Luis Camacho
Hey, welcome to the SaaS AdLab Podcast, we’re bringing you the stories of founders, entrepreneurs and CEOs today. I have with me Jamey Meeker. He is a marketing director, RoleModel Software, and they do custom software. Super excited to have you here. Before we even started the recording, we started Dove a little bit into what we’re going to be talking about, stuff like that. But before we did, I put a hard stop on Jamie to say that see if that juice for the podcast.
Luis Camacho
But first of all, thanks so much for joining me, man. It’s a pleasure having you here. And like I said, go ahead and take it away. You know, introduce yourself a little bit and tell us what you’re all about.
Jamey Meeker
Yeah, man, thanks so much for having me on Luis. This is a great opportunity, so I appreciate it. And yeah. So my background is all about communication.
Jamey Meeker
I you know, I studied marketing in college with a minor in supply chain. I went to Appalachian State in the mountains of North Carolina and loved it.
Jamey Meeker
Since then, you know, I worked for a lot of different product companies and focused on international communication and implementing brand strategies and communication structure with products to different different countries. Got to go to Australia and Spain for a little while.
Jamey Meeker
To for me, my my passion is is conveying a message to a targeted audience.
Jamey Meeker
You know, I obviously that’s the almost the motto of marketing, I guess. But for me personally, it’s the the fun is connecting people with the right product or the right service. And so that’s kind of the fun marketing game.
Jamey Meeker
Yeah. So I’m excited to be on with you today and get to talk through some of these topics. Now I work for I’m the marketing director for a custom software company in Holly Springs, North Carolina. We tailor software solutions to small to medium businesses. We also have some Fortune 500 companies that we’ve worked with. So it’s a keeps me on my toes and there’s a lot of fun. Right.
Luis Camacho
So I know one of the topics that we wanted to talk about today was messaging specifically and how you guys kind of use that to your advantage. And correct me if I’m wrong here, but it sounds like, you know, the company has been around for about twenty years, maybe a little longer. I’m not sure. And that’s right. You came in and one of the things that you noticed initially was, you know, there’s kind of a disconnect here with, you know, who we’re going after, what our message is and how we’re trying to communicate the value of the company to those people.
Luis Camacho
Right. So you doing custom software, small and medium sized businesses coming to you and they’re looking for a solution. How do you think one of the more interesting things about this, too, is how do you approach, you know, a CEO, hey, owner of, you know, role model?
Luis Camacho
I think there’s a problem with our messaging strategy. Like, how do you realize that that’s an issue first? And how do you how do you begin to, you know, tweak those things?
Luis Camacho
And what kind of results do you see from something like that?
Jamey Meeker
Yeah, sure. Good question.
Jamey Meeker
Let me I’m going to start with the company’s tagline and then kind of work backwards onto as how we got there, if that makes sense. And that kind of will do a good job of explaining the process. Right. So it role model software. We craft custom software tailored to your business by collaborating with you.
Jamey Meeker
So when I first joined with role model, there are 20 years of success, had mostly come from high quality work for good clients that referred other clients to us.
Jamey Meeker
So almost all of the activity was based was grown off of the previous success, if that makes sense, which allowed role model to be very successful for a long time and provide good solutions to a lot of different companies.
Jamey Meeker
But if you know the world of software developers and programmers, they’re very analytical, they’re very totality focused, like you have to get your whole scope defined and really, you know, word heavy operations kind of a situation.
Jamey Meeker
And when it came to marketing, it was really difficult for a custom software company not to want to say we do everything right. And that’s the struggle with marketing for a custom sort of application.
Jamey Meeker
You know, Luis you and I mentioned before the recording started how marketing fails when you take a generic approach to any situation.
Jamey Meeker
Marketing is successful. When you’re able to customize your approach and be specific to the domain, your your marketing for and for us.
Jamey Meeker
That role model, it was pivotal for us to recognize that saying everything to everybody means that nobody hears anything.
Jamey Meeker
Versus if you start taking a simple message, breaking it down and taking the listener onto a journey where you’re able to spoon feed them information, then number one, you’re adding clarity to what your business offers. And number two, you’re opening the minds of the reader to see more opportunities or to maybe envision themself using your service or whatever your company provides.
