Jumpstart Marketing Fast With Altus Marketing

Kirk Hodgdon is the Founder and Growth Catalyst of Altus Marketing, a firm focused on helping its clients reach new heights of business performance. As a distinguished business professional, he has nearly four decades of experience in marketing and business development. Previously, Kirk served in executive roles at CNS, Inc The Breathe Right Company, U.S. Communications & Focus GTE, and Land O’ Lakes. Kirk and his team possess a level of expertise and experience that can benefit any organization seeking a partner to enhance their marketing and business development efforts.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [03:27] Kirk Hodgdon shares his professional background
• [08:49] Key takeaways from working with some of the world’s most renowned brands
• [13:47] Kirk talks about Altus Marketing and how it helps entrepreneurs
• [17:23] Who are Altus’ ideal clients?
• [21:22] Retail strategies for ecommerce entrepreneurs
• [32:44] Kirk discusses how strategic partnerships can drive business growth

In this episode…

While the online marketplace offers unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurs to reach a wider audience and increase sales, it also presents unique challenges. In today’s environment, growing a business requires specific skills and knowledge that only a few possess.

Seasoned expert Kirk Hodgdon explains why business owners must navigate the ecommerce space effectively to stay ahead of the curve and promote growth. From fierce competition to rapidly evolving technology and customer expectations, ecommerce entrepreneurs must understand the intricacies of a complex and dynamic landscape. Kirk recommends that entrepreneurs focus on three critical areas: marketing communications, leveraging technology, and strategic development initiatives. These elements are vital to creating a robust and scalable business that can withstand the challenges of a competitive marketplace. Working with specialists can be a game-changer. Entrepreneurs can capitalize on the expertise and knowledge of professionals who deeply understand the ecommerce landscape and can help them overcome challenges and obstacles.

In this episode of the Quiet Light Podcast, Pat Yates sits down with Kirk Hodgdon, Founder and Growth Catalyst of Altus Marketing, to discuss strategies entrepreneurs can employ to drive growth. Kirk talks about how Altus helps entrepreneurs, what retail strategies ecommerce entrepreneurs can use, and how strategic partnerships can promote expansion.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Kirk Hodgdon on LinkedIn
• Kirk Hodgdon’s email: [email protected]
• Altus Marketing
• Quiet Light
• Quiet Light Podcast on YouTube
• Joe Valley on LinkedIn
• Pat Yates on LinkedIn
• Mark Daoust on LinkedIn
• Quiet Light Podcast email: [email protected]
• The EXITpreneur’s Playbook: How to Sell Your Online Business for Top Dollar by Reverse Engineering Your Pathway to Success by Joe Valley

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Quiet Light, a brokerage firm that wants to help you successfully sell your online business.

There is no wrong reason for selling your business. However, there is a right time and a right way. The team of leading entrepreneurs at Quiet Light wants to help you discover the right time and strategy for selling your business. They provide trustworthy advice, effective strategies, and honest valuations. So, your Quiet Light advisors aren’t your everyday brokers — they’re your partner and friend through every phase of the exit planning process.

If you’re new to the prospect of buying and selling, Quiet Light is here to support you. Their plethora of top-notch resources will provide everything you need to know about when and how to buy or sell an online business. Quiet Light offers high-quality videos, articles, podcasts, and guides to help you make the best decision for your online business.

Not sure what your business is really worth? No worries. Quiet Light offers a free valuation and marketplace-ready assessment on its website. That’s right—this quick, easy, and free valuation has no strings attached. Knowing the true value of your business has never been easier!

What are you waiting for? Quiet Light offers the best experience, strategies, and advice to make your exit successful. To learn more, go to quietlight.com, email [email protected], or call 800.746.5034 today.

