How to Make Your Marketing Message Clear, Memorable & Effective - Jeffrey Kostick

Sebastian Rusk 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story Podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. It's good to have you here. I think uh a little overdue. A little overdue. I've been trying to do this for about a year now, and uh I'm trying to get up here and visit you and see your space. And I said, you know what? Let's let's kill two birds with one stone. Or two chimps with one stone.

Jeffrey Kostick 0:40

I don't want to kill any chips. No, no chimps for harm to the making of this podcast.

Sebastian Rusk 0:44

Or birds, for that matter. So you and I met in uh the great Six Degrees Golf Networking Group. Hands down, my favorite piece of networking that I do on a monthly basis. Why? Because it involves golf and it's only once a month. So how long have you been in that group?

Jeffrey Kostick 1:00

Six years, six and a half years. I started playing golf in 2019. And as soon as I had mentioned it to a few different people, they said, all of a sudden, five, six people apparently nominated Peter Rich Rogers saying, Hey, join the groove.

Sebastian Rusk 1:14

He's a gangster with letting people in. He's like, let's have a phone call.

Jeffrey Kostick 1:18

Yeah. Well, I think it's good though. There's some measure, there's there's there is there's a measure of, I don't say exclusivity, but he wants to make sure he likes it.

Sebastian Rusk 1:24

Well, except for that one guy. You played with him. Exactly. There's a couple uh, you know, uh well-disguised um fellow DGENs in the group. I really like that a lot. You know what I mean? It's uh it works well. And there are worse things of being stuck. So those of you listening wondering what the hell I'm talking about here, we have a golf networking group that we're part of, and we play golf once a month, third or first Thursday of the month, depending on schedule availability. Play like nine holes networking, kind of like a B and I, but completely opposite. It's like a seven to eleven deal. And that's where Jeff and I met. So you own a marketing agency here in South Florida, plantation specifically, Fort Lauderdale area, for those of you geographically curious. And uh you you act as the in-house marketing team for your clients, but you're outside, you help them create ideas and strategies and content. I for context purposes, I always like to go back to the beginning of the story.

Jeffrey Kostick 2:22

Sure.

Sebastian Rusk 2:23

Help our listeners better understand where this whole thing, where this circus, get it, monkeys circus, started. So the the beginning of the story is different for everybody, Jeff, so you decide where that is. But take us back for a minute to the beginning of the story on where this all started with what brought you to present day with what you're doing with Fly and Chim.

Jeffrey Kostick 2:41

Sure. So ultimately, I was an art major in college, and I wanted to be an artist. And then, of course, the reality of eating uh took over. And so started working as a graphic designer and worked my way up through the corporate ranks pretty quickly, made manager at 2024, director at 25. I guess I was pretty smart, worked really hard, and eventually kind of went off on my own. And originally it was just a web design, graphic design shop. And it was me. I had an assistant at the time, and it kind of grew. Clients wanted help with marketing, it grew, it grew, it grew, and here we are today. So that's kind of the beginning of the story. The reality of it is that we're very different than a lot of other similar-sized marketing shops. So a lot of businesses will be like that fractional you know, chief marketing officer. That's pretty common, right? They'll be that marketing consultant. And other businesses they'll do they'll they'll just like do a thing or they do a series of things. They'll do search engine optimization, they'll do web desights, they'll do they'll do video, they'll search whatever that is. They do a number of different things. But what makes us really different is that we do the leadership part. So we come up with the ideas that that marketing consultant, but then we do the things that we advise you to do. So instead of saying, Harry, you go do this, figure it out, we say this is what we think you should do.

unknown 4:11

Okay.

Jeffrey Kostick 4:11

And then based on conversations, you know, all of the stuff is collaborative. Then we say, Okay, we got this. And then we do that for you. So rather than like selling just one thing, you know, the old axiom is that give a man a hammer and every single problem is a nail. But reality is that we have a lot of different things that we can help you with. And depending upon what your needs are, that's what we do.

Sebastian Rusk 4:36

So why do businesses need you? What what what do you do? What problem do you solve?