Jamey Meeker
So for us, we had pages and pages of things that we’d done well, services that we bought, we’d offered. And when I came in, it’s like, hey, this is all really good stuff, right? None of it’s wrong, but nobody’s reading it right. So we need to backtrack and think about number one. You’ve got to say what you do first. So for us, we help businesses.
Jamey Meeker
We start with consultation, everything role model does is about communication with the client.
Jamey Meeker
Right. So we sit down with someone through consultation. We you know, we have long term relationships with our clients. And so the first thing we say is, look, if there’s a cheaper option, then we want you to do that. We want you to find that route. But if the option is with us through custom software, then the only way both of us are happy is for it to be a collaborative process where you’re seeing value daily.
Jamey Meeker
You know that the solution that’s being built is specifically tailored to you. So it’s like, look, guys, we got to say that right, we got to say that simply and clearly so that whoever sees the company is going to understand. So that’s where the tag line came out of custom software tailored to your business through collaboration. And that gave us the foundation to then be able to say these are our areas of expertize. These are the industries that we have performance history with.
Jamey Meeker
Right. And it changes role model wanting to say we do everything to saying no, we have custom solutions for your business. And these are the areas that we’ve had experience already, which technically I mean, you’re not saying you don’t do everything right like you still you to.
Luis Camacho
Exactly. Nobody has an idea. You’re still going to take care of it, but you’re just making that specific person feel like, well, they don’t take care of everything, but they can take care of whatever I bring to the table, essentially. Yeah.
Jamey Meeker
And that’s kind of it. Right. Is that you want to say that we do everything because that is our niche. Our value is in the space where off the shelf software just doesn’t cut it, you know.
Jamey Meeker
And so but you’ve got to be able to say that effectively where you’re you’re not saying.
Jamey Meeker
Whatever you do, we can do it because the last thing you want is someone to have the vision for Facebook and expect it to be five dollars, right. We want to manage expectations, but also tell the company we’re helping that look like we only win when we win together.
Jamey Meeker
And so let’s take the stress out of it. Let’s start with the conversation and then really get down to what your needs are. And if if your need is a fit for our business relationship, then great. Let’s let’s move it forward.
Jamey Meeker
If not, we believe in the value of long term quality relationships. So if we turn someone away and say, hey, look, this isn’t the right fit right now, here’s a better solution for you, well, then, you know, three, four years later, we’ve had a lot of those guys come back and say, hey, we’re actually ready for this custom software now.
Jamey Meeker
And so rather than, you know, I think some marketers feel that.
Jamey Meeker
Leaving information out is potentially negative to your brand, but the reality is that you got it, you got to think of it about what you’re focusing on.
Jamey Meeker
If you’re focusing on quality things, then you’re also piquing the interest of those outliers while really effectively addressing your target audience.
Jamey Meeker
I think, you know, it’s easy to weaken your message to your target audience by trying to include the outliers rather than flipping that around and focusing on your target audience and trusting the outliers to kind of catch on.
Luis Camacho
I like that because then you’re not appealing to that specific person. You’d be trying to go after the other ones as well, which is obviously not what you want to be doing, especially if you if you have custom software. That’s right.
Jamey Meeker
That’s right. Yeah. And I know that you have a lot of SAS companies come on here and it naturally changes marketing strategy changes when you know you’re dealing with a specific solution versus an opportunity kind of landscape.
Jamey Meeker
But in in and in a in a different way, we kind of see ourselves very similar to that in that your solution is out there. Right.
Jamey Meeker
We we broadcast the fact that, you know, if you’re paying for box solution.
Jamey Meeker
What if it doesn’t do 10 percent of what you need it to do and you’ve been getting by with that for a while and that that 10 percent could cost you the opportunity to scale new revenue.
Jamey Meeker
And we encourage the conversation of looking at these custom software initiatives as an investment.
Jamey Meeker
Right. It’s it’s setting your business up to be able to scale and operate at full capacity rather than working around loopholes that your software is costing you.
Jamey Meeker
So in that way, it does kind of blend into the product category where it’s like this will be an asset for you, but it’s vapor right now. We’ve got to take your ideas, consult with you and figure out what you need. And then that’s what we deliver, right? Yeah, like that.
