Storytelling Through Print Media | Stories With Traction Podcast

SUMMARY: In this episode, Andrew Smith and Matt Zaun discuss how sharing stories through print media can help you get above the noise (of social media and email).

ANDREW SMITH: Andrew is the Vice President of Sales at The Kennickell Group.

For more info, check out the website and Instagram page:
Kennickell Group Website
Kennickell Group Instagram

PODCAST EPISODE MENTIONED: Navigating the Generational Shift

MATT ZAUN BIO: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry. 

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun HERE. 

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors.

 

 

Matt Zaun

So excited for this conversation because this is going to be the very first time on the stories we've

traction podcast that we talk about this topic. Now in the past, we've talked about how to build stories through social media, LinkedIn in particular, many episodes on how you can properly utilize LinkedIn to get your stories out into the world.

Now we're going to tackle a completely different piece which is print media, how to utilize your intentional strategic stories through print media.

Today I am joined by Andrew Smith. He is the vice president of at the Kinnacle Group and I'm excited to talk about print media.

Welcome to the show, Andrew.

 

Andrew (Kennickell)

Thank you. Thank you. Very happy to be here.

 

Matt Zaun

I'm excited you're here. So we met. I was speaking in the Hilton Head area a few months ago and I had a fascinating conversation with you about print media, where it's headed, why so many business leaders are just completely missing a

bold opportunity when it comes to print media. So I want to dive in to that. So one, I want to start with.

Two day, the average person is experiencing 8,000 messages every single day because of texting, because of email and definitely because of social media.

A lot of these are digital. So one of the ways to get above the noise is by having something in your mailbox or having something in the palm of your hand, something that we can touch, we can feel it's definitely way to get above.

One of the ways we can get above that noise. So can you speak to just messaging in general and some of the things that you've seen with your clients on how it can help them when it comes to marketing and helping them reach their sales goals?

 

Andrew (Kennickell)

Sure. Yeah, know, we at Canicle just a very high level view of us. We're in digital, conventional, and wide format training.

we're a sheet set operation, which without getting into the weeds too much, we thrive in environments where we have to produce high-end finish product in a quick turnaround time for companies that sell a high-value item or service.

And so that's where we thrive and that's where we've taken our business. We have seen a really big uptick in printed marketing collateral post-COVID.

I think that, you know, COVID while that general timeframe for us and probably for every other printer around the country was a difficult time.

We were very healthy financially. We have really good leadership within our company and we were really looking for the future.

And what are we going to do when we come come out of this thing. Just like you mentioned, I think everybody was just getting so bombarded with email marketing and text message marketing and just all of this in front of your eyes.

You forgot what it was like to hold anything. And when we got out the other side of COVID, people started having trade shows again, events.

There were these face-to-face interactions. That's when we really, everybody wanted something in their hand. They wanted to see this beautiful piece again and hold it and feel it.

so we kind of ran with that. And I'm sure we'll get into it here a little bit later. But I mentioned that we've reinvented ourselves about five or six times over our 132 almost 133 year history with the most recent reinvention being in 2021.

And specifically of how to position ourselves to be. be able to get the biggest amount of market share we can.

And there's a tight timeframe because some of the equipment's really expensive that you would have to invest in. Some of it may be not so much.

We knew we had to strike while the iron was hot because every printer out there is looking to figure out what's that next step.

if we can be six months ahead of them, we can be even three months ahead of them. We've done what we wanted to do.

 

Matt Zaun 

For sure. So this podcast, we talk a lot about strategic storytelling, the power of storytelling with intentionality, obviously the strategy and then proper documentation, what it can do for businesses, how it can boost sales, enhance marketing, create a more vibrant company culture.

And what's interesting to me is there's three industries that really understand the power of something in the palm of their hand.

Okay, so let's kind of go through those and how they've utilized print because I want people. There's going to be people listening to this episode where they're not quite sold, Like why would I invest to have stories in people's mailboxes?

So one is politics, two is athletics, and the third is music, okay? All of which we can learn a ton when it comes to business.

So everyone that listens to this podcast, you know that my background is in political messaging strategy. We've talked about how you can study some of the great orators that we've had and use it to connect with your clients.