Jeffrey Kostick 4:41

So businesses need us because most businesses they want to grow. They have ideas, they want to grow. They need more business, they want the phones to ring, they want the doors to open, right? And they think that they know how to do that. In some ways they do, but oftentimes they don't. They think, I want to do social media, I want video, I need a website, whatever that happens to be, the whatever the thing du jour that somebody planted in their seed on Friday night's dinner, that's what they do. But what they need us for is that we say, okay, what do you really want to have happen? Which is they want more business. And then based on what their business is, we give them unusual, oftentimes, not necessarily the standard answer of what they want. A lot of businesses need a lot of the more traditional things like search out search optimization. Used to be SEO, now with AI, it's just general search optimization because it has to incorporate, you know, Chat GPT, Claude, that kind of stuff. But the truth is there's a lot of non-traditional, non-standard things that businesses can be doing to help grow their business that are not commonly thought of in the marketing space. And we help them with that too.

Sebastian Rusk 5:46

Can you give me some examples without letting the cat out of the bag? Sure. No trade secrets here.

Jeffrey Kostick 5:52

Sure. So so I've got a dental lab, new client, they've been on board for about a month and a half, and they help dentists with their um with the actual work. They do the crowns, they they build those sorts of things. And in addition to a lot of the more traditional things, like they didn't really have much of a social media presence, then that kind of a thing, we're helping them with what I would call that that basics, that blocking and tackling. But we're also giving them some unusual ideas. Their space is actually amazing. It's really cool. And so we're gonna start doing, you know, events at their location. That's an uncommon situation. We're helping them with this dental ward to help reward a lot of their existing clients and create a secondary revenue stream by going outside of the area as well. So there's a number of things that we're suggesting to them that they do that are not just the classic blocking and tackling.

Sebastian Rusk 6:45

So when it comes to marketing, most people, most brands are skeptical. I've gotten burned in the past, I've tried this, I've tried myself included. But it only takes one campaign to hit, it only takes one strategy to actually hit. How do you proactively approach the strategies that you're creating to prevent a scenario where we're we just didn't get any results, it just didn't work. We need to reallocate the funds elsewhere. Are you going with marketing strategies that are proven over and over again for the demographics of the clients you work with?

Jeffrey Kostick 7:25

Well, the answer is it depends. I mean, there's there's times that yes, we're using a lot of very traditional approaches that that are tried and true and and and should work. First of all, any marketing company that tells you it's gonna work for sure, guaranteed 100%, is lying to you. Correct. Let's start there. Okay. So I think transparency is important. I think more than anything else is having conversations with the client so they understand what we're gonna do. We're taking best practices and doing every single thing we can to be successful with you. That doesn't mean it's going to be successful. We're taking the best approach that we possibly can, right? Um, that said is there's there's ideas that are far more tried and true than than others. And we discuss that with the client because the ones that are tried and true are tried and true for a reason, but they're also kind of limiting, and everybody else is doing that, right? Where there's other ideas that are surprisingly effective, but at the same time, they're less common, and so there's less guarantee to what those kind of look like. For example, um a shock and awe piece. Shock and awe piece is a piece that's can be used in a few different ways, right? And you can send it before a oh shock and awe.

Sebastian Rusk 8:33

Shock and awe. Shock and awe is a new word.

Jeffrey Kostick 8:37

Is that Frunch? So shock and awe. So there's a few different ways to use that. One is before you meet with a prospect, it's a a kit with different materials in it. Different materials for different audiences, right? It can have test client testimonials, it can have brochures about your business, it can have uh mission statements, that kind of a thing, right? A lot of different ways to do it. And before you meet with that person, you get sent it like, oh, there's that wow factor before you've ever gotten a chance to sit down with them. So you immediately start the conversation in a positive way. So if it can convert, let's say you're a high-ticket item, if it can convert 10% more prospects into clients and you're meeting with 10 clients every month, that means it's one more client that you're closing a month. That's 12 more clients a year. If that client is worth on average $50,000 a year, that's $600,000 a year worth of extra value, right? Because of going down this path. If it's a low-ticket item, well, then that's not really going to be an effective path for you because you're not gonna make enough money to justify what that value is. Or maybe it is because you do it over enough times with enough salespeople that it becomes more effective in that regard. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. So so it's it's it's it's it's a different situation depending upon what the circumstances require. And so that's the conversation that you have with the client. You make the best educated decisions that you can within the confines of the information you've got.

Sebastian Rusk 10:14

You gotta set the expectations, realistic expectations.

