Why Most Technical Experts Struggle in Business Development and How to Win with Adam Kimmel

Why Most Technical Experts Struggle in Business Development and How to Win with Adam Kimmel

Kelly Kennedy : Welcome to episode 284 of the Business Development Podcast, and today we're joined by Adam Kimmel, an engineer turned business development strategist. With over 20 years of experience and 12 global patents, we dig into how technical experts can master connection, communication, and growth in a world that often speaks a different language.

Stick with us. You are not gonna wanna miss this episode.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the Business Development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development Capital BD ca. Let's do it. Welcome to The The Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host. Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy : Hello. Welcome to episode 284 of the Business Development Podcast, and today it is my absolute pleasure to bring you Adam Kimmel. Adam is a seasoned engineering and business development professional with over 20 years of experience in r and d product innovation and strategic growth with dual degrees in chemical and mechanical engineering.

He has earned 12 global patents and honed his expertise as a senior principal, r and d professional. Before founding Ask Consulting Solutions. Today, Adam combines his technical acumen with a passion for driving growth, specializing in helping automotive, renewable energy and industrial manufacturing companies craft targeted strategies to build strong pipelines, refine value propositions, and achieve sustained success.

What sets Adam apart is his unique ability to speak fluent engineer while delivering results-driven marketing and business strategies. Whether he's launching products that deliver 30% cost savings or creating content that ranks number one and drives measurable performance gains. Adam is laser-focused on helping his clients stand out in competitive markets with a rare blend of technical expertise, strategic vision, and a collaborative approach.

Adam Kimmel is not just a partner in growth, he's a catalyst for it. Adam, it is an honor to have you on the show today.

Adam Kimmel: Holy cow. Thrilled to be here. And I, I, I came for the intro because the intros have become legendary, so I appreciate that. But, uh, I think you captured it. Yeah. Great to be here.

Kelly Kennedy : It's, uh, it's a pleasure, man.

You know, we've actually known each other at this point for I think like six months. Something along those lines. Uh, we initially connected over the show. We've had like discovery call for coaching. We've done all sorts of stuff. And, uh, dude, you're an intriguing person. I'm really excited to do this with you today.

Adam Kimmel: Well, me too. And, and I think when you find someone that thinks in a similar way, there's this, oh, I need to get more of that person for the show. I think the perspectives that you bring and just the, the passion for BD is something that we both share. So, yeah, thrilled to have finally gotta do this.

Kelly Kennedy : I, uh, I really enjoyed meeting you, and the reason being is actually you were the only. Fractional BD company that I had met outside of my own company when we first connected, and I was like, oh, thank God. Someone else who thinks the same way as I do.

Adam Kimmel: Yeah. It's, it's something I think will start to gain more traction.

I, that, that phrase, fractional BD was one that I hadn't heard a lot and so I, I have a website and I thought, well, I'm gonna write a pillow article to just really capture my point of view. And it ranked first like the day after I wrote it. So that says that there's room for this and that there's interest and traction in the movement.

So yeah, it's inspiring really to see it.

Kelly Kennedy : Absolutely. Absolutely. And you have, you have an incredible background, by the way,

like very, that's pretty diverse. Yeah. Very different for any other BD person that I have met in the past, to be honest. Um, you know, me and you talked about it before the show. I've always said business development chooses you.

And I think, uh, it's fi it's interesting, but it shows you too.

Adam Kimmel: Well, it did. And, and I mean, just to kind of unpack it a little bit, I was a cubed dweller for most of my career. I would get these complicated, uh, you know, product design or system design requests, and I would sit there and calculate using, you know, ANSYS models and numerical modeling and things.

I'm sitting there calculating. And it got to be where, I could calculate for the next 15 or 20 years or I could push myself to, to really make a, an impact. And I think a lot of the, a lot of the R&D groups I've been a part of. They were rationalized as, okay, well what's the, what's the return on this?

Do we wanna invest in R&D? And so I realized that getting close to the customer and the business goals is really what what you need to do to make sure that you're able to demonstrate the value that you can provide. So that's what pushed me to look elsewhere. And then I just realized that people weren't doing BD very effectively at all.

And I saw an opportunity to improve this and to level up you know, not just, you know, the results, but also the process and the, how people feel going through it and the authenticity of that relationship that gets created.

Kelly Kennedy : I love that. I love that. No business development has been extremely misunderstood.

