Clarity Is the Most Underrated Marketing Tool

If your date's not available, of course you come running to Monica to, Hey, I can't choose a sooner date, and I forgot about this thing. And it, it starts a nice conversation. We're like, Hey, you know, I, I, I need you to ask for things at a sooner time. I see you spin around in your chair smoking a cigar emotionally.

It's like the sheriff badge comes on that I have to just sit there like I am the sheriff.

Welcome to the marketing team at one podcast where we have conversations about the issues one person marketing team face when trying to meet their goals with limited time and budgets. Now, here's your hosts, Eric and Mike. Ladies and gentlemen, we are super lucky today to have with us Miss Monica Griffiths.

Hello everyone. I am Monica Griffiths. Now she is, uh, runs marketing and communications, or just communications, what? I am the director of marketing and communications for the California School Boards Association. Wow. So it has a lot of different hats to it, but I am, I guess the, the sole marketer for, or the sole marketing leader for my organization.

Yeah. And, and when we met and talked during the pre-interview, it was interesting 'cause I almost was like, wait, you're not a marketing team of one. I don't know if we can have you on the show. Of course I'm joking because you do a lot of things. You wear a ton of hats and you actually have a bunch of people that answer to you.

And those people in a sense, maybe you're, uh, they have a little bit of the marketing team of one dynamic with their job description, but then you're also helping them and you're doing some of that marketing team of one work with them. Explain who. Answers to you, I guess, or what, what do you kind of lead, what, what are those divisions within your association?

Yeah, so I am the marketing division leader, so I have technically a, a vacancy in my department right at this very second while we're filming. Mm-hmm. Uh, but I also have a marketing specialist under me and that those are two people who directly I, I supervise every day. Mm-hmm. Um, and then I have a, what I would call a lateral role.

Uh, we have two other directors within our, uh, communications department, a editorial director and a director of branding and design. While I don't supervise them at all, I am a project director, so a lot of their projects that they touch, I will help, you know, usher things along. Mm-hmm. Um, and making sure they have everything that they need to be able to, you know, act on whatever deliverable or product.

So I am their champion a lot of the time. Nice. Um, or their like goer and get her of the information. Hmm. I think. Yeah, being the project director, director really does make it so a lot of the people kinda like lean to me for things. So they have people underneath them who come to me for clarity of information.

Um, or for gatekeeping purposes, like if there's something that marketing is working with, uh, with like another team that's, you know, beyond us, uh, they'll come to me for the information because typically I've been the one who's been in meetings with that team or been in the project, the project meetings or having discussions or just the knowledge bearer.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, I tend to have a lot of the information just trapped in my brain. Awesome. Um, let's talk a little bit about the dynamics of your organization specifically because associations in Sacramento has a ton of associations here. Um, they're of various different sizes. Some are very small, some are much larger.

The school board association is pretty big, and so your organization has. I would say, uh, of some of the associations that we've worked with and understood, uh, or had relationships with, yours seems to have all of the different features all packed into one organization. Because you're a, obviously a membership organization.

All of the members of all of the school boards in California are encouraged to join. And I believe you said you have 97%, so you're really, your job is not marketing to get a, a membership. You kind of have that already built in, which is awesome. But you do a lot of other things to help educate them.

Anybody who's on the school board in California has some sort of connection to your association, it sounds like. Yeah. Um, we do a lot, a lot, a lot of just resources for school board leaders. Mm-hmm. So that's, you know, districts or county offices of education, so we're making sure they get. Research resources, they get any sort of like policy information.

They're getting, you know, trainings that are specific to them. Um, in that like association space, we've kind of built this entire system that really caters to school board leaders. Okay. Anything that we give out in terms of information, resources or services are specifically designed for that association.

Like that trustees, they want us, they know us. Mm-hmm. And you know, we're supporting them in whatever ways they need. Which is a lot of advocacy. A lot of trainings, and a lot of like, like different types of like business services, like legal services or, you know, policy services. Okay. And you had said too, there's a research side to it as well.

There is because really need to understand what's the research about? Yeah. We have, um, an entire department that's focused on research. And research can be really a lot of different things. Um, in terms of like. Information relevant to, like, students, student success, governance, um, you know, the latest and greatest of, of what's going on in, in the world of research.

And as far as like education just goes, um, you know, education's a really big topic and there's a lot of different changes that come out or new, you know, information about student success comes out like pretty frequently. So we have a research department that's focused on putting out research, um, you know, taking other people's research and just putting it into like something clear and concise that our, uh, members can then go take and make really great informed decisions.

Um, God, they do so much. There's a lot of different moving parts and it, it's, it's hard to keep my own head wrapped around it 'cause I touch a lot of these things or I'm putting out information to support them or being a resource to them. So, yeah, because it's kind of a unique group as far as who makes up your membership as mm-hmm.

As opposed to other trade associations or, uh. You know, industry representation. A lot of the people that are on school boards have a day job and they volunteer and this is part of their other job or their other, you know, what? They're behind as they get involved in the local school board. And so there is a lot more training that has to be involved.

They're not coming in as a professional school board member, so they need education on how to do it. Helpful tips and tricks and things like that probably are part of that. Yep. A hundred percent. Because like you said, a lot of them, this isn't their one and only job. Yeah. Um, a lot of them are coming from, you know, private sector, you know, or they could be parents that, you know, maybe are just full-time mom and dad or uh, you know, retired individual individuals.

There's a lot of different types of people who, I think I was a little shocked at what school boards look like when we had our conference for the first time. Um, well. My first time at the conference. Mm-hmm. Um, and I just kind of looked around and I'm like, wow, this is what, this is what school boards look like.

Like if you put, pulled everyone together from like California. Um, and I, during that conference time, I worked this little, we have this, uh, pavilion in our trade show floor. And so it's a lot of like customer service type interactions where you're talking to people, telling them about the resources like I'm doing now.

