Full Transcript for Caleb Rule - Fractional CMO

would argue I fell into. And what I mean by that is wasn't actively searching for it, but like Caleb Rule: 02:35 you alluded to earlier, you know, since 2018, 2019, I've done some on the side, you know, type type of side hustle consulting, often with small businesses or companies where I had knew somebody there, right, in addition to my day job and you know, kept them separate. So 2023, when, when I was impacted, you know, when I was RIF, along with other members of the organization and and some of my team, that, you Caleb Rule: 03:00 know, I kinda leaned into that, you Caleb Rule: 03:02 know, as I was searching for full time work. But then I came across a a part time role that when I looked at it went, you really just need a fractional head of marketing is what they need or fractional CMO, whatever they wanna call it. And that has worked out splendidly. It's been almost a year since I've worked with, with that client. And so I would I would say, you know, long answer to a a yes, you know, a great answer, I guess. Caleb Rule: 03:24 But I'm I'm certainly incredibly thankful, because, you know, now the plate is full and that is a nice place to be. It's also a privileged place to be in some ways. I went nine and a half months without it, right, where the bank accounts are dwindling, and going down, and that you're not sure where the next paycheck is coming from if at all or what you have is not nearly enough, and so things are just in in the red. But it has been, you know, a a a pretty chaotic 2024, but I would say a a healthy one as well, as I learn a whole lot of new things about how I like to work, what I like to do, and maybe just running into some things where it goes, oh, I thought I liked that, but maybe I don't anymore, as well. Stephen Maher: 04:04 Yeah. And so it sounds like for the past year or so, you've been going through a process of self discovery. Would you would you say that's accurate? Caleb Rule: 04:13 I I think it's forced upon you whether you would like it or not. Yeah. Yeah. Stephen Maher: 04:17 Sink or swim. Right? Caleb Rule: 04:18 It it is, because it is different for many people. I mean, I've never done this full time or hadn't, but previously, I've done it as an on the side. So it was an addition, not the main course, if you will, to get to kind of what I did from an everyday basis. And so there is an element of being my own boss, where where that's interesting, but it's also terrifying. But there is a lot of things where you go, for instance, I'll give an example where it like for instance, emotional regulation. Caleb Rule: 04:45 Now it's gonna sound like it's off the left field. When you're in just a full time role, it can be easier maybe to mask it. But for instance, if you're fractional consulting, you have 2 or 3 clients, you're switch tasking so much, all of a sudden you can go, wait, I need to step back and pause and evaluate myself. And maybe that has to be that's just something that I've learned over the

last 6 months is going, okay, I need to take 5 minutes to go. Where am I right now? Caleb Rule: 05:06 Like physically, mentally, everything. Am I in the place to actually be productive? Because sometimes the answer is no, and it's a lot harder to mask that or to work through that when you're switch tasking back and forth between all sorts of chaos versus maybe, holding one role, we're able to just kind of try to lock in, because there's a little bit less noise. Stephen Maher: 05:26 Absolutely. So how do you navigate that when it comes to setting up your day and protecting your time and your attention? Caleb Rule: 05:33 Yeah. This is this is something I've had to kind of fail forward at a little bit just to be candid. I do time block some, on my calendar. For instance, one client I work on first few hours in the morning, another client I work usually in the afternoon. I do sometimes work late at night and that's usually when I'm catching up. Caleb Rule: 05:52 It's usually for one of the clients that just tends to be a little bit more hours than the other. And that's the agreement that I have. I have a couple of other clients as well that don't take up as much time, but but it wants more advisory and one is, a little bit more hands on, but it's a small business and I I like working with them. So it's not too much lift. So I have established days kind of when I'm gonna, like, really dive into that necessarily. Caleb Rule: 06:12 And so time blocking