094: Sustainable Strategy & Real-World Mentorship in B2B Marketing with Michelle Miller

Full Episode Transcript 

Danny Gavin Host

Hello, I’m Danny Gavin, founder of Optidge and Marketing Professor, and today we have a very special guest. Today, I’m excited to welcome Michelle Miller, President of Creativate, a marketing agency dedicated to helping B2B businesses achieve growth through strategic marketing. 

Michelle is a passionate entrepreneur with extensive experience in developing and executing marketing strategies across a range of industries, from architectural products to industrial equipment.

She’s known for her commitment to sustainable marketing practices and fostering cross-department collaboration. 

 Her expertise is sure to provide valuable guidance for anyone looking to elevate their marketing efforts. And today we’ll be diving into mentorship, but, of course, marketing in the B2B space, particularly with industrial and manufacturing clientele. How are you doing? 

Michelle Miller Guest

01:07

I am fabulous. Thank you so much for having me on this show. This is so much fun. I’m so excited to chat today. 

Danny Gavin Host

01:12

Yeah, my pleasure, and I guess we can tell people that we’re both HubSpot partners and we both had a rep. We’re like man, Michelle, you should meet Danny, dave, you should meet Michelle, and it’s been amazing since then. So I’m so glad that we can officially sit down today on the podcast. 

Michelle Miller Guest

01:25

Same same. Yes, that HubSpot ecosystem is strong. I’ve had so many good conversations with other HubSpot owners, whether they’re agency owners or partners or vendors or whatever. It’s a solid group of humans, that’s for sure. 

Danny Gavin Host

01:36

Yeah, we’re lucky to be a part of it. Where did you go to school and what did you study? 

Michelle Miller Guest

01:40

I graduated in undergrad from Mount Union, which is now the University of Mount Union, primarily known for D3 football. No, I did not play. That’s not why I went there. I did play tennis, but I didn’t go there. For that reason, I switched schools a few times before settling on Mount Union my junior year and graduating from there. So I’m definitely a testament to you don’t have to finish your college wherever you started freshman year. I majored in business overall and then I had a concentration in marketing and a minor in accounting. I wanted left brain, right brain and that’s actually served me really well in my career, because most of the time marketing and accounting are like this. So that was a good choice. So then I went back in 2015. 

02:19

I went back and started my MBA from Case Western Reserve University. I waited a few years because I really wanted to get that real life business experience and I’m so glad I did. I was in a part-time cohort because I was working full-time at that point and I was with all the others. We were all working full-time and then going to school part-time and it was really clear whenever we had the courses where it was the part-timers and the full-timers and some of the full-timers didn’t have as much real life experience. It was very, very clear who the full timers and the part timers were, so I’m really glad I went back and got that, and met some incredible people along the way. I made some lifelong friends, so it ended up being a big blessing for sure. 

Danny Gavin Host

02:51

So cool, yeah. So I did my MBA right after my undergrad and I actually didn’t want to work at all, I wanted to study. And I was lucky, because my wife was like Danny, there’s no way that you’re not working while you’re doing this degree. And so thank God, because if you don’t have any experience, right, it’s like at least I had some experience while I was taking the course. But yeah, you know, so it served me really well because for me the MBA was like a bridge from my rabbinical life to business life. So it worked really well. But doing it again, I agree with you. I think having a couple years of experience and then getting it is so much more valuable. 

Michelle Miller Guest

03:24

Oh, a hundred percent. One of my favorite stories is one that I love, the organizational behavior classes, because I think they’re so fascinating. It’s all psychology. It’s like psychology of organizations, and one of them they were talking about how people get promoted and climb up the corporate ladder or whatever, and they were talking about some not so great scenarios of where people just get promoted based on where they are at the time and when the vacancy is that they need to be filling. So they’re just promoting someone, even if they’re not qualified, and all the part-timers are like, yeah, we’ve all worked for those people before, or whatever. And one of the full-timers actually raised their hand and was like does that actually happen? And we’re like, oh good Lord, yes, it does, it happens all the time. It was pretty funny. 

Danny Gavin Host

04:01

Talking about organizational behavior, I had this professor his name was Dale Rude, and one of the big things he was known about is sort of an uncomfortable study and he wanted every single person in the class to do something out of their comfort zone that they’ve never done before and then to write about it and to sort of experience it. I mean, there’s some crazy things that people did. One was like I knew there was one of my classmates, you know. He dressed up as a homeless guy, made a sign and he stood at one of the major thoroughfares in Houston just for, you know, not the whole day, but for a couple hours, just to experience what it actually felt like. That was crazy. 

