Wednesday, December 10, 2025

Why Your Business Needs a Marketing Operating System

Why Your Business Needs a Marketing Operating System written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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john jantsch (1)Episode Overview

In this solo episode, John Jantsch breaks down a major innovation in small business marketing: the Marketing Operating System. After decades of helping businesses grow with a strategy-first approach, John explains why it is no longer enough to just run campaigns or chase tactics.

He introduces the Marketing Pyramid, a strategic spine that aligns business strategy, brand development, customer experience, and team execution. You will learn about the 7 stages required to install a complete, repeatable, and scalable system that drives consistent results. From eliminating chaos to integrating AI, this episode gives you a roadmap to transform your marketing from random acts into a finely tuned system.

If your marketing feels disjointed or overly complex, this episode is your blueprint for clarity and structure.

Guest Bio

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker, and the bestselling author behind Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, and The Ultimate Marketing Engine. As the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing System, John has spent over 30 years helping small businesses implement simple, effective marketing strategies that actually work. His latest innovation, the Marketing Operating System, offers a new way for businesses to install a fully integrated marketing framework that scales.

Key Takeaways

  • Why marketing needs to operate like every other system in your business
  • The Marketing Pyramid: business, brand, growth, experience, tech, and team strategies
  • The 7 Stages of a Marketing Operating System
  • How to integrate AI into marketing workflows using structured playbooks
  • Why disconnected tactics kill momentum
  • The importance of rhythm, ownership, and optimization in modern marketing
  • How to build a system that drives accountability, visibility, and consistency

The 7 Stages of a Marketing Operating System

  1. Strategy First Core – Foundation based on business goals, client journey, and strategic clarity
  2. Campaign Builder System – Plan 90-day campaigns with a brand, growth, and experience engine
  3. Workstream Engine – SOPs, OKRs, team roles, and execution rhythms
  4. AI-Powered Marketing Hub – AI-integrated content, comms, and creative systems
  5. Scorecards and Signals – A performance dashboard built on actionable data
  6. Momentum Meetings – Monthly alignment and accountability sessions
  7. Optimization Loop – Ongoing feedback, iteration, and system tuning

Timestamps

  • 00:00 – Why this might be the last solo show of 2025
  • 01:09 – What is a Marketing Operating System?
  • 02:00 – The Marketing Pyramid: Strategy as the Spine
  • 04:30 – Business, Brand, Growth, and Experience Strategies
  • 06:56 – The 7 Stages of Building the System
  • 09:21 – Integrating AI and building marketing playbooks
  • 11:34 – Momentum meetings and continuous optimization
  • 13:13 – What happens next and how to get started

Quotes

“Marketing should be a system, not a series of random acts.” – John Jantsch

“Disconnected tactics make it impossible to scale. Strategy brings clarity and confidence.” – John Jantsch

 

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John Jantsch (00:00.91)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and no guest today. I am going to do a solo show. Might be one of my last solo shows of 2025, depending upon when you're listening to this. I'm going to call this, Why Your Business Needs a Marketing Operating System. So if you've been listening for any amount of time at all, you've certainly heard me say marketing is a system. It starts with strategy before tactics. I've been saying that for 30 years.

And in some ways, we have brought a systematic approach to marketing. Have we brought a system? Probably not always. It's probably been more of a concept because we just really haven't had the tools necessary to do it. But I believe we are approaching that point where we do have the actual tools to create a tangible, installable

marketing operating system in a business. I'm very excited about that. That's really going to be the next chapter of duct tape marketing. If you will, we are going to go very heavily into that. What I think is a needed innovation in the market. I will still say that we encounter every single day businesses that feel chaotic, disconnected, even if they look outwardly like, yeah, they're succeeding. They're growing.

Internally, when you get in there, there's a lot of things going on that nobody's really sure of. There's not a lot of planning. There's certainly tactic of the week still going on. And every now and then you get lucky and some of that stuff works, but it certainly makes it difficult to scale a business in that way. And that's really what I want to tackle today. Kind of the common pain points that we encounter. Random tactics, too many tools, inconsistent results, no clear message or direction. Boy, that one's a killer.

A lot of businesses, when I talk about marketing as a system, maybe they have financial systems, they have hiring systems, have systems, whatever it is they make out the door. But then when it comes to marketing, it just feels like such a foreign concept. And I think it's just a normal concept we've been taught to really think differently about. So before I get into the stages of the system, what the system might look like in your world or in any business's world.

John Jantsch (02:19.95)

It has to be built on something that is strategic. And so we've been using for the last couple of years something I call the marketing pyramid. And it's a framework to really, it's really in a lot of ways the spine of the system. That it's the structure that really informs kind of how we build it. And a lot of times when people talk about strategy, certainly when they talk about marketing strategy,

It's like they do it in a vacuum. I mean, a lot of times when they're talking about a marketing strategy, they're really just talking about how are going to get business? And that's a gross strategy, maybe, but that's all. Here's the idea behind the pyramid is that you need to build from the bottom up. And that first rung of the strategy pyramid begins with business strategy. I what is the vision, values, goals? What's even the business model? mean, if you're talking about, we need to grow 20 percent. Well, why? How?