Mm-hmm. Um, but you get to meet a lot of these individuals and learn about what their day job is and what they're doing typically, like when they're not being a, a trustee and there's some interesting ones. Yeah. I would imagine It's not like there's just one demographic. I mean, it's everybody all ages, all levels, uh, all, yeah, exactly.

It's, it's like there's no shortage of like who can be this type of role. It's just people who are passionate about. Education and, you know, giving back to their communities in, in this way. So it, it can look like a lot of different types of people. Yeah. So when you're defining your audience, as we like to say on the show, who's your audience?

Yeah. You really kind of slice off a lot of those other types of, you know, 20 to 30-year-old male female, you know, like Yeah. It's none of that. It's all, it's basically everybody in a sense, probably. Right. Or maybe they're older in a is it a, is it being more older? We, we do have an older audience base.

Okay. Um, when you look at it and you fine tune out, like, who is everybody or who's in your bucket? Um, we do have a lot of people who are, you know, over 45. Okay. Um, and then, you know, the people who have time for this type of commitment because while you, while a lot of people have full-time jobs, like mm-hmm.

It kind of requires being engaged a lot. So you have to have a job that allows you to be involved more. And a lot of the time it ends up. Retired folks. Mm-hmm. So we have to be really, really mindful of that with marketing too. Yeah. Because you can't be, I guess, too flashy in some sense. You can't be too social media.

You can't be too techy because the audience hasn't caught up just, just yet. So not a lot of TikTok stuff going on a there of No. Okay. Absolutely not. Just, I don't, yeah, no TikTok yet. No need for it yet. But we do have, uh, like student school board leaders. Yeah. Like there's a lot of, you know, student school board members, so they do like the social media still.

So we keep it, we keep it and, you know, not everyone is not tech savvy. So we do keep a lot of the, the more traditional social media but not TikTok. So is your outreach then, um, obviously your email, 'cause most associations use that as one of their major platforms Yep. To communicate most things. Um, obviously website, those types of things, but you've also got a social media presence as well.

And what, just curious, what, what channels or what platforms are you posting? Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and then meta. Okay. Uh, so Facebook, I don't know if we're we're gonna be, oh, well, I said Twitter X all the name changes. Please get it right. I mean, I, I have to get it right. Yes. I'm, I'm cancel old school.

Yeah. Uh, the, the traditional places just, you know, not the TikTok. Not the TikTok. Okay. So, yeah, I would think Facebook would be one, because it's, it's surprising to see how popular Facebook is with a wide demographic. Still it remains popular. Mm-hmm. And Instagram too, you know, it tends to be a cute place.

I mean, a, a lot of the demographics, I mean, just from prior roles, there's a wide range of. Ages that subscribe to Instagram. So I'm always comfortably surprised with how many people are on there. Yeah, it's very popular. Let's talk a little bit about your journey then, um, where you're newer to the role. How long have you been at this position?

Uh, next month it'll be two years, two full years. Okay. So in, in a sense where, you know, you have to learn a lot of things. I still feel new. Yeah. Like I, and especially because most of the people at our organization have been there a really long time. Like our, on our team, our communications department team, I'm technically the second still newest person on that team.

Most people are very senior in comparison. Um, which I like. I have the historical presence and I can ask somebody about like, historically, like, what has worked or, yeah. You know, how have we done this or do you have any information related to, to this thing? Or have we done anything like this? And that that legacy, that history stays, stays around.

Um. So, but I know that, you know, organizations that are around a long time, it's hard for them to make change. Mm-hmm. And, and, and upgrade their systems or their process, part of their, you know, workload and all that stuff when you came on board, let's talk a little bit about what were some of the challenges that were brought to you immediately?

Why were you brought on board it? Was it a new position that you were brought in for or was it you were just replacing somebody? Or what did that look like? So I was replacing somebody who had been in the role previously, but, uh, they had had the role open for a pretty long time looking for a unicorn.

Okay. Is, is what I'm told. Um, looking for a unicorn. So someone who could wear a lot of different hats in terms of like, you know, marketing and communications. Um, when I first came in, the, the immediate need was trying to get the projects back in place, and, and there had been a lot of. Lack of strategy because there hadn't been someone wearing that hat that like marketing strategy role for a while.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and you know, a lot of the people who were doing the marketing were doing more of like the execut execution of foundational work rather than like too much of the strategy behind it. So that was really a big focus when I came in and then, or a focus that at least was pitched to me when, when I was, uh, you know, in the role, uh, for interviews.

But I would say when I came in, I saw just kind of like this really bleeding out situation with the project management and getting like, projects that had fallen dead on the vine back into place. Um, or things that lacked information or mm-hmm. There's just, I think, a, an understanding of like what is clear and concise or what is a complete or thorough request to like, take something and make it actionable.

I think when it comes to like being like a marketing leader, that's kind of where my. Shining star is, is trying to understand what information I need to go and gather and get so that my team or whoever's executing on it has what they need to be successful and actually do the work. Um, and I think they saw that in interviews and they were like, yeah, let's, yeah, let's get her.

Um, and I think that's where my team has seen the biggest value. I I, it's one of the compliments I get from them, and I can feel the appreciation in that regard. Nice. You came in and you worked on strategy. It sounds like that was one of the main things that was missing from the organization on some level.

So that's, that's kind of higher level thinking, kind of pulling back a little bit, getting above everything, looking at the landscape of what's going on, what are the goals, what are the needs? What do we need to work on first? That also tends to show, uh, there's some chaos in the organization because, uh, oftentimes when there's no strategy, there's a marketing plan, which means.

Let's try this. No, let's try this. Uh, what's this shiny object and you kind of go around the bend and are trying things left and right. Was that a similar experience to what was going on when you walked in? Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. When you come in, I think the first kind of 30 days really felt like getting people dialed back to what strategy actually looks like.

Yeah. In terms of, you know, we can't just keep throwing sand at the wall. Like, like I know Shiny object. Oh, shiny object. Yeah. Um, everyone wants to go for, you know, making a lot of noise or like trying something like flashy. Yeah. But, you know, I'm, I'm really traditional marketing in a sense where I'm like, let's just do things right.