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:07

Hey folks, it’s the Quiet Light Podcast where we share relentlessly honest insights, actionable tips and entrepreneurial stories that will help founders identify and reach their goals

Pat Yates  0:32

Hello again and welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast. I’m Pat Yates. I’m not supposed to be sitting I’m sitting in for Joe valley, but I kind of am, how you doing Joe? Today we have a great guest with us actually a good friend of Mark Daoust founder Kirk Hodgdon. Kirk is with Altus Marketing and he is sites altuselevates.com. He main drive more good companies he worked with in the late 90 or in the 90s and early 2000s, than any you could ever shake a stick at just from Land O’ Lakes to Breathe Right? Just a fascinating guy. I mean, he has all kinds of history and marketing development partnerships and things like that. I think what’s weird about marketing, we do a lot of this on the Quiet Light Podcast is it’s never really a one size fits all. There’s always something small that someone says differently, or has a history or maybe he founded something to Breathe Right that he didn’t do with landing legs. But it’s amazing how Kirk has this diverse background of all these companies he’s worked at, things that he’s beta tested AB that knows what works and doesn’t work. So if your company is out there trying to scale an ecommerce or especially trying to get into retail to position how you could diversify your channels, this guy is someone you want to talk to and it’s funny as we went through the conversation and one thing I think that entrepreneurs should always think about is reaching out and getting as much information around you as you can. We talk passionately at Quiet Light about that about how we want people to come in. You don’t have to list with us you want to come in and find out what your valuation is how it’s changed over the last year. What multiples are doing anything that you want to know. We are here to be able to help you and it’s funny how Kirk is the same way probably adds as much value, why does he does on the things he’s working on giving ideas. I just think it’s fascinating to hear people that have that kind of background that can come in and look at your product and say even though it’s not a one size fits all this is ABC of what we’ve done in the past to make it successful. I’m fascinated to hear this today again Kirk Hodgdon from altuselevates is a website that keeps messing me up. Altus Marketing is the company and I’m anxious to talk to Kirk. Let’s get right to it. Kirk, welcome to the Quiet Light Podcast today. How you doing?

Kirk Hodgdon  2:40

Doing great doing great. Happy to be here.

Pat Yates  2:43

Here as well. I know we’ve talked a lot about getting together. It’s funny because you have an acquaintance that you spend some time with up there in Minneapolis Mark Daoust, our owner, I know you know, Mark, correct?

Kirk Hodgdon  2:53

I do. I do. He’s a great gentleman. I know him.

Pat Yates  2:59

He talked really highly of you. And I think what’s amazing about this is we’re so fortunate at Quiet Light to have so many people around us like you that, when people that have known Joe in the past and Chris and all the guys that are involved. We love bringing people on that have thanks so I know today we’re going to talk a little bit about Altuselevate and Altus Marketing. And that’s really what you do. But truthfully, I’d love for you to introduce yourself to the Quiet Light listeners and tell them all about yourself and how Mark’s an idiot and other net all those good things, make sure we talk about those things.

Kirk Hodgdon  3:27

Mark is not an idiot, we will start there. But no, my background has been in consumer products. I won’t say how many years. When you get to a certain age and colored hair, you try and keep the numbers down. But I’m going to say 35 years. I cut my teeth in the old days at Land O’ Lakes. So if you think about managing things like ice cream and cheese and meat products and so forth, I kind of learned the ropes as a marketing assistant and worked my way up to marketing manager of various products. And then went on from there to healthcare with HMO management early in kind of that industry, and then kind of switched to the agency side of the business. And that was sort of a fun thing where I was hired by a promotion firm. US communications here in Minneapolis and the claim to fame of this firm was that they got involved in Star Wars licensing in the very late 70s, early 80s. So if you think of like Dixie Cups with Luke Skywalker on them or world the toothbrushes or various things this firm was involved in some really early great licensing and promotional things. And at that time I was assigned to The Oscar Meyer business and many people on this podcast will be familiar with a product called Lunchables, and meat, cheese and cracker combinations. And I was on the original Lunchables rollout team and kind of in charge of the promotions and mailing rebates and coupons and in store displays and a number of elements to kind of get that product started and was kind of a fantastic new products experience early in my career, and went on to work on other accounts, in the early days of kind of telephone and cellular things, worked on the GTE account. And that introduced me to sports marketing they did they sponsored the Superbowl, they sponsored golf, the PGA Tour in those days, and just got some experience on the sports marketing side. And that was kind of a perfect prep for being hired to a company called CNS, which is maybe more famous as the Breathe Right strip company. So if you think of the little strips that go on your nose, I became the VP of Marketing there was VP of marketing for about five years and then switch to the business development side. And so business development, I’m not sure I even knew what business development was when I switched but started to concentrate on helping the company grow from an acquisition standpoint and look for various acquisitions. And then also from a licensing and strategic alliance side. And one of the quick highlights was we created a Breathe Right strip for kids for folds. So if you had a cold, it would be great and we had mentholated vapors built into the strip and we thought, this is going to be a great product Breathe Right strips with mentholated vapors, but it was an even better product if we could say it was a Breathe Right strip with Vix vapors, went to Procter and Gamble and met with the Vix team and the licensing team there. And eventually we were able to introduce Breathe Right for colds with Vicks vapors and turned out to be a very fun thing. But after my time at Breathe Rights started, what is now Altus it’s gone through a few, I’m gonna say name changes over the years, but started in 2001 and have kind of been managing the business ever since.