04:36

And then my first child was born during the spring break of my second year. Around that time when the class was so, I invited two of my classmates. It was my eldest son. So in Judaism we have a ritual circumcision and I invited them to come to that because they’ve never been to something like that. And if you don’t know about it, it’s like a ritual circumcision. That’s so weird, so cool. Reminders about behavior. 

Michelle Miller Guest

05:01

What’s funny is I actually am reading a book this morning. I just read a quote, though, that if you’re not uncomfortable, whether it’s something that you’re trying to do with your life you’re not growing, and like that’s actually a sign that you’re open to change and that’s a good thing. So, like we have this I don’t know as a society we look at, if you’re uncomfortable, it’s wrong or something like that, or if you’re afraid no-transcript DTC companies or brands. 

Danny Gavin Host

05:58

They always have to, every year, come out with a new product, something special. Why we’re new, what we’re special with and sometimes with agencies, it’s the same thing. It’s like you know, even if you’re really good at what you do, sometimes you have to try something new and that can bring you to the forefront. So, yes, as human beings change, we’re very averse to. But what we don’t realize is that when we lean into change or the uncomfortability, that’s actually how we grow and therefore it’s hard right. It’s like a back and forth, like I want to be comfortable but no, let me not be. And I think that’s just one of the battles, a good battle in life that we have. 

Michelle Miller Guest

06:32

Oh, a hundred percent. Actually, one of my mentors that we’re going to talk about gave me a really great analogy earlier this week. We were talking just about stress and growth and all of that, and like what’s the right amount of stress and how much stress do you need? And she told me about this study that this researcher did where he planted all of these trees in a perfect environment, with the perfect soil and the right amount of sunlight and all that, and once the trees got to a certain height, they all fell over, all of them. And she was like, why do you think it fell over? I’m like I don’t know. That’s a great point. She goes there without any wind. Wind makes the roots strong. Wind that stresses helps the tree grow. It helps the tree become stable and big and strong. So you have to have some wind. And I was like, oh, I love that. I’m taking that one to the bank. That’s a and here we are. 

07:14

Yeah. 

Danny Gavin Host

07:16

I might have to take it as well, but I’ll definitely give you credit, Michelle. No, no, no. So, talking about mentorship, how would you define a mentor? 

Michelle Miller Guest

07:26

I’ve been really blessed to have some type of mentor in various capacities in my life. So I think the role of a mentor for me has changed a little bit as I’ve grown. So it started out in seventh grade in my church group. We had to pick someone and it was because it was middle school. You know, those are great years. Everyone loves their middle school years. They’re so easy and fun. So we had to pick someone who was a mentor, who could be another adult that you could go talk to. That wasn’t your parents, if you have. You know you want to talk about whatever. I picked my friend, Jean’s mom, Elsa, and she was my mentor in a formal way. They had a formal program for it. So we went through that. I think it was just for seventh and eighth grade, but her and I clicked and we ended up continuing that through high school and even when I would come home from college we would still go out to lunch. Even you know, within the last few years we still go out on occasion for lunch. 

08:10

There’s that type of it could be more of a formal or informal relationship, but I think it’s. It’s someone who. It’s not like they have to have all the answers. That’s not the point. They’re not going to give someone who’s lived life and been there and can help understand who you are and help guide you to being the better, fuller version of yourself is how I would define it. And then mentors I’ve had business mentors through the year too. I’ve had personal business mentors and sometimes I mean they’re friends, they’re mentors, they can be colleagues too. There can be a lot of things, and I think a lot of companies have a formal mentorship program, which is great, and sometimes those work really well. But I’ve also seen them not work well either, just because the mentor and the mentee they just don’t jive. It can be formal, it can be informal, it can be a lot of things, there can be a lot of roles and it can shift and change and evolve. 

Danny Gavin Host

08:55

What I’m about to say I haven’t said on the podcast before and we’ve been through quite a few episodes, but I feel like. So in Hebrew there’s this concept. It’s called ase lecha rav, which means make for yourself a rabbi. What it really means is it’s talking about a mentor, because we all need a mentor to guide us, whether it’s in our spiritual and in our physical life. So if you look at the Hebrew word lecha, so ase means make, lecha means to you rav, a mentor. Why do we use the word lecha to you? It’s because of you. It means there needs to be someone who fits you right. Like there’s no point in getting someone who doesn’t know who you are, who doesn’t know your quirks. So it’s really important to take this out of the spiritual side, but just in life and in business, right? Like it’s important to find someone who knows you and that I think that can really add additional value. I agree it’s important to find someone who knows you and that I think that can really add additional value. 