Um, let's, let's really just try to figure out what we're trying to say to people. Let's really refine our messaging. Let's understand what we're trying to tell people. Mm-hmm. Like, sometimes it's as simple as. Just trying to fine tune what it is that we're, we're talking about or trying to under making sure that like, I understand what it is we're talking about enough to where that I can go and make some sort of clear, cohesive messaging.

Mm-hmm. Um, rather than, you know, let's send 10,000 me emails to everyone. Like, let's just spam our list. I'm like, no, let's not spam the list. Yeah. That was one of the evaluations I did when I first got in. I noticed how many emails we were sending to people. I'm like, let's refine that. Let's, let's really refine how many emails we're sending out to people.

'cause we're a membership organization. Yeah. Like they, they don't wanna hear from us, you know, 40 times a day. It wasn't that many. Okay. Wow. Um, but, you know, it was, it was a lot. It's almost like being like a gatekeeper or being like the, uh, air traffic controller a little bit where you're like, okay, something's going out at 10.

Let's not send another thing to that same group at 10. Let come on guys. Like mm-hmm. It doesn't have to go out at this time or, you know. You're ready to fly, like we can send that one. Um, and moving things around too. You're like, okay, this is the priority message right now, let's send that. Yeah. And this can go tomorrow so we're not, you know, hitting the same group twice.

It was a lot of that. And that's a simple thing. That's just when you're absent strategy, no one's thinking, no one's thinking about that. They just kind of react and then yeah, press send and then mm-hmm. Did you go have to go into that list and segment it a little bit better? It sounds like you just were blasting the entire list, which I know is maybe not as effective sometimes with our membership association.

It, it's, it's a little harder to do because, you know, for the most part, everyone needs to get that message or that information. Um, so there's a little bit of segmentation to some of our smaller groups that are technically within our audience base, which are like staff members that support local education agencies.

Yeah. So like executive assistants or, you know, the, the superintendents or things of that nature. So Partialing back. Some information to where it only goes to like the chief business official or there's not a lot of different segments. There's what you've identified. Three is that pretty much there's a lot of different segments and I'd say the biggest, the biggest difference is like, maybe more so in like the regions, like if information Oh yeah.

Like if we're hosting a training in Southern California, like Northern California probably isn't gonna go Oh, tall cascade. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're, they're probably not going to travel down for that at, you know, a few hours. But trying to like focus on like, where can we target, like what can we target?

Um, again, there was some, you know, making sure that we're explaining that to some of the different stakeholder groups. Like, yeah, no, we're not sending this to everyone. Nobody from Northern California's traveling for this. And a lot of the time they were very receptive to that. They're like, yeah, that makes sense.

No one's really. Asked us to tone it back though, so we haven't been, well, the, the thing that happens though, the dynamic that happens, it's kind of like the, the, you know, the kid who cried wolf, in a sense, if you send out so many emails, there's a point where it people don't read anymore. It becomes ineffective.

Right. A hundred percent. The, that is exactly like, and trying to really refine that in, in making sure people were aware of that. Mm-hmm. And I think people now being there two years, you know, if I say, Hey, not everyone needs to get this. They, they, they've understood at this point. So that's good. You know, it's, it's nice to have built that trust and authority with the different kind of groups we serve.

So, going back to the tire fire, that was the organization when you got there? I'm, I, I'm being dramatic, but I mean, it was, what other things was there that you saw? We started, you started with strategy, which is kind of the, kind of the, the leader of all of those things. What other things did you see that you needed to.

Kinda get in there right away and do some triage on and fix. Yeah, so I fixed, one of the first things I did fix, um, was our intake process form. We have this really great, uh, project management system called Litho. Mm-hmm. And our team uses it really well, and it's been a system they used for maybe 10, 15 years.

So there's a lot of information on the backend about different projects, like annual projects and stuff, and there's a lot of record keeping in there. So I love the system. Yeah. But the intake form that they had where you kind of give to stakeholders and say, Hey, you know, you want something from me, here's what you need to get me and check a bunch of boxes, um, maybe wasn't as, as good for capturing information.

Like, it just felt like a lot of stuff that maybe they didn't understand. Mm-hmm. In terms of like how we worded things or, you know, maybe just could have been simplified down. So that way we're really focusing on like getting what we need from them versus wasting their time on other things. Mm-hmm. So I refine that.

Really, really well. At one point the Lytho group was like, Hey, you guys don't have an intake form. Put one together. Oh. And someone wasn't there, so they kind of like hodgepodged one together or kind of thought, you know, this is what it needs to be, and didn't touch it again. Mm-hmm. Just because they, they didn't have a lot of staff at the time, and that's not no shade.

Like Yeah. That's, you don't have the resources to really focus on this. Yeah. Um, so when I came in, I'm like, you know, intake is really important. That's the first step. Yeah. Like, having those conversations with people about what we need, like that kind of sets everything up for success. So I thought, you know, I'm, when it comes to prioritization, like that's where I'm gonna focus first.

So, you know, start at the beginning. Start at the beginning. Yeah. The first step, um, making sure, you know, it looked good and it sounded like what I would need to do to be successful. Mm-hmm. Um, I really worked closely with the other two directors at the time too, making sure like, Hey, this is what I think you guys may need.

Like evaluate this? Is this getting you everything that you historically have needed from teams? Yeah. So not to, uh, self-promote here, but if you go on our freebie section of our website, we do have a downloadable PDF. If you wanted to get kind of a, a starter version of a project intake form that we've got on there, again, it's just a PDF form that you can print out and hand write.

Obviously it's not integrated into a system, but uh, it might be a good guide if you are building a system. You could kind of use that as a Yeah, and that's, I would say, if you don't have one of those already, yeah, go download your free one because you need one. Um, and it helps facilitate a lot of the early conversations with stakeholder groups too, because if something's maybe not miss or something's maybe missing or like not really flushed out, yeah, you can have those conversations with that group and say, you know, Hey, I see this, this form you filled out, or.

