A Webinar Conversation
Before a rebrand can begin, leaders must first recognize the business challenges behind the brand. In this conversation, Matchstic and The Armstrong Company share the behind-the-scenes work required to build internal alignment, surface brand friction, and earn buy-in for meaningful change.
Join Tracy Clark, Director of Brand Strategy at Matchstic, in conversation with Hilary Sauls, Chief of Staff at The Armstrong Company.
Transcript
Tracy Clark:
Thanks for supporting a rebrand. And I'm so excited about this conversation because Hilary and I have kept in touch over the years, post-rebrand, and I have just seen this, this brand just become its own… come into its own, if you will, and it's come such a long way from where it was, but in order to do that, there is a lot that has to happen before we even… before we've met, before we've even started, so we're going to talk about that today. And, and we're so excited to do so with you all, and I hope that you have some good questions on hand. We've got Patrice and Jay here to field, any questions you might have that you can put in the chat, and we might address some in real time, and we might wait until the end. Well, depends on the subject matter.
But, but yeah, just a quick round of intros, so… and then I'll begin to share my screen, but I am Tracy Clark, I'm the Director of Brand Strategy here at Matchstic. Been working with brands for over 25 years, and, it's still all… each one is new and different and special, so, Never a dull moment. And and we're gonna make sure that we cover off on some of those… those challenges. So, and some of you may have joined the webinar that we did back in October, led by our co-founder, Blake Howard, with the great folks at VIM, or VIM Group, talking about brand investment, right? So, understanding the pitfalls, of everything that goes into that decision as far as resources. That's kind of the… you know, the starting point from that standpoint, but it also dovetails really nicely into what we're focusing on today, which is the thinking and strategy, behind getting that decision buy-in, right? So that's really crucial to bring people along for the ride, alright? So, yeah. Keep in mind, your questions, and with that, I'll begin to share my screen and do some introductions, so hopefully y'all can see that. Looking good? Perfect. Alright, cool.
Tracy Clark:
Well, with that, I am so, again, so excited to introduce Hilary Saul. She's our Chief of Staff at the Armstrong Company. We worked together on their rebrand a few years ago. And so Armstrong is a… for… I mean, some of you might not know, you've probably seen this name around, but they're a global logistics leader spanning residential and commercial moves, and supply chain logistics, so they kind of span a lot of, of problem solving. So, Hilary's been with Armstrong for over 13 years. in a variety of roles in increasing leadership and influence. So, prior to her Chief of staff role, she served as customer service, customer, excuse me, customer experience and marketing, and now she oversees, all of Marcom's strategy. And so, she's also a strategic partner and a trusted advisor with the CEO and leadership team, working towards, you know, Team development, optimizing efficiency, productivity. cross-functional relationships. I mean, Hilary, I don't know how you… how you have time left in the day, but I'm really glad you're here.
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, thanks so much, Tracy. It's been a long time coming, and I'm so excited to be here with you today and talk all things branding, one of my very favorite subjects.
Tracy Clark:
I know, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Thank you for having me.
Tracy Clark:
And oh, I'm delighted. And so, yeah, I mean, to your point, we've been talking about doing this webinar for a while, so I'm really glad we're finally able to make it happen. Now, I'm gonna… I wanna take a walk down memory lane. Here's the old logo. This is not the new logo, this is the old one. I did this to think back to the time when this represented Armstrong, and at the time, it was a different name, Armstrong Relocation and Companies. That is a mouthful.
Hilary Sauls:
So think back, I mean, we see some of the writing on the wall already in this group, I'm sure, but.
Tracy Clark:
Think back to what made you realize you had a brand challenge. Like, let's start there, and how did you know it was the right time?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, you know, when I think back, it's ultimately that frictional experience that was so evident throughout the customer journey, and when we think through all the different ways in which we attempt to cross-sell our services or expand our scope of work with our existing client base. We ultimately continue to come up against this frictional point of resistance that didn't allow us to really leverage that trust that had been earned and built over time with our clients. And that's ultimately the goal, right? Is to be able to expand upon your relationship, by building on that trust, and leveraging it to grow your business with an existing client base, and And this became such a challenge, right?
Tracy Clark:
This was…
Hilary Sauls:
one of our names. We had many that we were attempting to represent from time to time.
Tracy Clark:
Yes, we did. I'm gonna go ahead and skip ahead, because we've got quite a logo soup here, and so some of our branding folks and marketing folks on the attendee list might look at this and say, huh. Feels familiar.
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, yeah, I mean… It's so fascinating, whenever you put it all together on one page, it's overwhelming, and it really makes the point of, hey, you know, we're just taking stabs at something, to put out to the marketplace and hope that our clients and customers and prospects understand. We ultimately started to experience significant growth. Of our operating companies. We're a highly acquisitive company. we are often so quick to acknowledge and perpetuate the history of brands and companies that we're bringing into our fold, and to a fault, right? And so, what we found is that we were bolting on all these brands, and they had identical offerings. Or, in some cases, maybe slightly complementary in tangential ways. But ultimately, our footprint continued to grow, and that is our biggest and greatest asset. But yet, we were unable to fully leverage that in the marketplace, given the.