Michelle Miller Guest

09:46

I agree it has to be someone you really trust too, because it can get really. Even if it’s just a business mentor, you’re still we’re humans, right, so there’s still personal elements of it that come along, you know, and come into play. So your personal drives, your motivations like it has to be someone that you trust and that you’re comfortable with. 

Danny Gavin Host

10:06

So let’s talk about some of your most influential mentors. Slash colleagues. We’ve spoken about three, so let’s start with Dave. 

Michelle Miller Guest

10:09

Loomis yes, so Dave Loomis, I met back I think it was around 10 or 11 years ago when I was at a manufacturing company and he actually was working for it was a company that did new product blueprinting, and that company and my company were working together and we were in a meeting together and we just I really liked him. He was really impressive to me. He clearly knew what he was talking about. He could run a meeting super well, he had a lot of knowledge, he was able to engage with people, even with difficult personalities, and we just kind of hit it off and he’s just always been a really big supporter, advocate, cheerleader for me. As we’ve gone through, he and I both, like, we worked at these two manufacturing companies at the time and then I was there for a while. He went and worked for a marketing company in Cleveland and then he eventually started his own company. 

10:56

And when I, as I went through my iterations too, and when I finally started my company in 2021, he was so helpful because he’d been, he’d been there, he’d done that, and so I, you know, I asked him. I’m like, can you send me some examples of what you use for client contracts and how do you engage with people and how do you? And he gave me all the wisdom and, as I’ve gone through, like I mentioned, I went through some ups and was still able to even without giving all the details of exactly what was going on he was able to like ask the right questions and have a productive conversation that really helped just helped me keep things in perspective but then also like also think about keep things in perspective but then also maybe tap into some new ideas or thoughts or trains of thought that I wouldn’t have gravitated towards, naturally, just from asking good questions. So I think that a really important characteristic of a mentor is being able to ask the right questions, not leading questions, but just asking the right questions. 

Danny Gavin Host

11:45

Let’s move on to Tammy Hoffman. 

Michelle Miller Guest

11:47

So that manufacturing company I worked at, she was the director of finance. She was the only female on the leadership team. When I started at the time and I was also when I started there, I was like 23, 24. She saw like my energy, my spirit and like I really wanted, and I was also when I started there I was like 23, 24. She saw like my energy and my spirit and like I really want it and I was promoted to run their marketing. It’s 200, well, yeah, $150, $200 million company. At the time. 

12:08

I was promoted to run their marketing and I really needed someone to help me just navigate the life stuff you can have. You can go to school and you can have all the knowledge in the world about how things should work or do work. But the reality is you’re navigating a lot of personalities and cultural things and all of that and sometimes I could be a little bit like a bull in a China shop without even realizing it, not trying to, you know, cause chaos or make waves. But I accidentally was, and so she was really a really good resource internally because we both worked at the same company to help me try to navigate as I wanted to grow and change and evolve as a person, but also take the marketing and ultimately help be a big contributor, driving sales to the next level. 

Danny Gavin Host

12:44

Amazing and you’re lucky right, Because a lot of people, especially women, don’t necessarily have that person in the company that they can look up to. 

Michelle Miller Guest

12:52

Yes, I was very lucky and I encourage people to just be bold. Even if you don’t know them, go seek them out and see if it’s someone, that it’s not even someone that you have to say I want to be like that person or I want to be in their role. I have no aspirations to be a director of finance. That sounds terrible to me. We’re vice president of finance but I think it’s important to just be bold and be okay, if I respect this person and I would like to work with them and learn from them as a mentor. 

Danny Gavin Host

13:16

And then, finally, let’s talk about Christine Hockman, who sounds like she’s your mentor these days. 

Michelle Miller Guest

13:20

I met Christine. She’s a certified high performance coach and so I met her in 2021. She’s like a mentor, friend, coach, a lot of things wrapped into one, and in fact, we now have the privilege of traveling together and we’ve spoken together, sometimes on the road. We were just in Denver this last weekend. She spoke on alignment and I ended up moderating a panel on women and leadership multi-generational workforce, and so she’s been a huge advocate, cheerleader, but she asks all the good questions because she’s a trained coach. Yes, I consider her to be a mentor, friend and coach all wrapped up into one. So I fully recognize how blessed I am to have some of these people in my life, because it’s yeah, I’ve got to. Really, I’m very, very blessed. 