has been, and really owning my calendar has been huge as a part of that. But I will say giving myself some flexibility as well. One thing I've tried to do is take Wednesdays off when the schedule allows. Sometimes I need to be on a meeting or I need to work on some stuff like Wednesday afternoon. But Wednesday mornings, I've been I have fought really hard to try to block that time. Caleb Rule: 06:32 In fact, this week, I, I was playing pickleball for about 3 hours. I just needed that physical release, just focus on whacking the ball. I used to be a high level player, not so much anymore. But, but but just getting into that and just your mind is focused on one thing, you're getting the physical activity release, as well. And I found that really recharges me as an extrovert to kind of go be around non family people, as well. Caleb Rule: 06:56 But everybody, you know, of course, has it a little bit differently. But fighting for that time is something that you really have to do, and it is something where you kind of are forced into being very good with your own discipline. Stephen Maher: 07:08 I really resonate with that where if you don't prioritize your time, no one else will. Right? As well as getting out of your head, getting into your body, getting out from behind the screen, and and coming back to it to find that you're recharged. You know, I I really, really identify with that. So when you're working with all these organizations, when you come into a new organization, what are the first things

you're looking for in terms of improving their marketing? Stephen Maher: 07:33 You know, what are you trying to see? Caleb Rule: 07:35 Sure. I I think it largely depends on how discovery went. Right? Because if if they've signed on with me, then we've had some conversations and some candor. I'm I'm a I'm a straightforward person. Caleb Rule: 07:45 I'm I don't do b s. I mean, it just it just doesn't work. I can't lie very well anyway. As my wife of almost 12 years and my children will tell you. I can't get away with anything in this house. Caleb Rule: 07:55 So, Stephen Maher: 07:56 It's easier to tell the truth. Caleb Rule: 07:58 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is. And sometimes that means, hey, I can't work on that. Or sometimes I'm not the right fit to handle this. Caleb Rule: 08:04 I would need to pull somebody in. You know, knowing your weaknesses as well is is is a big, I think, superpower that a lot of of maybe fractional folks don't have yet is we're going, okay. I'm really strong here, but I'm really weak over here and I need to have a digital Rolodex of people I can I can call in? But those first 30 to 60 days, there are a couple of things that I want to establish. Number 1, are my expectations properly aligned? Caleb Rule: 08:27 And what I mean by that is those discovery calls, sure, we're talking about what are your business goals? What are your business objectives? What are you doing that's working and not working? Is what I'm told actually accurate? Now it's not to say somebody is maliciously lying. Caleb Rule: 08:40 They may Caleb Rule: 08:41 just not know. Or maybe talking to a CEO, they're not in charge of marketing, or maybe it's a company that's never had somebody who's dedicated to marketing or they had a bad experience as one of my clients did. I couldn't even get into their Google Ads account. Person wouldn't give us access. Right? Caleb Rule: 08:56 So we found out pretty quickly things were not quite what they seemed for 1, for one account. And so I don't wanna go in saying I have answers. I'm going in saying I have questions, but that's it. I know nothing. I might have some some research. Caleb Rule: 09:11 I might have worked in the industry before. I know best practices, I know, but we need to tailor those specifically to what works. And then that first 30 days is really what is working, what is not working, and where's the fire alarm going off. And then we need to start from there. For instance, one of one of my clients, they use Pipedrive as their CRM, which I never worked with before. Caleb Rule: 09:30 But after about 2 weeks of digging, I went, we have a massive problem here. There's literally no visibility into what people are doing and absolutely no visibility into marketing impact on pipeline, which it's a short sales cycle. Last touch attribution works fine for them. So that that does work okay based on their sales cycles. So that was the red alarm fire. Caleb Rule: 09:49 We