Pat Yates  7:53

That is an amazing name, drop background. Those are some big top brands that you’ve worked with. Please tell me you got to drive the Oscar Meyer hot dog car though.

Kirk Hodgdon  8:03

You know what? I did not but that was the garter. And I will say when the old corporate headquarters for Oscar Meyer was in Madison, Wisconsin, and when there’s about 10 of those Wienermobile is lined up, it’s a pretty impressive sight.

Pat Yates  8:21

I’m going to have to ding you some quality points because you did not drive the hot dog car, there’s no way the Wienermobile wasn’t fired up at some point I’d have been in that first thing when I got the job. I don’t know what you were waiting on. Anyway, that’s unbelievable. So some of these brands, what’s like mind blowing how big, and you went through the transition to those you’ve probably got amazing stories. But what’s the best one? If you say, Hey, here’s one that you just won’t believe it was so incredible how we fell into this or it worked out? What was a great takeaway?

Kirk Hodgdon  8:49

Well, I would tell you, Breathe Right would be one of the launches, if you will, that would be near and dear to my heart. When I was hired into the company, it really was a sleep technology company and delivered for lack of a better way to say it software and laptops to sleep centers around the country. And the inventor of Breathe Right strips brought the product to the company and said, Hey, I’d love to sample this and have you guys measure the quality of sleep people get because I’m an allergy sufferer. And when I put these strips on at night, it really helps me sleep. So could you use your technology to test that and show that you get a better night’s sleep when you have this Breathe Right strip on. And the chairman of the company, Dr. Dan Cohen kind of immediately knew as a physician, he knew you know what these strips are going to help with allergies, they’re going to help with sleep, they’re going to help with sports. They’re going to help with a wide variety of things. And so I’d actually like to license the product from the inventor. And that relationship led to me being hired and hiring a broker Salesforce to roll the product out. And I will say, I’m trying to think it would have been 94. I think our goal for the year was about 1.7 million in sales. It’s a public company, by the way, you can kind of look it up. But the next year, I think we hit 47 million in sales the next year.

Pat Yates  8:50

So you increased a little bit that next year, like 47x or so something like that. It’s real. I mean, gosh, it’s such a cool way. Like looking back on that I’m sure it was a lot to do, and when you were doing it, but it’s such a cool thing to talk about now that you’re involved with that.

Kirk Hodgdon  10:50

Yeah, I would tell you, there were some great, it was a super fun time we, we hired Jerry Rice to be our sports spokesperson, who was playing for the 40 Niners really had some fun things there, we worked with NATA, the National Athletic Trainers Association, and those trainers would work with NFL teams, and hand the strip’s out to various players. So we got a lot of visibility on TV. But the reality was snoring and congestion were really the major uses for the Average Joe at night, if you will. But that rollout taught me a lot about the value of PR, it taught a lot about sampling. It taught a lot about retail and retail management with all of the various retailers like Walgreens or Target or Walmart, and so forth. And all of those learnings lead to kind of a philosophy of every business has leverage, if you can sort of find what are those? What are those things where just a little bit of pressure produces a lot of results? And in the early days of Breathe Right? That was PR, because everyone wanted to know, what are those goofy strips on the noses of all of these football players? And there were a lot of writers and a lot of TV news crews that were interested in telling all of their viewership, what are those strips on the noses. And if we could tap into that PR interest, we could get really a lot of exposure and a lot of awareness really early. And so that helps. And as we approach every business we manage, we’re always looking for those little leverage points in their marketing plan, where can we be scrappy, and spend a little bit of money and get a lot of benefit out in return. So, low investment, high return is always the best way to kind of keep your product growing, and you get to the next level.