Danny Gavin Host

13:59

I don’t take it for granted, and how often do you speak to Christine? 

Michelle Miller Guest

14:02

Weekly at least. Yeah, sometimes it’ll go a couple weeks, but especially if we have a trip coming up, we talk constantly beforehand. 

Danny Gavin Host

14:08

I believe you frequently meet with college students and new grads. You’re in a position of mentoring. What’s a common characteristic that you find in college students or new grads that sort of you work through when you’re talking with them? 

Michelle Miller Guest

14:20

I see so much of myself in them, which is really fun. Like I see that, like I’m hungry, I want to take on the world. They haven’t been jaded yet, which is really cool. They haven’t gotten anyone in corporate yet and have taken them down. So they’re nothing but fresh and hungry and they just they want to learn as much as they can and learn as much as they can, and I absolutely love and admire that, and so I want to make sure that I’m a positive piece that can continue to cultivate that and encourage that, because I think that’s so important. 

14:45

I think you know what it is that takes 10 positive things to make up for one negative, or I forget what the stat is, but I’ve had them in my career. I’ve had a couple people who try to take you down, and they can. One person can single-handedly wreck you, and so I want to be if they can. One person can single-handedly wreck you, and so I want to be, if you allow them to. So I just want to make sure that I’m answering questions for them, helping to guide them, but also trying to give a little bit of a realistic look at things like here’s how the marketplace works or here’s how this works. You know the hiring process works, or here are things you should include or think of or whatever it is, and I’m always a professor, some of my best employees are the ones that I’ve taught. 

15:26

So, fyi, that’s the secret. You have to teach them. 

Danny Gavin Host

15:28

You don’t have to, but it makes it easier. 

Michelle Miller Guest

15:32

Oh sure. 

Danny Gavin Host

15:33

Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. So now that we’ve heard a bit about your journey and mentorship, let’s dive into your marketing superpowers. You often talk about marketing excellence and the impact it can have on business. Can you share an example from your career where great marketing really drove significant growth or change for a company? 

Michelle Miller Guest

15:47

I think marketing is still one of the least understood departments in a traditional organizational structure, especially within the B2B space. People confuse it with sales. People want to lump it all into only advertising or only branding. Whenever anyone asks for my definition of marketing, I’m like it’s an umbrella of everything, from right with the first time as a prospect, tiers of you, all the way to customer engagement and ongoing support, and it’s everything in the middle. It’s all marketing. Actually, Dave Loomis wrote a book called Marketing is Everything we Do, so shameless plug for Dave’s book because he talks about that exact thing. It’s tough to even help people understand what marketing is and how it can directly contribute to top-line growth. So I love and part of the reason I’m a HubSpot partner. 

16:29

Hubspot was the first platform I found and in 2014,. I found it when I was actually just looking for an agency to help me with building a new website for one of the five brands that I was managing at the time and I was like this is so cool, because I used to have. I was so frustrated at the time. It was ExactTarget. If anyone who’s a longtime marketer remembers ExactTarget and email marketing, yeah, and then Salesforce and Salesforce ended up buying ExactTarget and they never fully integrated the functionalities together. So you still had. It still was like you were working with two separate softwares. And that was so frustrating for me because I just wanted accurate customer lists, I just wanted accurate prospect lists. But if you have your sales team over here and you have your email over here and you just can never marry them up. So I get really excited about HubSpot because it allows me to go in and say, okay, like, look at this, the efforts that we’re doing, we can tie them to a campaign and we can show exactly how they turned into sales. This is so critical in especially B2B spaces with really long lead cycles. In consumer spaces, you can do an ad campaign, you have some UTM tracking, all that Bam, it converts to an e-commerce sale. You can see it really clearly. Then I think I don’t know. I love challenges. So, b2b, it can be six months, it can be 18 months, it can be three years before a sale goes through, especially if you’re selling a multimillion dollar piece of equipment or specifying a building or something like that. So I love that challenge. So an example of that would be one of the and this is I know I just was talking about long lead cycles, but one of the companies I worked for manufactured a roofing membrane and they manufactured it in-house. 