have to start here because if I do something well and we can't, I can't tell you what's working, I I'm doomed. Right? And eventually we've been able to determine, hey, marketing's had like a, you know, a positive 36% ROI for one of their target markets in the last quarter, for instance. Why? Because we did the work initially to be able to set up then some of the other stuff. Stephen Maher: 10:10 Awesome. So it sounds like for that first 30 to 60 days, you're playing detective. Right? So after that, you get a good base, you find out what's working, what's not. What are the next steps for that 2 to 6 month range? Caleb Rule: 10:22 Yeah. The quick wins, you know, every everybody talks about, how, you know, like, if you're a new CMO, or if you're new anything, you wanna identify those quick wins so that in the 1st 30 to 45 days, you can say, look what I've already done. That is absolutely true because what a client wants to to hear is they wanna hear progress. Right? Hey. Caleb Rule: 10:40 I'm paying you to make progress. Are you actually making progress? I don't want a plan. I don't want a concept of a plan. I don't want some some, you know, broad based whatever. Caleb Rule: 10:49 I want to see, okay, concept turning into application. So for instance, okay, Pipedrive. We have some reporting in place. We identified that and we had what's the way forward, for that as well. Okay. Caleb Rule: 11:02 How does marketing start showing? How do we get UTM tracking, for instance, from ads into Pipedrive? Not as easy as you would think, especially when they have a Squarespace site. So iframes and Ofun stuff. Okay. Caleb Rule: 11:14 But here here's how we're gonna do it. Here's how we're testing it. Here's how we're gonna get it in there. And then here's the reports that are gonna start to populate because of that. So the framework was built. Caleb Rule: 11:22 Now I had to rebuild their Google ecosystem from scratch pretty quickly because we didn't have access to any of that because the previous vendor did not play by the rules. So that was a pretty easy win for that one. But you know, if I think about my other client, major fractional, you know, client, it's it's a little bit different. The first thing that we identified there was messaging. We have a problem because we sound like literally everybody else. Caleb Rule: 11:45 And that's that's frequently the case. But okay. Within the 1st 30 days, I'd interviewed multiple people, including a couple of customers. Why us? Why do why how are we actually different? Caleb Rule: 11:55 And don't give me generic answers like our people. Sorry. That's what everybody says. You're wrong. Stephen Maher: 12:00 Yep. Caleb Rule: 12:00 But we identified a couple of core differentiators, built another one that went, oh, wait. We should be doing this as well. We've we've thought about it. Now's the time to do it. And we started to roll that out in places like the website homepage and start some ad copy, etcetera. Caleb Rule: 12:13 That's a win. And

that's also foundational to, okay, we're doing this now, but here's why we're doing it and here's what we're going to do to build on that. So it shows that, yes, you're doing stuff, but it's also part of a concrete plan. Stephen Maher: 12:26 Amazing. So you mentioned customers. How do you go about building a customer centric mindset, building empathy for a customer? Caleb Rule: 12:34 Yeah. That's that's huge, isn't it? Because if marketing doesn't understand the customer, you're not aligned with sales, number 1. So you're you're gonna drive some some misalignment there. But also number 2, when we think about how buyers buy, the buyer is in control. Caleb Rule: 12:50 We as marketers have to put ourselves in the buyer's shoes at every step of the journey. Would I want this? Would I want to read this sales email that Marketing Crafted for the sales reps? The answer is often no. If we're honest as well, we've all done it. Caleb Rule: 13:04 I absolutely have done it where I go, you know, 3 years ago me, bad bad you. You know? Yeah. We all do that. If you can, obviously, interviewing some customers is helpful. Caleb Rule: 13:16 For one client, that's worked. We also had a case study and testimonial gap, if you will. A lot of unnamed or anonymous, which doesn't go anywhere. So, you know, we were both ending with that. Like, hey, I'd love to hear why you chose us, why you continue to use us, what's working well, and then we can try to distill that into a named testimonial. Caleb