Let's talk about politics for a second. Everyone hates when we have a presidential election year, but I want everyone to think about this.

There's billions and billions of dollars because of super PACs invested into unfortunately, often negative attack ads when it comes to the political world, okay?

So we've seen the ads on TV, we've heard radio ads, A lot of us have watched debates. Also, we get a lot of stuff in our mailbox.

So politically speaking, politicians and their campaigns, their teams, their organizations, they recognize to move the needle when it comes to votes, you must have stories in people's mailboxes.

So that's what. Second is athletics. all know that athletic teams, whether we're talking about pick one, I'm envisioning football right now, is we like to experience it in person.

want to be there with the energy and feel it. Now it's awesome watching it on TV, but there's something to be said about being there.

So there's a feeling, right? And even to this day, football cards, cards, know, my nine year old son, he just started collecting them.

He loves it in the palm of his hand. Third is music. Isn't it incredible that vinyl records are making a huge comeback?

There's stores popping up. People. love to have it in the palm of their hand. It just, it creates this nastal, this nostalgic aspect where we want to to feel it, we want that connection.

So I just wanted to say that because those three industries, huge money making machines in many, many different ways, but they all recognize the importance of positioning your stories and people's mailboxes.

So for any leader that's out there, Andrew, any business leader, they're listening to this and they're, they're thinking themselves, you know, we're investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into social media ads.

Why in the world would we look to print media? What would you say to them?

 

Andrew (Kennickell)

Well, you know, I think it's always interesting. And I don't know, maybe on maybe on just for some reason, this is just me.

But I always think of when you think millennial, like, that's a young group of individuals, which is really not the case.

Millennials are between 27 and 42. That's a, that's a pretty big guy. app and a lot of millennials were there prior to the iPhone and prior to this crazy social media marketing and this email marketing and then you know we have the younger millennials that are now you know they kind of came in just barely before it but 27 to 42 that's a major target audience.

We have families, we have good jobs, we are climbing the ladder, some of you know we're all some of us are VP levels, some of us are C levels.

mean and so this is the audience that we're seeing our customers really want to target they're the ones with money in their pockets and they're the ones that want to spend it and we remember prior to this you know crazy digital marketing age and so perfect example you know I enjoy checking my mail every day like what came to me in the mail.

I get email that is my informed delivery that I know, hey, here's what's coming to my house. And then when I get home, I check it.

So that's two times that I've already looked at it before I even read the message, really. so we are, for lack of a better word, we're getting tired of just being bombarded with this digital marketing.

We wanna have stuff in our hands. We wanna go back to what it felt like when we were younger.

And so that's a perfect example. And I use that all the time because that's what we see our customers doing now.

They are going to this physical feel and touch. And then using that to engage in a deeper conversation. It's a piece to continue the conversation.

And when you get an email from some of my first thing that I do is click on subscribe. Like, right off the bat.

But, you know, if I got a really new Nice piece, maybe on a neighborhood development or something like that that was going to pop up around where I live that I'd be interested in that I wanted no more about that.

And so, you know, that's my two cents on where our demographic is and we're just getting a little bit burned out and tired right now on it.

 

Matt Zaun 

So I am so happy that you brought up millennial. Okay. And for many reasons. Okay. So here's something I don't want people to miss.

So first, I just did a podcast episode with one of the top experts in the world regarding generations. So Dr.

Catherine Jeffrey, the episode is navigating the generational shift. recommend people go listen to it. I'll include it in the show notes.

So yes, Andrew, you're absolutely right. So millennials are born between 1981 and 1996. They're between 27 and 42 years of age.

It is one of the top generations businesses should focusing on connecting with your story. race because gen actors still we need to focus on gen actors 100% of baby boomer baby boomers are starting to age out when it comes to corporate America and Gen Z is still they're not in leadership positions yet it's the millennials that we really need to focus on okay so I really appreciate you saying that also why do some movies like Barbie do so well one of the reasons is because they have a new generation coming on those are the Gen Z they're not you know maybe they didn't grow up in the Barbie type frenzy but also because of millennials because there's an element of that nostalgic memory so to speak that they connect with so you're also not only helping connect stories get above the noise by having stories in mailboxes and in people's hands but also there's an element of bringing people back to a state

that they used to be in. There's so much power in that. So can you talk about some of the, some of the maybe the custom things you do when it comes to storytelling with print media?