Tracy Clark:
Totally.
Hilary Sauls:
and lack of strategy with all of these bolted-on brands, and we were diluting our Armstrong brand in the meantime, so… Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
And this doesn't happen overnight. This is over years.
Hilary Sauls:
I'm just kind of.
Tracy Clark:
of snapping on, and maybe not being, you know, in hindsight, you know, not to criticize, but maybe not having time to be strategic about it. Well, if we acquire this organization, what does that mean? And I think oftentimes, and we've seen many brands do this, it's easier in the short term to just snap it on. But that becomes, as you can see here, a real problem with brand dilution.
One of the biggest concerns that we have in branding, because we want to make sure that when we are delivering an exceptional product or service. people know who delivered it, right? Absolutely. And if you're not singing from that same songbook, you know, each… each brand has its own sort of nuance. There might be some core values, and I think the nice thing was for Armstrong and all of these organizations is it was a very strong sense of core values that were shared, even if you didn't word them the same way. That's right. And so that connective tissue was very… present below the surface, but customers and prospects were not feeling that at all. And it also manifests, so this is why it's so important for building the case, because it manifests from a brand perspective, but a brand problem is a business problem.
Hilary Sauls:
Yes.
Tracy Clark:
Right? And so, you talked about, operationally, everything from, like, invoice confusion and reconciliation, you're dividing resources to solve those mosquito problems, rather than building up your brand, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Absolutely. We truly, had no strategy, right? And so, a lack of strategy really started to have a growing frictional presence in our customer journey across all business lines and verticals. And what happened is that we have this historical reliance, and still do, really, on relational-driven selling. And so, you have this minimal marketing investment with strong relational selling components and a growing digital customer journey in the marketplace. it doesn't jive. And so, what we ended up with is an inverse relationship, ultimately with increasing marketing challenges, an increasing revenue growth opportunities, and yet no clear strategy. And… Yeah. And ultimately, it really, came to a head, and we said, time out. We've got to… we've got to do different.
Tracy Clark:
Yeah, it just gets to that breaking point, right? Right. And I think the challenge is, you know, to translate, which you did amazingly well, is translating a brand problem to a business problem. And so I want to pause here for a second, because when we think about brand in its totality, from pre-start all the way through, right? What is the end result? Oftentimes, business leaders, executives understand the far right-hand side, the results that they want. But they don't tie it to a brand problem, right? And I think that that is the work that is the hardest to do before day one, before the… even before the RFP, right? You have to look on the left-hand side. So, the challenges, might be brand distinction, right? That is a brand challenge. But that affects buyer behavior. That might mean that they're not confident to, you know, do more than one deal with you, right? Or they might not be aware that y'all are intertwined or interlinked. your market was also changing significantly. Your competitors were shuffling around and doing their own growth and acquisitions and scaling. And ultimately, it was a confused offering. So with those challenges, you and folks like you in your role have to get to that middle section, which is trust, education, and empowerment. And that is the… thing that you did, again, so well, it's like, you… you did a couple of things, actually. The proof points were that you had some quick wins with smaller-scale projects that set them up for starting to think about brand in a much more contained way. I want to hear a little bit about that.
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and you're right. It really was planting seeds for a number of years, and when I think back to.
Tracy Clark:
Wait, a couple… a number of years, right?
Hilary Sauls:
The number, right?
Tracy Clark:
I stop you because a lot of people think that It takes… it's a shorter amount of time, but this is a couple years in the making to build a case. It's not always the case, but sometimes that's needed, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Absolutely, absolutely. So… really, when I think back to some of those mile markers along the journey leading up to this case was a couple different website redesigns and redevelopment that we did, and championing that, there's some natural research that goes into the competitive landscape and how others in our space are representing themselves and their offerings.
Tracy Clark:
And really diving more deeply into that.
Hilary Sauls:
I think we all have a responsibility in our respective marketing roles as You know, stewards of the organization to remain current with what the competitive landscape is across all business lines, and that's ever-evolving. And so, when I think about that. It was really, over time, paying attention to others who were certainly laying some groundwork, but helped to make a case with those who may not necessarily have that appreciation and understanding for the importance of strategy, and how the strategy is really defining and informing the way in which these competitors are representing themselves in the space. And so, thinking back to, you know, how are we going to help these Executives, and how are we going to help these non-believers, if you will, or really those who just do not understand branding to the extent that maybe others do within an organization? And, and help them understand, hey. This is where we're… we're matching up, and this is where we… We've fallen behind.
Tracy Clark:
Yeah, and they don't want to hear that you're falling behind.
Hilary Sauls:
Right, right! I mean, we are known as a leader in this space. And, that's a blessing, but it's certainly one of those things that you have to harness, and you have to continue to remain the leader. And you can be a leader and not communicate that effectively to… the marketplace, which is a whole different challenge, right? So, ultimately, it was really putting together this brand soup, and laying it out on paper, and helping them to understand, and also surfacing those friction points along the way. When we had conversations with prospective customers, or we're answering a proposal for a prospective client or current client, trying to cross-sell our services. where were we finding those bumps in the road, and where are we continuing to find challenges in what we're saying and how we're saying it in a way that is clear and makes sense? And so, continuing to surface that, continuing to surface client and customer confusion. and conversation anecdotally, is absolutely part of planting those seeds. Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
And tying it to brand, which you.