Rule: 13:36 And that's worked well. And that's helped me understand going back to the messaging. Hey. Okay. This messaging is actually on point, or, oh, this isn't quite right, actually. Caleb Rule: 13:45 This doesn't match what our customers are saying now, so we need to revise this a little bit. For one of my clients, I can't. Just the nature of the business, it doesn't really make sense for me to be speaking with the customers, but it's much more transactional in terms of the buying process. But the sales reps are are talking with them and the director of operations is talking with them. It's a service provider on, the client's location. Caleb Rule: 14:08 And so I I'm talking with them on the regular going, okay. What are customers saying? And here, we need to be getting reviews. That's a huge one. And if we're not getting reviews, why not? Caleb Rule: 14:19 And and just asking them that. And sometimes the answer is we haven't asked for it. Okay. Well, here's your email. Go go ask for it. Caleb Rule: 14:27 Yeah. But sometimes it is a we have a problem. Okay. What happened? You know, and and and something like that. Caleb Rule: 14:31 But that's also helped inform how we talk about ourselves. So all that to say, you know, how do you develop a customer centric mentality? Look at your stuff and say, okay. If I'm a buyer, does this resonate? You can use tools like ChatGPT or something to help you. Caleb Rule: 14:50 Although there is art and science to this, it's not all

science. You can't just date data mind this. You have to look at this and go, does this actually work? And sometimes you have to ask friends. Like I'm in a a B2B marketing community and I have sometimes asked for feedback and sometimes I go, Oh, thought I hit the mark and I completely missed it Because I had an outside, you know, somebody I trusted in our community to kinda come in and say, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Caleb Rule: 15:13 What are you doing? And so that is that is helpful as well. Stephen Maher: 15:17 Yeah. How do you get that alignment between marketing and sales to really make sure that customers are coming in and bringing in revenue? Caleb Rule: 15:26 1st off, I talk with them. I mean, it is amazing to me from from working in different consultant, you know, consulting shops and and interfacing with many clients both, you know, half a $1,000,000,000, to less than a1000000. It is amazing to me how often marketing and sales don't actually get in a virtual conference room and talk to this day. And that's the starting point because and I position marketing as, hey, sales. I'm your number one fan. Caleb Rule: 15:58 If you aren't successful, I will never be successful because I don't close the deal. I'm impacting maybe 80 to 90% of their buying journey, depending on the industry, depending on on the product or service offer. Maybe it's less, maybe it's more. Again, just depends. But your 10% or 20% or whatever is going to be, a, very, very visible on pipeline and revenue numbers, b, easy to attribute, and c, I can have the best marketing in the world, but if you fail, I fail because I won't get the close. Caleb Rule: 16:29 And we as a business fail. So aligning with sales, building that rapport. And when I say that, sometimes you see shoulders drop, you see body language go, okay. This is not an adversary. This is not somebody coming in from marketing telling me how to do my job in sales. Caleb Rule: 16:45 And it's not. It is complimentary and it has to be. And so once we start talking like that, then we're going, okay. From your vantage point, your conversations, what's working? What's not working? Caleb Rule: 16:57 How can I help make your job easier? Gonna pause there because that might rub some people the wrong way, but there are sales led motions for a reason and marketing has to help complement that. Doesn't mean marketing is a is an order taker, and I don't position myself that way. And sometimes I say no. Hey, sales, that's a good idea, but I don't think that fits what we're doing and here's why. Caleb Rule: 17:18 But again, communicating that we are on the same team and saying, okay. I am hey. Marketing is doing this, this, and this, and here's how it's going to help you as a seller. Consistently messaging that internally, I have found has really helped build that rapport and that trust, and it's allowed us to try some new things. For instance, we are investing heavily in direct mail for 1 client right now.