Because some of the, some of things I see in, in the mailbox are lot of, a lot of ads that as soon as you see it, you know it's an, you know it's an advertisement.

How do you get above the noise by having more customized stories for your clients?

 

Andrew (Kennickell)

Sure. And first you know, just I will say you're right on the Barbie thing like I would go see Top Gun.

I would go see Top Gun because I wanted to see what it was like compared to the first Top Gun.

 

Matt Zaun

Sure.

 

Andrew (Kennickell)

That was exciting and Tom Cruise was in it too. it's like, but yeah. So you know telling a story, you know that's huge for us.

These pieces are expensive. It's, you know it's an investment for these companies to, to have their print collateral look really good and be above the rest.

And so. A lot of our printed marketing collateral could be, oh, not could be, is used for things like trade shows and events, sales galleries and things like that.

Brick and mortar that people are going in that need to have some sort of informational piece to take back with them.

That's a pretty big chunk of where the majority of our credit collateral goes. But as far as the mailbox in telling a story, I'll use one specific client of mine that we work with.

And I want mention their name, they're down in the Tampa area of Florida. work with high-end residential developments, which are popping up all over Tampa, Sarasota, that whole area is just booming with this type of work.

But they do targeted mailings, 10,000, 20,000 individuals. We're seeing this kind of shift of people moving up and down the East Coast depending on what the weather is these days.

There's a lot of money, an upper state. That's just one example of, I mean, they could send out an email with this same type of collateral, but it's not getting the same type of trash and a physical piece in your mailboxes.

 

Matt Zaun 

Sure, sure. And it could be, it doesn't need to be, you know, either or it could also be and, right?

Like people could still send out emails, still utilize print media. I think there's a combination of many things. not telling people not to send emails ever again.

Like we understand there's a combination. Now, I read an article, it must have been a decade ago. So I don't remember who wrote it.

I don't even remember where I read it, but I do remember it had a very big impact on me from what I should do marketing wise in business.

But a decade ago, I'm reading this article and it talked about over the different decades. So it laid out like a hundred year timeline.

And basically through the decades, just the sheer amount of time that people need to have these touches before they act on a certain product.

So and it was almost overwhelming. Like as soon as as soon as the 90s hit, it started to accelerate and accelerate.

And then oh my gosh, with social media, it's like we're at and don't quote me on this because I don't want to get it wrong.

But it is dozens and dozens and dozens of touch points someone needs to have before they will actually purchase a new product or service.

And it's only being accelerated to the AI technology. So you know, obviously people can utilize many different bells and whistles and tools to get their marketing out.

Having something in the palm of hand is just one that that they should incorporate in their story strategy. So let's talk about what that looks like because I think

the ripple effect with in print is a little bit more. So we get bombarded with emails. If you ever scroll on social media, there's an element of being bombarded with that.

But then you go to your mailbox, you see a captivating story that catches your eye. It's in your hand.

The ripple effect's a little bit more. So when someone's doing their budget when it comes to marketing, what do you recommend for touch points?

Would it be, I know it's different for every organization, but would you recommend like two or three or can they have five hits?

do you normally, it's not just one drop in a mailbox. What would it be if you're doing a mail campaign when it comes to print media?

How many times do you recommend that that would go out for them to really get the name embedded in that person's mind?

 

Andrew (Kennickell)

Sure. So we do, we have some off-the-shelf software that we use here that does incorporate social media, marketing, Google ads, things like that.

sending a physical mail piece. So when we send out one physical mail piece and we you know it's a campaign typically anywhere from 10 to 12 touch points on that person for one physical piece of mail.

So 10 to 12. Wow, awesome. know we're doing well you know you've got one touch point is the actual piece of mail itself and then with Google Ads, social media on Facebook and Instagram those continue to run for about 30 days.

So on average 10 to 12 times they're gonna see your ad and then one time physically in the mail.

It depends on what industry they're in and how targeted their list is and where they got the data from but normally we see our customers go anywhere from about one to three mail drops for a certain promotion or you know product or service.