Luis Camacho
So how easy of a process is it?
Luis Camacho
Like, what are the, you know, actions that you have to take in order to make this messaging switch? Like it’s not just, you know, waking up one day and deciding, OK, we’re going to completely switch out our timeline and how we are communicating our value proposition to our prospects. Like there’s there’s got to be. I don’t know, I’m trying to think of it as a as a marketer, an advertiser, and a lot of the things that we do in order to figure things out is a lot of AB testing, right.
Luis Camacho
So switch out the headline on the landing page or try this creative ad. What is something that people could do? And also, like, what are some of the symptoms that you start to see before, you know, switching out the messaging is one of the solutions to whatever problem you may be having. Is it just people not? I don’t know, biting, for lack of a better word, to your odds or to your marketing collateral and stuff like that, or what are some of the things that happen when your messaging is not where it should be?
Jamey Meeker
Yeah, it’s a loaded question. A whole lot of different aspects to that whole makeup. Right. So. It’s somewhat of a balance, right, so when you’re building a website, you want to be conscientious of your SEO, so the organic searches that end up matching the content on your website is is very important. But a lot of marketers take that too far where they say, OK, we need every word relevant in our industry on our landing page.
Jamey Meeker
And what does that do? Well, someone finds your company because of that. SEO clicks on it. It’s a word dump. They bounce right off of it. That hurts your click through rate, which then hurts your SEO. So it will send you in and then spit you right back out. And everybody knows Google is a fickle master. They’re always changing their requirements and their performance metrics. And so you have to be really conscientious of that balance.
Jamey Meeker
For me, when I started with role model because of the track record the company had in the success of the efforts that had been done for a while without successful marketing, it was up to me to really show the importance of the concepts that I was bringing to the table.
Jamey Meeker
And so we were actually launching a new framework called Lightning CAD, which is a capability that we developed that allows for user guided CAD design to be housed in a browser. So we have a new example of that framework is called Doc Designer, where companies can sketch out a doc in two days while the system builds the building requirements of the doc and spits out blueprints, parts, lists, all that stuff in real time. It’s incredible selling tool for companies, big Segway.
Jamey Meeker
However, that framework was an opportunity for me to start from scratch and show the company what message flow meant to traffic generation to lead, you know, retain retention, I guess you could say.
Jamey Meeker
And the success of the Lightning CAD brand gave me the you know, not not. Not foundation to change the role model brand, but more of the confidence in the company to see these marketing efforts starting to share some fruit. And so with the role model site, it was essentially taking all of these really good things that they were saying and breaking them down and saying, OK, look, this thing is supposed to be addressed to this person. This segment is the thing that can be said to everyone.
Jamey Meeker
How do we organize this subset of data to structured in such a way that the person that needs to see it is going to see it versus it being on the third page of buried under other content?
Jamey Meeker
So we started small by breaking down a tagline that could summarize what the company, the company’s mission statement.
Jamey Meeker
Then after that, you you think of the messaging strategy as a progression. I always circle back to marketing concepts to talk about how difficult face to face communication is.
Jamey Meeker
People all the time miss the point being said by someone directly across the table from them.
Jamey Meeker
And then you expect marketers to be able to to target their audience perfectly without cross computer screen. Right. Without any personal connection.
Jamey Meeker
So you have to really be consciously aware of the information lost between personal communication to third party communication that’s specifically targeted to completely on personal messaging on a Web page.
Jamey Meeker
That’s three massive leaps making that communication more difficult.
Jamey Meeker
Right. So what’s the answer? Simplify, simplify, simplify, if you’re if you’re start of communication isn’t understood, then you will lose that lead one hundred percent of the time.
Jamey Meeker
So you have to start small, be concise and let that progress on itself so you can add more sophisticated information beyond it.
Jamey Meeker
So a great resource for the our company and I think for markets all all around is author by the name of Donald Miller. He writes, he wrote, Marketing made simple and foundations of story brand, things like that. The concepts are inherently simple, which is the beauty of it. It talks about a marketing message as a story, a storyline, how every successful story has a character that has a problem, that meets a guy, that finds a solution, that either that either leads them to success or helps them avoid failure.