17:57

There was a hurricane coming in Florida. It was Hurricane Irma and I don’t remember what year this was 2017, maybe 2018. Hit Florida pretty bad. But we decided we had a ton of material. This was on a Thursday, Irma was supposed to hit on a Monday and we needed to get one. Operations was working on getting all this material down to Florida and then I was tasked with literally developing a brand for its overnight value proposition landing pages on the website. 

18:24

I locked down a phone number for like 1-800-IRMA or something like that. I don’t remember what Ad campaigns were, all that to get and do it in a way that doesn’t sound like you’re trying to profit off of someone’s potential loss. So I was so proud of my team and what we accomplished very quickly and threw together, literally in 48 hours, a full campaign for a whole new product to encourage people to keep an extra roll of this membrane on hand so they could do immediate repairs and possibly save buildings and structures from additional disaster. So that was really fun because it was a little bit more of a like I love, where you just get to roll up your sleeves and actually do marketing. I feel like so many times we get stuck like just doing you know, doing death by PowerPoints and death by meetings. But it’s fun when you can actually put together some real campaigns that really generate results. So that was really fun. 

Danny Gavin Host

19:08

Yeah, and you’re right about it, it was 2017, so you have a good memory. Okay good, that’s right. On your website, you stress creating sustainable marketing practices rather than just one-off campaigns. Yes, creating sustainable marketing practices rather than just one-off campaigns. Why do you think consistency is so crucial in marketing? Could you share a story where a steady, long-term approach paid off for a business as opposed to a quick, one-time win? 

Michelle Miller Guest

19:27

Oh, that’s okay. First of all, to clarify sustainability I feel like that term gets beat up a little bit. Sustainable. I’m not talking about the environment or green. I’m talking about sustainability in the sense of longevity, consistency. 

Danny Gavin Host

19:40

I’m glad I asked the right question. 

Michelle Miller Guest

19:41

You absolutely asked the right question, so thank you for teeing that one up. I think that, well, I know we’ve all gone to someone’s, I don’t care what segment you work in. We’ve gone to someone’s Facebook page or we’ve gone to their website, especially social media pages. You’ll see that someone came on board and they got all gung-ho and they were posting every week for like three months and then it just stopped, and that was three years ago. So this has happened across the board and that looks terrible. It’s like. Are they still in business? Are they still around? Like what happened? 

20:11

I think consistent, steady marketing and I know this for a fact it does drive results. For example I know this isn’t just one example, but this is for all of our clients Blogging. It will sometimes take months, even years, to actually generate results, but blogs can be ranked as a number one result for a search term, for an organic search term. So that type of like consistent thought leadership. Consistency is just so important. I tell everyone that the saddest thing is a well-written marketing plan that’s not put into action. I think that I know that consistency is a huge driver in results. 

Danny Gavin Host

20:47

So your background is definitely interesting. You’ve marketed some pretty technical products, from roofing materials to industrial pumps, which are not exactly the easiest things to make. Exciting right, no? So how do you approach marketing in these kinds of industries where the product is complex or maybe not very flashy? 

Michelle Miller Guest

21:02

Well, I’ve said, if I can market an industrial pump, I can market anything Fair. Fair, yeah, it was an air-operated double diaphragm pump. I love the flashy ugly products on the market, because not everyone can do them, not everyone is drawn to them and they do take a little bit of time to understand. So I love it because it’s a challenge. I like challenges, but regardless of whether it’s a flashy product or it’s not a flashy product, the principles of marketing are still the same. Who are we marketing to? What are their pain points? What’s their buyer’s journey? What’s the value proposition? And then making sure that you’re laying it out in such a way so that you are creating messaging visuals that resonate with whoever you’re targeting. But that’s something that I emphasize strongly with all of our clients, and that’s part of the reason that when we go through all the HubSpot onboardings, one of the first things we do is talk through personas, because we have to know who we’re talking to, because that drives everything else. 

Danny Gavin Host

21:54

Manufacturing and construction are pretty male-dominated industries and you’ve spent over 15 years working in those environments, often as one of the few women at the table, like we spoke about earlier. What is this experience? Like you? What is it like for today? Is there any time where you come and you feel like you know it’s a little difficult because I’m the only woman in the room, and do you have any advice for other people who are in a similar situation? 