Extremely. And you know what? We haven't done ourselves any favors. You look at books on sales, you look at books on marketing, there's a million of them. You look for specific things on bd. There's nothing out there, which is why I started this show, man, I, I realized early on that when I got into bd, there was nothing for me.

And if I could get out there and share this information with the world, I would help one other young 23-year-old Kelly down the line who's getting into it and needs that extra help. But you're absolutely right. As business development professionals, we haven't done ourselves any favors. We haven't taught the younger generations.

There's been this like protection. Of knowledge in business development for a long time, and it is unnecessary. And I'm hoping that with time we're able to better educate people on what is business development and more importantly, what isn't it? Because I think it gets roped into everything. It gets roped into, you know, sales and closing.

It gets roped into account management. It's like, guys, that is not what business development is. But in all fairness, how were they supposed to know?

Adam Kimmel: Well, I think not anymore. I think maybe in the old days it was really closely tied with sales and I got the sense that there was this, sales viewed it as, you know, their role was new business with existing customers and BD was, you know, new business with, with new customers.

And I think that's still true, but the approach was a sales driven Yeah, totally. Outbound pavement, pound versus some of the more, savvy is not the right word, but just some of the more modern ways that people learn about things and how they frame their businesses. That's not the same as it used to be.

And I think BD is the, is the discipline that's helping to shift that for businesses to get their minds thinking in the, the way that their customers actually wanna buy from them.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, you know me and you both know COVID changed everything too, right? Sure, yeah. Like pave that pavement pounding is just not the way that we do it.

It's not efficient anymore. Right? Right. Not at all. There's way better ways to do it, so you know what I mean? Even if you're still doing it those old ways, there are much better ways to handle bd. Although, like you said, the job is still the same for the most part. Right. But my key word is always new.

Right? The secret to BD is new. If new isn't part of it, it's probably not bd.

Adam Kimmel: That's right. Yeah. It's a good, good way to differentiate it, for sure.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah. Love it. Adam, bring me into your incredible career, dude. How did you end up on this background? You have what over 12 global patents that you've been a part of.

That is incredible. Take me back to the beginning. How did you end up on this path?

Adam Kimmel: Well, I, uh, you know, when I was at, I went to Penn State in Pennsylvania for, uh, for my undergrad and chemical engineering was something that was a passion of mine ever since I took my first chemistry class. So it was what are things made of?

How do they work? It just fascinated me. Chemistry was a weed out class for most people I know. So yeah, I don't know. It just was a passion. So I said, well, how can I do this to help the world? So, climate, environment, all these things became kind of the, I always call it the professional mission. So when I'm not with my family, with my kids, what am I doing to help as many people as I can?

And I view climate as a chemistry person is my way to do that. So I graduated, got a job in sales engineering due to the economy in 2003 and things, and moved to Chicago and realized that, you know, chemistry on its own isn't necessarily. Yeah, a diverse enough skill to help me get revenue and income from it.

So I got a master's degree in mechanical engineering to figure out how the components were put together and things. And so that's where, um, some of the innovation started to happen. I would get a request and I would have to use some of my chemical background, some of the mechanical background to invent a product to deliver a solution.

And some of those solutions were the result of some discovery I would do with the customer. Okay. Sort of like the order taker model, right. In any, any business was like, okay, here's a, like if I was making a heat exchanger, please make a heat exchanger that delivers this output. Sounds good. Why do you think you need that heat exchanger?

What problem is this solving? And if we deliver this, can I see the rest of the system? Are there other components there? And so through that, one step back would say, all right, well you have three heat exchangers. One of them you ask us to design and quote, but we could combine two of these and make a system that has fewer components.

More system content for my company, but a lower overall system cost for you. So it's a complete win-win. Now the idea was great. There's three or four patents that come out of a situation like that. Yeah, just due to discovery question asking and not responding to, transactionally. An opportunity that's brought, brought to you.

So that's where a lot of the innovation came from, was this mindset I, I had developed early on to say, well, why do you wanna do it that way?

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah. Sometimes it is a big picture, right? And, you know, I find a lot of times we are looking for that expert advice. We are looking for someone who knows more than we do to come in and say, Hey, you know, you could probably do this a little differently.

Right? Like, as much as we like to think we have all the answers, I know I don't.

