Allison Myers (00:02)
What is your point of view? Everyone's posting something, but how are you saying something that's different?
How are you saying something that's authentic to you, who you are? There's only one you, only one you that's had your experiences, your experiences at work, your personal experiences, your education, your smarts, your God given talents, whatever those may be. Again, I think your superpowers come from those, but share what you believe, share what you've learned. even if it's some of its lessons,
Benjamin Ard (00:55)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Allison. Allison, welcome to the show.
Allison Myers (01:00)
Thanks for
me. It's exciting to be here and to hear and discuss some fun things in marketing.
Benjamin Ard (01:05)
Yeah, Allison, I'm excited. I think this is a subject that a lot of marketers, especially B2B marketers need to hear. Allison, you're an expert in this field. You've spent all sorts of cool time doing this stuff here. But before we dive into the actual subject, let's let the audience get to know you. If you don't mind sharing a little bit about your background, work history, all that kind of fun stuff, to know you.
Allison Myers (01:22)
Love to, love to. Well,
I am Allison Myers. I am the Director of Marketing and Communications at Feeve Interlogistics Court.
in Louisville, Kentucky, we are really, we really help move your stuff. So interlogistics think moving things inside of a building. So conveyor systems, sorters that help move things and sort them to make sure that they get to your place. So for example, if you're ordering from a parcel postal e-com, think Amazon, UPS, FedEx, we have something to do with that. So we're a part of that supply chain to make sure that it gets to your door. So it's a lot of fun.
been doing that for about five years, but I've been doing marketing much longer than that. I graduated in 2000 from Indiana University, go IU football team was amazing this it was incredible year. And the focus there really was, I got a business degree with a concentration in marketing. And I've really kind of used that through my whole 25 year career. If you can believe, well, it's going to be 26 coming up in May, but don't tell anybody. Uh, so we've been doing that.
Benjamin Ard (02:09)
It was an incredible year for sure.
Allison Myers (02:26)
product management as well because I think a lot of times marketers can have a lot to do with launching products, helping develop them, understanding voice of the customer. And I've done a lot of fun things from branding and special events for companies that have been manufacturers of stretch wrapping equipment. I worked at GE Appliances for a while. So I've done a little bit of everything, but mostly around OEMs and manufacturing of goods, products, things that really help hopefully improve
your life. So love working at Feev, got a really cool purple Feev color that we have as our brand believe it or not so that's fun to do and just glad to talk about B2B marketing and helping people discover and find their superpower.
Benjamin Ard (03:09)
love it. That's so cool. And I love that you also have a B2B brand that has such a bold color. I feel like B2B, we use all those toned down, like really earthy tones and all that kind of stuff. It's fun to see it. That's so cool.
Allison Myers (03:13)
It is.
It is a blessing.
Yeah, it
is definitely different when everybody around us is red or...
blue, lots of blues or green. And we come in with this bright purple and people don't expect it in ways, right? So it's, you know, sorting equipment that's in a distribution center or in a big warehouse or something like that, a big conveyor system. And then there's this company with this big bright purple. But I can tell you with branding is a huge opportunity to help you stand out and be unique. So you really got to use whatever set that you're given. And I happen to be given a really, a really cool color.
Benjamin Ard (03:56)
That's amazing. love that. Well, that's perfectly a great segue into what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about your personal brand and all sorts of fun stuff in that space. And I love like the bright colors and how that kind of all plays into it. So the actual title that we kind of emailed back and forth on for everyone listening is leveraging your superpower to build a standout brand and team. So superpower, that's kind of the key of everything going on.
How do marketers identify what they actually do best? Like really inherently say, this is my superpower.