Jamey Meeker
And in our messaging, it’s really the same way a lot of brands fail when they think of positioning themselves as the hero companies all the time. You’ll see it on websites everywhere. The first thing they want to say is about me, me, me. We’ve had one hundred plus successful projects. We’ve, you know, given five hundred percent return on this, this company’s revenue, whatever it is. Well, you’re your client.
Jamey Meeker
Your potential client doesn’t care or doesn’t care about your success. He wants to know that you’re the person that helps me succeed. Right. And so that transitions kind of your your perspective on what you’re addressing rather than saying, hey, these are the things we’ve done.
Jamey Meeker
Well, you want to say to let your target audience know you’re talking to them first, and then secondly, let them know that you’re you’re there to help them rather than talking about yourself.
Jamey Meeker
And that’s that’s been a big translation of strategy for us, was that rather than saying four paragraphs of things we’ve done well, now we’re talking about four points that are potential client will need to know to be confident in their next decision.
Jamey Meeker
And that kind of segways into another interesting Marcus marketing focus here, too, which is that. You never want to sell your final sale. You sell your next steps. A lot of you know, a lot of companies talk about themselves and then they talk about how they make money and say, hey, do that thing. That makes me money rather than saying, like, for us.
Jamey Meeker
Going back to the relational component of custom software where we say, hey, you have business expertize, we have software, expertize, let’s talk about it and daily figure out the solution to your problems.
Jamey Meeker
Right. It’s a lot. It would be easy to say, hey, pay us for custom software because it does these things.
Jamey Meeker
What we want to sell is the conversation that’s free for everybody. It’s like, hey, if you think you have a need, then we also want to talk to you about that need completely for free. There’s no selling being done. There’s no pressure on either side. And it is the first step that leads to any job opportunity that role model has.
Jamey Meeker
So sell the consultation, not the solution. Right.
Jamey Meeker
I would be doing our potential clients and our company a disservice if I was trying to brag about the solutions we’ve done rather than talk about, hey, this is the process for you to figure out how you need to or to get the information you need to make a wise technology decision.
Luis Camacho
So baby steps essentially.
Jamey Meeker
Absolutely. Absolutely. And you’ll see salesmen do this a lot to where they’ll get somebody on the phone and that person says, yeah, I’m interested. And the salesman gets all excited and is like, oh, that’s awesome. You’re interested. Here are all the things we have to offer and this and this. And you could do this eventually. And then two years later, you’re going to be here. And the person on the other end of the line is like, man, I just said I was interested, like, calm down versus if you’d hung up the phone on the interest point, then you’ve left that that that client potential client interested and excited for the next meeting, which the next meeting you can talk about all the next stuff.
Luis Camacho
Right.
Jamey Meeker
So it’s all about a progression and recognizing the successes at the point you’re at.
Jamey Meeker
Um, yeah. And I don’t like that makes sense.
Luis Camacho
Yeah, yeah, that was good.
Luis Camacho
One of the other things that I believe you brought up was the clarity, right, is a best friend and I really like that.
Luis Camacho
And the other thing that you mentioned is like. To be like concise, like, how do you make sure for like, for example, like when you’re writing an advertisement, obviously this is coming from me, right? Like this is this is what we do. So it’s where I have, like, the best context. I guess you’re running an ad and.
Luis Camacho
It makes a lot of sense to you when you’re writing it right, kind of like when you’re in person to person and in person, you know, communication like, well, right now and I say something, but maybe it doesn’t make complete sense to you.
Luis Camacho
But when I’m, you know, online, I’m like, when you post something, you’re not getting that immediate feedback. I don’t see your your gestures of confusion. I don’t really know what’s going on. So how can you just pull back, write as many words as possible from, you know, all the jargon and all the like, unnecessary words in a sentence or a set of sentences in order to be just as clear as possible so that the other party understands what you’re talking about.
Luis Camacho
And how do you assess whether or not that’s, you know, working?
Jamey Meeker
Yeah, yeah.
Jamey Meeker
That’s always an unanswered question. As you know, as in advertising and marketing. So little.