Hilary Sauls:
Yes!
Tracy Clark:
Because when what I've seen happen sometimes is that those get tucked in under quote-unquote operational challenges. And when you're seeing them on repeat again and again. that's maybe also an operational challenge, but it becomes a brand challenge, because if you're… if it's on repeat, then, okay, well, many people are getting this perception wrong. Many, many people have this misperception. We gotta fix that at a deeper, higher level, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, I think… I really think, too, Tracy, that It's tying it all together from… Stoop to nuts with, this is… this is our value proposition, this is what we're attempting to say, this is where we can't find a way to say it and still properly fold in all the respective brands to logically tie it together. And sometimes it's really as black and white as you know, some of those very basic diligence questions that you're answering with regard to EINs and tax IDs and business names, it creates a ton of friction. Unnecessarily.
Tracy Clark:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think that once you gain that trust with small wins and have those conversations, you've talked about tying those, you know, you're gaining that anecdotal… those anecdotal moments, and formulating an insight from it.
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
And that's what we as strategists do, so it's a little bit of work that… pre-work that you have to do to build that case, because when you think of executive leadership. from finance to CEO to whomever, whoever's going to be involved in helping to make this decision, because it's a big one, it's a big undertaking. You want to make sure that you're speaking their language, and that's something that I also found Your pre-work that you did that you were able to do that, because a finance person is going to have a very different perspective. So, what is… what is the ROI on that, right? And a CEO is concerned about that plus other things, you know, and the vision. Are we going to maintain our vision? Are we going to be able to keep with our core values? So, from a chief HR officer perspective.
So, all of those things have to be tailored from a messaging… an internal messaging perspective. So, much like brand, know your audience and have that 30,000-foot brand positioning, but tailor it to your audience. You gotta do the same thing internally. Yes. And I think… I find that that's where a lot of people maybe, fall… fall short, right? Because you have your full-time job to do, and so, oh, I really have to, like, create this… this body of work to, to be able to make the case for brand. But if you… it's sort of like working out. It's like if you kind of make it a regular thing, like, a weekly… this week I'm going to focus on that comp list. What are those strategic moves that the competitors are doing? And I'm going to build that out, and I'm going to present this at the next executive leadership meeting. That's the… that's what I'm tasked to do this week. And then next week, I'm going to focus on audience, and where that… customer experience is falling short. So I think if you sort of block it, were you able… were you able to do that?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, you know, what I did, I was thinking back about… ultimately that… I'm gonna say more dedicated time to making the case, right? So you're planting seeds and nurturing them along the way, and surfacing specific frictional points of the journey, but that dedicated time to making and building the case I spent the latter half of 2020 doing just that, and… and really that… culminated into a presentation of that brand soup and the competitive landscape, and really thinking more deeply about specific questions that would allow us to think more deeply about where we were falling short. So, in our world, you know, we have a ton of pragmatic thinkers, and.
Tracy Clark:
Oh, yeah.
Hilary Sauls:
In that situation, you've got to be more objective, and… And certainly, branding in some… in some view is subjective, right? And understanding and appreciation for it. And helping others to really understand the strategy behind it. What's behind a logo, and how it's so much more than just the visual elements of a brand. that's easy to, you know, check the box, oh, yeah, I know that brand. You know, it's so much more, and how do you do that with those that don't understand branding?
Tracy Clark:
We're not in it every day, like.
Hilary Sauls:
Right, right, and that's absolutely fine, but back to knowing your audience. So, helping to tap into that competitiveness, right, and understanding the audience from the standpoint of where do we stack against them, what are known competitors doing along these lines? So, I really spent time in creating that structure and laying out the different verticals, and doing an analysis of, you know, here's what our competitors are saying, here's how they're selling the services, here's where they're differentiating. And it was very evident visually, to be able to speak to the purpose and the strategy, that there was clear strategy that was in play, and it wasn't just this ad hoc, Brand, if you will.
Tracy Clark:
Right.
Hilary Sauls:
So, that honestly kind of led to a series of conversations and questions. And that particular conversation, what was interesting is, as I was building that case, again, over a period of months, and monitoring some of these brands, and really going back to them, and… one of them had actually kind of changed their go-to-market strategy, and so I had to reinvent the wheel a little bit on that representation. But that goes back to, again, it's not something that is stagnant. It's something that you have to continue to evolve as your business evolves. And so we were also at a point in time where our business was continuing to evolve. And that really allowed for the right conversations at the right time to take place, and to get that buy-in in a meaningful way. So the culmination was obviously the seed planting, but ultimately laying out questions, right? Questions that challenge thought process around how are we effectively communicating to our distinct audience segments. How are we… How are we taking into consideration our client and customer and prospective customer perspectives? Are we potentially going to sell off a business unit or product line?
Tracy Clark:
What are the goals of each distinguished brand? When I think about our structure, I mean.
