{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Simple Truths for Success","description":"1984. Maybe \u201985. Take a 26-year-old art director who loves her work. Put her in a big agency where she is surrounded by middle-aged white guys. Strangle the agency\u2019s creative work with politics and bureaucratic overhead. Ask a simple question, \u201cHow long can this last?\u201d Sue Kruskopf\u2019s answer? When both the employer\u2019s and her futures looked bleak, it was time for change.  In 1988, Sue and the copywriter she worked with started KC Truth, with a focus on truth, simplifying the complex, and serving clients by \u2013  getting to that core truth about their businesses,  stripping away all the B.S., and making the message as simple as possible for target audiences. Sue says, \u201cSimplifying things is always a lot more difficult than complicating things.\u201d Her ideal client website is one the communicates what the company does and why they are different from everyone else . . . and does that in the shortest (simplest) way possible, which is both an art and a science. The large companies KC Truth works with have multiple siloed business units. Sue says the way to get to a company\u2019s \u201ctruth,\u201d align the organization and build a strong strategy is to get everybody in the same room and listen to what they all say. When all the various departments \u2013 marketing, sales, engineering, researchers \u2013 see their part in creating the truth, they become invested in the collective work that follows. After that, Sue believes, \u201cGreat strategy requires great creative.\u201d Maintaining the creative resources of a world-class agency is critical to KC Truth\u2019s work with such big, complex clients as Cargill, 3M, and some Minneapolis-based global companies. That might be a challenge. However, KC Truth belongs to a strong network of independent agencies, AMIN, which means they \u201ccan collectively buy all the tools we need.\u201d  Sue says that building strong relationships, hiring the best people, the smartest people (smarter than you are), and treating people as you would want them to treat you are a big part her agency\u2019s success. She supports treating clients with respect, \u201cnot trying to shove ideas down a clients throat,\u201d and \u201cwalking hand in hand down the same path together.\u201d Sue can be reached on her agency\u2019s website at https:\/\/kctruth.com\/. Transcript Below: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Sue Kruskopf, CEO at KC Truth, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Welcome to the podcast, Sue. SUE: Thank you. Good to be here, Rob. ROB: It\u2019s wonderful to have you on. I\u2019m eager for all that you have to share. Why don\u2019t you start off by telling us about KC Truth and where the firm excels? SUE: Thank you. First of all, we excel in longevity. We\u2019ve been around since 1988, which in advertising years is about a million years I think, pretty much, in this day and age. We\u2019ve always believed at our core, our mission has always been to rid the world of B.S. and get at the core truth that companies stand for. As we all know, in this day and age, truth is more important than ever before. So, I\u2019m glad that we have stuck to our guns and had this in the foundation of our business for over 35 years, since way back in the day. ROB: Truth certainly has a habit of falling in and out of fashion, so the longevity there is certainly admirable. If we can drill down a level, if there is a typical type of client, type of engagement \u2013 obviously everyone\u2019s a little bit different, but what does a median client, median scope of work look like for you all? SUE: One of the things our clients tell us is we\u2019ve always been really good at simplifying the complex. I think anybody in our business knows that feeling when a client comes in and you\u2019ve looked at their website 10 times and can\u2019t quite figure out what it is they do exactly, or the word \u201csolutions\u201d is in there too many times or whatever else. We\u2019re really, really good at \u2013 Truth is all about getting to that core truth about their business and stripping away all the B.S. and getting it down to the simplest thing we can determine based on the audiences we\u2019re trying to reach. Typically, we have a lot of big, more complex businesses like Cargill, 3M, a couple global companies that are based here in Minneapolis. I\u2019d say that\u2019s our core sweet spot. We\u2019ve had experience that runs the gamut across all kinds of industries, but at this point that\u2019s really where so much of our growth has come. Simplifying things is always a lot more difficult than complicating things, that\u2019s for sure. ROB: Absolutely. It\u2019s interesting that you mention websites, because of course, that wasn\u2019t really a thing when KC Truth started. It strikes me that the website creates a space, whereas in an advertisement of some sort \u2013 print or even billboards, etc. \u2013 you\u2019re kind of limited in what you can say. The website has more room. It has unlimited room, which may be a curse in some cases. But it almost seems like there is a set of truths that you can put onto a website that may encompass everything you\u2019re trying to communicate elsewhere. How does that track from the early days of the firm? SUE: Obviously, we started back in those early days when there wasn\u2019t any of that. But I come from the creative side of things, and I always felt there was nothing better than a great creative brief that you could really get in and dig into and you understood there was a really strong strategy there. No matter what it was, back in the