You know, you're missing, you're missing maybe some thought behind this. Can we talk more about it? And then you get into the strategy component, which is fun and exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so it is helpful because I mean, you hate to get, you know, 15 steps down into a project and like, oh yeah, I forgot to ask 'em when it's due.

Yeah. Or something critical around that. You know, I mean that's, that's like probably the most critical thing that I've play around with. Yeah. That was actually one of the pieces. It usually starts. Yeah. Um, that was one of the pieces that was really like not to find out on the original process form. Yeah.

Like making sure people were aware of like how long it actually takes a team to do something. Yeah. So I put like a. It's, it's got like, sort of like an intelligence thing behind it. The litho team did it. I didn't do it. Yeah. Yeah. But I, you know, I wanted it, so I asked for it. Um, there's some intelligence built out with our form that allows you to have like some sort of conditional field.

Um, so if you want an email and an email takes three weeks of lead time, you can't choose a date sooner than I like that. I like that. Love it. It just like a sound, like an alarm goes off like, eh, can't do that. Yeah. So immediately they'll come, like if you, if your date's not available, of course you come running to Monica to, Hey, I can't choose a sooner date and I forgot about this thing.

And it, it starts a nice conversation. We're like, Hey, you know, I, I, I need you to ask for things at a sooner time. I see you spin around in your chair smoking a cigar. Emotionally, it's like the sheriff badge comes on that I have to just sit there like I am the sheriff. Which you had to be also probably for brand stuff too.

We always like to call ourselves the brand cop. But is that another piece of what you had to go in there and people were. You know what, this logo should be in purple and green this week. Yes. So a little of that. We have an a, like I said, we have a director of branding and design, and she's incredible.

Incredible. That's great. She's, I, I've adopted her as my mentor. Oh, nice. And so she has a, she does have a lot of her, you know, world is, you know, making sure the brand integrity stays intact, but it's really a joint effort between, you know, marketing and branding. Um, because there, you know, there's a lot of like things that I see that maybe she didn't see or like, you know, I'm just kind of ingrained more in some of these meetings where I flag things immediately to her.

My background originally, originally is designed. Mm-hmm. So I know when something's in foul play, like we'll put like flag down, like, do not use this. Throw the bread flag. Yeah. And most of the time I can have those conversations by myself where I'm like, Hey, that's, that's outta brand. Like, get that outta here.

Yeah. And sometimes where it's like an offense thing, you know, where you're talking to your, you know, talking to her and I'm like, Hey, what do we think about this? Like, you know, you're just like holding back the cringe. You're like, uh, are we gonna let this one slide? Or What do you wanna do? Um, but so it's, it's policing with, you know, a part I have a partner to police with, which is nice because That's nice.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's great because we can collaborate on a lot of things together to make things better. And that's one of the things that we did recently was trying to put together, uh, you know, a self-service kind of. Place a one-stop shop for self-service resources. Mm-hmm. Things that branding approves, things that, you know, marketing's cool with being out, um, as far as like logos go or, uh, you know, our different brand guides for things like putting together a way for people to stay on brand within our limitations.

So there's, it's not Canva. So we don't like Canva in our shop because, like you said, Canva's great, but it's one thing, it doesn't allow, it doesn't allow the oversight. Ah, yeah. So a lot of things can go wrong when you have a really dynamic brand. And I, you know, our, our, like I said, our director of design and branding is amazing and she has built a really strong, cohesive brand that people recognize.

And it's, you know, we're, we're pretty big. Um, yeah, in terms of like. Visibility. So, you know, making sure that it is correct and it stays correct because we have a strong brand behind it is important. So when people go into Canva and build whatever thing that they want to do, because they're, you know, Canva designers, it doesn't always fit the parameters that we need it to.

Like, it could still look really wonky. It can be the wrong font. We have a font that is, um, not everyone can use it as far as like, it, it's not a like a free font. So even the, even that just like one nuance thing can make it look really off brand. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing is, uh, well you came from design, so you already have your radar tuned into a lot of those visual things.

But we always say too, it's just you don't know your audience's level of understanding and a lot of things that they may not be super cognizant of, like could speak to it maybe. They know there's a sense like, wait, is this really them or is this somebody else? Or can I trust them? Or, this is confusing. Or there's a lot of static that can happen in the back of people's heads that, uh, if things aren't done consistently and effectively and know the same way every time, it can throw 'em off a little bit.

So, yeah, and when you dilute the brand like that, a lot of bad things can happen. And I don't think most people understand that. Like our, I think our leadership is starting to get like a really good understanding of it because a lot of our information keeps getting like, taken by other organizations who maybe shouldn't be touching our stuff.

In terms of like, it's hard to explain without getting too technical and not sharing with, not disclosing anything. But it's, it comes from like a place of, you know. Having a strong brand means it's absolute that that is yours. Like that comes from that organization. It is a part of, you know, their world and no one else can like, take it, rinse it off, and, and do something else with it.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and that is a valuable thing when your organization has such a strong brand that people do question it. Like you were pointing out like, is this them? Did they do that? And things get flagged a lot because people are aware. People are like, no, that's not CSBA, oh, you guys didn't do this. Um, so I, there's a lot of value in strong branding and it could protect you a lot of the time.

And I think our leadership is starting to really see the value and like strong. Design marketing and, and our editorial. Like really just assessing how, how much value we bring because of that extra protection. Well, and I would argue, you know, you're a mouthpiece for an or for a whole, you know, sometimes associations are the mouthpiece for an entire industry.

Uh, you kind of represent that. I mean, you are the authority around being on school boards and being like a voice for someone like that is what associations really just that is the value that we bring. Yeah. It's like you're the voice of this group and, you know, this is my second association that I've been with, so, you know, you're voice of your voice and being the voice or the loudest voice.

That's, that's the really, the, the pin there, the loudest voice for, that's the, that's the playing field. That's the playing field. And I think as you know, in the role of marketing, that's always the really the, I think that's the exciting part for me is trying to make sure that we are like. The strongest, loudest voice if we're going to be a voice.