Caleb Rule: 17:43 And I'm working hand in hand with sales to develop, okay, 2 different markets, 2 different reps. And we're saying, hey, once we mail them, then what? We may have some automated cadences. They've never done that before. We're pulling in data from a data provider. Caleb Rule: 17:56 They've never done that before. It's usually been manual. And then how are we calling and emailing and and being consistent in the follow-up with the right message, as well? We've never done that before as a company. They just haven't had that. Caleb Rule: 18:09 But without sales, you know, they're the ones doing the work. If I don't have their input, this is dead on arrival. Stephen Maher: 18:16 Yeah. Yeah. With that marriage between marketing and sales, right, is there any piece that I'm missing? Is there anything that you would also wanna let people know about that you think is also important? Caleb Rule: 18:30 I think reporting and reporting is a sticky topic with marketing. You know, attribution is dead. Attribution, dark funnel attribution. You have to have something to go to bat with. Attribute, you know, and you could go there's a 45 hour long conversation that I'm sure we could have. Caleb Rule: 18:50 And LinkedIn has debated this ad nauseam to this point, I would say, but sales has reporting. What are 2 to 3 reports that marketing can also align to? Now I'm not saying be held accountable to necessarily, but I'll give you an example. So for one client, short sales cycles and there are appointments that are being set because the rep has to go on-site to the client. Okay. Caleb Rule: 19:12 So we understand that a deal is in pipeline once an appointment is scheduled, we have communicated what those deal stages are. We're in agreement marketing and sales are on those. The report that I'm looking at along with them is what are the conversion rates between stages. Right now, you could apply this to lead, MQL, sales accepted lead, sales qualified lead, something like that. Right? Caleb Rule: 19:34 Depending on if you're you're a bigger organization. And this one's, you know, less than 5,000,000 at this point in time. But what's the reporting of, okay, how are how are leads moving through the funnel and really visibility into the entire lead to cash process? Okay. How are leads that marketing is involved with, are those actually turning into sales opportunities and are those opportunities actually closing? Caleb Rule: 20:00 That's what salespeople care about. Am I getting paid or am I getting fired? You know, I mean, to be that's their job. But so we need to align to that. A lot of organizations, big and small, marketing does not still to this day have visibility into the entire lead to cash process. Caleb Rule: 20:17 I've I've seen a recent organization where marketing has leads in the database and then they're out. They're words. I went, that can't continue because then how do you know if you're marketing on the right stuff? That's that's quite more prevalent than LinkedIn, might have you you know, LinkedIn marketers might have you thinking because it varies by industry. Stephen Maher: 20:38 So it seems like there's just a lot of issues with communication, and you come in and you serve as a conduit for effective communication between departments. Right? Would you say that's accurate? Caleb Rule: 20:52 I'd say that's part of it. How and what you're communicating also matter. For instance, if marketing is communicating, hey, we just did this list of stuff, then that may not build a relationship. That may just position marketing as an order taker and a doer. Right? Caleb Rule: 21:06 Hey, we did stuff. Okay. You did stuff. Great. I guess. Caleb Rule: 21:09 I guess that's why I pay you. But I don't understand how marketing is a strategic revenue driver. How is what you're doing contributing to the bottom line? So I think what you're communicating matters, what you're framing it around. That's why some of those reporting, hey. Caleb Rule: 21:23 These these are good reports to be talking to and framing some of our discussions from a marketing and sales perspective, I think is is is vital. And then also, are you inviting collaboration and are you collaborating with sales? Is sales welcoming you onto customer calls or or at least hearing recordings, steps like this. Sometimes it doesn't work and, you know, sometimes that that's not the only thing you can do. But understanding, hey. Caleb Rule: 21:49 You know, we have to work together. And usually, it's marketing that has to kinda fight for this to kind of pull themselves in much more with sales. But those are the conversations that need to happen and really demonstrating the why. Hey, we're trying to align to the bottom line goals. The goal is, you know, our business objective is we wanna grow by 25%. Caleb Rule: 22:07 Here's what this conversation is now going to tie back to that. And if you keep tying marketing and what