Hilary Sauls:
Honestly, we are very highly entrepreneurial. We've got equity partners in each one of our operating companies running the day-to-day, and there's certainly some flexibility and latitude that comes with that, and thinking through how are we going to harness our collective footprint in a way that resonates with target customers and still allow that entrepreneurial spirit to be vibrant and alive in those local offices.
Tracy Clark:
And that was probably one of the harder things to do before you engage with us, and… and during, you know? Yeah. We'll get into a little bit of that, but, like, you have to bring folks along for the ride, but in a way that is connective with them. So… so yes to speaking in terms that they understand and that resonate really strongly, like, what are their motivators? But you were able to invite them to the table before, during, and beyond, right? So we had a seat at… they had a seat at the table with us when we were doing our research, but you had had a lot of pre-conversations. Now, what I want to say At this point, is that it's… it seems like A lot. And it… and it kind of is, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah. But…
Tracy Clark:
if you plan it well, then it becomes part… it's just like anything in your life, it becomes part of your routine, so I want to…
Hilary Sauls:
Alright.
Tracy Clark:
I want to double-click on that, because in order to get the brand right. And have a pretty smooth process. Nothing goes exactly as planned, but it was really… very smooth with you all, because even when there were hiccups, or questions, or concerns, or can we claim this, or is this the direction we should be going? Can we… can we move from this brand architecture to this brand architecture? It's a big change.
Hilary Sauls:
It is.
Tracy Clark:
but they were more trusting because they were empowered from those conversations. So, so that work is certainly worth doing and inviting that conversation. Now, those… those questions you had created some really powerful insights to inform that need for change. So, by this point, we've talked about gaining… the tools that you used in your arsenal were small wins, you know, with smaller projects that gained trust and empower, the educational moments, those, Inviting conversation and conversation touch points. Taking things like competitive and audience research, and saying, hey, this is where we are, and this is what we're leaving on the table, or this is what your competitors are shifting towards, and we need to get in front of that, right? So understanding those, those thresholds. And then, you know, pointing out those gaps in… in that knowledge, and being able to be that… Hilary is the bridge between business and brand, and I think that that was so crucial. And sometimes, you know, we talked about this In our planning, it's like, sometimes you have to go back over the other side of, you know, go back to the beginning of the bridge and take their hand and walk them over again, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Tracy Clark:
So I think patience is a really important aspect as well, but, but those are some tools that I think are really sort of coming to mind that, the more sort of tangible ones. Now, from there, how did you identify those people who needed to be involved? Because I think that's also a struggle with a lot of people, because, like, well, how wide do we go, and how.
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
So, in our, in our leadership and our staff, and there's also, like, the need to know Or influencer, or decider. So, you had a couple of things to deal with. How did… I think a lot of people wonder, like, how do you make that decision on who needs to be involved?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, I think, from the outset, having a strong pulse on the business, right, and having developed and nurtured relationships cross-functionally is… is key. That allows you to really understand, one, who… who has that influence across the organization at large, and two, who has… who has different knowledge and perspective to bring to the table from a different viewpoint, right? You don't necessarily want all like-minded individuals, you want divergent views at this stage, and part of that allows you to turn over all the stones. You're not leaving anything left to question, and in our organization, honestly, influential leadership exercise with earned trust is a cultural pillar. It goes without saying that… you're given a significant amount of responsibility. We run lean, and it's important that You are, carrying out those responsibilities to the fullest.
As a stakeholder in the organization and a steward of those responsibilities, you have, The ability to create a significant amount of trust and earn trust in many ways. But it's a key token to really be able to have those tough conversations, to be able to, Get your point across, and really that influence is… is the way in which we get things done around here, right? I mean, that common phrase. So, understanding the way in which you get things done throughout your organization, throughout your leadership, is so critical. Those… those pieces are gonna vary in different ways, depending on the organizational structure. In our world, it was really important to bring in different segment leaders of our organization. Yes. From an operational mindset, from a sales leadership mindset. We had some sales leaders who were responsible for different areas and different verticals of our offerings. We had, of course, HR. When you think about HR, that's so critical from a talent recruitment and onboarding standpoint.
When you really step back and think about the brand. And who comes in contact with any form of your brand assets? it's everyone, right? To a certain extent. And so you need buy-in across the customer journey, and that was a big piece for us. The other piece was being able to have voices heard. So, in some cases, it's recognizing who are those individuals that are going to be the contrarians at the table. Who were the individuals who, again, may not have any respect for branding or brand strategy, or just not have understanding of what that meant to the organization and what it means, to carry that out to the fullest. And ultimately, you need brand champions on the other side.
And so, how do you build brand champions you've got to get them to understand the why, and the what. How did this come to be, and how did we create something from an objective perspective? Pragmatic thinkers love objectivity. And that was critical from the outset, understanding that piece of our audience. These stakeholders were going to be our brand champions, and we needed to fully leverage the strength of their voices and their respective leadership roles, and help them to understand and value the brand in a way that they hadn't in the past. And so, it was really kind of that 360 assessment. And you think about, you know, a lot of times, it's encouraged that, as a leader, you consider going through one of those evaluations and assessments with your team and with others who come in contact with you. And it's no different when you think about the brand and the personality. I mean, it's the personality of the company. And so, really to get that unbiased buy-in and have them rooted in that foundation that we were going to be building together was so critical.