Adam Kimmel: Well, right. And, and it's, and that's the importance of partnership too. You can't ask a question like that of a customer you don't have a good relationship with. If it's a transactional relationship, they're gonna be guarded.

So that's the other thing too, I think that's important is just to know that yeah, they don't have all the answers. You don't, but maybe the combination of that discussion, and maybe there's another colleague on either end that can come in and really get to the root of the problem. And it's that, so that's the, the benefit of having a relationship behind, you know, a work transaction, I'll say.

Kelly Kennedy : Totally. Totally. So, keep me going. Obviously you're working in engineering, you're doing design engineering. You're doing some pretty incredible things. How does that lead to marketing? Like, man?

Adam Kimmel: Oh man. Yeah. So world. So there were right around the time of, uh, like 2008, the recession came.

There was a layoff at my company. So I took another job in consumer products, and that was really my first exposure to marketing. So, when I was an undergrad, marketing was a swear word. Engineers made fun of marketing. It's too easy, you know, how do you, what do you call somebody that flunks out of engineering, a marketer, that kind of stuff.

T-shirts, whatever. But engineers were so insulated that, you know, I, I started to learn the impact marketing can really have, and the fact that these insights from the field should be informing what the engineers did. I think engineers as a discipline, we have this view that we know a ton. We have a lot of training.

We'll tell them what they want. I don't know on what planet that's ever worked for anyone. You have to ask the customer what they want and develop and work on the problem that they want to solve. And so that was my exposure to it through consumer products. And then eventually I started kind of doing some freelance writing on the side because I would have to explain some of these innovations to patent attorneys and you know, there's, there's one way to write for an attorney, and then I would get this request of, well, my business leader needs to understand this to approve the capital, or something like this.

Yeah, so write a description of this. So it started as like slide decks, but then it kind of went into technical articles and thought leadership and then that would help them craft a point of view on a new product line. That's where I got started with writing. So I kind of learned the value of marketing, the value of writing, and how that could translate for technical disciplines.

So that's how it started.

Kelly Kennedy : That's amazing. You know, I want to talk to you a little bit about that. 'cause I have had the pleasure working in oil and gas to work with some incredible engineers over my career. I can tell you, I've been surprised, to be honest. I've been surprised by many of them, um, with their ability to communicate when they do finally get put in the room and have those conversations.

But I know conversations that for many of them, they're introverted. I am introverted as well. So for me that's great. But I know I have struggled I've struggled with putting myself out there with dealing with performance anxiety, with stage fright, with fear, with meeting anxiety. You name it, man, like, been through it all.

Imposter syndrome the whole gamut. I've been through it all. And you know, you know, we talked about this before the show. I've definitely learned over time. That I need to really tackle the things that scare me. And we talked about this before that in 2025, here, I'm really trying to double down on video.

Why? 'cause video scares the bejesus outta me. Like I, and it's funny too, 'cause people say, dude, you're a podcaster. Like you have two years of podcasting under your belt by the time this show comes out, almost three years of podcasting. Yeah, I know. But it is different. Like this medium is still not the same as video.

And even though we share clips, it still feels like a conversation between two people as opposed to that like transcend the lens that video really does. Right. It's like it's a different level of vulnerability and I don't think people quite realize that. But I guess my question to you is, as somebody who I know is very similar to myself in that way.

How have you been able to overcome some of your stage fright, some of your fears? Uh, maybe, maybe performance anxieties.

Adam Kimmel: Yeah. And that just to, to emphasize it is very real. I mean, somebody that sits in a cube, this is a real safe place. I'm just surrounded by my math. Like, this is nice. To push yourself outside of that is, yeah, you're gonna have to do things that are uncomfortable.

And so the first thing I learned right away is if something, if something scares you to the point where you're like, oh, I don't know if I could handle it, that's the, it's because you know you should do it. And so I've just. I had this approach to just run as fast toward that thing as I can possibly do.

And is it gonna go, you know, great, not, no, not at all. But you can't do it twice before you do it once. And so this is this continuous iteration and improvement loop of, okay, well that experience didn't go as I wanted to. Here's the ways I didn't love it. Here's what I would change if I had it to do again, then do it again.

And so you just kind of keep coming at it like that. And one of the things that when, when dealing with engineers, I've noticed is that they like to listen first. So they sit back in a meeting and let the, either the business people talk or the marketing people, they're listening to every word.