we're talking about and what we're doing back to that overarching goal, it it kind of paves the way naturally for a lot more alignment because, you know, any salesperson's gonna go, marketing's on my side. Stephen Maher: 22:25 So that was fantastic. The organizations you work with are definitely lucky to have you. But as an individual, right, what are you doing to find work? Is it word-of-mouth? Are you actively searching for work? Stephen Maher: 22:35 What are you doing to keep your plate full again as an individual? Caleb Rule: 22:39 Yeah. No. That's a great question. So and the plate is full, thankfully, at the moment. It it's been a mix. Caleb Rule: 22:45 I will say the first client that I found was actually on my job board. I realized lots of people like to say, it's all about who you know. It's not, you know, it's often not. I put in an application and and just it was a part time role. I got a little lucky because they phrased it incorrectly. Caleb Rule: 23:02 They were looking for a fractional head of

marketing, but they said something like a business analyst. But I got matched to it because the job description was okay. I read it and I went, They they they have the wrong title. And I saw there weren't many applicants, so I went, let me let me reach out to them. And that worked out. Caleb Rule: 23:18 Another one of my clients I have because I worked with someone there previously. Their CEO, had been my CRO at a previous stop, had advocated for me to be promoted. And so he said, Hey, would you be interested in working together? And I said, Absolutely. Because really respect and like who he is and, was excited for that. Caleb Rule: 23:36 A third client I have was a referral. Somebody I had previously worked with, knew somebody who had a need, had really needed some marketing help. And this is over a year ago when that referral came in. So So I guess there is a who you know aspect to that, to be fair, not my biggest clients, necessarily. It is it's easy to try to be prescriptive. Caleb Rule: 23:56 But I don't know if I have a good prescription, because it has been so different. I think a couple of big things, you know, take away from it that I do are number 1, people that I've worked with regard me well, which I'm appreciated, you know, I'm grateful for that. That's not to toot my own horn, but it hates a couple of them have reached back out to me. And I had no idea that these opportunities are out there, right? There's so much we don't know. Caleb Rule: 24:23 And so do good actually does, you know, occasionally does does pay it back. Try to be helpful. But don't be afraid to also, okay, look at things a little differently. If you're looking for full time work or if you're looking for fractional work, maybe look up part time jobs, maybe look up full time jobs that where you look at that and you go, okay, that's not quite what they need. Let me try to pitch something else. Caleb Rule: 24:41 Have you considered this? I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying it's scalable. You have to very much pick and choose your battles. And I would say a third component is, what communities are you involved in? Caleb Rule: 24:53 What groups are you do you actually have report in? Like, I'm in a B2B marketing community, I'm active there. I just try to help. Don't try to sell something, you know, you could put it in your profile, but just be a good human and, you build a good reputation. And I have found that in these tighter knit communities, good things do eventually come your way, but it can take time. Caleb Rule: 25:12 And that's the challenge. Stephen Maher: 25:14 Absolutely. Yeah. Staying afloat while your reputation is being built. You know, is it working for someone in the meantime while you're building your business? There's many ways to walk that path, but it is difficult, and it depends on your circumstances, I guess. Stephen Maher: 25:29 Right? So for these smaller organizations, with everything you know, with everything you're seeing, what are some things to keep in mind as we go into 2025? What do you recommend for a smaller organization? Caleb Rule: 25:42 So I would start with well, we'll start with the elephant in the room, which is, AI. Because everybody is wondering, what can I get out of AI? Have a point of view. I don't care what your point of view is. Your point of view may significantly differ from what mine is. Caleb Rule: 25:59 Mine, and I have stated this on LinkedIn a few times, it's just that I think there's a lot of concept and not a lot of application. I think there's a lot of lack of application right now. I have found some, for instance, coding, Excel work, especially. I'm not an Excel wizard, but Chat GPT makes me look a whole lot smarter than I am in a spreadsheet. I'm gonna do this, this, this, this, and this. Caleb Rule: 26:19 Oh. Oh, oh, that's a novel formula. Okay. Let me try it. Oh, it worked. Caleb Rule: 26:24 You know, 