Is that going to happen and so? That without a conversation about that or at least some analysis of that It's very difficult for you to think in terms of like here's gonna be our marketing strategy because your marketing strategy is supposed to Solve for the all of that right it's like if these are our objectives of this is where we're trying to go the marketing strategy is gonna just support that it's not going to just be this thing that we operate and hope we get to where we're going and inside of

the marketing strategy, there are really three layers. It's not just about getting the phone to ring. It's not just about getting leads. The first layer, well, the three layers are brand strategy, growth strategy, which I mentioned, and customer experience strategy. Those are all a combined whole really that go into a marketing strategy. And so many people leave out the first one and the third one. So that brand strategy is, you know, what's your message? What's your identity? What's your positioning? What's your proof?

You know, what do you want the market to be thinking about you out there? And do you have a defensible competitive difference that you can really go out there and understand who your ICP is, your ideal client profile, and understand who you're competing with for that ideal client profile so that you can send the right message and really have a strong brand strategy. Now, after that, this is the part most people understand.

John Jantsch (04:40.654)

is the growth strategy and that's really the offers, the channels of how you're going to generate leads. Ultimately, how you're going to convert leads as well. And then the third part that I see people quite often missing and not thinking about is the customer experience strategy. How are we going to retain customers? How are we going to generate referrals? How are we going to wow our customers?

so that they are out there actually talking about us and advocating for doing work with us. Those all need to just be planned things. So we need to build now, start building objectives around what we want to accomplish in each of those strategies. Now, if we're going to build a true marketing operating system, one of the core pieces that this is going to be built on is a system strategy. So what's our tool stack?

What are the processes? How do we create automation? Increasingly, what role is AI going to play in our creating systems? Because this is really how you get this repeatable system in place is by actually having a plan, having that business and marketing strategy that is then going to be executed by who's doing things. And then of course, that's the final tip of the pyramid, and that's the team strategy. What are the roles? What's the rhythm?

How is AI going to be integrated into your team? So that's the spine. That's ultimately what we want to have a plan for. And then we build the marketing operating system in stages to actually execute on that. There isn't any way for me to put a pyramid down in structure in front of you and say, here, fill out all of this and we'll have this. That's the ultimate goal to actually have this completed marketing pyramid that's going to be our guide.

but we're going to build it in, and we're going to build each of those pieces in stages. So, what are the seven stages? I like seven as a number. Seems like I've used a lot in the things that we've created. So, the first one is the strategy first core. This is something we've been doing for 25 years, and it's still a crucial element. I don't care what we're developing, it's a crucial element, always will be.

John Jantsch (06:56.302)

tools come, platforms come and go, AI is here this week, who knows what's here next week, strategy, the strategy core, and fundamentally what we're here to do as marketers, I don't think will ever change. So we have to build that, we have to diagnose the gaps, we have to clarify the message, we have to define the client journey, and we have to tie those back, and really part of the first part before we'd ever get started is we would have an in-depth analysis.

with your help, of course, as the business owner on what the business strategy is. And quite frankly, that may be a discussion that we have to start because you've never really looked at a long term approach to your overall business strategy. So we may start there before we actually start or maybe as the discovery phase of the strategy first core. The second component then is what we call the campaign builder system. So I mean, this is where we're going to plan.

you know what 90 day campaigns would look like. But we're going to start here with building your brand engine and your growth engine and your customer experience engine because those are going to be the things that we're going to launch really out there. We have to have those built in order to build campaigns. Stage number three, the third component is what we are calling the work stream engine. So this is where we're going to assign roles, SOPs, rhythms for execution.

probably build OKRs, which is an objective key result tool that I think Google was, or people at Google were most noted for developing that. It's great tool for actually breaking things down into small chunks so you can get to it. Then the next stage we're gonna go to really is the AI powered marketing hub. I believe that, you know, a lot of people are still looking at AI as a tool or they're looking at it as a

platform or as a way to do automation or as a way to do things faster and more efficiently, I ultimately believe that it's going to be just baked into how we work as a company. let's say you have Google Workspace or you have Microsoft Teams. Today, a lot of the communication across organizations, even outward communication, say via Gmail, things of that nature, is all just baked into those kind of

John Jantsch (09:21.304)

tools. mean, they basically are workplace tools that everybody uses in the organization. They all communicate with each other. They all collaborate. Well, AI is going to be baked in. Increasingly, it is being baked into those tools. But what we're going to build is the AI marketing hub. So you'll have playbooks now for how's the newsletter going to be written? What are blog posts going to be? How are we going to do social? What are our ads going to look like? I believe we can use the AI tools to build a framework inside of an organization so that

no matter who's operating the system inside the organization, they will actually have the playbooks to do it correctly and to use AI in a way that's branded and in your voice and trained, but can also produce a lot of output that is part of the marketing plan.