Pat Yates  13:03

That makes total sense. And what’s amazing about your background, you’re walking from some amazing builds of brands, like some huge brands, like you may talk small about it’s really incredible. But the takeaway becomes as you do that growth, you pick up so many things. So if you fast forward into Altus Marketing, you walked in with all this knowledge and PR enabled ability to take people’s products to market. And then once we talked a little bit about that you’re kind of concentrate on really three steps and three things marketing, communications, technology, strategic development, things you do at Altus. So tell us about that organization and how you try to take the history of those successes except for not driving the Wienermobile, how did you apply that to people’s businesses and take them forward and help them gain that kind of success?

Kirk Hodgdon  13:47

Sure. You know what I think that at the basic level, one of the things that makes us different is that we really approach it from a business background. I’m a big believer in what I call napkin math, it’s part of our philosophy. And it’s kind of like, for any business, if you can’t write down how you make money, like this is how we make money on the back of a napkin. Something’s wrong or it’s too complex. And so the idea for most of our manufacturing partners is, I have cost a product and I make a product and I distribute that product and it gets to retail or it goes through ecommerce and Amazon, but in the end, I need to understand the margins of that product and how I make money. And from a consulting standpoint, if you don’t understand that, how can you possibly make PPC investment decisions or how can you say, oh, I want to go advertise the product or what have you, you can’t make those decisions in a vacuum. So we really we start by understanding napkin math and making sure that we know how you do business. And then again, we’re looking for those leverage points, be they on the ecommerce side or on the retail side. And we attract a lot of companies that, again, are trying to level up and trying to find unique ways to get their product successful, either at retail, or with Amazon or with other Shopify or their own website. So I would say that understanding those things is huge. We’re data oriented, we do have a relationship with a sales broker group, that gives us access to what is called, well, it’s now sir Kana, but I’ll say IRI data. And this would be data that is tracking every product in every store. So you’re able to manage and kind of understand how you’re doing at retail, how much distribution do you have? And without that knowledge, you’re kind of managing blind wondering, how am I doing at my various retailers or across the country? And so we can help people with that data. And that allows us to be smarter about how do we approach the buyer at Target or the buyer at Walgreens, certainly good conversation about why we deserve to be on the shelf. So it varies by client, but I would say, it all harkens back to us being smart about how are we going to work together and what kind of money doesn’t make sense to invest in these endeavors.

Pat Yates  16:41

That’s really incredible. I think we talk at Quiet Light, really passionately about preparation and making sure people really truly understand what it’s going to take to exit at maximum value. And sometimes details just truly matter. Listening to what you’re talking about. I mean, I envision there’s a lot of people out there that say, you know what, I don’t either can’t afford it, or I don’t need it early on. And they go out and get us try to get a start in their business growing into these markets. And they sort of make some mistakes that you can save them time for, what portion of the business, do they become right to work with? You do they have to have a certain level of sales markets they’re in? Let’s say, someone’s introducing a new product, what’s the best kind of client for you at Altus?

Kirk Hodgdon  17:23

Well, I would say we work from entrepreneurs up to, as we talked earlier, I’ll say divisions of larger companies. But in general, we are very adept at, people that are just kicking off an investment and selling their product in limited ecommerce areas, to others that are trying to get to retail, the beauty of ecommerce and Amazon. I think my latest stats for consumer packaged goods and a lot of healthcare products is that ecommerce is now for many product categories, averaging about 30%. And stores would be the other 70% in general. And so when ecommerce is, number one, when it’s 30% of your business, you need to know it and understand it and pay attention to it. But the other thing is that it just so much it’s changed the nature of the investment for the entrepreneur in terms of how much you need to put into a business, and to figure out whether it can be successful or not. So we think it’s really smart. Most people are going to have their website and they’re going to have Amazon to start with. And there are so many things you can learn about how are consumers searching for your product? How are they interested in it? What kind of need is it fulfilling? How can you benchmark it with other successful products? How big could it be? Those are all things that you can learn on Amazon and as most of our business owners would know out there, there are lots of things that you can test so the beauty of digital sales is you can be AB testing you know a lot of things with regards to what works and what doesn’t work and why not tested at a much, I’ll say an inexpensive level when you decide to go to retail and sell your products to stores. The reality is the quantities and the risks get much higher much quicker, right. And so, if Walgreens says I want to order your product for my 9000 stores, well the reality is that’s going to be a big order and that’s really good news. But the other side of that is if you don’t sell well off the shelf that can be a really big return back to your facility. leak. So you have to be prepared and know where to invest. But I think we can help customers with those decisions. And getting it right on Amazon and getting it right on your own website first is usually a really great step for most people. And so we’ve developed that, I’m going to say the Amazon outlook and the tools to help people do that, in a pretty good way.