Nice. Well, you definitely scream loud voice, personality and all. Yeah. Thank you. So you, you, the brand thing is really important to keep that consistent. We just talked about that was there, and you've kind of introduced this platform, which puts a lot of limitations on how people use the brand so that it is very used, very consistently.

But your role when you came on board, how hard was it to translate your new rules or your new guy? I mean, was it a battle? How hard is that culturally to come into an organization that's maybe had, like you said, a lot of those people have been there for a while and kinda set the standards years ago. Did they look at you like, what, come on?

Yeah, definitely was a little bit of a battle. Okay. A little bit of a battle. And that's again, you had to put your. Your police badge on, you know, I am the sheriff. Okay. And people tend to play a little bit more ball when they know their stuff is kind of on the line. Oh. Um, you know, you're not gonna get your things until I get what I need.

Um, ah, you got, you kinda have to fall in line with, with what the rules of engagement are if you wish to engage. Um, it's not a fun, it, it is not a fun, I know I'm smiling, but it's not a fun position to be in when you're the person who's kind of got to police and, and make people kind of behave in the way that you need them to.

Or, you know, it's almost like you're, you're changing or correcting behavior that bell way outta line. Mm-hmm. I, I would say to anyone who's gotta go through that, I empathize completely. Um, because when you're, especially if you're someone new coming into the organization, it feels a lot more challenging because you haven't built that trust yet.

So a lot of the time it becomes almost like a. Like a carrot and carrot and horse or carrot and donkey, whatever the animal you want carrot and stick. Yeah. You just, oh, right. You just, yeah. You just kind of guide people around with your carrot. Um, right. I know that's a weird visual for professional work setting.

Um, but maybe we should make some branded carrot on stick marketing team of one. I think once you get enough people who have bought into it, yeah. Word starts to get around. Like, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's fine. It's fine. And then I did have to lean a lot on my boss who put a lot of trust in someone.

He had no reason to really trust 'cause I was new. Um, but he put a lot of trust in, in that I knew what I was doing or that I had the experience of like, this is how it, this is how it's done, this is how it needs to be. And I think he saw so much of like a team that really just needed, needed what I was saying this was going to lead to.

Yeah. Which I, I told like, I was very clear. I'm like, let's. This is what it's going to take to where, you know, our team isn't like so exhausted. Like they were really working so hard. One, there was, you know, my big role was vacant for a while, but, um, you know, the demand kept growing. There was a, there was a lot of, we do a lot of projects in our shop.

Okay. Um, last year I think we cleared over 800 projects. Good heavens. Wow. Yeah. And we have, you know, a 10 person shop, you know, one of that being the chief and then, you know, three directors and then executors. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's a lot of projects. Um, I think one of the hugest emotional wins was this year for our annual education conference, which is probably our biggest campaign that we run.

Mm-hmm. It has over 200 different projects and deliverables for it. Oh my gosh. Um, just for it alone, it's, we start doing it like January run one, and then it runs all the way to December. Wow. It, you know, we've gotta, wow. Short intermission of when we're not doing it. Maybe about two, three weeks. Um, but it's, it's massive.

And I think it made me feel really good this year because our, our director for design and branding whose most of the stuff is, is, or her deliverables said we had more projects this year, but it felt lighter. Oh wow. 'cause there was just so much clarity on the front end. Like projects weren't like missing pieces or you knew where if things were missing pieces, you knew where they were at in terms of like over communication with that stakeholder group.

So you built systems around, not just around the branding pieces to this, but it sounds like you in the intake form, which is huge. Mm-hmm. And I'm assuming that was a big part of this as well is, is like when those projects were planned, they, they, people knew exactly the right questions to ask right away to get that clarity, you know, and then you did a great thing around strategy and those things, but.

What, what other systems did you have to build into place to make things run so much more effectively than the year prior? Was there file management type things or what? No. File management, thankfully. Um, you know, we already had a pretty decent file management system. Uh, so that one wanted, that one wasn't like critical, thank God.

Um, but things that were around, like making sure we understood, um, you know, how long it took for things to get done. Hmm. We had a timeline sheet that we'd shared out with, um, you know, the organization and the timeline sheet would, was that kind of, how much lead time do we need? But I don't know that it had been evaluated in maybe a few years, or potentially it had been created under a different experience across the organization.

And I say experience our organization's constantly adding new things. Mm-hmm. It's growing. It's, it's, you know. There are new departments that maybe didn't exist 10 years ago, or five years ago, or even the year before. Like even today we're doing new initiatives or like growing demand, but all the other things still stay relevant and needed.

Yeah. But like we're adding on top of, we're adding on top of it. So really evaluating how long it now takes knowing you're not adding any more bodies to this. Yeah. So it's just gonna take more time as far as like managing resources. Mm-hmm. I think building that understanding and, you know, really disseminating that information out to the like, larger organization.

Like Yeah. Like it really does take three weeks. Yeah. It really does take 12 weeks. And then understanding like from an annual perspective, like what do we know 100% is coming, is gonna come, you know, January, February, March, all the different months. Um, just from like a foundational standpoint, like, you know.

The events that we always run or the, you know, communications we always need to put out. Um, and so that way when we do get things like that are more ad hoc mm-hmm. We can move things around, we can adjust, we can be flexible, we can adapt without like the entire system like burning down. Yeah. Yeah. That helps because you've already kind of got this foundational system in place that's running fairly smoothly.

That is also easy to kind of shift around if you needed to because Yeah. And I mean, by no means is it perfect right now. Yeah. But has gotten to a better place to where people aren't crazed or people aren't, you know, overwhelmed. And that's, you know, the job's not done. Like I, there's a lot of things I still need to continue putting in place as far as just making sure we're resourced.

We have different tools that we can use and like systems are better because. We're working right now with some really bad legacy systems. Just really old, outdated systems, um, as far as like technology is concerned. So even refining those kind of areas, that way you're not spending so much time with a old tech.