Tracy Clark:
Oh, yeah. I love, I love the comparison of the 360 evaluation, because from all angles, they need to know at any level, at any point of influence, that they have skin in the game.
Hilary Sauls:
Yes.
Tracy Clark:
And this is why you have skin in the game, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
Because that'll lead to less resistance down the road. And there might still be resistance, and we…
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
encountered that, right? We had… Absolutely.
Hilary Sauls:
Really?
Tracy Clark:
And it's from a place of, of protection. It's not from a place of intentional friction. It's just, this has been my brand for a long time.
Hilary Sauls:
Yes.
Tracy Clark:
I don't want it to change. But because of those conversations early, and being able to look Entirely around the organization, and bring in those thinkers really early, and, you know, give them… sort of give them… you kind of gave them homework, because you made them think about things that they hadn't before. That's right. So when they came to the table, they weren't… you know, to our table, you know, in research rooms and that sort of thing, it wasn't completely new for them, which we so have seen deer in headlight moments when they're like, I don't know how I'm supposed to answer this in research, right? But we didn't get that. We got honest conversation Throughout. And it was healthy debate.
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, absolutely.
Tracy Clark:
made some big changes, as, you know, we'll show some before and afters, but these were big changes. So, I'm going to pause because we have a question, from one of the attendees. What ultimately were the factors that finally led to buy-in? Was it, like, what was, I guess, the final tip If you will, because we've talked about a lot of different things that add…
Hilary Sauls:
That's right.
Tracy Clark:
But what was that final straw, if you will, and was it… was it connecting branding to revenue data, or was it something that maybe we didn't expect? So I want… I want to get your.
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, man, that's such a great question. You know, I'm gonna say it's the confluence of all the factors that ultimately got us in the right spot. It was striking when we knew the business. Again, going back to 2020, it was that last Q4, really, of 2020 that I made the push in the presentation. And that really was laying the groundwork for the research to come, and the selection, then, of an RFP process, you know, and selecting a brand agency from there. But it was that point at which I think a lot of businesses were feeling the pressures of 2020, and the shift and pivot to that digital journey became more evident for businesses who had not yet fully adopted more of a digital approach. And, look, our industry, we're laggards when it comes to digitization, let's be honest. But, honestly, it was one of those things where That culmination of opportunity and being able to, again, be so in tune to understand, hey.
Here's where our opportunities are, here's where they lie today, given the pandemic, and what was obvious and apparent to the business, and being able to pivot assets and resources to serve in a new way. it was that combination. Yeah. And laying it out there again, and helping people to understand who hadn't necessarily thought about the brand as a challenge, It was kind of icing on the cake. We were having these business conversations, and I was able to tie those real challenges to these questions.
Tracy Clark:
And allow us to really step back and say.
Hilary Sauls:
Okay, I mean, it was pretty obvious when you think about that one logo, just the Armstrong relocation, and companies logo. That, that one, It was one that we fell back on as our tried and true so often.
Tracy Clark:
And that one.
Hilary Sauls:
very blatantly obvious, and so that helped, but I'm gonna say, really, it's… It was that point of… The business recognizes it, the marketplace. is changing so rapidly, we've got to do different, and you're right. You know, it really, it wasn't just a single point in time, it was that building up and, and knowing the right time to make the case. And I think that…
Tracy Clark:
that discernment?
Hilary Sauls:
That discernment is so important, and it's.
Tracy Clark:
Timing?
Hilary Sauls:
And you can't rush it. And back to, again, being patient. I knew we needed to do something years prior. But it wasn't the time.
Tracy Clark:
It wasn't the right time.
Hilary Sauls:
The business was not ready, and… ultimately, it was understanding and having that closeness to the business and having your ear to the ground to know when the right time was to strike, and I think that's, that's gonna be different in every organization and in every stage of you know, where that organization is in their existence in that life. And for us, it just happened to be then. I don't know that there's a tried and true method to that madness, as a very distinct formula.
Tracy Clark:
I made sure you left no stone unturned to get there.
Hilary Sauls:
Right, that's absolutely right, and what I didn't mention was so make the case in Q4, and really then spend all of 2021 Finding the right partner.
Tracy Clark:
Yeah. I mean, that's…
Hilary Sauls:
It certainly was not a flip of a switch, we're doing this, and now we're gonna have a new brand by next year. There was a lot of groundwork, after that. Yes, we agree, let's… let's take the next step.
Tracy Clark:
Yep. And then go through our RFP process, and then… Sometimes life takes turns, and you have to pause on that if things happen, and that's okay, too.
Hilary Sauls:
That's right!