Pat Yates  20:27

It’s a really interesting point, you know that I’ve been an e-comm entrepreneur for a lot of time, a long time, you know, I was on Shark Tank, we had a lot of retail opportunities after that our products really not built for the retail environment. But what was interesting about it, we did a lot of specialty kiosk business, which sort of built our web business. So it was a great way to build a funnel and be able to build a lot of understanding about it, the more that retail and especially retail got worse, it became much more difficult to navigate. And that’s where I’m kind of interested, like, some people, if they don’t have an understanding of retail, let’s say they’re very good and e-comm. They think just because I do a good job and e-comm retail is completely different, and vice versa. So do you really believe that if someone’s successful in one of those sides, and then they’re going to venture into the other that they should just assume they can? Or is it better to reach out someone like you and be able to get that base down? If they don’t know what they don’t know, like, we say, what’s the best way? Should they always approach it first? And see, because of that?

Kirk Hodgdon  21:22

Well, I think the one thing that I would tell you is it’s going to vary by product. So I think it’s hard to make assumptions without knowing the product and where it fits in the category and that sort of thing. I think certainly, there’s data out there that would say, hey, I don’t know I’m making it up, if you develop a melatonin product to help people sleep better, the reality is we can look up the data on the ecommerce side and on the retail side and say, you know what, we can see that there are other products that are selling well, and for lack of a better way to say it, there are interested consumers that want to buy a product like this. And so those kinds of, like, if you’ve got a, I’ll say, a better mousetrap, but you’re in the mousetrap category, then I think it’s easy to predict or easier to predict how you might do at retail, especially if you have a point of difference. As you look to other categories, it might or innovations, like you have a brand new solution to a need. That one is, is where we might want to learn more digitally at lower cost to determine whether retail makes sense. The other thing is retail is much more specialized. So in the old days, there were a lot more retailers to go to and a lot more stores to try and figure out nowadays, that might be 10 to 15, major retailers that you have to figure out and the reality is you might not be right for all of them. If you’re a pet food company, the reality is chewy, and certain pet food retailers might be all the retailers you need to get to. And worrying about other retailers just doesn’t make sense. So it’s gonna vary a little bit. But I think, hopefully, that’s good thinking for most people.

Pat Yates  23:26

You make a really good point. And it’s actually when you take a step back from maybe if someone says, hey, I’m ready to go for retail, they just go why’d they think let’s try everything we could go, let’s throw this cast a wide net. I think what you just said, it’s kind of interesting, because if someone comes in, it’s better to have you guys like analyze their product and say, this may be great for you. But this isn’t in this would be an I’d stay away from this. I would think if you look at the product, do you usually have a good idea of what markets can be successful based on some of the historical data you have?