They're formulating their point of view and their thought process. So getting their engagement is critical, but they need to feel safe to engage. Yeah. And so I think some of those anxiety moments, you know, for engineers that aren't as willing, like we are to just bust through the door head first. How do you warm them up?

How do you engage them? And I found that asking questions about their background, about their. You know, approach to developing a product is a great way to just easily let them wade into the water before getting to the meat of the questions. By the end of the meeting, you have to kind of, okay, well I get top of the hour, I gotta jump, you know, should we schedule a follow up?

Because they just, they're in then, right? They're rolling, but getting them warmed up is the key. So I think yeah, doing that yourself and then learning kind of some of those unlock communication techniques is, uh, you know. Is a way that, that I've done it in the past.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah. Yeah. It, you need to build the connection, right?

Is kind of what you're getting at here. Especially if you're dealing with people who are introverted. Right? We're not automatically bought in, right? Like you, you mean I'm like you. I like to listen first and ask questions later. Um, I like to understand before I respond. Right. I don't wanna look like an idiot.

And I think, I think many people feel the same way. But yes, I agree completely. And I think that finding ways to connect is what separates great business development people from mediocre business development people, right? Yeah. Um, I've, I've been asked many times, if I'm interviewing somebody for a BD role, account management role what do I want?

And I typically say, you know, you'll know in the first five minutes, don't necessarily look at their degrees, don't look at their background, sit down with them, have a coffee, have a lunch. And if you like them in the first five minutes, you're on the right path. That's right. You're on the right path.

That's right. These people know how to communicate. They know how to become likable, which I think is a really critical skill because what they are building is connection and that is the job.

Adam Kimmel: Yeah. I think and matching their pace is an important piece of that relationship building too. Like when you meet someone with, within that first five minutes, you'll gauge their style.

Yeah. Are they quiet? Are they loud? Are they fast paced? Are they reserved? Is there one topic that seems to be on their mind to me? Let 'em talk about that topic. But I, I try to match, I try to match that. So if they're, if they're, if they talk fast, let's go. But if they're more reserved, then yeah, then kind of are quieter and slower.

And so that's I that kind of energy in a meeting discussion. To know if it's done right. It's a feeling for sure. And there's no way to measure it. There's no way to plan it. It's just how do I create an authentic connection with this person in a way that makes them feel safe?

Kelly Kennedy : Totally. Totally. And I think there's like a misconception in, in the world, just in the business world that BD people are all extroverted.

And I would actually make the argument, yes, that there are more introverted BD people than there are extroverted BD people and people like the introverted ones more anyway, because actually we're quiet, we ask good questions, we sit back, we listen and we connect authentically. And I think, you know, I did a show called BD or uh, I did a show called Why Your Introversion is a Superpower, and I was talking about how there's a ton of benefits to being introverted in bd.

Adam Kimmel: Yeah, I think the listening, active listening is the first, you know, main way. But when. Whenever I go to a trade show or something and I have to just be out there all the time, it's exhausting. Yeah. And so on the surface it looks like, oh, you know, he's on and he's polished. I get back to the hotel room and just crash.

Yeah. Because the energy, it's so hard to get that energy up. And, and that's fine. I mean, I think it's okay to push yourself, but also to realize that, you know, you can't just be something you're not a hundred percent of the time. You have to, you know, be the version of yourself that lets you, you know, get the outcome you want while still being true to the way that you wanna work.

And if that's if it's introversion, and, you know, I think a lot of BD people have expertise in areas outside of business. Like for me, as an engineer, as an SME, I wouldn't wanna be wrong. So if I spoke first and it was wrong, or I made a wrong assumption. You kind of feel, oh, maybe I'm not such an expert.

And there's, that's where this, and how this imposter syndrome starts to build. So I think many technical experts like to listen just for that reason, to make sure that they lend their expertise in the right way and that, you know, they're right based on the, the way the discussion goes.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah, yeah. You know, me and you both know, there's a lot of people who will take your path, who will be subject matter experts, who will be engineers, who will be all sorts of different positions.

And one day this little crazy thing called BD is gonna jump up and someone's gonna say, Hey, you're pretty good at what you do. Have you ever thought about doing bd? I want you to talk about that transition itself for you. What was that like?

Adam Kimmel: Yeah, I mean the, I started doing BD before it was called that in my role.