That's kind of the general Just there and then you're talking about you do three male drops. You're talking upwards of 35, almost 40 touch points to that individual.

So wow, pretty significant. And then kind of, you know, on that front, what I would say to that. That we're seeing with direct male marketing is that, you know, and I use myself for an example here, and I'm not, you know, I'm not saying this.

You say, wow, I'm so busy because, you know, I, I, average, get somewhere between 150 to 200 emails a day.

that is, a lot of those are people replying all, and I'm like, trying to get down to the actual email that I need to look at.

but, but a lot of it is marketing emails. And so I just get out of it before I can even read what the message is.

But then when you're at home and you're trying to decompress after work, or maybe you went home for lunch or something like that, and you're going through your mail.

You have a little bit more time to look at these different pieces of physical male marketing that you're getting, but we're telling our clients, absolutely, you've got to make the offer a little better.

There's so much noise out there that 10% off is no longer going to cut it. There has to be a significant hook to draw these individuals in.

Maybe they have to give up a little bit on their end, but if they get a better ROI across the board, then it's absolutely worth it then.

So we're telling people that we're working with, you need to offer, has to really be something significant.

 

Matt Zaun

No I like that. like that. Let's take a scenario quick that I'm thinking of. just popped in my head because I want people to think through this.

So I just pulled out my phone. I'm an iPhone user and I'm just going to randomly scroll through my emails.

I'm like you. I get tons and tons of So what I'm looking at right now is no surprise to anyone.

I'm seeing emails in black and white. Okay, so I'm looking at subject lines. There's a little bit of text.

I don't feel connected to this in any way, shape or form. I need to click on the email to get the information.

And I'm like you, Andrea. delete so many emails that come in. If it doesn't have an incredibly engaging title, delete, right?

Because I don't have time to be reading all my emails. Like everyone listening to this episode. We don't have time to do that.

Okay? So now let's play devil's advocate for a second when it comes to print media. Okay? So I get home.

I'm tired. kind of want to unwind. I need to understand I have three little kids. You know, so now my attention is going to be shifted to them.

And I'm going through my mail. And let's be honest. Typically I'm going from my mailbox and I'm walking towards my trash can.

If I'm going to do it at that moment, right? Sometimes I'll throw it on the calendar. and I'll say I'll get back to this later, right?

But typically, I'm going through this, okay? So, you know, I'm going through all the grocery stores send me all these coupons.

goes right in the trash, right? That's like the big bulky thing. I can't wait to get rid of that.

And I'm going through, going through, going through. And what's gonna captivate me is the graphic design, right? Because we want our eyes are drawn to color and the different design.

And then I'm gonna be drawn to story, like what kind of story is incorporating this? Maybe it's a customer testimonial.

Maybe it's something interesting, right? And if it relates to me, because, you know, the person probably would be sending, you know, B2C from their perspective, I might hold on to it.

I might put a magnet on my fridge, right? So I'll put it right there because a lot of people's trash cans are in their kitchen, right?

I know this sounds elementary, but we need, I want people to envision, where's your prospect gonna be? more than likely they'd be throwing it away in the kitchen.

So if they want to save it, magnet on the fridge or on the counter. So to play devil's advocate, what if someone says to you, things are just going to get thrown away.

So why does it matter? What would your response to that be?

 

Andrew (Kennickell)

I mean, I think the response to that would be the, you know, yes, I mean, if, if you send out, you know, 10,000 direct mail pieces, sure, there's going to be, a percentage of that that's going to be thrown away.

But what is that percentage compared to that same type of digital marketing campaign that you did? And, you know, yes, there's definitely your paying postage, you know, you're paying for a printed piece to be in these mailboxes.

But it's all about the numbers and what is your return on investment. And we can track these things with direct mail marketing because what happens when we have an individual that we're sending a mail piece to.