Michelle Miller Guest

22:14

Oh, we could spend a whole podcast talking about this. I just came back from Denver moderating a panel on this topic, actually for the Women’s Affordable Housing Network, and when I started my career, when I would walk into the room and I was the only female, it was intimidating for me and I spent a lot of I probably spent the first 10 years of my career just trying to figure out in such male-dominated spaces, where do I fit? I went through a phase where I wore a lot of black because I’m like I just, and high neck stuff and long pants because I’m like I just. I don’t feel like dealing with being judged, my wardrobe being judged in any way, shape or form. Then I went and I figured out that there’s a lot of business getting done on the golf course and I’m getting left out. And guess what? I could either sit in the office all day or I could be outside on a beautiful day golfing with everyone else, all the guys. So I’m going to figure out how to play golf. So I did. It’s a journey and I spent so long trying to figure out how to get my seat at the table. 

23:05

I think as women sometimes it’s harder because we really have to show up and show that we’re credible, and I think sometimes it’s hard to know when to stop proving your credibility. I remember about five years after I’d been at one company, the owner actually came up to me and was like Michelle, we know you’re competent, you don’t have to tell us that anymore, just go do your thing. It can be an uphill battle. So when I started my company, I got really frustrated with some rules and just environments. They didn’t work for me Like. 

23:30

I’ve always been someone who is a self-driven, highly motivated person. I don’t need someone to tell me to be there at eight and leave at five. I love working remotely and I got exhausted trying to find a table where I could have a seat at. So I was like enough, I’m going to build my own table and build my own seats. I’m going to put the people that I want in those seats at that table and I’m going to bring other women with me. So that’s kind of a whole side. 

23:51

Passion I have of my company is we’ll hire a man eventually, I’m sure, but right now we have it’s an all-female team and we are I mean, I’m blown away at the work that these women do day in and day out Like they are amazing, incredible women, and unfortunately, we’ve all had bad experiences in corporate prior, where we’ve been put in situations that are just unsavory or uncomfortable, and so it’s kind of like a breath of fresh air. Now we get to do what we want. We’re still having a strong impact in these male-dominated industries, but now we get to do it our way, which is refreshing. 

Danny Gavin Host

24:26

On the practical side, let’s talk about digital networking. I know you encourage businesses to leverage LinkedIn. A lot of B2B companies have a presence there but aren’t sure how to use it beyond a basic profile. So, in your view, what are some smart ways a technical or industrial company can use LinkedIn to build relationships or visibility? Any quick tips you’d give to help someone up their LinkedIn game? 

Michelle Miller Guest

24:46

Well, first of all, one of my favorite phrases is authenticity matters. So people can smell. If you’re sending all these messages that are like Hi, I’m so-and-so from this company, I’m going to help you with blah, blah, blah, because I have proof on my profile, I can’t tell you how many. Probably half of the solicitations I get are people are like I’m going to put you 80 leads a month for residential roofing and I’m like cool, I don’t do that but I’m great, good for you, but thanks for taking the time to read my profile, not so I think authenticity, no matter what you do, it has to be authentically LinkedIn as well. Especially no point in growing it if your target market’s not there. So make sure that whoever you are targeting especially in industrial spaces, it is usually LinkedIn in some capacity, but put that in there and then just add value. 

25:29

Bring value If there’s, especially if you’re using it for sales and prospecting. If you know exactly who you want to go after or who you want to target, connect with them, but then genuinely watch their posts and engage with them. Comment, like, share. Make sure that you’re showing up and don’t just put more spam and crap out there. The other thing I’m really adamant about is I will never. We have social calendars for our clients. I will never post something if I just feel like we’re checking a box and it’s not bringing value. So just because there’s, we’re supposed to post on Friday and we’re like scrambling, it’s just not coming together, I say we’re better off not posting than putting junk out there. 

Danny Gavin Host

26:04

So I love that. I think that’s the first time I’ve heard like a social media agency say that that’s so cool. 

Michelle Miller Guest

26:10

Thanks, social media agencies say that that’s so cool. Thanks, yeah, it’s true, though. I mean it’s so true. Like you can tell when something’s crap, and then it falls flat on its face and it’s not oh for sure. 

Danny Gavin Host

26:17

Especially on business profiles on LinkedIn. Like you know, I like to look at, for example, just for my own agency. When you go through and you see the posts that do really well and the posts that do not really authentic, aren’t really adding any value and they’re just there because we have to post two, three times a week Like what’s the point, right. So it’s hard. It’s a balance, right Because you want to get content out there. Sometimes it’s hard to have, you know, the perfect content, always for a business page. But I definitely hear. I love that you stand up to that and be like, no like. 