You have like flashier things. Yeah. Things that are easier, things that can maybe move the move, move you ahead a little bit better and take less time. Um, so there's still a lot to do, but as far as like process and like putting things in place, it's, it's a lot of like reevaluating where we kind of stood why we got to the place that we were in and like how do we move forward making this better, communicate that out.

I really view things like as a change manager. Yeah. Where you're gotta get people bought into it before you can like really say Okay, like we did it like. This is the new way. Well, and what's hard is you've identified a big challenge, which is legacy systems that need to be replaced. So there's a whole process around that.

I mean, you need to go out and you need to vet, test, negotiate, figure out what things cost, what do you really need, what is this really gonna be effective? Because the opportunity cost of building in something that's new like that is real. Mm-hmm. And you really are putting, you know, you could be putting things at risk if you're not really careful in that process.

Is there some sort of secret sauce that you've got? Part of what I do is collaborate really well with other people who are experts in areas. Even outside of like our communications team. Yeah. Like we have an IT department, our IT department, they know about these tech issues. Mm-hmm. They know about the legacy systems.

They know it all. So working, letting them know they have a good partner in me and I'm a good partner for them whenever we're. Whenever we can tackle it, we have a nice relationship with all the other departments that are like functioning as resources. Which is it? Yeah. So how many people are in the whole organization?

We never really covered that at the beginning. You know, I can't give you a hard number, but when I wanna say it's somewhere between 75 and a hundred. Wow. Um, and I'm not HR at all. I'm sorry, I don't, I don't, you know, you go walking around and you see a lot of faces that you maybe have never talked to before in terms of like, I know you work somewhere, I know you working in one of the departments, um, just because maybe they don't have a role that's, that collaborates with, you know, communications.

There may be an executor role in their team. Um, but there are quite a, quite a few people and we have, um, a lot of folks who work remote. We have a lot of folks who are. Uh, like traveling roles, like their governance consultants or like, they're, um, you know, one of our like pacer divisions, so they're, you know, in the field we have a lot of people in the field.

Oh, interesting. So there may be not interesting at headquarters, you know, at our office, but you know, they're running around somewhere. Well, that is a big organization. I mean, uh, you know, associations typically, there's a lot of 'em that are 15 and below. Oh yeah. As far as head count, I've been there. Yeah.

So you've kind of moved up the ladder a little bit to one of these larger institutions. Yeah. Uh, I think the real difference is like when you go to like a local association. To a statewide association. Yeah. Um, and then really like what is your, like market for how many people you serve in terms of an association level.

Like, are you serving like a hundred people? Are you serving like a thousand people More so serving just under 5,000, like seeded elected trustees. So, you know, it. There's a lot of people. Yeah. So you've got about, did you say how many people did you, do you serve as a Yeah, it's about 4,900 and something.

There's a, there's a, okay. There's a number right after there. If I had to put a, like a, a hard number on it. I think it's 57. That sounds like a number I've seen before. We'll check the facts and if you're wrong, we'll put up a big red flag flag. There is a fast Yeah, there's a fast fax figure sheet that I know is on the website.

Hey, nice. And I, 'cause I put it there. Um, but the, it does have the hard number and I think it translates to roughly like 467, like actual, uh, districts and county offices that are represented in there. Okay. So there's a, there's a lot of people we, we touch, like you, you mentioned before, it's 97%, which accounts for like 99 point.

Something, 99.8, 99.7% of students are represented within that. Wow. So we That's a lot. We're here for the students. There you go. That's yeah. Ultimately, right? I mean, that's what it's really all about is that's part of like our marketing, you know, one of the value statements that we, we make sure that, you know, a lot of the things when it comes to advocacy, it's, it's really, it's for boards, but it's like the people that they're representing is students.

Their students. Yeah. They're, that's kind of the trickle down effect. Everything we do is to support board members better supporting students. So what challenges, uh, do they have as far as what challenges do you find that they need to, that you're dealing with as far as trying to help them or enable them with what do you, and is that a changing landscape and how do you figure that all out?

Yeah, it's definitely a changing landscape in terms of what they're getting every single year with all the different, like policy changes that come up from. Administrative state level, they, that provides like different loopholes or different things that they have to then tackle as far as changing their policies or, you know, changing how they do things, how they do business.

Um, there's also budgets, budgets every year, like, come January, that's all we're talking about in terms of, you know, what's the governor going to release for, like, his proposal for this year. Because it usually impacts education. And there's usually some sort of, even though there's technically not supposed to be, there's like Prop 98, which really protects a lot of the funding for schools.

Um, you know, there's always that question of what's happening in terms of budget. Am I getting cut somewhere? Is there gonna be more money available for things that we've really rallied for or advocated for? Um, and money just keeps getting tighter because some of the funding that, you know, schools rely on in terms of.

Federal funding or like state funding, some of that stuff doesn't appear anymore. And it's just that's what the administration is and they have to then kind of figure out how do, how do we keep giving services that are necessary to support our students? Like things for, uh, we have a, a advocacy event we do where we take, you know, board members to dc um, coast to coast, uh, is, is the name of that program.

But, you know, we focus on like federal issues that are relevant to students and, you know, trying to get like federal procreation for these basic needs that they have to support their students. So that's a big one. That's a huge one. Um, and you could see that lack of funding bleeding into really everything that they're doing and that we're supporting and the information and resources we give them.

So yeah, it's a, that's the biggest one I would say. And there's also issues. I mean, you, when you, we talk schools and we talk budget, there's always this. You illustrated it perfectly. There's a dwindling amount of resources. Seems to be, costs go up, uh, with everything else, but seems like those budgets don't ever increase to match the increases in some of those budgets.

What are your members finding? 'cause some of the services that you do offer costs a little bit of extra money, right? Mm-hmm. It costs money to join, obviously. Um, but then there's other things, educational modules and things like that, that they need to pay for. What is that part of a cha? Is that a big challenge for you to kind of talk about this and, and encourage people to dip into some of those funds to pay a little bit more, to learn more about what it they need to know to be on school boards or what?