Jamey Meeker
I have a I’m a musician, I’m a songwriter, I have a band. And so communication and clever lyrics has always been something that I really appreciate in value and in the professional field to that that stays the same.
Jamey Meeker
I love clever. I love ads that an ad that you’re like, man, I never would have thought about that. There was a there was a I can’t remember. It was a dating app commercial that really stood out to me the other day. It was said something like the dating app that was made to be deleted. And I was like, dude, that is such a good you know, that’s clever and it’s effective and simple. Well, I think a lot of marketers pursue cleverness too far, too far.
Jamey Meeker
I mean, they they they go past the point of what Clever provides to grabbing attention, to bringing perspective, and they use it.
Jamey Meeker
Just to try to be that clever and a successful marketer is able to clarify the needs of their client better than the client themselves.
Jamey Meeker
So you win if you can tell the need of somebody better than they could have themselves. Right. You don’t do that by cleverness.
Jamey Meeker
I would much rather you say in three words.
Jamey Meeker
The that conveys the same message that something that made me laugh with two sentences, right, because you have to and especially in the the time stamp were in where everything is around instant gratification and access to you’re bombarded with information all day long. So there’s there’s a very short attention span of your reader.
Jamey Meeker
Right. And so if you’re pursuing cleverness and not clarity, then their attention span will not handle what you’re trying to convey. So especially in a business to business field, tell them what they need to know and leave it at that. And if if it is if they are serious on their journey for a solution, you know, then then they’re going to keep reading as long as they know what you’re offering. So, yeah, clarity is key, I think.
Jamey Meeker
I think for us, it’s been a struggle just because we want to say so many things that we’ve done for people, but yeah, like, hey, we do custom software tailored to your business by collaborating with you.
Jamey Meeker
It’s that simple. Then you know what we do. So the next information will make sense. You’ve actually paid attention rather than skimming past five pages and seeing our company profiles at the end. Right. Right. Yeah.
Luis Camacho
Yeah, I think. Like you said, like like LeBron is like. I’m a sucker for it, too, like when I see a really good ad and a lot of like direct consumer brands are really good at this, I think, especially like the bigger ones, like ones they’ve been like they have the money to hire really good marketers, copywriter, stuff like that.
Luis Camacho
One of my favorite ones that I saw recently was I’m not very familiar with the with the brand manscape. You probably have seen their stuff before. They have some really, really clever stuff out there.
Luis Camacho
And the cool thing right about them is that they’re always like on the edge of violating, you know, like advertising policies on Facebook or Google and stuff like that, because they they have that like I mean, you’re talking about like male grooming rights, like a pretty clever really, really fast.
Luis Camacho
But they’re able to just like be right on the edge and it clicks whenever you see it. And it would be really, really cool if you could see more, you know, B2B companies do that kind of stuff. But also to be concise and I think that’s the hard part, is they’re not able to like. They just don’t. They don’t find ways to be clever, and that’s when they just cram too much information, like try too hard and they just missed the boat.
Jamey Meeker
Yeah, I think that’s a great point, one of the I think one of the things that stands out with the example you gave with Manscape is that the strategy matches the method in that. The their target audience appreciates that side of messaging strategy, right, that that is the M.O. of their target audience, of their client base. And I think a lot of times, you know, talking about the cleverness, again, as marketers forget the medium that they’re working in, it’s like if you’re if if if you’re not daily as a marketer.
Jamey Meeker
Trying to get better at discerning and getting to know your target audience, then you’re failing. For example, I know for a fact that our our our target audience, they’re competent business owners that are aware of the process in their companies and looking for ways to scale and innovate and get better and, you know, get a new opportunity that isn’t currently there. So I know I’m looking for progressive innovators that are competent. I’m not going to go at them with the same strategy.
Jamey Meeker
I would go after millennials for a product company on Instagram. Right. It has to have a certain air of professionalism, naturally. So, naturally so. And that’s what we try to reflect in our message. Right. Because I know that I know that our our target audience don’t have a lot of time because they’re they’re running businesses. So I’m going to value their time and say what I need to say is as quickly and briefly as possible so they can get back to what they need to work at.