day we\u2019d always go, if you don\u2019t have great strategy, you don\u2019t have great creative. That\u2019s really been the basis of what we\u2019ve done for all of these years. I would say even on websites, I still want to go to a website of one of our clients and be able to understand what it is that they do and why they\u2019re different from anybody else. I still think that\u2019s what people are looking for in the shortest way possible. There\u2019s an art and a science to that, that\u2019s for sure. ROB: You take a client like 3M or \u2013 I don\u2019t know if you work with them at all, but Metron \u2013 people may have heard the name, but it\u2019s a very abstract thing. It\u2019s kind of like the myth of the blind men touching the elephant and everyone has a different experience of what that elephant is depending on if you felt the elephant\u2019s trunk or tail or leg. It\u2019s a different thing. How do you think about taking something like 3M and making it tangible and helping those individual places where it really does touch people\u2019s lives make sense rather than just being a house of brands or of chemicals or products? SUE: I think anybody out there in the B2B world knows that in most big companies like Cargill or 3M, there are multiple different business units within each one of these organizations. One of the things that we believe in, and it\u2019s part of our foundation and our process, is that finding the truth involves getting people in a room from all different parts of the company. For example, when we work on a product within 3M, we want to get in not only the marketing and sales people, but the engineers, the researchers, the product people, getting everybody in a room to really understand the totality of the business. What\u2019s interesting is, especially in this day and age when people are so siloed into their specific disciplines, it\u2019s amazing how much alignment comes from getting everybody in a room and hearing what others have to say. That\u2019s something that we do and we believe in. You have to hear all sides of things. That helps us create a strong strategy, because everybody has been heard. So when we come back with a strategy, the engineers have played a part in it, besides the marketing people, and the salespeople had a part in it. Everybody sees themselves in it in some way, and that\u2019s really the magic of what we do with finding the truth. Everyone has been a part of creating that truth, so they all have a share in the collective work when it comes back. They see themselves in it, and I think that\u2019s one of the things that we\u2019ve found really works. You\u2019re not trying to shove ideas down a client\u2019s throat or anything like that; you\u2019re all walking hand in hand down the same path together. ROB: Right. That\u2019s a very meaningful approach and process. If we rewind the clock a little bit, Sue, what led you to start KC Truth in the first place and take that leap? You mentioned coming from a creative background. SUE: Yeah, I was a frustrated art director. I was at a big agency in Minneapolis at 26 years old, and I just didn\u2019t dig the politics. The politics and all that got so much in the way of doing the work, for one thing, and it was really frustrating to me. I felt like there were way too many people involved. I think we used the term once that there were a lot of brilliant minds within this organization surrounded by a lead shield. You couldn\u2019t get any good ideas out of the company. That was one thing. The second thing was I was 26 years old and all I saw around me were \u2013 I hate to say it, but middle-aged white guys. I thought, my goodness. There were no women. This was back in 1984-85, and there were no women that were middle-aged. There was one woman and a few account people, but there certainly weren\u2019t any creatives that were older. I thought, \u201cWow, I don\u2019t know if this business is going to have a very long life. I\u2019d better find a way to ensure a long career,\u201d because I loved what I did. So my copywriter partner and I \u2013 we weren\u2019t making any money at the time anyway. I don\u2019t even remember, but it was an amount of money that we thought, \u201cAll we need is a few more $5,000 projects and we\u2019re going to be golden.\u201d We literally quit, and we were having a good time doing a bunch of freelance. Brick by brick, things just kept growing. We went out of business a couple times. I\u2019ll proudly say that because I think that you learn more from your failures than your successes. We thought the account people could run the business because they were in charge of numbers and we were just going to do creative. Well, that was a false thing to believe. [laughs] All of a sudden we had no money left for rent or anything else, so I figured, \u201cI\u2019d better figure out the business side of this, too.