Now, the fifth stage is actually, we're calling it scorecards and signals. So this is gonna be your dashboard. It's gonna be how you track performance without really getting into the vanity metrics. It's gonna be, we're gonna measure what matters, right? Now, this comes in the fifth stage, but frankly, we are using data throughout. I mean, when we are looking at an ICP, we're looking at data. When we're looking at core messaging, we're looking at data. So...

Data becomes this fifth stage where we're going to build the ultimate output tool, but we're going to be baking data into the culture and the DNA of the organization. I think that that's a real gap for lot of organizations. They don't know what to measure. They aren't measuring anything, or they're measuring stuff that's so complex it doesn't really give any insight. And so we're going to bake it into every stage, but then you're going to have actually the dashboard as part of that.

One of the things that's really important is this is not no system is set and forget it. We've got to tune it. We've got to maintain it. We've got to give it oil. All the metaphors you want to use there. And so we're going to actually have what we call the momentum meeting. So it would be a very structured monthly check in that's going to drive accountability and alignment and reassign ownership, reassign responsibility on what's going on.

John Jantsch (11:34.688)

assess where you are on meeting your system output. And then the last piece, I think any good system, you're basically building the thing and hoping you got it right. And so constant optimization is probably, many of you probably experienced that in your own business. mean, we're every 90 days tweaking something or maybe.

changing direction almost in a large way or to some degree or in a new product offering or something. So there's this constant feedback and review to refine and improve what's working that we call the optimization loop.

Once we build that, what happens after that? It's our belief that clear strategy is something that doesn't change every month, but your marketing systems run consistently. Campaigns generate results, not noise. the key is inside the organization, think everybody knows what their role is. Everybody knows what their objectives are. Everybody has...

has visibility into what's working, what's not working. And I think that confidence across the team should really soar. Even if the team includes outside folks that are third party suppliers, partners, vendors, it really gives them confidence to know that there is a plan that they're not just doing their one little part out there. So.

John Jantsch (13:13.922)

What's next?

This is something that we are building now for clients. And it's something that if it makes sense for you, we would love to show you this system.

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Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Grow Your Business with the Marketing  Hourglass Framework

Grow Your Business with the Marketing  Hourglass Framework written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

I created the Marketing Hourglass™ after years of working with small businesses that felt overwhelmed by disjointed tactics. Agencies chased big budgets and flashy campaigns, while consultants dropped in and out without leaving a sustainable system. I believed marketing should work like any core business function; systematic, practical and focused on results. That insight became a framework, then a book and eventually a global community built around strategy before tactics.

Table of Contents
1
Why Most Marketing Funnels Fall Short
2
Introducing the Marketing Hourglass™ Framework
Why Does The Marketing Hourglass™ work?
What Are the Seven Stages of The Marketing Hourglass™?
Case Study: Balance Dental Studio's (Previously Fox Point Dental) Marketing Hourglass™ Success
How Can I Put The Marketing Hourglass™ Into Practice?
3
How to Make Marketing Manageable
4
Frequently Asked Questions

Why Most Marketing Funnels Fall Short

Traditional marketing funnels push people from awareness to purchase, then stop cold. But as a small business owner, you know the real value comes after the sale, when customers come back, buy again, and tell their friends. Funnels ignore this. They treat marketing as a straight line, missing the reality that today’s buyers research, compare, and rely on recommendations before and after they buy.

Here’s the problem:

  • Most marketing stops at the transaction.

  • Buyers expect more: ongoing value, trust, and opportunities to share their great experience.

  • If you don’t nurture relationships after the sale, you lose out on repeat business and referrals.

Introducing the Marketing Hourglass™ Framework

The Marketing Hourglass™ was created to solve this problem. After years working with small businesses overwhelmed by disjointed tactics, I realized that marketing should be systematic, sustainable, and focused on results, just like any core business function.

The Marketing Hourglass™ expands the funnel into seven essential stages: Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, and Refer. Each stage answers a question your customer is asking and helps you guide them from first discovery to enthusiastic advocate.

Why Does The Marketing Hourglass™ work?

  • Aligns with real buying behaviour. People often decide long before they contact you. The hourglass ensures you’re there early and stay present after they buy.
  • Improves profitability. Selling to existing customers can convert as high as 70%, while new prospects often sit closer to 20%. This means, even a small bump in retention, around 5%, can increase profits by more than 25%.
  • Creates a referral engine. Happy customers spread the word. The hourglass gives them a structure and incentives to do so.

What Are the Seven Stages of The Marketing Hourglass™?