Allison Myers (04:30)
Well, what I'd like to start with, and I've said this to many people because I feel like that helped me be really good at my job, was like, what am I really good at? How do I bring value to the company that I'm working for or the team that I belong to? And if we're marketers, we've probably taken some statistics, right? And you probably need to look at by looking at patterns and not job titles. And what I mean by that is job descriptions are broad and your superpower really shows up in what you do.
every day consistently and what do people consistently come to you for? So when they're coming to your door, what are they asking you about? What are they questioning you? You know, there's like I think like three simple questions you can say, what problems do people trust you with and when it really matters, right? So like if things are going on and someone comes to you and there's a problem, what do they trust you with? Figure out what that is. Two, what types
of work energizes you. Like what do really get super jazzed about? You're like, I love this so much. know, even even when it's hard, you're having a bad day. You have so many deadlines, you're dead tired, but you're super stoked about this project or whatever process or something you're a part of. So what really gets you going? Excited to get to work, get you up in the morning. And then three, think really what helped me was when do you reliably move the needle for yourself, for your company, for the goals that you're
trying to achieve in business or your personal goals, like when are you actually contributing to that movement? And then I think that that's when it's like super clear, okay, this is what I'm really good at and this is what I call your superpower.
And for me, it's really my superpower became really clear when I realized it wasn't just doing marketing, because I love you, we're like, anybody can do marketing. It was really connecting those dots between the strategy that my company was trying to put forth and the goals and the objectives, and then the execution. So really connecting leadership and the teams in between the technology that we have and the storytelling of that for customers so they can connect to it.
once you see that pattern, everything else I feel kind of aligns, you're like, okay, I've got it.
Benjamin Ard (06:40)
I love that. That's so cool. So I love the framework for finding our own superpowers and really kind of internalizing that building that into a personal brand. How do we bring that to the table at work? I mean, obviously outside of like, this is what I'm good at. How do we bring like a professional, a professional brand and a personal brand combine those together and actually make some goodness out of it?
Allison Myers (07:04)
So
if you follow me on LinkedIn, which I urge you to do, not a plug, by no means, I do feel like I can kind of demonstrate some of that better than just telling you.
Benjamin Ard (07:10)
we'll link to your profile. Believe me. It's plugs are allowed. This is great.
Allison Myers (07:18)
It is finding a way that you can blend the two together without the lines getting blurry, right? I actually think that the line should be thin, but intentional. You gotta be very intentional about what you do. So if you go to my LinkedIn page, you're gonna see me in a lot of Feev Purple. You're gonna see me wearing the brand because people automatically connect, hey, that's Feev. She's the marketing lady from Feev. Or they think of my company.
But at the same time, I still share personal things. Like even today, we had a chili cook-off and I'm showing you my white chicken chili and I'm in that because I'm showing you a culture of like what's it like to work at Feev? What's it like to be an employee here? So you can feel the culture, not just about the technology, right? So I'm not telling you, it shouldn't be oversharing your life, right? It's not Facebook, it's LinkedIn. So there's a difference. Again, it's a thin line, but it's very intentional.
I'm showing you how I think and what values I have and how I'm making decisions on what I'm working on or what's important to me. It's really kind of a view of my lens of my viewpoint of what's going on in my world without oversharing. And I think if you do those things consistent, your professional brand gets stronger, not weaker.
And I am even having from times these conversations with people in our space and they're saying, but I don't feel comfortable posting. don't, you know, this isn't Facebook. This isn't TikTok. And I'm like, no, it isn't. It's LinkedIn, but people build trust. So what you're trying to do is they buy from people that they trust. They want to connect and create relationships with people that they trust. And that's what we're doing as marketers, right? We're trying to connect people.
Again, it's connecting the dots. So I feel like my superpower is connection. And doing that, that's one way I do it, is through having this brand awareness, both for my personal brand as well as the company. And I really think that the key is asking, does this reinforce trust and credibility? And if the answer is yes, then it belongs on your page and you should do it. And it doesn't have to be...