Jeffrey Kostick 10:17

Sure. And and for example, that's a like search optimization is one of the biggest places where those expectations and social media, frankly, is one of the biggest places where expectations are oftentimes skewed without a very transparent conversation. These things take time, right? Anyone who says that they don't is just trying to make a few bucks and then get out. Starting a podcast, right? Something you know about. Great example. Okay. It's a slow burn, right? It doesn't, you're not gonna make money from your podcast day one, day 60, day 180. You're not making any money from that. You don't have the audience yet, you haven't supported that yet. So therefore, you need to have conversations with people. But even the other strategy that you and you talk to to prospects about how to use a podcast to develop uh referrals and develop clients. Well, that's effective in its own way, but that also takes time. So all of these things take time for it to work, and yet it is a try to true thing. It's like NovaCain, just give it time. So it's it's it's it's a lot of the tactics we use really need to just be straightforward with the client and tell them the truth of what they can expect that hey, you're not gonna make any money with this for the first year, maybe year and a half, but after that, it's just gonna grow over time and it's gonna be the gift that keeps on giving.

Sebastian Rusk 11:39

Yeah. So um it's no mystery. AI is here to stay. Um apparently it's gonna kill us all um by 2030. So Skynet's here. Take that trip, do that thing. The robots are coming. Um where does this all play into the world of marketing? I know it's drastically disrupting several, several industries, jobs, um, specific skill sets that require first thing that comes to mind graphic design. It's not gonna be perfect, but eventually, I mean, based on what the output is now, on what I'm getting just on basic prompts, I'm like, wow, graphic designers are in trouble. What is this? What what is what does it look like for marketing when it comes to AI, specifically the type of campaigns that you guys execute on?

Jeffrey Kostick 12:29

Okay, so first of all, we've been using AI for years now in at Flying Chip. Okay. Uh we, at depending upon the day, can use anywhere from 10 to 12 non-marketing specific AI tools. Okay, and then they all do different things well, right? So let's start there, right? Anyone who's sticking their head in the sand about AI is just foolish. But anybody who's sticking their head in the sand thinking that it's not going to change my business, change marketing is also just as foolish, right? So you should be using it. There's no question. No different than you shouldn't, you should have used email when it first came out. You should have used, you know, cell phones when they first came out. There are a lot of things that we do on a regular basis that are going to be replaced by AI. Graphic design is one of the first ones. A lot of the writing that happens is going to get evolved if it's not already changing or using it heavily. We're using it heavily now. I mean, of course we're using it heavily. How can we not? That said, is the leadership and the ideas I don't think are going to go away. Does that make sense? Yeah. So so a lot of the more basic, mundane tasks are going to go away. But a lot of the other things I don't believe are. So, like, for example, one of the things that we're doing here to evolve it is we're creating a lot of our own intellectual property to kind of shift towards over time that that's what we're going to be working on specifically for clients over time. Um, I've written a book. Uh I'm working on another book, about 80% done with the other book, specifically to position Flying Chimp as the leaders we've been for many, many years, that we continue to be those leaders well into the AI reality that we're going to be facing.

Sebastian Rusk 14:10

What's the biggest threat that your clients that you work with and prospects that you could potentially work with have by not embracing both marketing and AI, the rapid changes that are coming along with both of them, evolution, if you will, of both of them.

Jeffrey Kostick 14:25

It's a great question. Um I think the biggest issue that people face by not using AI in some capacity is that they're gonna just get run over. I was talking to somebody who's uh an executive at a very large ad agency out of New York. You've heard of them, I'm not gonna throw them under the bus. And they're not doing anything with AI right now. And that's bonkers to me. So if you want to know whether that AI agency is gonna be around in 10 years, I don't think they will be. And that's just the reality. Um so businesses who don't embrace AI as a way to streamline their own operations are just missing the boat. It's like people who didn't get a cell phone. It's a person who said, I like faxing. I don't want to email. It's basically the same as that, but almost worse. Does that make sense? Like it, it's it's it's it's it's evolving so rapidly that it's crazy. Like the last couple of versions of Claude were written by Claude. Okay. So so that's to to terrifying. It's terrifying, but it's happening whether we like it or not. It's it's it's on, it's here. So we need to accept it and embrace our AI overlords. But reality is we we need to embrace it and saying, how can we be more efficient? How can we be more productive? How can we be more effective both in our business and for if we're in professional services, for our clients as well. Now, as it pertains to marketing, in my mind, now obviously I've got a little bit of bias, so I have some skin in the game, so take that for what it's worth. When times are good, you should market. When times are bad, you should market more. Right. So at some point, if you think that the pie that you have might be shrinking, you need a bigger piece of pie. Period. So if you want to eat the same amount of apple pie and there's half the amount of apple pie available, I need twice as big of a slice of that same amount of pie in order to eat the same amount of pie. Yeah. Therefore, what are you doing to put you and your business and your life in a position to where that's the case?