  1. Know – “Who are you?” Use search‑friendly posts, social media and local events to introduce yourself. Address the problems your audience faces instead of pitching services.
  2. Like – “Do I like your style?” Show personality through behind‑the‑scenes stories, team profiles and newsletters. Help people feel a personal connection to your business.
  3. Trust – “Can you deliver?” Publish case studies, testimonials and reviews. Evidence builds confidence.
  4. Try – “What’s the risk?” Offer a free consultation, audit, sample or downloadable guide so prospects can experience your expertise with little commitment.
  5. Buy – “Is this right for me?” Make the purchase simple. Onboard new customers thoughtfully, communicate clearly and deliver early wins.
  6. Repeat – “Should I stay?” Stay in touch with educational emails, progress check‑ins and offers that add value. Show customers you’re invested in their success.
  7. Refer – “Who else needs this?” Encourage referrals by making the process easy (shareable links, referral bonuses) and recognising advocates. A great experience is the foundation.

Case Study: Balance Dental Studio's (Previously Fox Point Dental) Marketing Hourglass™ Success

Balance Dental Studio needed a complete marketing reset. By embracing the hourglass model, they:

  • Rebranded and relaunched their website for better awareness and trust.
  • Offered low-risk ways for prospects to engage, like free consultations.
  • Streamlined the appointment process to make buying easy.
  • Nurtured patients after their visits with ongoing communication and value.

The results:

  • Website traffic soared by 1,287%
  • Google Business Profile views increased by 659%
  • Overall practice growth reached 300%

When you guide people from first discovery to repeat visits and referrals, the impact is dramatic.

Read the full Fox  Point Dental case study

How Can I Put The Marketing Hourglass™ Into Practice?

  • Audit your touchpoints. List every interaction prospects and customers have with you and assign each one to an hourglass stage. Notice gaps, maybe you have plenty of awareness content but no formal referral process.
  • Fill the gaps. Add simple tactics for the stages you’re missing. For example, if you lack a “Try” stage, offer a free audit or downloadable checklist.
  • Measure what matters. Track metrics such as repeat purchase rate, referral volume and customer lifetime value, not just leads or clicks.
  • Update regularly. The hourglass is dynamic. Refine your approach based on results and feedback.

How to Make Marketing Manageable

Small businesses thrive with systematic, not scattered, marketing. The Marketing Hourglass™ is your blueprint for attracting, engaging, and delighting customers at every step. Want to see where you stand? Schedule a Strategy Call today.

Let’s turn marketing chaos into clarity together.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Marketing Hourglass™?

 It’s a seven-stage framework that covers the entire customer journey, helping you build relationships beyond the first sale.

Is The Marketing Hourglass a trademarked term?

Yes, the Marketing Hourglass™ is a registered trademark of Duct Tape Marketing. You can view the US patent here.

How is it different from a funnel?

Funnels end at the purchase. The hourglass continues past the sale, focusing on retention and referrals, key drivers of sustainable growth.

Who created the Marketing Hourglass™?

 John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing, built the hourglass to help small businesses implement systematic, results-driven marketing.

Can any business use this framework?

Yes, B2B, B2C, product, or service. The hourglass adapts to any industry or business size.

How do I start?

 Map your touchpoints to each stage, identify what’s missing, and take action to fill those gaps.

What should I measure?

Monitor repeat purchase rates, referral volume, customer lifetime value, and how prospects move through each stage.



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Why Great Employees Don’t Always Make Great Managers

Why Great Employees Don’t Always Make Great Managers written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Episode Overview:

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, host John Jantsch talks with Ashley Herd — founder of Manager Method and former Head of HR at McKinsey — about what it really takes to be an effective, empathetic manager. Herd argues that many managers are “accidental”: promoted because they excelled individually, without any training for leadership. She shares her practical framework for building management skills, focusing on clear expectations, real communication, coaching over commanding, and leading in a way that supports people rather than burns them out.

Guest: Ashley Herd

Founder, Manager Method | Former Head of HR, McKinsey
Ashley Herd is the founder of Manager Method, a leadership-development firm dedicated to helping managers build confidence, support their teams, and deliver results — without sacrificing people’s well‑being. With experience in corporate sales, law, and HR, Ashley brings a unique “career quilt” perspective rooted in both strategy and empathy.

Key Takeaways:

  • Many managers are promoted for high performance, not leadership potential — and they often get no training.
  • Clear expectations aren’t just goals; they’re conversations about roles, impact, and support.
  • One-on-one meetings should go beyond status updates to explore challenges, growth, and engagement.
  • Feedback (positive and critical) should be delivered with empathy, not ego — using Herd’s “Pause → Consider → Act” model.
  • Great managers act like coaches, not bosses — empowering their teams to lead and grow.
  • Small actions — like explaining why you hired someone — can transform trust and motivation.