I'm just showing chili cook off a lot of times when I'm traveling to go to events because I want you to come to my booth. I do a lot of trade shows and lot of events. I show my luggage and I put pictures up and it's a FeeV purple luggage in my backpack that has the FeeV logo on it. And I say, hey, I've just landed in Dallas. You're going to be at the IBC annual conference. I hope to connect with you. I can't tell you how many people reach out and say, awesome, I'd love to grab lunch. I'd
I'd love to stop by your booth. Let's go do dinner. Is your team going to be there? Is your CEO? And that just builds a community. And that's what social media is about, you guys. It's just so, yes, you can have fun and do cool things B2B-wise. And authentic doesn't mean it has to be unfiltered. It just means it needs to be aligned.
Benjamin Ard (10:13)
I like
that. I think that's really cool. And I love the framework here again. But you know, I feel like you've got a lot of great frameworks questions you ask yourself to know, should I publish this? Is this appropriate for my brand? Things like that. So you talked a lot about it just barely, but I want to kind of double click into this idea of it feels like with artificial intelligence, there's a lot of noise and a lot of content, a lot of material.
Allison Myers (10:21)
Right.
Benjamin Ard (10:38)
Not just on LinkedIn, but everywhere. mean, the ability to create content is faster than it's ever been before. It's getting creepily like really polished and all sorts of stuff because of AI. So with the noise, how does your superpower, your brand, what do you do with those things to cut through that noise and actually make an impact where people have a billion pieces of content they can listen to read or watch every single day.
Allison Myers (10:54)
Right.
Boy, isn't that a challenge and a huge question to ask. It's not easily done, but it can be done. And just because it's hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try and doesn't mean we can't be successful. So how to stand out and there's so much stuff and so much content. A lot of times AI is getting better. I cringe sometimes when I see AI pictures and things out there as a marketer and someone, especially that has,
if you have any kind of graphics background and you're like, we could do that better. It's great though. I mean, it is helping create people the ability to do their own and create their own voice. I think the most important thing that you can do for yourself is take a step back and find out your point of view over the present. So everyone's posting. Very few are saying anything very distinct.
So let me say that again.
What is your point of view? Everyone's posting something, but how are you saying something that's different?
How are you saying something that's authentic to you, who you are? There's only one you, only one you that's had your experiences, your experiences at work, your personal experiences, your education, your smarts, your God given talents, whatever those may be. Again, I think your superpowers come from those, but share what you believe, share what you've learned. even if it's some of its lessons,
if it's you learned it the hard way and here's what you learned to have a friend that posts and sometimes he shares like he's
he does a lot of selling and he shares like some of the cells that didn't go the right way and training that he didn't execute very well and sharing those things. think that's very authentic to him. And so that's what you know, and you can share what you would do different, what you do now versus what you did five years ago.
It's incredible, the journey that I've been on just professionally myself. I graduated from college in 2000. Do you realize that Google was 1998? It was only two years living when I graduated, two years around when I graduated in 2000. There were no social media platforms. There was no AI, but yet I have a vibrant.
career, a professional career because of the experiences that I've had through this. You gotta keep learning. You gotta be open. You can't be closed off. You gotta be an adult learner. And then I think the other important thing is help you stand out is really consistency beats being clever.
Everybody wants that viral moment and that's hard to come by. So don't chase after, you know, a big viral TikTok moment. I love when people come and say, let's have a TikTok moment. Let's go viral. And I'm like, that's cute. You don't need to be loud. You just need to be recognizable. Bright purple.
When people can predict the value that you're going to bring, you're going to stand out naturally. You don't have to work as hard if you put the work in first to really understand your point of view, who you are, what value you bring, what your voice is. People are going to flock to you. going to find your, you're right, you kind of find your tribe, so to speak. think that's still inherent to people, to find people that are like-minded, to find people that they're learning from, that they find interesting. So that's how you do it.
it by being super clever. You don't do it by being the loudest, but you do it by being you.
Benjamin Ard (14:16)
Okay, there's so many things in that that I really, really enjoy. And I love this last part. This is something that I've thought a lot about lately, the whole idea of finding your tribe, being authentic to yourself. It really does attract the kind of people that you want to be around. And honestly, it pushes other people away in a healthy and productive way where they're searching for their tribe and you realize that it's just, you know, it's not there. You know, the, you know, the attraction isn't there. You're not gravitating towards the people.