Yeah, that's, it's definitely a challenge. The what's in it for me, like really being clear and communicating and understanding like. If there's only this much amount of money mm-hmm. Like you said, like how do we get people to realize that it's, it's not a bad thing to spend money or put an investment into your knowledge base because you're ultimately going to make a decision.

Do you want to have the tools and resources and understanding that lead to a better outcome that for your students, for your district, for your county board, whatever it is that you're, you know, representing, like maybe you should invest a little bit in the knowledge base, because a lot of the time you're not a full-time professional.

You know, you didn't go to school for just this one school board. There's not like a, like a degree or something. Right, right. But you know, the closest thing you have to it is these trainings that our organization provides in terms of like knowledge. Um, things that we think are, if you're gonna only learn like these foundational skills, like these are the ones you need to know because they're gonna help you, you know, put together your.

You recommend a budget, they're gonna help you to, um, you know, control meetings when you're Mm. Yeah. Sometimes there's, you know, some interesting meetings. I, I dunno if you've ever seen a, a board meeting, but sometimes they get me can be interesting. Yeah. You know, providing you the tools necessary to like, do your job and perform better.

Um, you know, we have trainings for that. Sometimes they need, like, legal advice. Um, there's issues that come up all the time. Uh, you know, maybe your organi or your district is really tiny and you don't really have a, you know, a legal person on retainer or someone. You can actually someone who's, you know, working in that space.

But, you know, we have our own services, our own legal services that you can kind of, you know, you pay like a monthly subscription cost and you get a lot of answers to these questions that are critical. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, you're making decisions every single day, like you need to have the resources. That are specific to maybe what's going on or what's necessary to keep the function alive at your, you know, at your place district.

Yeah. Your, whatever your local education agency may be. Interesting. So you also offer business services alongside of that. It kind of falls, sounds like it falls similar type of, uh, offering with that stuff as well. Yeah. What do those businesses services look like? So we have, uh, a business affiliates program, and I always envision this as kind of, or not envision, but I always see it as like membership within the membership because it's, it's based on a lot of different, uh, businesses that do support, uh, like education in some way.

Like you could be specific to construction services, like maybe you specialize in like construction service that are mm-hmm. Like schools or maybe you do a lot of like planning that is specific to schools. There's a. A wide range of who is associated or specializes in education. Mm-hmm. Um, but there's a lot of businesses outside of, you know, in the outside world that wanna do and connect with our membership base

So it's, you know, some visibility, some ability for us to say, yeah, they're, they're good. Um, so we have a business, uh, business affiliates program, and we kind of, you know, have these services that we, that we say you, you should work with if you're gonna work with somebody, kind of validate that it's set of vendors or Yeah, it's stamp of approval.

Approval, yeah. Okay. Um, so, you know, that's, you don't have to pay us anything to go use, so. To go look at the directory and look like that's, we've pre-vetted everyone for you. Yeah. Yeah. We've, we've blessed them. Um, but you know, the businesses that do wanna be associated with this, they do pay, they pay a fee for it to be on the list.

Mm-hmm. That makes sense. Yeah. Funding resource. You have had a lot of successes. You've had. Let's go through the, let's just pick one. What is, what are you most proud of as far as like coming in there? We've gone through a lot of the things that you've brought on as a change agent, they like to say. That's another great phrase.

I love that. I'm a change agent. You know, you were a change agent. You came in there, you kind of cleaned house a little bit. What, what, what are your biggest wins? What do you look at and look back and you're like, yeah, I kicked butt on that. I honestly will say that that that in itself was something that I was like, I kicked butt on, but.

I'm really proud of it, not for, you know, bringing in that strategy, bringing in that clarity, but the result of it, what, what happened that people maybe didn't see was, you know, bringing that sense of like, you know, comfort, um, just what it did for the team. Mm-hmm. And I think that's what I'm most proud of, is just being able to have a bunch of people who looked to me for support and were able to get, they saw return on investment because they felt less overwhelmed.

Um, and you know, that, that I'm, I'm proud of because I was able to bring something to a group of people, um, putting in some sort of tactics and process in place that made their day-to-day easier, that made their day-to-day, make, make a little bit more sense. Um, and being able to get them, like, I think there's that understanding of like, marketing makes things clear.

They make things concise. They, they bring clarity into like a messy space, but that. Isn't just in terms of like, you know, the end project, like if you're, you know, making things pretty kind of thing. Um, it's, it's not just that it, it, it can happen, you know, with your team too. Bringing them the clarity and understanding too of like what is expected of them, what is the actual, like, what is the actual deliverable sometimes.

Yeah. Um, bringing that sense of clarity across the en entire team. Um, so that way you have it up front, you have it in the middle, and you have it at the end product, and it makes things better when you bring clarity at all stages. And I think that's what I'm really proud of, that I was able to bring just clarity across all those different steps along the way because it just made things better for our team.

Um, and in that warm fuzzy sense of like, okay, like I'm, I'm, I'm gonna be okay. Like, I'm, you know, I'm not working 80 hours a week, I'm working, you know, my normal hours a week or, you know. I think that's what I'm really proud of because I heard it a lot from people just among our team that when I was able to come and put this chaos into place, that they felt it.

Just clarifying that North Star kind of thing for people really does help. I mean, that's a big brand thing that I think also, you know, when you speak about customers or audience, it, it translates to that I think as well, you know, on the other side of it, and you may not get the feedback around that, but I'm sure that your membership feels a similar thing as far as like, oh, okay, get that.

Yeah. And you get to be a little bit more, um, customer service oriented when you're not so much like acting like the ticket takers. You're not like, you're not Kinkos anymore, you're not just kind of taking orders. So you're getting back to that place of strategy and I see a lot of that, like looking in, like I know I said I've been here for two years and I still feel really new, but.

That's mostly because there's a lot of things that now that there's this really solid foundation in place, we can look ahead, finally, we can start planning and doing some more like futuristic things and looking at strategy. And a lot of those conversations are happening like right now, where we're finally like, yeah, we can breathe.