Kirk Hodgdon  23:53

Yeah, I think so. And I think that can be both historical data and, and real data. The other thing, by the way is that Amazon is a great tool to use and analyze for are there some competitive products on Amazon? And how well are those products selling? And what’s my point of difference compared to those products? And so, I would call this like size of the prize thinking or consulting if you will, which is like, okay, here’s my product, how big could this be? Right, like you had your business selling at kiosks and is this a $1 million business or a $50 million business and why? And so, thinking through that and being realistic about it can help you and then by the way, whether you introduce line extensions or new items in the same category. That can be something that will expand your business as you go forward. You don’t just have to have one SKU or one line of products too. But I do think in the old days, one other thing I’ll say about retail that the old philosophy was get your product on all the shelves, like get it out there, and then spend money on what I would call mass media, which would be TV and radio and print and other things, to tell a lot of people about your product, and then they will now that they’re aware of it, they’re gonna go out and buy your product, because everywhere they shop, it’s available to them. Well, nowadays, that’s just much harder, you’re not going to get into all of those retailers at the same time, you don’t really have a proven track record. And so being more creative about that, like, hey, I have a super great product, I want to take it to target and work with them and show them the potential of my new business and new category. And maybe I want to give them an exclusive for a year and not introduce it to any other retailer, because I want to get my product going with them. And they’re going to invest in my business. And by the way, you have to have a very special product. But if you look at brands, like I don’t know, Ali and brands like method, and all of these brands kind of exclusively started at a Target and got introduced, sort of at that loan retailer. And so partnering up or having a strategic alliance with a particular retailer might be a strategy, that could be a good one from that standpoint. I was gonna say one other big concept for people to recognize, too is that media has sort of flip flopped. And if you’re familiar with, the Amazon Media Network, or Walmart now has Walmart Connect, what’s happening is that retailers are creating their own media networks. And so, on Amazon, if you have a video that is essentially your commercial for your product, you can do video streaming to Amazon targeted audiences, and then track whether those people are coming back to Amazon in the next 30 days, or the next 60 days to buy that product. So if you think about investing in that network, and then determining whether it’s paying out, and there’s an ROI to actual advertising on a one to one basis, it’s kind of an exciting thing. Usually, those media options didn’t exist. And if they did exist, they were very, very expensive. And now, we could do a test with a client for $10,000, on Amazon to figure out, will my product respond to some advertising to the right target?

Pat Yates  28:08

Yeah, that’s incredible. It’s funny, because I’ve talked about that we have an NFL line that I’ve talked about how the NFL changed their Sunday Ticket to YouTube TV, which really changes advertising, people don’t think much about that. It’s a little bit different. There’s a lot of ways to build content and do other things that you have the ability to market to, and it’s great that you guys are doing that as well. So back again, with Kirk Hodgdon, with all this marketing, when you’re at all just what I was struck by this reading the site, you can pretty much come to you with conceptual idea and you can help them develop market and then eventually just probably even talk to market exit their business. So no matter start to finish, if they have an idea and want to figure out how to go down this path, they can come to you and just start from inception, correct, even if they’re trying to get conceptual marketing and development ideas.

Kirk Hodgdon  28:53

Yeah, I think, I would say we’re typically engaging when somebody is further in the process, like they’ve got their product, and they’ve tested it with consumers and or they’ve attempted to grow some things on their own website. But the reality is, we are working with real entrepreneurs that just have an idea or they’ve got a patent on something, and they’re not sure how to proceed at this point. The other thing, we have a client right now, that, frankly, is a university in Wisconsin that one of their professors basically created a patent around some really good biology and they’re trying to turn that into a product line in the cosmetics area. And so, like that is from ground zero that a lot of our work is happening with those folks. And it could be super exciting what happens with that particular product, so I’m gonna say yes, but it takes, you know, like sort of special products and special opportunities for that to work from ground zero.

Pat Yates  30:07

That makes total sense. But I mean, I think we’re trying to paint a pictures, there’s not much that you haven’t done if they want to understand how you build a Breathe Right strip that they have that then you obviously understand that it’s really amazing. So for the listeners out here, if you were to give them the 30 second overview of what you do the best Altus, if they want to come to you for the meat and potatoes or want to help grow their company, is that marketing? Or what is the best areas that you can actually make impact?

Kirk Hodgdon  30:34

Yeah, marketing is such a broad term, it really depends. I would say that, if you’re investing in ecommerce and Amazon, right, now we can really help. One of the things that we just our approach to Amazon is a little bit different, because of that understanding of the p&l understanding of your business. I think, too, that people get caught up in losing sight of what their product is, and they just start to manage Amazon on a robust basis, or here’s my financial measurement, and that’s what I’m going to do. And they’re not considering other elements of the marketing mix, like how could PR impact your business? Or how could I mean, simple exposure, things impact your business? How can influencers and social media impact your business and a lot of those outside elements bring people to your product detail page and your purchase page. And frankly, your algorithm can change dramatically with Amazon, if you’re bringing people to Amazon, I mean, all of a sudden, that’s going to be reflected in what your daily sell rate is. So I would just say, we can really help on the ecommerce side, that would be step one. And then if you get to the level where you want to entertain retail, we have that in spades and can do that very professionally and probably save you a lot of heartache in terms of what are the better ways and best practices ways to get to retail. So that might do…