Yeah. So I was, um, the, uh. The request was really just to form relationships with the technical experts at automotive companies. So that's easy. I work with them all the time. I know their language. I mean, I, I say a lot that I speak fluent engineer. That's true. I can't turn that off, which my kids seem to hate.

But anyway, it's, it's made me a good technical expert. But I realized that the point of those relationships was to connect our company with the customer at deeper levels than just the commercial. They wanted technical alignment. They wanted, I don't know, marketing and strategic marketing alignment. And so that's really where I started it.

And, and I realized quickly that, you know, I started looking into, what, what is this called? Because it's not engineering anymore. It's not, business executive anymore. What is this? And I started to learn that these relationships were really what BD was. And the more I learned about what I was doing and that some of the things that, Hey, I bet this would work well, sure enough.

Classical BD is exactly that in terms of, doing these active listening things, getting the pain points and crafting relationships based on customer interest, not based on what you think they wanna hear. Um, it was sort of a, a na natural, I think, uh, in terms of, yeah, forming a relationship with technical and then they said, Hey, that worked really well.

Could you do it with commercial? So it's like, well, I'm gonna just do it the same way. So hopeful it'll work. The language is a little different, you know, the approach and the styles are very different, but. The outcome is the same and the process is the same. So just find out what's important to them and you know, really why they were open to talk with you in the first place, and kind of drill into that further.

Kelly Kennedy : Absolutely, absolutely. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, what it is like to create marketing material or, or market a highly technical thing. I think that that's something that a lot of people would struggle with just from a standpoint of, especially if you're trying to market to engineers. And so for me, I'll tell you what I do and you can tell me kind how to handle it.

I'm, I, you know, I mean, I always say I know enough to be dangerous, so I've handled business development in that way. It's like. Do I know the talking points? Yes. Do I know, you know, the solutions this thing provides and, and can I speak the lingo a little bit? Sure. Do I understand the background? No. That has been a disadvantage that I have had throughout my entire BD career is that I don't have a technical background.

What's really cool with you is that you have a technical background, which gives you the ability to speak to an engineer in, in a language that they understand. Right? For me, the way that I've always solved that is when I come in and I work with a company, I say, Hey, I know as much as I know, I'm really great at building connections.

I can make the connections, but I need a technical expert that I can work with, that I can bring with me to these meetings to speak the technical lingo that I do not know. That hasn't held me back. That's worked out a lot, you know, with the companies I've worked for, and most of them have understood.

Obviously, Kelly Kennedy is a sales and business development guy, not a engineer. Right? Yeah. Talk to me a little bit. You know what I mean? Also though, I haven't really worked with car manufacturing or anything like that. Like, like highly technical things. Yeah. Like you have worked with oil and gas is technical.

Sure. But most of the time what you're providing is, a, a, a product solution or a service solution, a manpower solution or, or a parts product or something. It's already designed. They know what they're buying. They've bought it a million times. Right. It's, there's not a lot of like brand new things.

Talk to me a little bit about what it is like to market a new innovation. Something that is like brand new that maybe you really do need to like talk to the nitty gritty about.

Adam Kimmel: I think, uh, my, my background is a little bit of a cheat code because it earns me the right, when I talk to an engineer to say, we're peers.

Here's a rattle off some of those background things. It levels their, it levels the playing field. They don't think I'm a commercial person, so that's, you know, that, that's been one area. But, but for something new that the market didn't ask for, what's the statistic? 2% of a market's in the position to buy at any point in time.

So everybody else is creating the need that they didn't know existed before the call. You know, I think it, it starts with, you know, what's the problem to solve? But for, for marketing, I always look at marketing as a story. What is the story that we're trying to tell and why are we trying to tell it? So I enroll the, the SME in like, Hey, here's what I'm trying to do.

Okay. I want to, here's the framework and the sort of the structure of the story I want to tell. One, what do you think about that? I would love to get your take two. What points do you think, I mean, I've got some questions, but as we go, like, how could we strengthen this using data? Because technical audiences absolutely insist on having data to support any claim or point that's made.

They don't insist, but if they don't see one sure. There's no credibility. Yeah. And the SME is really well suited. They can rattle off oftentimes statistics or even rough numbers that are way more impactful than, you know, and you can soften the wording, a range between or up to, you know, these kind of words.

But if there's a number attached to it that really drives the point home, and that's how marketing and you know, the SMEs can really partner to do that, but it's, they've gotta understand the story and the outcome. Otherwise they can go off on tangents, off of tangents in terms of their, their knowledge.