\u201d It was just lessons learned all along the way, and I think that\u2019s why perseverance and grit are probably at my soul. When you pick yourself up a few times and dust off the ashes, what doesn\u2019t kill you makes you stronger, right? Next time around. So that\u2019s what happened, and we just kept going back at it. Lucky to be here today, that\u2019s for sure. ROB: It\u2019s quite a dance, that balance not only of personal transformation \u2013 which is ongoing \u2013 but also, when you look at when you started the business, of repeated reinvention. I mean, there\u2019s just been wave after wave after wave of change in the market that, if you didn\u2019t adjust to it, you were going to be a dinosaur. SUE: Oh, for sure. ROB: Even in TV advertising. I haven\u2019t talked to anybody about this on the podcast \u2013 would love to find them \u2013 who didn\u2019t survive the jump from broadcast to cable, much less websites, much less social, much less video and the ubiquity of video now. How have you navigated the necessary reinvention to keep the firm relevant? SUE: Yeah, how many times have we heard that TV spots are dead and all that? Went through that probably 10 different times throughout the years. I have always tried to stay ahead of the curve in everything. I\u2019m a very curious person. It\u2019s one of our values at my company. I always believe you\u2019ve got to be ahead of the game \u2013 and you\u2019re right, Rob; that\u2019s really what has kept us relevant for so long. Part of that is we belong to a network of independent agencies. There are many networks, I know, like this that agencies belong to. Ours is a really strong one called AMIN. It has helped us because we can collectively buy all the tools we need. Honestly, this is where I really sound like \u201cOK, Boomer,\u201d but back in the day, all we had when John and I started out was markers and sketchpads we stole from the art department at the agency. [laughs] Then we had the first Mac, that little shoebox Mac. That was a huge thing going forward. It was so much art back then, and now it\u2019s art and science. I still think it\u2019s more science sometimes than art. But we\u2019ve had to stay ahead of the science game now, too. We do have all these data and media tools that really, really help us be accountable for our clients\u2019 success. I honestly think if you don\u2019t have that as a creative-driven shop, if you\u2019re not proving results all the time and constantly measuring and optimizing, then you\u2019re not going to be in business, because clients and CMOs more and more are held accountable for that. We have always stayed ahead of the game to make sure that we have the resources of a world-class agency at our fingertips so we can work with big global clients. That\u2019s like 35 years in a nutshell, but it really is the truth. I think that\u2019s one part of it, and I think a lot of it is you really appreciate how important relationships are and building relationships and all that. That\u2019s another huge part of that. And also hiring really good people. I always do what my dad told me, which is \u201chire people smarter than you.\u201d That\u2019s what I\u2019ve always believed in. That and \u201ctreat people as you want to be treated yourself.\u201d I\u2019ve always loved that we have a great culture and really good people. That\u2019s core to being a good agency. ROB: It\u2019s certainly a fear some people have, walking in the door of really any independent business. You might have a bad boss in a big company, but within an independent firm, you could really be exposed to some person\u2019s full crazy. What a privilege it is when you can be a good place to work, even for a part of somebody\u2019s career, for that season for work. SUE: I totally believe in that. I totally believe in finding not the best skillset, but the best mindset. It\u2019s not who they are maybe today, but who I see the potential in the future being from that person. We\u2019ve had a lot of people stick around because we\u2019ve let them evolve into the position that they feel most comfortable in. Somebody that started out as an account person decided she was better doing the agency work, and now she\u2019s Director of Business Operations for us, for example. So, I always think you have to watch where people excel and where they\u2019re finding their passion and their happiness and try to nurture that as much as you can. On the flipside of that, I also think it\u2019s about making sure people don\u2019t get too comfortable. You always want to make sure that people are continually curious and trying to do better and be better. I think that\u2019s another side of the coin, too. ROB: Just to take a snapshot at the moment of where we are right now, if you have a new client, a new total brand messaging package or a new campaign that\u2019s pushing out into the world, where are all the places that you are seeing that push into now? Where are you having to manage and have your team ensure that they\u2019re aligning that message to each place? What does it look like? SUE: It\u2019s crazy the amount of channels that we work in. You name it, from LinkedIn to TikTok. You have to look at every single channel as a place where a message might play, all depending on what\u2019s appropriate for that audience. We\u2019re like 100% digital right now. I don\u2019t even know that we\u2019ve done anything traditional, which is kind of ironic, in a long time. Video is the new TV, there\u2019s no question about it. We don\u2019t have one niche or whatever, one type of thing. I would just say what we\u2019re good at is being a chameleon; we can adapt to whatever channels those are to reach people. A lot of times with the audiences we work with, it\u2019s the long tail. They might be chief technical officers, and how we find them and serve them programmatic media, for example, so we\u2019re following them where they live. There\u2019s all kinds of things like that. Sometimes it\u2019s a channel, sometimes it\u2019s following that person to see where they consume media and following them along their journey. There\u2019s just so many right now. Believe me, our media people can speak way more on this than I can. [laughs] I had a client say she feels like she\u2019s got a firehose pointing at her all the time, trying to figure out what everything is, and I think that\u2019s true. I think clients really need help understanding where they\u2019re going to spend their money and get the most bang for