Pat Yates  32:19

I mean, it’s such a necessary thing. And I think the more that people have success in business, they’re sometimes a little bit reluctant to admit, hey, I don’t know how to do this next step, but it’s better to learn it the right way. Having done some retail, it’s never an easy thing. So Kirk, here’s one question. I think that a lot of times there are creative ways for brands to get to market partnerships, alliances, different things. Maybe there’s some opportunities of things you’ve done in the past and might be food for thought for someone to do that.

Kirk Hodgdon  32:44

You know what,  it’s a great suggestion. One of the things that I would tell you is we are actually the official name of the company is Altus Business Development. And even though we operate as Altus Marketing, business development is at our core, and one of my big beliefs is just one plus one often equals three. And so the idea is you have your current business, but for example, Pat, on your business, if you partnered with the NFL, could I do even better if I had a licensing agreement with somebody else, and I brought that partnership together. And so we’re I’m going to say relatively famous for some really good partnerships over the years and looking for opportunities where we can help our client find another company or an alliance and put those things together. So some quick examples where Radisson Hotel was a client. And we were able to, and by the way in that business, a hotel room is a hotel room is a hotel room, right? Like, what’s the difference between a Radisson room and a Marriott room or a Hilton room? And one of the things we did is we brought the idea of you know what, if we had sleep number beds in those rooms, and somebody coming to stay in their hotel could actually adjust the bed to their desired hardness or softness. That would be a real point of difference between a regular hotel room and what became a Radisson room. And so that’s an example of a I think, a great partnership, there was a lot of ways they could leverage media together. Another one was a client Carmex Lip Balm, small family owned company from Milwaukee. And we found out in video that during basketball games, LeBron James was actually dipping in his jar of Carmax and using Carmex Lip Balm right before every game, and we were able to and by the way, nobody’s got bigger agreements than LeBron does, in terms of Nike or Gatorade or other spots. chips. And the idea of how could little Carmax partner with LeBron? Well, we ended up just starting small and saying, you know what, let’s connect websites. And let’s do some digital things with LeBron. And that partnership ended up getting all kinds of PR and all kinds of exposure for Carmax over the next several years. And so the list kind of goes on, but I would just say for most business owners there, you think about your own business, but are there some friends out there are there some other businesses where when combined with your product or your service, one plus one really equals three? So and we can help.

Pat Yates  33:10

That’s really a great idea because you get the ability for both sides to strategically develop and it’s really creative because a lot of people can think wildly about what will be good with them. That’s a great suggestion. You obviously offer a great amount of services, your trusted Quiet Light partner, Mark, we’re obviously lucky to have someone like you that is, sort of in the wide Quiet Light family. So people wanted to reach out to you and Altus Marketing. Tell us how they get in touch with you.

Kirk Hodgdon  36:10

Yeah, I mean, it could be as simple as an email or a phone call or through the website, but I would say you can email me directly. It’s [email protected]. And I’m guessing we can provide that to people who are listening.

Pat Yates  36:28

Oh, yeah, for sure. We’ll definitely have a link on the site. I appreciate you coming in to the Quiet Light Podcast today was awesome having you on and if you want to reach out, make sure to look Kirk up, we’ll be in a situation where we can send you some clients and hopefully these people have some success either in ecommerce or in retail. I appreciate you coming on the Quiet Light Podcast today. It was great having you.

Kirk Hodgdon  36:46

Hey, Pat, enjoyed it. And we’ll talk to you soon. Thank you.

Pat Yates  36:50

Hopefully I get up there soon. And we can all have breakfast to sit down with Mark. I love hanging out with him anyway.

Kirk Hodgdon  36:55

It’s a deal.

Pat Yates  36:55

All right. Sounds good. Thanks for being here.

Kirk Hodgdon  36:58

Thank you.

Outro  37:01

Today’s podcast was produced by Rise25 and the Quiet Light content team. If you have a suggestion for a future podcast, subject or guest, email us at [email protected]. Be sure to follow us on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.