10 seconds, chat GPT spit that out. Great. That would have taken me I don't know how many hours. I never would have gotten there. So those are just a couple of applications where that that can make sense. Caleb Rule: 26:34 So I'm preaching caution, cautious optimism, but also when we evaluate AI's applications within our business, what's actually feasible? Do we have the bandwidth for this, especially for a smaller organization? The answer is often no Cause you're already struggling to do some basic stuff sometimes. Like maybe you maybe that you've never done brand marketing before and now you're just leaning into that. Well, if your buying cycle is 1 to 3 years, you need to master that first before you try to AI anything. Caleb Rule: 27:03 Because AI is just gonna distract you from, okay, what's the foundational marketing elements that we still do not have in place today? So I I would say have a point of view and also understand, okay, are there areas of opportunity and are are the resourcing, you know, around that possible? I would say the second and when looking at 20 you know, when looking at the next year's budget and how trends are going, understanding how buyers buy and how your buyers buy, everybody just rolled their eyes and went, no. Duh. But do you actually understand on average how long it takes? Caleb Rule: 27:38 I'm not saying how many impressions. I think some of that data is, not reliable that's in the market right now, you know, claiming x when there's no statistical analysis around you know, real statistical analysis. But we know that the buyer is in control. So what triggers a buyer to go from I'm not in market to I'm actually in market? There's some research around 595 rule, that that's a good starting point for some of this. Caleb Rule: 28:04 And then are we positioned as a company to answer some of those questions and to pop up in someone's news feed when they have that problem or when they're looking for those topics or when they're interested in learning more? We don't control what buyers do. And so we cannot pull a lever to magically create demand. We cannot pull a lever to magically create leads that are valid or relevant to sales. So there I think there's a there I'm seeing a shift in the market and marketing in general, much more towards brand marketing. Caleb Rule: 28:37 There's content, there's events, there's podcast appearances, there's all sorts of things. But understanding how are we going to put a portion of our budget, a good portion of our marketing budget towards getting in the market, making them aware that we exist and building that trust, and being able to explain that internally to key decision makers who hold the budget strings as to why that matters, I think that's huge. And somebody who cannot who understands that the brand marketing matters, but can't tie that back to, hey, here's why it's gonna gonna leverage growth. Like one of my clients has a 1 to 3 year sales cycle. It's just it's 5 to 6 figure deals for an ACV. Caleb Rule: 29:16 So what we do today is not going to drive a lead tomorrow, but this time next year, probably, especially knowing seasonality and how how that impacts. So what we're doing now, here's why we're doing it. For instance, video content. We're leading heavily into that. Why? Caleb Rule: 29:28 Because we have none to start with. But number 2, we can repurpose that into articles, into social posts that we can then put in campaigns, etcetera, etcetera. That's brand marketing. That's not gonna drive a lead itself, but we have a market awareness problem for that client. And so that's where it's positioned. Caleb Rule: 29:43 If the market becomes aware of who we are, we're much, much more likely to start getting deals this time next year. Stephen Maher: 29:49 Caleb, thank you so much for joining us today. I really, really appreciate your insight and your expertise. If anyone wants to find out more about you, where can they reach out to you to stay in touch? Caleb Rule: 29:59 LinkedIn is probably the best place. You're always welcome to send me your, your best dad joke or I'm happy to chat chess, pickleball, or Formula 1 or pretty much anything else. I'm I'm I'm pretty loose guy. I I write how I talk as well. So if you'd like people who write with parentheses for side thoughts and tangents in in text form, I'm your guy. Caleb Rule: 30:17 So that's probably the best place to reach me. Calebruhl.com is a place you can check some stuff out, as well. But LinkedIn is the one social place that I'm active, at least externally. So feel free to say hello. I promise I'm friendly, or at least I try to be. Caleb Rule: 30:30 And, always happy to try to be a resource as well. Not selling anything, but if I can help, come say hi. Stephen Maher: 30:37 Amazing. Well, Caleb, thank you so much for being a guest on Fractional Hustle. We hope to see you next time, folks. Thank you. Caleb Rule: 30:43 Thanks so much, Steve.