Sebastian Rusk 16:31

Yeah.

Jeffrey Kostick 16:31

Right. So what are people doing? Well, our clients are taking advantage of the fact that AI optimization, whether it's considered GMO or uh uh GEO rather, or LLMO, like you know, large language model optimization or generative engine optimization.

Sebastian Rusk 16:48

But this AI optimization for pronouns.

Jeffrey Kostick 16:50

They are, they can be. Um, but AI optimization is the new frontier of what search optimization is. So if you're not embracing that and you're not creating things on your site, content on your site, things like LLMS.txt files to help generate more traffic to your site from these, you know, like AI engines like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, so on and so forth, you're missing the boat, right?

Sebastian Rusk 17:17

Most are though. I mean, you and I understand the importance of it, but the average business is like, what did you just say?

Jeffrey Kostick 17:24

Well, that's the well, I I think I think they're becoming a little bit more sophisticated, but that's why there are people like me. There's people like you who can advise people to saying, hey, you're a business owner, what are you doing for your future? Are you gonna be okay? Like, look, do I think an electrician and a plumber are gonna be fine? I think electricians and a plumber is gonna be fine for a while. But there's industries and businesses that I think are gonna go away. My son's 14. Um, he's a freshman in high school. Really smart kid, clearly gets his intelligence from his mother. Um, really smart kid. I don't know how to advise him on a career path. Five years ago, he was gonna be an engineer. I'm sure of that. He's a STEM kid, like like he's he's a nerd by every standard that one can apply in like all the best ways. I don't know if those jobs are gonna be around. So I don't know how to advise him. Certainly not today. I'm gonna see how the next three or four years goes.

Sebastian Rusk 18:16

You gotta ask AI.

Jeffrey Kostick 18:17

Right. But I'm gonna see how the next four years goes before determining what his path likely can be. Because a lot of the stuff's going away.

Sebastian Rusk 18:26

Sure. It is.

Jeffrey Kostick 18:27

I don't mean to scare anybody, but I ain't scared.

Sebastian Rusk 18:30

So I am.

Speaker 1 18:34

So um as we close things out, best campaign you've ever worked on. Best campaign I ever worked on.

Jeffrey Kostick 18:46

I got a bunch of recognition for Delta Vacations, where we always the lead designer on. That was kind of cool. Did stuff for Continental, did all the design work for the Miami Vice movie premiere. Uh I don't know, the next campaign.

Sebastian Rusk 19:04

That sounds pretty badass.

Jeffrey Kostick 19:06

But honestly, though, the next the my my favorite campaign is the one I'm working on now. Hey, I mean, like well, look, much to my mother's dismay, I didn't become a doctor. Uh she wanted me to be a dermatologist. Uh I went down, I went down a different path. I did this because it's fun. Like I get to be creative for a living.

Speaker 1 19:29

Yeah.

Jeffrey Kostick 19:29

And as soon as the creativity stops, it's not fun anymore. Sure. So I I I the cool thing is what I get to do next.

Sebastian Rusk 19:37

I love that. I love that. Jeff, I'm glad we finally got to have this conversation. I know it's uh well overdue, but it still happened here. We got a lot of alignment here with both marketing and the world of podcasting. So I look forward to continuing the the conversation. Uh any final thoughts for our listeners?

Jeffrey Kostick 19:53

Accept AI and and accept it. Try to adopt it into your life, but never abandon personal creativity.

Sebastian Rusk 20:00

That's right. I'll put Jeff's contact information in the show notes. That's the description of this podcast episode in case you're wondering what the hell a show note is. And make sure you connect with them. Every business needs to market. They need new eyeballs on their brand. They need new feet through the door or clicking on their virtual door. So marketing's important, so is podcasting, obviously. Until next time, thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story Podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Be sure to appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, LaunchLab.com studios. I'll talk to you next time.