Jamey Meeker
Right. Whereas if I was marketing for manscape, I’d let them lead them on a 20 minute rabbit hole and Instagram, where they’re playing a video game and leaving me there, their information at the end of it. Right. So it all takes a different strategy, depending on what what you’re trying to accomplish.
Luis Camacho
And it comes back to what you said earlier. Right. It’s not a one like cookie cutter solution like it’s now or never. And that’s one of the things I like, especially for us, that when new software companies come in and want to work with us, they ask for the Playbook version like that. And the reality is there’s no playbook issues like we’re going to go dove into what you’re doing now and see where our solution is going to be needed and how we’re going to be executing that on the spot.
Luis Camacho
It’s not going to be, oh, we’re going to take the exact same thing we did for these guys and just apply to you guys, because it’s not going to work. And it’s just like it’s unless you’re doing it, unless you guys, for example, were doing custom software for the exact same purpose every single time. You can’t have that cookie cutter solution or like you’re not going after, I don’t know, the the perfect. Use case, right, but you’re not going after know business owners that own like insurance companies every single day.
Luis Camacho
So the software is going to be different every single time.
Jamey Meeker
Yeah, sure, and there you know, there are some solution consistencies between what we do. And a lot of that is reflected in some of the opportunities we’ve had with Lightning Cadd framework, the design solutions we’ve done for different construction companies and things like that, we have a lot of examples in health care, e-commerce. I mean, the list is very large since we’re a custom software company.
Jamey Meeker
Right. But I think I think that’s I think that’s wise when you talk about, you know, clarity and distinguishing yourself between the competition. It’s not it’s not always. Said three words a lot of times, it’s brand positioning, too, and the things that you don’t say, this space, you know, I feel like it’s it’s easy to want to shout at our target. I always go back to the separation of messaging. Like, again, like we talked about face to face communication marketers, man, we have a hard job and trying to anticipate and and address people that we will never meet unless we’re really successful, that we’ll never meet, that will never really get feedback from.
Jamey Meeker
And so you’re ab testing, trying to pull.
Jamey Meeker
People that have made it all the way through your your sales funnel, those are all really important metrics for for marketers. Yeah.
Luis Camacho
All right, Jamie, I feel like we’ve been here for a while and I don’t want to take too much of your time, but that’s all really. I feel like everything that we talked about is very practical. I, like almost any company, can take back these things and try to implement them at some level. Yeah, sure. Appreciate that. A couple of questions. What is let’s see. These are just super random. What’s your favorite movie?
Jamey Meeker
Oh, man, goodness. Catch me if you can with Leonardo DiCaprio. I have watched that movie since I was a little kid. I even emulated his scene where he goes in high school and ends up acting like the substitute teacher. I was in college and was working on the whiteboard after class and other class started coming in and I acted like I taught that class for about 20 minutes before the real professor came in. So that was pretty. I was a good moment in my life, but yeah.
Jamey Meeker
Great movie. Very, very smart man. What was your favorite Spanish dish or. Oh, I mean, Pyo is classic, but my host mom made something called tortilla, which is this potato and egg, basically like pie looking thing is fluffy and had like onions in it. I loved it. We had it like every morning. It was great. That’s awesome.
Luis Camacho
Well, thanks so much, Jamie. Where can people find you online. Yeah.
Jamey Meeker
Luis, thanks for the opportunity. Has been a lot of fun. Yeah. I’m on LinkedIn. Jamie Meeker, the company. Please check us out its role model software dotcom. And then the frameworks we talked about is lightning, cad dotcom and then designer is so docs dot design is the new branch of that. So. Great, thanks so much, Jamie, for that, appreciate it and thank you for the great interview, as a pleasure having you on here.
Luis Camacho
And if you guys have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to Jamie. Hopefully he can get a chance to reply and anything like that that you guys have. And if you’re not already, make sure to join the Facebook group, SaaS AdLab. You can find that and follow me on Twitter, on Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. You can just look for Luis Camacho on there and you’ll find me. But thanks so much, Jimi, for the time again.
Luis Camacho
And we’ll stay in touch.
Jamey Meeker
Yeah, man, thanks for the opportunity to have it going. Thanks. You too. Bye bye.