We have that data on them and if that individual goes then to a website, you can place a cookie or a pixel on the back end of a website and you can track IP addresses, can track device IDs and things like that and we can cross reference that against the data that we use on a direct mail marketing campaign and we can tell if we sent a piece to Andrew Smith and then Andrew Smith went to your website, we know that and we can count that as a win and so when we do these campaigns that's how we determine how successful a campaign was and if it wasn't very successful then it's not because the piece wasn't printed and it didn't end up in their mailbox it's because the offer was not good enough or you were targeting you know maybe not as specific of a demographic as you should have been so those are the two things that we look at when a direct mail campaign that we consider is not a success was

It was the audience that you were going after and what was your message? That's you know, that's the general gist of that.

I used an example Last year. It was around 4th of July. I Got a piece in the mail. It's at 40% on fireworks from this website.

It was like perfect timing, you know July 4th Was it a couple of weeks? We were gonna have some friends over for a party.

I'm like perfect. This is perfect to impress You know, I used that piece. I went to the website about some fireworks So timing is extremely important on these things too, but it really comes down to the message and who your your target audience is I mean, it's you know a 65 year old man had a gotten that same piece of mail would be gone to the website and you know unload it on some fireworks Probably not but you know me.

I'm having family and friends over. We're having a little party It was a no-brainer. So that that's that was such a perfect time piece of

Direct failed. I'll always use that as an example.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, I really appreciate you mentioned that. That's a really, really good example to speak to. While you were talking, something popped in my head that I think is really important for people to recognize.

So there's an element to just understand sometimes we, I'm not saying getting stressed out about details, but details matter often in a big, big way.

Right. There's a lot of things that people talk about. Oh, don't get stressed out about the little details. And there's something we said about that, but small details in business do have massive ripple effects, right?

the one thing that I'm thinking of in particular is I go to, I shop at a grocery store called Wegmans.

A lot of people on the East Coast might be familiar with Wegmans, phenomenal customer service. And my nine year old son asked me for a very specific toothbrush the other day.

So he really wanted this specific toothbrush. Now, what is a toothbrush? couple of bucks, right? One of things I love about

Wegmans is When I go up to one of their team members and I say hey, where is a B&C?

They don't say I'm 19 They walk me to the very location They pull it from the shelf and they hand it to me now Why who cares if they lose a three-dollar toothbrush sale?

They know if they lost me as a customer I spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars a year through Wegmans because that's where we do our shopping If they lost me as a customer Them not showing me that kind of care for that three-dollar toothbrush It could be thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

They know that So I want people to think about these small ripple effects on what does a customer mean to you?

I Live in I'm very grateful for my house my wife and I bought a very almost like a historic if you will it feels like a historic home It's a very old brick home.

I love the character that our home has and very I love brick. I love, love, love brick. One of the problems is because it's older, sometimes we have plumbing issues.

It's a very old house. unfortunately, we've had to hire plumbers to come in and kind of fix some of the piping issues when we first bought it.

Now here's what's interesting. We picked our plumber based on the kind of ad campaigns you're talking about, Andrew. Okay, we don't typically, I mean, I don't know, I don't know plumbers personally.

I didn't, I mean, and I am a little bit concerned about going to Google to find someone because what do I do?

I just type it in and randomly pick someone. So what ended up happening was there was a an entity close by, they started sending stuff in the mail, and then I started to see them everywhere.

So then I started to see different, almost exactly like you're talking about, different ad campaigns. It's, it could have even been you or not the light you.

I'm seeing, Different ad campaigns. Different emails come through. Then I start seeing their trucks and it all started. The sparks started with the mail piece with the branding and the stories on the mail piece.

Now, I don't know how much they paid, invest it in that mail campaign. They made thousands and thousands of dollars from from me.

So now if 10,000 goes out and it's X amount of dollars, but they're bringing in however many customers, people need to see the investment when it comes to mailings.

So I appreciate this conversation for sure.

 

Andrew (Kennickell)

Yeah. Yeah. I think we'll get into this as well a little bit just based on where our conversation is going now.

But with the print industry technology continues to get better and we continue to reinvest in equipment. And this equipment is geared towards making direct mail.

Well, not just that, but I mean this if we're talking about direct mail. That's one portion of our business.

But this is equipment that makes it easier. It makes it faster. It makes it more efficient. And that trickles down to our customers.

They can get mail campaigns out of our doors faster. They can print more pieces at less of a cost per piece.