Notable Moments:

  • 00:55 – Why promoting top performers can backfire without proper leadership training.
  • 06:20 – Herd explains how to define and communicate truly “clear expectations.”
  • 10:50 – The underestimated power of one-on-one meetings for trust and retention.
  • 13:06 – Herd’s “Pause–Consider–Act” framework for giving effective feedback.
  • 15:40 – The value of treating managers as coaches and culture builders.
  • 20:16 – A simple tip: always tell new hires why they were chosen.

Memorable Quotes:

“A lot of managers don’t know what to do. They weren’t given any training — no guidance on how to coach, delegate, or handle people issues.”

“If you make time for a one-on-one and show up on time, it sends such a strong signal. That alone shows you care more than you think.”

Resources & Links:

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John Jantsch (00:01.683)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duck Date Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Ashley Herd. She's the founder of Manager Method and a former head of HR for McKinsey. She's known for her practical real-world approach to leadership, helps managers build their skills they need to lead confidently, support their teams and get results without burning people out. We're gonna talk about her new book, The Manager Method, a practical framework to lead, support and get.

So actually welcome to the show.

Ashley Herd (00:32.93)

Thank you so much, John. So glad to be here. Love the podcast.

John Jantsch (00:36.143)

So most of the managers I know become managers by accident. That's a typical company. It's like, you're the best salesperson. You're now the sales manager. what problems do you see that that dynamic kind of creates for organizations? mean, is there a better, more practical way to actually create managers?

Ashley Herd (01:02.158)

I think there is. mean, one is that's often the case. In sales is the perfect example of that because it is the place where I think it can be the hardest mindset. Maybe marketing too, because it's very creative. But when you have sales in particular, you're super competitive, you're used to be a number one. All of a sudden you're promoted to sales manager, often because organizations think they're great, they'll teach everybody win-win. We're going to turn everyone into little versions of them. Then all of sudden they become a manager.

John Jantsch (01:03.878)

me.

Ashley Herd (01:28.312)

They're not used to sharing their tips. They don't remember how they first got started. They're coaching poor performers that they have no empathy for whatsoever. And now they're dealing with time off issues, people issues, all of these people things. It often that win-win really quickly becomes a lose-lose. And so I do think it's important for organizations to really think about career paths. mean, sales is one in particular. Now, I think you see plenty of individuals that have been an individual contributor in sales and have thrived in it.

or that have gone into a sales manager role and happily gone back into an individual contributor role. And so some of it is thinking about who really is interested in becoming a manager, but developing people and giving them the tools. mean, the first tale of Zoldyf's time I see is people promoted just because they're good at their job. The second is people promoted and then you don't get any sort of resources and training to actually know how to coach and delegate, understand why those matter and how to do them and how to think about.

the people issues that all of sudden they're popping up that you have no idea what to do with.

John Jantsch (02:28.595)

There's a, I don't know if you're a baseball fan, but this is a really common thing in a lot of sports. The best managers were never the best players. They were usually like second string catcher that just like watched the game and saw every angle of the game. know, but the superstars actually didn't make great managers because they were used to having everybody carry their bags for example. So does that dynamic kind of play out in sort of the manager in a business?

Ashley Herd (02:36.278)

Yes.

Ashley Herd (02:55.066)

It does. it's the same when you see that with coaches. The other day I was just watching Packers Bills and so they said neither Josh Allen nor Aaron Rodgers. They hadn't even as individual contributors, they hadn't gotten D1 scholarships. So people can be developed over time and managers, absolutely see that. And so I think that absolutely resonates because one of the things that I say sometimes, one is if you're thinking about becoming a manager, go in your local community Facebook group and just look at the discussions that go on and think,

what I want to manage those people in the workplace. And if you have some interest in it, then you're probably set out to be a manager because you're going to work with those different people dynamics. But the second is, what's important to you? Is it your gold stars, your recognition, or is it about your teams? Because I actually think it's really OK for a lot of people. They realize through this process how much individual recognition means to them. And that's where it can be important to that

As a manager, you can really shift. And so all of a sudden giving people, giving other people kudos, talking about their names, a really easy trap for people is to think, well, if I start doing that, all of sudden I'm not needed. And they don't realize that one of the best things that can happen is for senior leaders to know all different names of the people on your team. And they come first to mind rather than you because you're creating those pathways and getting the results that matter and building those careers as well.

John Jantsch (04:20.947)

So this is ostensibly a marketing show, but I have anything that has to do with business, to me, relates to marketing. So I have a lot of leadership book authors. I have a lot of management book authors on this show. So when you set out to write this book, did you say to yourself, here's the gap that I'm going to fill? Like, here's what nobody else has figured out and written about?

Ashley Herd (04:41.582)

Well, of course I did, because everyone thinks that way, John. But what I saw, my path was a little unique. started in sales. I actually started, like when I talk about sales, I was in a very high pressure corporate sales role, cold calling CFOs to start with, long before I went into legal and HR. And so I have a sense of what it can be like working in some of those different functions. But what I saw frequently, whether sales or legal or HR, often it wasn't

managers doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing necessarily. It was managers that didn't know what to do. And so they weren't giving feedback to their team members. They weren't having conversations. They really weren't. And so what I set out to do was really to help have a practical way to think about your team, think about results, but also give ideas of what to do and say in situations. That can be a lot easier for someone to take an example and put that into their own voice. And that's the gap that I was really trying to fill with the manager method.