Michelle Miller Guest

26:50

If it doesn’t have value, let’s not do it. Yep, bring value. And then others just like pro, tip secrets across all of our clients. The posts that time and time again perform the best are the ones about people. It’s about your team. So never I know everyone just wants to talk about products or whatever. Never underestimate celebrating your team, whether it’s anniversaries, retirements. 

27:09

I had someone once who retired after working at a company for 40 years and we did a really nice LinkedIn post and he’s not even that active on LinkedIn, but I sent him a link to the post because he had already. It was for his party on Friday and so he was already done on Monday, so I made sure to text him a link to the post. He had thousands of views. He had so many comments underneath it. He was like that was actually one of the best retirement gifts anyone gave me in this post, because he got to see how much people enjoyed working with him and had the opportunity to share their sentiments with him before he retired. So yeah, never underestimate what you already have in your back pocket in terms of team and people and celebrating. 

Danny Gavin Host

27:44

So, if you’re listening to this today, the spreadsheet or HR system that you have with everyone’s join date, go send it to your social media person, because that’s the key. 

Michelle Miller Guest

27:53

Absolutely Birthdays too, if you’re comfortable with birthdays. We fight. Sometimes Our clients are like, well, they may be poached if we’re showing who works there. I’m like okay, we can’t operate from a place of fear. 

Danny Gavin Host

28:03

Never. 

Michelle Miller Guest

28:04

Yeah, and so I strongly push back against that every time. 

Danny Gavin Host

28:08

Yeah, I agree. 

Michelle Miller Guest

28:09

Yeah. 

Danny Gavin Host

28:09

All right. So it’s time for our lightning round. We’re going to go through your top three things that you like to do outside of work, and I know you’re like a killer at work, but I know you also make some time so that you can actually breathe and live a little bit. So let’s talk about home renovation. 

Michelle Miller Guest

28:23

I grew up with a really handy dad, but that was not an interest I had when I was a kid. So I bought my first house in 2012 and it needed a lot of work. It had pink carpet, it had pink doors, it had wallpaper everywhere and I was like you know what I love? A good before and after. I’m going to go for it. I’m going to figure these things out. So, YouTube, Ask Dad 1-800-DAD, like whatever it is. 

28:45

I figured out how to do a lot of these projects and some of them were way more ambitious than I ever would have dreamed of. Like I redid my backsplash twice and I tiled a floor and installed the cement board and all of that. Like, I’ve figured out a lot of things and it’s very satisfying, I think, because of the fact that I work in an industry that’s long delayed gratification. So this to me is like an immediate before and after. I paint everything I possibly can paint. But yeah, the more I go, the more ambitious I get. I just figured out electrical. So I’ve now swapped out all the lights in my house, which is not that hard, but I was super intimidated by that for years. But I still won’t like outlets and things like that. I’ll just do basics like the two or three, the three way out, like switches. I won’t do that. 

Danny Gavin Host

29:23

But I’m sure, like in a year from now, if I check in, you’ll be doing those as well. 

Michelle Miller Guest

29:28

It’s true. Come back in six months and I’ll probably be talking a little bit differently, yeah. 

Danny Gavin Host

29:33

All right, let’s talk about your dog, Gus. 

Michelle Miller Guest

29:34

Yes, he made an appearance back here. Did you see him at one point? 

29:39

I missed it, but I’m sure I’ll see it in the recording. Yes, yes, yes, he made two appearances. Actually, I got Gus on a whim when I was 24, I think. So he’s 13 years old. I guess I gave away my age too. That’s fine, he’s 13 and he’s a 16 pound schnoodle and he’s just. He’s such a happy boy and I take him everywhere I possibly can with me. He loves kids, he loves people. He just wants to be wherever I am and, yeah, I take him with me wherever I can. 

Danny Gavin Host

30:04

And then tell me all the things from cooking, eating new foods, what’s your favorite? 

Michelle Miller Guest

30:08

Well, I grew up Mennonite, so baking was a big big deal, so I grew up doing a lot of baking. I’m starting to learn how to cook a little bit more and grill, but I used to. I even have memories. Some of my earliest memories are eating my grandma’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. So what’s really cool is that both sides of my family have that background. So I’ve done a lot of ancestry research and I actually got the chance to go to a. I found a little town in Switzerland that my 14th great grandfather or something like that helped to renovate, and there’s this crest on the wall of this little tiny church, so I was able to hunt that down. This last summer I actually got to go see it in person too, which was super cool, that’s amazing. 