Tracy Clark:
But two things… I just want to add to that, because I think that's a great response. The two things that stood out from the agency perspective were, we kept hearing maximize opportunities. Maximize opportunities. And that was the… So it sort of… so to your question, Rachel, it… it does touch on revenue. But it was more about the broader opportunity, revenue, and… and it just got to the point where Leadership kept seeing, we're missing out on opportunities. we're gonna… and it's just gonna get worse. Like, if we have that logo soup, you know, back here… let me go back for a second… if we have this. We are not going to be able to maximize opportunities, because this guy's gonna get this, this person's gonna get that, that's gonna get that. It's never… we're never going to be who we need to be. To get… to take advantage of all those opportunities at a global scale, we're creating this gigantic footprint, but we're not doing anything with it.
Hilary Sauls:
Right.
Tracy Clark:
That was a big thing, though.
Hilary Sauls:
cost, yeah.
Tracy Clark:
And it became opportunity… it translated into opportunity cost. What I will say is that, oh, and the other thing, real quick, was, you know, anecdotally, the voices of, oh, we… a home mover client hired us, and then somebody with a different vest showed up. Because you do partner.
Hilary Sauls:
Yes. Right? Yes. You do partner with other van lines, and… but there was no brand standard, so they didn't know if they should let them in the door. Yes.
Tracy Clark:
stuff like that. It's saying, do you all realize how crazy that is to a customer? All because it makes sense internally to keep all these brands. But the customer experience was becoming a nightmare. And so… and the other thing I'll say really quickly, because it is a really robust question, is we are seeing now, from an agency perspective, a greater, stronger focus on revenue or ROI, what will… what will this empower? And as we all know, brand doesn't… isn't a one-for-one, like, for… but there are… there are calculators out there that can help you get a sense.
But it's a little bit different. But we are finding better ways to say brand will empower, you know. If done right, you know, a higher percentage of this, and we have tools and surveys, you know, baseline assessments, and post-brand launch assessments to see how that needle has moved. But I think establishing a baseline of, of brand awareness. and perception, I think, can be a great starting point, because, Hilary, you had done so many of that… so much of that research behind the scenes, but having that starting point of your baseline, understanding what your brand means to the world right now, can definitely be a strong case. But we are seeing more organizations lean in towards, revenue unlocked if we are to rebrand. Yes, yep, for sure. Well, I want to skip ahead a little bit to…
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
Because now we're in the, we talked about our skeptics, and… I want to share some before and afters, so… We did sort of soup to nuts, like, we had a full scope of rebrand, right? We did strategy together, we did research, we did, internal and external, we did architecture, we did some naming, and visual and verbal ID, and then launch sessions, right? We sat in a room and… with a lot of sticky notes and mapped out, okay, well, what are our priorities for launch, right? Yeah. And that was… that was super fun. So this is our architecture before, which was sort of a hybrid… House of Brands, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
And we moved from that to, whoa! Thanks!
Hilary Sauls:
So simple.
Tracy Clark:
Can you… I have to ask Hilary, did you ever think that you would become a branded house? Do you ever think that you would be able to pull it off?
Hilary Sauls:
No, you know, I thought for sure we were gonna have to have some dilation along the way. Now, at the core, just knowing how we operate and knowing how we use our assets to service across business lines. I certainly wasn't sure how we would… would do anything else effectively, but this, Getting, again, getting the understanding around the table of why this made sense and was the best path forward, was a really important piece, to getting through the next Number of phases, so…
Tracy Clark:
Yeah, and visual and verbal identity take, you know, the time that they take, and it can be long, depending on how many executions.
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
But the research, to your point.
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
Discovery, strategy, and research took the… and architecture took the longest.
Hilary Sauls:
It did, it did, and it was the biggest piece of it, and I'll say, it's so simple to step back and say, oh, we can shortcut that, right? We can shortchange it, and we know our business well enough, we understand our competitive landscape, we don't need to go through all the research, we don't need to go through the interviews and the surveys. But… Honestly, I made the case that that was going to be the longest piece, and that was gonna be…
Tracy Clark:
Good, yeah.
Hilary Sauls:
The part where, hey, we're probably gonna get through this next year, and until the very end of the year of… you know, 22, we're not gonna see it, a logo. Just heads up, you know.
Tracy Clark:
Managing, managing those expectations.
Hilary Sauls:
And that was huge, but we had to make this brand objective. and make the process objective. And so building that within, again, our respective organization with our stakeholders, it was so important to go through that step and to really understand why we had to hear the voice of customers. And really, Tracy, we didn't have a foundational strategy, right? That's right. And so it's not like we were just completely pivoting our strategy. We did not have a brand strategy.
Tracy Clark:
Having a house with no concrete.
Hilary Sauls:
Right, right! It was unwieldy at best. And so we were, truly building this foundation, and if we're going to be building this foundation, it was so critical that it was going to be solid, that we had not shortchanged ourselves along the way, and that we were actually building the trust of all of our future brain champions in the process. And so, in some cases, it meant that we were having more conversations that came from the voice of Matchstic. proposed to ourselves, and that we were really allowing Matchstic to download, what the research findings were.
Tracy Clark:
Hearing it from the outside.
Hilary Sauls:
removal of vials. Absolutely, yeah.
Tracy Clark:
I think the interesting thing, you know, this sort of ties back to, You know, meeting them where they are.