their buck. There\u2019s so many choices out there, and you need somebody that can help you wade through that and find the right audience at the right time, for sure. ROB: I have an unsubstantiated but sneaking suspicion that out-of-home digital billboards are going to be more than they are now. SUE: Interesting. ROB: I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re seeing anything yet. I know some companies now that are doing \u2013 you see online people talk about account-based marketing, like Terminus and all that sort of thing, and people looking at buying billboards near the headquarters of the client they\u2019re going after. SUE: Oh yeah, I can totally see it. Especially digital, obviously. That would make a lot of sense. Maybe all the old school will come back in all these new forms, like it sort of seems like it is. Could be, Rob. You predicted it here first. [laughs] ROB: I\u2019m just curious. I may enjoy those sorts of things more than some people. It may just be my own interest there. We\u2019re in Atlanta, and MailChimp is of course based here. MailChimp had this habit \u2013 they\u2019re wonderful people, but they\u2019re also tremendously competitive and cutthroat in certain ways. They would paint murals on buildings across from their competitors of nothing more than their little chimp mascot winking. It didn\u2019t say MailChimp. It didn\u2019t say anything. SUE: That\u2019s great. That\u2019s a super smart idea, that\u2019s for sure. It all comes down to the art, right? Art and science. It\u2019s all art, too. That\u2019s a brilliant strategy that they have. ROB: Sue, you mentioned earlier some lessons learned. You\u2019ve certainly survived through probably a number of them. What are some things you have learned along the way of building KC Truth that you might do differently, that you learned from or suggest someone else learns from it? SUE: I can say what I\u2019ve learned from, which is I don\u2019t take no for an answer very well. That\u2019s for sure. That\u2019s probably my number one thing that I do. I\u2019d say what I\u2019ve learned is in the early days, just to learn, I used to call up the head of another agency and tell them I really respected them and ask if they\u2019d go to lunch with me or go have coffee with me. I learned so much from listening to them. I didn\u2019t know what I was doing. I was an art director trying to start an agency. When I think back on those days, I think, oh my gosh, I gained so much from going to talk to people. I wish I would\u2019ve kept that up more throughout my life. Now I learn so much from the people that I work with and all that, but I think getting knowledge from other people that are older than me was always really smart. I do think in our business, there\u2019s ageism that goes on, in my opinion. There aren\u2019t a lot of people that are older in the business as much anymore, and I think they have so much to offer. I would always encourage people to have lunch more often with people with wisdom, because I think you can learn a lot from that. that\u2019s one of the things I\u2019d do differently. Also, I wish I would\u2019ve been a little humbler at the beginning, because I thought I was pretty cool having my own agency at 28. You can only imagine. I just think, God, sometimes I just wasn\u2019t very humble. That kind of bugs me now when I think back on it. Humility I think is key in everything. Believe me, I\u2019ve been slapped down so many times in these years. You\u2019ve always got to be humble. I think I learned early on, but really practiced it later, hire the best you can at every single level in your company, in every single discipline, and make sure that you aren\u2019t being complacent and resting on your laurels ever, ever, ever, because you never can. That is for sure. You can never sit back and go, \u201cI\u2019ve got it made now.\u201d It\u2019s like, nope. The minute you do, something\u2019s going to come along and slap you upside the face. That\u2019s not going to happen. Gosh, I don\u2019t know. Those are some things that come to mind when I\u2019m thinking about it right now. ROB: Sure. How do you calibrate, then? There are times to accelerate the business and there are times to not overheat your ambitions of growth. How do you think about calibrating well when you need to chase versus when you need to sit on it? SUE: I know, right? Because we\u2019re not a huge company, and I never, ever \u2013 every agency has been through layoffs; we\u2019ve been through very few. I can think of a handful of people we\u2019ve had to lay off in all these years. Financially, I try to run the company very conservatively. But I\u2019m also making sure that we\u2019ve never, ever been a sweatshop. I said by the time my kids were six and eight, which was a long time ago, I was going to be home after school with my kids. I\u2019ve always believed in having that work-life balance. It\u2019s walking a fine line, like you said, calibrating, making sure people have lives. I believe that\u2019s where you get pure inspiration, from your personal life. You don\u2019t get your inspiration from work. You get your inspiration from when you\u2019re not working and your brain can wander. It\u2019s a very fine dance, honestly, and I wish I had an exact answer for you of how I calibrate. But I have a certain gut feeling about things sometimes. Sometimes I rely on numbers. It\u2019s all a combination of touch-and-feel and trying to figure it out, and listening and taking advice. I\u2019ve got a really good team of people I work with, and I love to discuss things and talk about things. I always rely on other people\u2019s opinions. That makes me smarter. Nothing concrete