John Jantsch (05:39.709)

So I often say this about a lot of situations that the key to success is usually expectations. And you write in the book about the idea that clear expectations is one of the foundational elements. But that's one of those things that you can say clear expectations. And that's going to mean 100 things to 100 different people. And most of us probably just have our default. It's like, well, yeah, I told them to get the job done.

wasn't that clear? Right? So how do you help people kind of become, know, clearer when their kind of default personality is, doesn't everybody get it?

Ashley Herd (06:21.326)

It's great. mean, I clear expectations is very similar to strategic in these terms that people are told you need to do, especially as a manager, whether you're hiring your first team member or you have a group. But clear expectations, I think it's really important to break that down into a conversation. so ways I do that, and one resource that you'll see on the site as part of the book, is to have that conversation with your teams of literally breaking it down. This is how your role plays into the overall organization. If you do well in it,

This is how it impacts others. And if you don't, for some reason, this is how it impacts others as well. Now, clear expectations, this is whether you can quantify things. Like if you're in sales, for example, like, OK, your book is, you you're supposed to bring in 750K a year. And that's where a lot of sales leaders in particular stop. They give you your goal, you move on with life. OK, now I'm going to scramble and do everything I can call every relative I've ever heard of to try to make that happen. But so the part of clear expectations is that conversation of

Here are things you can do. Here are tips from others. This is what you can figure out for yourself, and this is the support that you'll have. It's putting the layers beneath that. To say to someone, for example, if on Monday, okay, your goal is 15K this week to bring it in. And then it's having the conversation and saying, what are you going to be doing on Tuesday? What's Wednesday going to look like? And what about Thursday that can make that happen? What could possibly get in the way?

that could hurt that. What can you do to prevent that? And so it's having some of those additional questions and conversation to really have it bring it to life rather than just saying the goal and having them figure out the what, where, how, why, and everything else in between.

John Jantsch (07:59.827)

And that kind of goes both ways though, right? I mean, it's on that person who's being told what the expectation is to say that's not realistic, right? I mean, to have that dialogue. And I think that's where sometimes, I know in my own experience where, you know, I've set what I thought were clear expectations, the person on the other side is saying that they can, wait, that's gonna happen, but they don't tell me. And so all of sudden, again, it's like neither of us are meeting the right expectations. So.

Ashley Herd (08:19.917)

Yeah.

Ashley Herd (08:25.583)

Yeah, I think it's true. And I've seen it in some ways, like when I was a lawyer, for example, people would say this and say, OK, we need we need this contract. We need this contract negotiated right now. Today we need it signed. I say, OK, well, this other side's had it for about two months and you're giving it to me. And again, what I can do is this is really important to move around or not. What also is in little teeny tiny print at the bottom that you don't see, because like the CEO says it's important. I'm like, OK, but we also want to have credibility. And so if all of a sudden we're turning things around, it can make us look

whether it's desperate or now this is something that's not a priority, it's being able to have those conversations. And for me, some of the best working environments, whether it's a small team or large, is being able to have that two-way street and talk about what else is going on and not just saying yes and sacrificing your life to get it done.

John Jantsch (09:11.323)

So you just slipped in another career actually. How many careers have you had?

Ashley Herd (09:15.437)

Well, in the book, John, I call it a career quilt. mean, those that, especially those, you know, those that are that are working with your fractional CMO agency system and that, you people often and now more than ever, I do think are trying to figure out what do I want to do when I grow up, whether you are five years old or you are 75 years old and trying to figure those things out. And so, you know, I I had I probably thought for a while I would be a lawyer, but it was the things that I learned.

Right now, what I do is I post videos on social media because I have thick skin from cold calling CFOs. And so those comments don't hurt me like they may not have if I didn't get hung up on the phone by CFOs. so having that background of legal where things go wrong, sales of understanding revenue and the pressures people are under, NHR about really how to harness the power of people and importance on people's work and life, those have led me to where I am today, my very unique career quilt.

John Jantsch (10:14.163)

So let's get down to one of the, probably the biggies for lot of managers, the one-on-one meeting. And I hate to do this, but I'm just gonna use myself as like you're a bad example for how to fix this. But a lot of my one-on-ones end up turning into status reports. It's like, here's all the stuff. where are we on this? Where are we this? And then there's no time for like, what do you want out of your career?

you know, kind of conversation. how important is it that you have those separate meetings, that you have that one-on-one that really drives engagement?

