daughter. And the plan was let's get them lessons in the morning so they can go out in the afternoon. Well, they arrived, they got their, their, their skis and their, their boots at the rental place. And they had a couple hours left before the next day. And like, well, why don't we just go out and do one on our own? So he said, I'll take you up. We'll do a bunny ride or you know, green ride down. First ride down, she's never skied ever, runs into a tree and cusses. And I get a call 8 hours away from the Colorado, you know, Denver Medical Center. Uh, is this Mr. Frost? Yeah. Is it okay if we treat your daughter, Julie? And I'm like, whoa, stop, timeout. Treat her for what?

Where are you?

We're at the, we're at the base of the mountain and she's here in the hospital and we just need to know if it's okay if we can treat her. I go, well, of course you can treat her, but what is going on? So then they told me they had her and I guess anybody else with her? Nobody's with her. Like, is her brother with her? Brother-in-law, sister, anybody? Nope. I'm thinking, how did she get into the emergency room by herself? Well, it was ski patrol. But they had, you know, the wreck happened, someone got there, ski patrol takers took her down while the other people followed. So they came afterwards, but she, uh, she is better now, but it was scary getting in that car. Yeah, that sounds scary. Yeah. And then not knowing anybody around her, which I was, I was panicking.

And, uh, what did you do?

Did you get, I mean, 8 hours away, I was thinking I, do I need to jump on a plane? Am I, I mean, if she's in the hospital, how bad is it? And then about 3 or 4 minutes later, after like going through, can I, you know, what's going on? Like, well, would you like to talk to her?

They hadn't offered me that yet. Oh my goodness.

So I'm thinking she's laying there, you know, in trauma, concussed, can't talk. Right. She was just in one of those lucid states. And so when I got her on the phone, I'm Talking to her and I could tell like, where are you? She goes, I'm not, I'm not sure. Like what happened? I don't remember. I can't remember what happened. Yeah. She had a helmet on, thank God. Yeah. And, uh, and then, uh, 15, 20 minutes later, you know, we got the call from her brother like, yeah, we're, we're down here now. Here's what happened. And so it, it wasn't urgent enough for us to go up there. And, uh, so she stayed in the, in the hotel for a couple days while with another, with them, with my sister-in-law and the other kids. Yeah, man.

I mean, and those, those stories are powerful, right? And just so to be a part of those is just, man, what a, what a thing, you know, what a thing to, to be a part of that. And because I'm sure fascinated by it. What's up?

I'm sure the ski patrol came over and got them in the little sled and just zipped right down there as fast as they could, right?

Yeah. And, you know, learning that sled was not an easy thing. Like, It's one thing to ski and, and deal with what you're dealing with, but then to have a sled behind you, um, and it, it is a sled, so it has, has runners. So, you know, it, it usually tries to stay on course. Um, but it, and we practiced with each other, you know, put a ski patroller in there. So if you see, you know, a ski patroller in the back of one of those just hanging out, we're just practicing, you know. Uh, but I remember having my first person in there. Thankfully it was a, like a teenage girl, which was awesome because it wasn't like a really heavy person for my first time. And, you know, I kept checking back, hey, you're okay? You know, still good? It's not too crazy back there? Yep. And at one point she's like getting bored of me, saying like, thinking like, stop asking, I'm fine. Get me to the bottom of the hill, man. You know, typical teenage daughter, right? I'm like, yeah, just make sure you're all set. Yeah, I'm fine. Yeah, we're good. Okay. All right. All right, let's get you there. But, you know, but one of the things with, with, with a person in the back of those is, is if you're going downhill, sometimes there's valleys and dips that you need to usually pick up some speed to get over them. And you have to be cognizant of that cuz there's brakes on those things too. These, these chains that go underneath. But if you don't get rid of the brake and when you go into one of those valleys, it, you're gonna go to, you're gonna stop. And now you're having to, you know, basically cross-country ski with a body You know, with, with a person behind you and it's just, it could be a pain. It could be a workout. I remember I'm sweating by the time I'm to the bottom, you know, and thankfully there are other, uh, patrollers there to like help the person out and get them to the aid room. Cuz I'm just like, give me, give me a glass of water right now. I'm beat.

Yeah. The only other experience I've had with ski patrol is my wife and I went skiing in, um, Utah, uh, a little getaway trip. And I'm like, let's take the gondola. So we get all the way to the top and she's like, I can't do this. There's blacks everywhere, double diamonds. And I said, well, there's a couple blues down there. It looks like we can be fine. Yeah. So we, we get off the gondola and she is panicking cuz all she could see is black diamond, black diamond, black diamond signs everywhere. And as we're literally just kind of skiing towards one of them, She falls down, just little sliply fall, and hits her thumb just the wrong way. And this little tendon here rips it. No. And she keeps like, I can't, my hand, I think I broke my thumb.

I can't feel anything.

We're at the top of this place. I'm like, ah, we can get you down a little bit. Don't worry about it.

Just come on.

It can't be that bad. So then we tried to go down one of the hills and we ended up, it ended up being black the whole way. And she's on her butt, like trying to scoot down. I'm trying to get her down. Finally ski patrol comes over and like, what's going on? And we explained it. So they took her to get checked out and it turns out she did have that. They said, you've got a torn ligament. Nothing you can do about it now. Just go home and get surgery when, because you're going to have to have surgery. So we spent the next couple of days in the hot tub with her hand iced up like this. We had a good time. Then she goes home. There's There's one more funny part of the story. So we go home, she gets surgery, she gets a cast on, and we had little kids at the time. And I didn't know this, and all the parents out there, you should listen. If you get poop on your cast, it doesn't come off. The stain will not go away. So Amy's changing Max's diaper and gets a little bit of poop, like right here, just like a smudge of brown poop, and tries to clean it off and can't clean it off for the next like 6 weeks. And you look at this poop stain. I mean, it, it Didn't, you know, smell anymore, but so she had to live with a poopy cast for 5 months.

You got that mesh for the nooks and crannies, right? Oh yeah. Oh man. It was nasty. Just staring at it.

You try to cover it up with like a marker or something?

Like some tape?

Oh, I think we did. I think we tried to marker over it. We tried everything. It just, it just stuck out there and it was a constant reminder. And every time she looked at a cast, all she could think about is I told you not to go up that on a gondola. Gondola. Yeah. Gondola. I knew we were gonna be in trouble up there. So she still hasn't let me down for that.

So she got like a courtesy ride down to the bottom.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's cool. It's, uh, yeah, you know, and it, it's a little freaky being in the back of that thing too, because it, it can go faster than you think and yeah, like you're sledding, but it's, it's a controlled situation. But it, we usually have people put their goggles down just because there's spray that comes up and. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. It's crazy. Yeah. Sometimes people are just tired. I'm like, sure. Hey, hop in. We'll get you back.

Hey, can you take me down? Yeah.

Well, good.

Well, Casey, this has been great. I'm glad we had a chance to catch up. It was so much fun talking about marketing and skiing and everything in between. I appreciate your time.

I'm, man, I'm happy to be here. You're great at this. You're a natural. Um, and so it's been, it's been fun working with you on the podcast.

And thanks for our listeners. I look, look forward to you guys commenting on Casey's post and then checking us out on the next week's C-suite retreat. We'll see you then. And that's a wrap. There's another successful episode of the Fractional C-suite Retreat. See our show notes and more episodes at fractionalcsuitretreat.com. This podcast is sponsored by Your CMO, helping organizations grow, save time and money with better marketing strategy and fractional execution. Visit them at yourcmo.com. Yourcmo.com. Spelled wrong on purpose.