Hilary Sauls:
Yes.
Tracy Clark:
and having those conversations that relate to their position, their goals, their objectives. If you look at this before logo. And you don't care about brand, but you're an executive leader, you're gonna look at that and say nothing's wrong with it.
Hilary Sauls:
Right!
Tracy Clark:
So it can't be a brand conversation solely, right? To the people who that matters to, sure, we need to be distinctive because of this. We need to be more modern because of this. We look dated, because they're gonna say, well, it's working.
Hilary Sauls:
That's right.
Tracy Clark:
But it's missing that upside, that, again, those opportunities and what we're losing or what we're leaving on the table, is actually partially due to brand. Because people are going to look at this and say, they can't handle my new digital world challenges, and it's a.
Hilary Sauls:
now.
Tracy Clark:
I don't… that doesn't… I'm not moving, right? So there are things that are very limiting to this, and especially with a pragmatic audience, so you have to think in terms of what are the business challenges.
Hilary Sauls:
Yep.
Tracy Clark:
From a sales perspective, you are leaving so much on the table, because you have told me time and time again that you can't cross-sell. That's right. And the reason why is because this is a moving box, and not a… not an office.
Hilary Sauls:
That's great.
Tracy Clark:
Right? So that's why we moved from this to this, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
And, you know, when we think in terms of going from before, a little bit dated, a little bit specific on home moves, by the numbers, you know, some graphics, to something more like this. And it's more about the moving your life, your business forward, and making that very clear from a visual and verbal perspective. I'm showing the visuals right now, but that is where you need to meet where they are, and I wonder if some folks might benefit from you know, as they do their pre-work, sharing examples of brands out in the world, and what that did for them, you know? Right. Like, the engagement is up, which means that they got more sales. Analogs are always super helpful, and you probably had some of your own. It's like, hey, remember that competitor that looked really dated and we weren't worried about?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
We gotta worry about them now!
Hilary Sauls:
Right.
Tracy Clark:
Exactly. And so, I'll just click through really quickly, because, because it's, you know, we ultimately, together with your partnership, we did beautiful work, right? And creating some moments of interest, like, we kept some blue in there, but we reimagined it, right? Yeah. And we added some, opportunity for a little more expression and, unexpectedness in the purple hues and the greens. and that sort of thing. So re-envisioning, but keeping it very polished and stable at the same time. So having that flexibility to to be both trusted and progressive. And then, you know, showing what it looked like impractical world, you know, the trucks that you see. Now when I see this, I just get so excited, because I think just forward motion, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, yeah.
Tracy Clark:
stagnant. And I think one of the things you told me, this is some social posts here. And I do encourage all of you to go to Armstrong's website to take a look at it in person, and you… you'll probably see the trucks on the road now, right? But this is sort of a summary of… of the look and feel. And I think what… you told me something that was so interesting, and that is, like, because I asked, how do you know it worked, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
So, how do you know that… That your pre-work built that trust. all the way through to execution, and you told me something really funny. I'm gonna have you repeat it here, around the swag.
Hilary Sauls:
So, you know, when I think about… are… Our leaders, our family ownership, our… Executive leaders, our partners in the field. We traditionally would not have, A lot of brand advocacy from individuals at that level, and it's been so fascinating how a brand that really historically was a check the box, if you will, for the organization, not a meaningful asset of the organization and perspective, and shifting and pivoting to one that is so proudly born, I cannot tell you how often.
Tracy Clark:
I love that.
Hilary Sauls:
We get requests for new swag, and we get requests from customers, and passerbys, you name it, it doesn't matter who it is, if they see our logo, well, hey, can you… can I get one of those? Can I get a hat? Can you send me a shirt? And it's exciting.
Tracy Clark:
Yes.
Hilary Sauls:
it's really… I would say, an incredible win. It's not one that I necessarily thought would be the case, but I'm so excited about that. It makes it fun to work with and to continue to bring to life, and we still have a lot of asset turnover ahead of us, but It's certainly, Brought levity to our entire employee base, across the country, and to see how much these individuals have embraced it, and just really, enjoy rocking the brand.
Tracy Clark:
Through apparel, I mean, even when they're not on the job, it's.
Hilary Sauls:
it's rewarding, and it's… it's fun. That's the fun part. But I also think having brand champions and really harnessing, their excitement is key, and we certainly… We certainly are still working through, protecting the brand, right, now that we have a foundation in which we can do that.
Tracy Clark:
The work continues.
Hilary Sauls:
manner. That's a daily battle, but it's one that, again, is coming from a place of clear strategy and not a biased, personal perspective.
Tracy Clark:
And that is… That's the key. Yeah, that's the key, the objectivity.
Hilary Sauls:
Yes.
Tracy Clark:
I needed, and because, again, pre-work and trust building helps with the objectivity later, because you can point to that conversation or that set of tools and say, this is… you talked earlier, in our earlier conversations around mutual agreeance, right? And I think that that is so important, and And with that, I'd be curious to hear your take on, like, let's say another brand leader is considering a rebrand, because this is a… again, it's a lot of… it's a lot of information, not insurmountable, and then we have some time for some questions, but… Yeah. very, sort of briefly, you know, one sentence of what's the one thing you'd tell them to do before calling an agency? For me, it is do the pre-work so that the stakeholders are able to communicate why it's needed, so you don't have to be the sole communicator.