You guys wanna do this? Mm-hmm. You wanna make a snowman? Um, which is nice because I, I have an amazing team that really likes to be collaborative and they really like to, you know, they wanna be doing more than just the executing at the bare level. They wanna be doing strategy at like a high, like th the 300 feet strategy where we're like, you know, putting our jackets on and, you know, getting to business.

Um, and it's exciting 'cause you can start, like you really are starting to see it over the last couple of months where we're finally like with the rollout of the, you know, the resources. Um, which is, that was a huge. First step in that. Um, but you know, we're even seeing it now with some of our like, programs and initiatives that are coming out.

Um, we have a huge one, it's massive year long plus, uh, campaign closing. The achievement gap campaign that's, we just officially branded the other day. Mm-hmm. Um, it's SOS for student achievement. Um, and there is a lot, a lot, a lot of just stuff we're doing for this campaign because it, it's focused on like a leg, a legislative bill package.

And so it's touching all the different teams across our organization to really, uh, it's focusing on closing achievement gaps, which is a huge issue. I don't know if you've seen any of the information out in the sphere about how, you know, kids are falling behind in terms of their education and not meeting, you know, not meeting standards.

Um, and it's really big in like minority groups too, so. The focus is really on how do we cl come together and close that, you know, go, the governor's made some changes in terms of like, the superintendent, technically the superintendent of a public education has a little bit less, less, uh, influence or power authority, however he wants to communicate that out.

Um, you know, there's, there's some changes coming at that, like structural level from the government. Hmm, okay. Um, which means that there's opportunity to then refine out what we're doing in terms of support for local education agencies to better meet these goals, to better help students, you know, close those gaps.

Yeah. Um, 'cause that's a big thing, like that's a board member. They don't want their students falling behind. Yeah. But they're doing everything that they can within what these piecemealed like hodgepodge resources and like, there's a lot of like different stuff in terms of. Things that they have to report out and, you know, they're wasting time doing a lot of these really just piecemealed things.

And it's, it's a really focused on making sure that we're getting the resources to support students and student achievement and student outcomes. Like I said before, it's always focused on the students and making sure that's understood by everyone because the campaign is supposed to touch, you know, decision makers, uh, assembly, senate, governor, signing bills, uh, as well as like the public mom and dad, grandparents, people who have like some sort of K through 12, you know?

Yeah. Invested in some way. You probably got a niece, a nephew, a somebody that you care about who's probably subject to falling behind, or his classmates, his or her classmates. Um, so there's some care that we pull in from like the public and then the media because. This is kind of a crisis situation here.

It's been years of falling behind. So it's definitely a, a campaign that's been interesting and it touches on all the different groups of our organization and marketing is really dialed into it. Mm-hmm. Our editorial team's really dialed into it, and our design team is really dialed into it. So it's What are you looking forward to next?

And I think you went right into that. I mean, this sounds like a really exciting, and it's, you know, it's hard to not, how do you not get behind making, you know, bridging that achievement gap with kids? I mean, and it's, it's unfortunate to see some of the lack of, I don't wanna call leadership, but I mean, to see how our public school system is just continuing to fall behind.

It's just very difficult to stand on the sidelines and see that happening. So it's exciting to hear efforts like this in place. Uh, yeah, of course. And then the, you know, seeing board members really rally behind it because they, yeah. They know like. It's not like a game of finger pointing, but you know, we need more help.

We need, yeah, we need services, we need support, and we need very specific type. We need, you know, a clear plan in place that really moves the needle forward instead of just kind of like, eh, the staggering little twitching that's doing now. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to. I'm looking forward to really over the next year, just putting more and more information that moves that needle ahead, because I have kids, so, yeah.

Yeah. And I want it fixed by the time, by the time they, they're in K through 12, that's it. We've put a flag in the ground. We need to have this fixed. No, yeah. Not just for my kids, but for everyone's kids. Nobody wants to be, you know, dealing with this, and I'm sure the generations behind them don't wanna have to deal with it, so we just gotta stop it now.

Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is like, it's, it's, you gotta, at some point, like there's gonna be a point, you know, how many generations from now where, yeah. Are we actually gonna, it's, I look like, yeah, I'm, yeah. That's not optimistic. So we're not passing the book. Like, yeah, somebody's gotta do it. Let's do it now.

Well, you're just the perfect person to do this and lead this effort on some level. Right? I mean, it seems like I'm one of it, you know, it's got like all of our leadership invested in it, so I'm just one of, of many folks across the CSBA team that's working towards this. I know my boss has almost invested his whole week into this at some, at some point.

So we have a press event next week, so. Wow. Yeah, there's a lot going on. That's exciting stuff. Well, thank you so much. This sounds like a good place to stop the, uh, the podcast, the interview. Um, you've gotta go on with your life. I know, unless you wanna just keep, I could just yap all day. Just stay here for a few more hours.

Uh, but where, where can people reach out to you? LinkedIn, I'm assuming, correct? Yes, LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. Um, and I'm not a stranger to. The connect button. I tend to, if I tend to, not that I like, like saying yes to everyone, but for the people who make sense, like you're like, oh, you're in my, you're in my region and you're working in the same sort of like marketing space I am, or the communication space or, you know, something similar.

I mean, marketing wears a lot of hats, so something similar. Um, I tend to, I tend to connect. That's nice. Well, that's helpful and uh, we appreciate you being on the show. This was really informative and it's exciting to learn more about how your association works and I think that, uh, seeing that kind of, uh, leadership and that change that you've brought into place is a, is a really interesting story.

So thanks. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on this amazing podcast. I'm a fan, so, ah, that's right. She has, is a fan of the show for a long time. We appreciate that. Yeah. I'm original, uh, original listener, so Oh yeah. Wow. I mean, I met you at Design Week a few like, and then you were like, I'm coming up in the podcast.

I'm like, I'm gonna start listening. We appreciate that so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in. For more information and other episodes, subscribe to the marketing team of one podcast on YouTube, apple, or Spotify podcast networks. You can also chat with us on the r slash marketing team of one subreddit or visit marketing team of one.com to learn more.