They have too much knowledge, so you have to focus them and keep them within these guardrails. But just enrolling them in the process, I think has been helpful. So it's not an adversarial interview, interrogation situation. This is a, hey, like your point. I know some, even for me, I don't know about every industry.

Sure. So here's what I know kind of from a tan tangential one. Help me from your chair support this argument more strongly. Yeah, that's the way I've approached it.

Kelly Kennedy : I love it. Yeah. Like I said, like I've never been that like technical expert. I like to say it like I, I always, I know enough to be dangerous, right?

When I work with a new client, I try my best to understand their product, their service. But what I typically kind of ask is like, what problem are we solving? What does this, you know, I mean, if I'm hearing this, what product should I recommend? Right? Typically. Um, most of the time it's actually not important.

And so I, I make sure that I like, let other BD people know. 'cause people get really tied up and they're like, I don't know the products. I don't know them inside and out. And it's like, you don't need to be the technical expert. And I think a lot of BD people forget that. They think that I have to know more than even like the technical people at the company.

But it's not true. You have to know enough to build interest, and you need to be able to communicate it in a way that your prospect can understand and obviously build their interest, right? If you can build interest, you can get to a meeting, and at the end of the day, that is what matters.

Adam Kimmel: And that's really where I see the value of content with bd.

I mean, I kind of have this view that there's, BD historically has been outbound. Only there was a trend over, you know, 21, 22, where inbound was, you know, can, can we just digitalize everything? Can we kind of hack our way to success and maybe set outbound to the side? I think what we're seeing now is, money isn't plentiful everywhere anymore.

People are scrutinizing spend and ROI and all those kinds of things. So the answer is probably a combination of both, where, you know, yes, there's outbound human discussions, but then there's also inbound content to support the points in the meeting or to reinforce, you know, a lot of times it'll be a lunch meeting or something like that.

There won't be any. PowerPoint or any slides. Or, or collateral. Yeah, so you can follow up with, hey, you know, great to talk. Here were the follow ups I saw, and by the way, here is an asset that we created to kind of, talk a little bit more about that. Feel free to share this internally and let's have a follow up call.

So, I mean, content really enhances what sales does on the closing end of things. So for BD. Our job right, is to enable sales to be successful. If their hit rate's a hundred percent, we're getting promoted. Yeah. So good for us. Um, so how can we do that? And I think content is a way to help sales. Uh, so they don't have to remember what we said.

They can kind of use this asset to make that case for us as they continue down the the close path.

Kelly Kennedy : I love that. I love that you touched on content and meetings. Dude, I am still a massive advocate for real brochures. Every company that I go and work with, if they don't have a real brochure ready, we are starting on that immediately because I love bringing physical things with me to a lunch meeting.

Like I will always have my business cards, I will always have a physical brochure and you know what I mean? We make sure that we design really high quality content. We can talk about that today 'cause you're content experts. We can talk about like what is high quality content in 2025, but you know what I mean?

I'm always making sure that we've got something that's like visually appealing that like speaks to their values and their mission and what they wanna do and, and it speaks to their different products. But the cool thing about bringing a fit, and I don't know why we don't do this, I don't know why.

Somewhere along the line someone said We don't need brochures anymore. 'cause they were crazy. But when, I can't tell you every time that I go to a meeting without a brochure versus with a brochure. The meeting with the brochure goes better. Why? 'cause I can sit down at the beginning and say, Hey, I brought this for you.

It's great to meet you. Have a personal conversation. At some point in that conversation they always open up the brochure and they'll be like, oh shit, I didn't know you do this. Let's talk about this. 'cause we actually need it. Like it happens every single time, Adam. It's crazy. Yeah. And so for those of you listening right now who are, who are saying You don't need brochures, trust me, you do.

And uh, you know what I mean? I use brochures, I use digital brochures in my digital introduction stage of my process as well, right? Mm-hmm. Like extensively, because I know even if they don't necessarily respond to my message, there's a super high chance they're gonna open that brochure I sent, read the first pages and guess what?

They are no longer cold contact. They're now warm contact. They know who I am, what I work for, and what my company sells.

Adam Kimmel: Yeah. I think the trap though, with any content like that, especially a brochure, is if you get to the point of yes, just send me information and I'll come back to you. That's a problem.