30:44

Yeah, that’s very, very cool. I love making chocolate chip cookies and that was something I used to do every Sunday when I was in high school and my mom always packed our lunches and so we would always have two or three chocolate chip cookies in our lunches and so chocolate chip cookies have just been like my jam. And even during COVID I would do cookie runs. So I would make because we couldn’t see people, so I’d make batches of chocolate chip cookies, usually after work, so it’d be like nine o’clock at night. I would just go do a loop around my town and I would just drop off batches of cookies at my friend’s stores. There’s a little note or you know, or sometimes I’d just throw the cookies on the stoop and text them and be like, hey, there’s cookies on your porch and so and I still do that now Like I’ll, just I can’t eat them unfortunately anymore because I developed a gluten intolerance, but I’ll, I take cookies with me. 

31:30

I was really late boarding so I was the last person in January and it was to an industry conference and I knew there were going to be a bunch of people. That was all. We were all going to this conference and we were all on the same flight, and so I was like the last person to board, and I board with all these, with bags of cookies, and I’m literally like, as I’m going down, I got extra bags of cookies. So I also like to take them with me on the road whenever I can too. So cause I feel like it’s such a treat whenever you’re on a business trip and someone shows up with something homemade. So I do that too on occasion. 

Danny Gavin Host

32:00

How much fun. I love this about you so cool. 

Michelle Miller Guest

32:07

Yeah, it’s just fun and written notes and I love homemade items or even like we were talking about the house stuff, like I love finding, thrifting and finding old treasures and painting them or re-standing them or fixing them up or whatever. I’m just a very old soul. 

Danny Gavin Host

32:21

So, Michelle, what are you currently working on or what is your next big project for this year? 

Michelle Miller Guest

32:25

I have a lot. I have a lot going on right now. 

Danny Gavin Host

32:28

Give me the top. 

Michelle Miller Guest

32:29

Give me the top. Give me the top one. From a business perspective, I just cleared year four earlier this month, on May 1st Congrats, thank you. So I’ve been in business for four years and it takes some iteration to figure out what are your core services that you’re going to offer. Who’s a good client? 

32:44

I started out as a consultant and I wasn’t doing any tactical stuff, and then very quickly I was writing marketing plans and the clients would come back and say, all right, so who do you recommend to go do this if you’re not going to do it? So that’s how I end up getting more into, like the word agency, but the agency side or the marketing firm execution side of things, the tactical side. So we’re really blessed to have an incredible group of clients and it continues to grow. So for me, I thrive off of doing things I’ve never done before. 

33:10

I love growing and scaling and I’ve done it in terms of marketing departments at other companies, but I’ve never done it at a company where I have. You know, I’m responsible for the accounting and the operations and the legal and all of it, and so you know business ownership and entrepreneurship is no joke. So with Creative 8 right now we have. We’re just really blessed to work with a lot of amazing people and I always want to make sure that we’re providing the best services that we can. So that’s my big project right now is growing and scaling and making sure that we’re all in alignment as we march forward. 

Danny Gavin Host

33:39

Well, that is really amazing. And congratulations, thank you, and here’s to four more years and many, many more. 

Michelle Miller Guest

33:47

Yes, it sounds like a political campaign. I’ve got to get to your part. That’s hilarious. 

Danny Gavin Host

33:53

You. It sounds like a political campaign. I got to get to your part. That’s hilarious, you are right. 

Michelle Miller Guest

33:56

And more and beyond, oh man. 

Danny Gavin Host

33:59

Where can listeners learn more about you and your business? 

Michelle Miller Guest

34:02

I’m pretty active on LinkedIn. If you want to come help me down. Michelle Miller is kind of a common name, so my handle is MillerMK, if you want to come find me there. If you want to come find my website, my website is growwithcreative8.com, and creative8 is C-R-E-A T as in Tom I V, as in Victor, a T as in Tom Ecom, perfect or creative8.com. 

Danny Gavin Host

34:24

Well, Michelle, this has really been so enjoyable. I’ve loved laughing and talking with you and learning so much more about you. So thank you for being a guest on the Digital Marketing Mentor and thank you, listeners, for tuning into the Digital Marketing Mentor. We’ll speak with you next time. 

 

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