Ashley Herd (10:50.607)

I think a one-on-one is really important to get work done. And it's so much more important for your team member than you sometimes realize. What I see frequently in my very scientific comments on social media, if I do a video on one-on-ones, people will say, I don't even know what that is. My manager never shows up to them. Or if they show up, they're 25 minutes late to a 30 minute meeting. And so for team members, it actually really is a signal. If you as a manager, you make that time and you show up on time, barring emergency or on, it sends such a strong signal, just that.

John Jantsch (10:57.128)

me

Ashley Herd (11:20.143)

aspect alone because often your team members, especially if it's really stretched out your one-on-one time, they may have 37 things on their list and they're just dying to get through it. But it really is a balance. One thing that can help is having, whether it's a shared agenda or a shared document between those. the status, because it is important to know where things are. But if you use that and it can take habits to get into it and use it both ways, so the employee is adding information and the manager is actually looking at it in advance.

then you can knock out a lot of that normal back and forth of where are things, what should we do next? And put that into more of the document, talk through any call out areas. But on the flip side, it would also feel super awkward every week to have your manager say, look, what do you want in your career? You're like, well, I've had the same job for three and a half years and my answer's the same that it's been since, you know, since 2021. But is to think about having some of those questions. And that's why I can help to say things like, what's something that you could use some advice on?

John Jantsch (12:03.463)

Yeah, right.

Ashley Herd (12:18.739)

Or as a manager, here's a decision I'm making. What are your, what are your, I'd love your takes on it. Because a lot of times when you get into leadership, you can feel really alone because outside of your organization, you might have a network, you might not. But if you talk to your team members and open up about your reality, the decisions you're making, maybe if things you're struggling with and get their thoughts, they're likely to tell something at some point that you haven't thought of before, but you're also that's, that can help with career development much more than a more forced conversation.

John Jantsch (12:49.373)

So, somewhat related feedback, both good and bad, that we should provide, hopefully we are providing. Do you have kind of a framework for the way to give honest feedback that doesn't put people immediately on the defensive?

Ashley Herd (13:06.319)

So in the book, I actually have the framework, this pause, consider, act framework, a three-part framework for any decision as a manager. And what that means is pause to just, whether it's taking a beat, one of the biggest issues I see as a manager is thinking you have to know all the answers and just going straight ahead and reacting in the moment. But sometimes it's taking that pause. But also consider and act. And so frequently what I see of people not giving either more critical feedback or more positive,

The critical feedback is they don't want to, it sounds so mean, it feels so awkward. In the consider aspect, can think, you know, that's a lot about yourself. You're, more worried about yourself and how you'll be perceived. But think on the flip side, especially you may have, like, let's say you have a team member and you're like, they've been doing this for years. No one has told them this. Why, why would I say something now? But think to the flip side of this is someone that could have used this feedback years ago. If you can be the person that delivers that, that can change the course of the rest of their career.

and be the person that they really look to as a leader. so instead of focusing so much on how it feels, thinking about that person, what do you want? If they're making mistakes, if they're missing deadlines, how can you also ask questions to get their perspective? I mean, that's a really important one before you go in. A lot of times people make assumptions, but thinking about the questions that you can ask that you maybe don't know the information to, and then delivering that and telling people sometimes, especially if it's someone that's not used to hearing that feedback, or you can tell, you know, they kind of get emotional.

is saying to you, I'm giving this because I care about you in this job and your career. And it's really important for me to work with you on things, not to come down at you, not to, not to beat you down, but to really build you up. And some of that is hearing perspectives from others. And there's ways you can say that and people can always find their own voice. may be listeners that hear this, that think I would, I don't know how it possibly says, say that. And that's where even like AI tools can help to say, this is how I don't normally talk so corny. How can I say this in a way that feels natural, but really shifting the focus from yourself to that.

person. And the other is, is positive feedback. I frequently hear and people don't people more think about how hard it is to get critical feedback. But people don't realize how rare it is for others to hear recognition at work. Or if you're in a meeting and someone says something about a team member going and telling that team member or bringing them into that meeting. mean, those are the moments that that don't happen enough that that really, really matter and you can make a real impact on that person's job today and career.

John Jantsch (15:28.595)

It's become, don't know if fashionable is right word, you hear the word a lot, coach. Does a manager today need to think of themselves as more of coaching role or is that?

Ashley Herd (15:42.289)

I do. Well, I laugh because I worked at Young Brands, KFC, as part of my career. And they actually call bosses or managers coaches. That's it. And so I'll see that sometimes on social media. you remember it. And that's more of a formalized way. But I do think so. And people can have different ways. I prefer the terms leaders or coaches to bosses or managers sometimes because it just changes the dynamic. I I think often, as you think about the org chart, the

The best leaders or coaches are the ones that focus on driving the performance of those that are beneath them on the org chart, so to speak. And if you flip that and think rather than managing people and controlling them, but really helping them have the ideas and have the performance and grow, and you can coach them into those opportunities, because they're the ones that are actually going to do the work. mean, just like the baseball field, they're going to be the ones hitting the home run and going around the bases or striking out every time. so using your

feedback and communication to impact that, I really think can have the most lasting impact and have more lasting results.