there, Rob. It\u2019s just a touch-and-feel, and history. You always learn from what you\u2019ve done in the past and failed or done well. It\u2019s a constant balancing act, like you say. It\u2019s balanced by all those different things we just talked about. ROB: I think at the same time, though, you probably have some knowledge. You probably know almost more than you would ever think to give yourself credit for, because you\u2019ve learned humility over time. If you were talking to someone who\u2019s just building, setting up, thinking they\u2019re going to grow an agency \u2013 you mentioned you can be on the conservative side, but do you have any rules or recommendations for someone to set up financially? Like cash reserves, practice \u2013 I don\u2019t know. Do you have any guideposts you use that you think someone would do really well to listen to if they were earlier in their journey? SUE: Yeah. I\u2019d start out really small. It takes a lot more money to start an agency today. When it was just \u2013 I hate to say it \u2013 markers and pens, sketchpads, and the first Mac, that\u2019s way cheaper than what you need today. Today, you need more people. The people that are good at analyzing data, media people. You really do need \u2013 if you don\u2019t have them within your company, you need to have partnerships with outside resources that can help you. Because clients are going to hold you accountable. It\u2019s not just about it\u2019s a good idea; it\u2019s got to work. Ultimately, it has to work. I think the investment in people is the biggest expense today, more than anything else. So I think you do have to have a strong financial base to be able to have the people that can really hit the ground running. I think that\u2019s it more than anything else. It\u2019s not like it was, where just an art director and a copywriter could come up with some ads and go sell them to somebody. [laughs] That was easy. That was way easier. All the agencies that started back when I did \u2013 none of them are around anymore that started at the same time. You\u2019ve got to have the really smart people or the competition is just too fierce. ROB: Sue, it\u2019s a good journey so far. What is next for you and for KC Truth that you\u2019re excited about? What should we be looking for? SUE: Oh, my goodness. As you\u2019ve heard from probably every person you talk to, getting through this past year is like a historical milestone. Now we\u2019re all just going through the headlines about the turnover tsunami. We\u2019ve experienced some of that. Our clients have experienced some of that. That\u2019s a place we\u2019ve never been before, so that\u2019s a whole other deal. But I have to say, we had our first in-house meeting at the Truth Bar downstairs at our place with our clients. I think people were genuinely glad to see each other in person again. It felt so natural and so good. I just think we\u2019ve missed relationships, and I\u2019m looking forward to \u2013 that\u2019s the hardest thing for me, feeling like I can\u2019t build on these relationships with the people I\u2019d like to see and hear what\u2019s going on. Now I think we\u2019re in for a whole renewal of how important it is to build relationships in our business. Our clients need to trust us and know what we\u2019re going to do is going to work, so you need to have a good relationship. And that\u2019s where trust comes, out of good relationships. We all need to get back to that basic stuff. Face time not on FaceTime, but face time face-to-face, I think is what\u2019s key. I don\u2019t believe that as an industry, we can live on Zoom calls all the time. It\u2019s just not possible. It\u2019s not sustainable. That\u2019s what I\u2019d say, Rob. That\u2019s where my head is. ROB: Did you have any hesitancy from any of your clients, or were they like caged animals ready to come out and hang? SUE: They had to see if it was okay with their corporate people, to see if they were allowed to. There were a few other hoops, maybe, to get through. But no, not so far. We\u2019ve only had one, but we\u2019re going to be back to work a couple days a week soon. I think people are feeling \u2013 they really want to be back, I think. With flexibility and all that sort of thing, it\u2019s going to be good times, I think, again. ROB: It\u2019s certainly new times. We brought in our team from all over the country \u2013 we\u2019ve been hiring distributed over the past year. We started off wanting to have a team retreat, and then we realized we still had a lot of our clients local, so we invited our clients out to dinner. Everybody wanted to get out. I don\u2019t think I had anybody who said, \u201cNo, because I\u2019m being cautious.\u201d For the most part they either had shots or never wanted one, one or the other, and they were ready to come out and play. Our team was all vaccinated up. SUE: Same. Hands off the handlebars. That\u2019s it, for sure. ROB: Wonderful. Sue, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I think we would all aspire to build such an enduring firm that continues to be relevant well after the initial playbook was probably in the trash and burned up. SUE: Oh yes, for sure. You should\u2019ve seen that first portfolio. That was something, way back in the day. [laughs] ROB: You kind of wish you could frame it somewhere in the office now. SUE: It\u2019s frightening, it\u2019s frightening. Well, thank you so much, Rob. I really appreciate that. Let\u2019s just hope we continue to move ahead in that way. ROB: Sounds good. Thank you so much, Sue. SUE: Thank you. Bye. ROB: Bye. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com. 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