Allison Myers (14:17)
you
Benjamin Ard (14:44)
But there's something interesting you mentioned as we were kind of going back and forth. When you find your superpower, you find your tribe, find your people. It tends to be a little bit of an echo chamber. It tends to be a lot of like people with the same strengths and the same weaknesses. So how do you use this concept of finding superpowers to help fill in the gaps where maybe your superpowers don't exist?
fill in the blind spots to make you a more route like well-rounded person. What do you do here from a hiring perspective, from surrounding yourself with people? What does that look like and how do we kind of take that superpower to the next level by knowing where we have gaps?
Allison Myers (15:21)
What an awesome thing is to one, be able to identify what you're great at.
I mean, I think if you don't know that, stop this podcast right now and sit down and re-listen to the questions that we just went through. Ask yourself those questions. Figure out where you're good at. Because once you do that, then you can build a team around you that can fill in the gaps for you. That's what I do when I'm hiring. I don't go to hire another Allison. I go to hire someone that can fill in the things that I'm not great at. So, you know, when things slow down, what drains my energy? Where do I just back up and
say, I really hate doing this. I'm not great at it. Right? There's other people that thrive at that stuff. Like, awesome, go do it. You know, if you're going to be, I'll be frank and honest, even though I'm a director and we've got massive things going on and big spreadsheets of stuff and this automation over here and that, and we're trying to put together thousands of dollars of beautiful.
trade shows and events and all this stuff. I hate super detailed stuff. I'm more of the creative brain. I don't make massive lists. I carry a lot of it up here. That could drive other people crazy. So finding someone that does make lists and does love the spreadsheets and does dive into the details and wants to read all the contracts and make sure that we're, you know, compliant. I find someone that can do that for me. Not that I can't do it. I'm just saying you may want to pay me to do these other creative fun things.
that I'm great at while someone else can kind of fill in that energy because that doesn't drain their energy. know, great leaders, they don't try to be the smartest person in the room. And I'm always looking at who can I get on my team? Who can I be in a room with that's smarter than me, that has more life experience, that is just different? Because sometimes those different voices I'm talking about a lot of times people, I love it when they're like, well, we need to hire someone, but we want someone with three to five years.
experience but they're entry level. You can't be entry level at three to five. Maybe entry level is what you need because that person is going to bring just a whole different perspective. grew up with AI. Now these people are growing up with AI. They know things that I don't know. And so yeah, I want to get them on my team. Yeah, I want to understand their point of view because this really what you want to do is you're building a room where everyone is strong in different ways. And the collective output is so much better than the individual effort.
And so what I'm going to say that one more time, because I think that is so important, is once we decide and figure out what we're super great at, right, you've got your superpower, you're ready, when you're building a team, everyone in that room is in different ways. And their collective output is so much better than any individual effort. So I'm all about the teamwork, and this really helps build that.
Benjamin Ard (18:03)
I love that. That's amazing. Allison, this has been an incredible conversation. I have loved it. We have run out of time today. I'm guessing there are going to be individuals who want to reach out and follow your material and connect with you on LinkedIn. But is that the best platform? What's the best way for people to reach out and connect with you online?
Allison Myers (18:17)
Yeah, I would say, yeah, you can reach out to me
at LinkedIn. It's Allison Myers. And you'll see my name. You're going to find me in a a feet purple blazer. So you'll know who I am on LinkedIn. You can reach out to me on Instagram at Allison R. Myers. And Myers is spelled M-Y-E-R-S. And I always like to say it's like Michael Myers, both the serial killer and the Canadian actor.
Benjamin Ard (18:42)
I love it. Allison, this has been incredible. Thank you for the time and insights. Really do appreciate your time today.
Allison Myers (18:47)
Thank you so much.
Bye.