John Jantsch (16:47.283)

I'll you, I don't know where I learned this, but years ago, somebody told me to just try this next time somebody comes to you as a manager with, what should I do in this situation? And I just said, I don't know, what would you do? And it's just like amazing, because they have the answer, but they want you to give it to them or something, I don't know, but that one thing alone has changed how I manage completely, it's the simplest thing in world.

Ashley Herd (17:03.95)

Yeah.

Ashley Herd (17:15.056)

It's simplest thing, it doesn't, it really doesn't, it doesn't happen. It truly doesn't happen enough in the, in the flip to that, to one thing to know is, is if you're senior to them, sometimes people will get, will get irritated and they'll say, well, you're my, you're the boss. You make more than me. You should decide. Yeah. Just tell me I don't want to make another decision. Well, I don't either. Well, you know, so we'll both just sit here, but we're stand here. But, but, but I think saying, you know, I, like, I'd love to hear it. And I'm happy to give my input and it's for you, but.

John Jantsch (17:28.977)

Yeah. Or just tell me what to do. I don't want to think.

Ashley Herd (17:44.463)

I want you to feel like you can try new things and have ideas. we may not adopt every one, but it's really important that you feel like you can share those because the most unhealthy cultures I've seen, especially when you have a group meetings, is people that will not speak up. If you have a CYA culture where people are more afraid of getting in trouble or saying the wrong thing because they've personally seen people get ridiculed or seen others, there's plenty that think that you have to have that really hard culture.

John Jantsch (18:09.693)

No.

Ashley Herd (18:14.437)

But that really impacts how people feel today, impacts how they work tomorrow and how many days and years thereafter that they want to stay with your organization. And so I think giving people that room, think that's, love, I'm all about those really simple, simple, but powerful tips.

John Jantsch (18:30.141)

So are there any myths or let's just say one? Is there one myth that you'd say that's commonly taught all the time? And I want to debunk that with this book.

Ashley Herd (18:40.571)

Well, one, I talk about the role of HR. So I'm a little different than I was a lawyer and then I went into HR. You sometimes see the flip, but what I frequently see is HR is not your friend. And on one hand, I'll say that I agree with that. I agree with that myth. But part of that is because HR in an organization, especially if you're growing and having that support, they shouldn't be your enemy. If you have any function in your organization that people only go to or only think about when things are going wrong.

John Jantsch (18:42.995)

Yeah.

Ashley Herd (19:09.211)

then that's really a symptom of an unproductive and unhealthy culture overall. And so if you can flip it and think about everyone in your organization of how they can support other people. so HR individuals who are often thought of as like, get the pay right and get people's paperwork set up. But if you can take HR and have HR help people, whether it's managers, whether it's team members on your team, help them to work better and learn how to communicate and they can really drive that.

That can take a lot of pressure off you, no matter what your role is in the organization, and just create a completely different culture.

John Jantsch (19:42.439)

bet you the HR folks would like that too, right? Because they're seeing it's like you go to them because of administrative paperwork or because your exit interview or like nothing pleasant, right? It's like, you're going to the principal's office.

Ashley Herd (19:54.99)

It is, it is, it is, John. It's, you know, it's, we're trying to show we're not all, we're not all, we're not all scary.

John Jantsch (20:02.867)

So the book is full of templates, scripts. Is there one you want to just tease out there to say, like go grab this either from the book or on your website and hear the steps that you ought to follow and why they matter?

Ashley Herd (20:16.571)

Yeah, one thing is if you're looking for resources, especially if you have a group of managers or even non-managers on your team, you're trying to have a quick development exercise. On the website, so managermethod.com slash book, we'll have a book discussion guide so you can use that for conversations with your team. And one thing I'll tease in that is, one tip is to think about is if you're hiring someone, if you brought on a team member, or even if someone's been there for a while.

Did you tell them why they got the role and what uniquely made them stand out? Or did they just get their offer letter and paperwork? Because taking that pause to tell somebody, really, is what we saw in you, why we're so excited to have you join. Specifically, not just we're excited to have you join, but this is why. That can help change dramatically how they are from day one and every day after. And again, if you haven't hired anybody in your while, I promise you, it is not too late in the book we talk about how you can say that no matter...

how much time has passed since they started, even if you've worked together for decades.

John Jantsch (21:13.757)

That's interesting because it does kind of set like, this is my identity here. You know, kind of, so I think that's really cool. So actually I appreciate you taking a few minutes to stop by the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere else you invite people to find out more about you and your work?

Ashley Herd (21:29.509)

Yeah, you can go to managermethod.com. You can find me across social media at manager manager method. You can find me on LinkedIn Ashley H E R D.

John Jantsch (21:40.179)

Again, appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Ashley Herd (21:44.892)

Thanks so much, John.

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