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah.
Tracy Clark:
Right? But what would you say is, like, from, like, a one-sentence practical approach?
Hilary Sauls:
Yeah, I think it's, having a pulse on all those points of friction.
Tracy Clark:
Yes.
Hilary Sauls:
customer journey, and then being able to articulate that from a brand point of view.
Tracy Clark:
Bye-bye.
Hilary Sauls:
that… that's, It's not a quick and easy, but it's something that is warranted to really get that, again, 360 understanding yourself. to then be able to articulate to each respective stakeholder from their particular, point of view, right? And looking through their lens to be able to have that dialogue and understand, and have them understand, ultimately, why there's friction and how we're going to solve it, so…
Tracy Clark:
Yeah, always pointing back to the friction. You know, you said this was painful. Yeah. We are at a point where we can fix it with brands, right?
Hilary Sauls:
Right.
Tracy Clark:
There's a… there's a great question in the chat. Hi, Gabby! When having these key conversations with stakeholders, how much of them were in person? So we had a few, that's… I know, we all think of that in, like, this new… it's not new anymore, but in the digital based on the Zoom world, but we… we met in person at a big ol' table. Right? A couple, at least, at least two times.
Hilary Sauls:
At least twice.
Tracy Clark:
executive leadership.
Hilary Sauls:
up.
Tracy Clark:
We did a Zoom to announce, to give updates to the partners meeting in Vegas, right? And that was a huge room, and me on Zoom, and that, so that was virtual, obviously. The sessions, the focus groups were on Zoom.
Hilary Sauls:
Yep.
Tracy Clark:
the interviews were on Zoom, so it was a hybrid, but we… we were still sort of navigating post-COVID.
Hilary Sauls:
That's right.
Tracy Clark:
So I think that had a lot to do with it, but y'all are very much an in-person kind of family.
Hilary Sauls:
Yes, we like being in person, though. We have a lot of different constituent groups that are, located and domiciled in different markets. And so, frankly, that also was another factor to take into consideration, where we may have had a couple more in-person conversations that, were just more beneficial to have virtually. And I'll… I'll speak to this, Tracy. In a time period at which we were all so drained and tired of virtual meetings and conversations, and that's all we were doing non-stop, and really being able to capture the full attention of attendees. Matchstic was phenomenal, and that.
Tracy Clark:
Oh, thanks.
Hilary Sauls:
that being able to facilitate, dialogue that generated not only constructive input and active participation. I mean, using something like a MIRA board was, incredibly helpful because it allowed for active participation, on the screen, but it also was something that it was apparent, that the Matchstic team was skilled at being able to have conversation virtually. To maintain that attention throughout the entire time frame. And sometimes it was a 2-3 hour virtual session, and that's a lengthy time, especially if you think about sales leaders, right?
Tracy Clark:
Oh my gosh, they're so busy.
Hilary Sauls:
Where there's a lot of things flying, and That was something that, because it was so effective, as we continue to have those meetings, we didn't feel a need to, bring everyone together around a table unnecessarily. We save those moments for those critical decision-making moments, or those, junctures at which, again, the Matchstic team really, believed were most impactful for those leaders to be at the table and in a room together for a number of hours.
Tracy Clark:
Yeah, it was…
Hilary Sauls:
you know.
Tracy Clark:
Now, nowadays, we might have done a little bit more in person.
Hilary Sauls:
Right.
Tracy Clark:
But I'm glad it worked out, you know, because you do have to create content that's going to keep People engaged and active and not, you know. we don't want cameras off kind of thing. We do encourage cameras on, phones face down, unless, you know, keep them close if there's an emergency, of course, but we're expecting sort of full attention. And we call out people if they're quiet. And that's done… that's done with care and respect, but we will close that if you're… if you're being too quiet, because this is your one chance. And so, Gabby also asked any quick tips on engaging stakeholders on the brand, just make it about the business. I think it's a lot about business, right? Yes.
When you think about sales, they're motivated by how they're… they're… Quarterly numbers, that kind of thing. So oftentimes it is a lot about business, because brand empowers business success. So… so it is, quite frankly, a lot of tying to that. But there's also that component of internal pride and camaraderie, right? So that's… that's a nice benefit. So making people's voices heard, and that they are part of building something together, so constantly. keeping that pulse of, like, hey, we're building this together.
So, there's some other questions we can certainly follow up, but I wanted to, say thank you everyone for joining, because we have a minute left. If you think of any questions that didn't get answered today, or you want to double-click, feel free to reach out to me, Tracy at Matchstic.com, or Hilary. We'll make sure that you can get ahold of her if need be. And, we now have a chance to draw for some book winners. We've got the Radically Relevant book, which I keep on my desk every day. So, who are our winners, Patrice?
Thank you so much for joining. We hope you enjoyed it. We appreciate your time and we'll hope to see you soon.