We have a lot of presses that do variable data. And so there's all kinds of studies on it. But if you receive a mail piece and it says, Andrew, this, then there's the message.

then maybe it shows another piece of variable data that has my name on it. There's a couple of areas where my name is on that piece.

If it's a payroll or something like that, the more that it's personalized, the more impact it has to the end user.

And so the equipment that we're investing in has the ability to do this seamlessly.

 

Matt Zaun 

That's awesome. Let's get into it now. you, some of the things we're As you mentioned to me, we're staggering regarding investments.

So can you talk a little bit about your equipment and just the amount you invested to position your customers for success?

 

Andrew (Kennickell)

What would that look like? So I will tip my hat to our president and CEO, Al Tentacle. He has been in this, he's owned this business for 40 plus years.

He is constantly learning. He's constantly doing market research. He's constantly using stories to tell our clients and customers what we're doing to support them as best as we can, which we're very familiar with.

And so he's always been a risk haker. he's mentioned to myself and a couple of other people on our VP staff that we've reinvented this business multiple times, five or six times, with our most recent reinvention team being in December of 2021.

November, November, December of 2021, right is where, you know, we were still in a little bit of COVID, right as we were really coming out of the thick of And we, you know, very healthy company financial.

We have a lot of very dedicated customers that, you know, really they've been with us for a long time.

They're not going anywhere. They're big players in our city and around the East Coast. And so we had a really good feeling about it.

So in 2021, right at the end, we invested in inkjet technology. We purchased a high-speed inkjet press, seven figures plus for this type of equipment.

So a lot of printers out there, they weren't in a position to be able to make that type of investment at that time, just given everything that was going on with our industry.

So we immediately invested in that. And there's, you know, there's a couple of reasons why we did that for our clients.

knew. through that after COVID print would probably not bounce back the same way that it was before. A lot of people did go with digital strategies and they might have been working and maybe it wasn't as much of a capital investment, but our clients are in education, private health care, high end manufacturing.

So these are high value items, multiple different versions of each item, whether that's a company that's in the aerospace, know, they have different models of planes or if you're in the marine industry, you have different models of boats.

So each model is a really expensive item, so they've got to support that with some printed collateral that if this and trade shows.

But it used to be like, hey, let's run 25,000 or 30,000, 50,000 if these pieces and let's put them in inventory.

And that is just not happening anymore. We saw it coming. So the Injet Press, what that allows us to do is it is a digital press.

So there's no make ready, there's no paper waste, there's no ink waste. It uses much less energy than a conventional press.

Our carbon footprint is less, which our clients give a lot of, you know, care a lot about the environment and so do we.

And so that was one thing was, hey, let's just like reduce our overall carbon footprint here. But then a couple of other benefits is we're able to now produce a smaller quantity at relatively the same price per piece.

So what that means for our customers is instead of doing 10,000 brochures, maybe they're doing 2,500 each quarter. But they could make changes to their marketing collateral that they wanted to.

They're not tying up as much, you know, marketing dollars in print collateral. They're not having a pay for storage and inventory.

It's That in itself is able to position us in a place where our print volumes can go down and we can actually increase our profit and our return of investment.

So another big benefit is I mentioned we're not just stuck to our market. We're based on Savannah, Georgia. We're not just stuck to our market here.

have customers all up and down the East Coast, East of the Mississippi. In this new press, there used to be a lot of press checks and marketing agencies would come in and they wanted to do all this.

This press, when we do proofs on it and we send them out to clients, the proof is the final production piece.

There's no guessing on what it's going to look like or how it's going to feel. You sign off on the proof.

That is exactly the piece that you're going to get. So that was one investment that we made. But had we not have made it?

So I don't know. where we would be as a business, it would be difficult to say the least. And we know we've gained so much new business over the last year and a half, two years.

And we basically realized that if we're competing against a company that hasn't made the investment in a large sheet that digital press, whether that's inkjet or there's other digital presses out there, but if they haven't made that investment, it's just no longer a competition.

So that was a huge, huge investment for us, but I mean the return has just been fantastic. And then to go along with that and to talk about having something in somebody's hand and have it be impactful, we purchased a lot of finishing equipment that adds tactile laminates to printed collateral, it adds like a raised spot in the varnish.

We can new digital gold and silver foils. We've really expanded our finishing operations because while it does increase the overall cost of the piece, companies are producing less, but they're spending more money on those pieces that they are producing.

so, you know, it's those two investments for us has just opened up many, many new markets that we never would have been able to get about it.

 

Matt Zaun 

Wow, that's awesome. Thank you sharing that. appreciate that. Just the ability that you have now to position your prospects to be successful and become your customer.

That's awesome. Absolutely awesome. Thank you for sharing that. know, my understanding of the importance of getting something in someone's hand came when I was seven years old.

In fact, I remember the moment almost as if it's happening. I just had a birthday. So excited about all the toys and the different, you know, with the gadgets that I got.

And I'm on my living room floor, my family's living room floor, and I'm starting to play with all these different toys.

And my mom said, so my mom taught me my strategy. My dad taught me my work ethic, my mother taught me my strategy.

My mother was an incredible businesswoman. To this day, she still is. She taught me to always stay, you know, three chess moves ahead when it comes to business.

And I'll never forget, I'm on the floor and playing with these toys. And my mom said, come here, we're going to go to the kitchen table.

I need you to sit down for a moment. And I thought she was going to grab one of the toys and put, you know, batteries in it and put it on the table.

She basically puts down the stack of cards. And she says, you're going to write your first thank you notes.

And she said, Matt, you need to get good writing thank you notes. It's going to serve you very well in life.

And I was a little bit frustrated because I just got all these toys I want to play with. them and she's like, no, you're going to write your thank you notes and then you're going to play with your toys.

she basically told me, as always being raised, it didn't matter if it was a birthday or whatever. Someone did something for me in middle school or in high school and college.

I wrote them a thank you note. And that has served me very well in business. To this day, I probably write about 100 thank you notes in business a year, not a ton, a lot more than some, but not a ton.

But what that has done is it gets something in someone's hand. It's another way to wow someone to make that connection.

So my love for your industry started when I was seven with the importance of what can happen when you get something in someone's hand.

So Andrew, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate this conversation. I learned a ton and I know a lot of people listening to this also learned from you.

So I appreciate your time. There's three things in particular that I got out of our conversation. 1. The sheer importance based on what you do, the ripple effect of how you can get stories in people's mailboxes.

always knew that that was important, but you basically take that idea and you're able to expand that in a massive, massive way, the importance of stories in people's mailboxes.

2. I appreciate you mentioning millennials, for whatever reason, when a lot of business leaders, I want business leaders listening, you might be an older Gen X or a baby boomer.

The image of millennial goes back to there was a cover on time magazine that really painted the perception of what millennials are time, the cover of time that was lazy millennial.

For whatever reason, a lot of business leaders think about that. So they really are down the millennials. Keep in mind what Andrew said, millennials are getting older.

They're between 27 and 42 years of age. were born between 1981 and 1996. You need to focus on connecting your stories with them when every way shape or form, every way shape and form in business from sales, marketing, storytelling wise, you need to focus on the line.

I appreciate you mentioning that point. And then the third point, I was blown away when you mentioned 40 touch points, just the amount of stories that are going to be in front of someone's prospect to flip them into a customer.

That's a lot, but you know the success and results that that has. And you mentioned timing is very important based on those touch points.

So those are the three takeaways that I got from our conversation. I know others listening probably got other takeaways.

Those are my top three. If anyone wants to get in contact with you, Andrew, they want to learn more about your services, where's the best place they can go to get that information?

 

Andrew (Kennickell)

So absolutely, our website is going to be top of the order there. kinekle.com that's K-E-N-N-A n i c k e l l dot com you can go on there you can call today you can contact us via the website and then we're extremely active on instagram that focuses a little bit more on our wide format printing but that is the kennicle group so at the kennicle group on instagram and yeah my name is Andrew Smith from our VP of sales and i welcome any and all questions from any of your listeners and i really appreciate you having me on that and i appreciate your talk at our bivskis meeting which kind of led to this it's really impactful for me and so that i really appreciate it awesome thanks again for your time today Andrew i very much appreciate it that's great thank you