So it's gotta be an in addition to the personal connection in setting that next meeting. Because if you're, if it's, if it just, if, yeah, the whole discussion ends at the brochure and then there to take the next step. That's not gonna be effective enough. It needs to be a support tool versus, here you go, kind of a send, send it into the ether and expect something to come back.

Kelly Kennedy : Exactly. So in my opinion, what we're doing is we're actually using the brochure as the introductory point. Mm-hmm. So I'm a huge fan of not selling. I hate selling. Selling is not what I wanna do. No. I wanna build human to human connection, and I wanna build interest. And so when I'm sending my introductions to a new person, so someone maybe I've just connected with on LinkedIn, I know that they're a prospect for one of the clients that I'm working with, I will just introduce myself and I'll say, Hey, you know, I'm working with this XXY, Z company.

They do some pretty incredible stuff. Check out this brochure and let's connect down the line. That's the level. And I kind of use it as that icebreaker. But you know what it does for me, Adam? It creates a warm introduction. Yeah. It creates this thing where like they didn't know what company I worked with.

They didn't know what my client did. And now when I inevitably reach out to them directly to ask for that meeting, it's no longer a cold call. It's a warm contact. They know who I am, they know what my company does, and they know why they would be interested in having that meeting. So it, it it drastically increases the success rate of closing that introductory meeting where you can have that technical conversation.

Adam Kimmel: Yeah, I think it kind of demonstrates some, some. Quality behind the, the initial words. I mean, you can go and promise a lot of things and state a lot of things with a, a polished piece of content that has a website that they can go visit that has details about the company, the product portfolios, like it's a nice way to build credibility passively on their schedule.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah, totally agree. And no one wants to be sold to, right? Right. Like we, we keep forgetting. We everybody seems to think I get like a hundred sales emails a day, it feels like via LinkedIn and via my, like, it's ridiculous. And here's the thing, nobody is doing the critical thing first. You have to build credibility and trust before somebody is gonna buy anything from you.

Absolutely. And it's funny because people will say, well no, I'll buy the latest Samsung phone when it comes out. I don't gotta, but you are buying it because they've already built credibility and trust with you, right? Because you bought 10 before. Yes, yes. Somewhere down that line. In the very beginning, somebody came up to you and said, Hey, have you tried this new Samsung phone?

It's incredible. So another human built trust with you in the very beginning, your experience with that product reinforced that trust. And now, sure, you can go to the store, you can buy an iPhone, you can buy an a Samsung phone and not even question it. You know, it's gonna be high quality, you know, it's gonna be great.

But somewhere in that path. Trust was established and people forget that. People forget. It takes a human to build that trust somewhere along the line. And people, you know, the, the other question I get regarding this is, well, no, I bought software online. Sure, yes you did. So have I. However, how many video reviews did you watch before you bought that software?

'cause most of us have still watched video reviews. And guess what? That person established enough trust with you, or you established enough trust watching three to five video reviews to say, you know what? Those people liked it. I think I'm gonna, I think I have, I think I could make that choice. Right. But we're forgetting like.

When you're just sending your marketing material or your rate guides or whatever over LinkedIn or over email, without establishing a human to human connection first, you're skipping a very critical and vital step. And I think we're realizing that. But it's funny 'cause it took me a while to realize that that's what was missing too.

But that's it, dude. We have to establish trust and trust takes people.

Adam Kimmel: Well yeah. And I think that's the reason to do both, is that trust is established via human. The content helps to reinforce it. And so then it kind of overcorrected into a Yeah, because the human part's hard, it's uncomfortable. It's, we don't wanna talk to people and you know, I think we try to get away from having to do it and realize that Yeah, no, that, that isn't effective.

So it's gotta be a, a hybrid approach and yeah, you have to kind of earn the right to sell. Yeah. I mean, if you do it right, it's natural. They'll ask you probably versus you having just tell them, Hey, this is how much it costs. They'll, they'll just be this natural, Hey, I'm. That is interesting to me.

It would solve a problem that I think is worth solving. Yep. What does your solution give me? And then you're not necessarily competing in a round of quotes or something because you've already done the work to establish the relationship. Then it's just a matter of price.

Kelly Kennedy : Well, you see companies now, and what they're trying to do is use as many passive strategies as possible to bypass the human interaction.

Right. I know. And it, it doesn't work. Like that's the thing. It's like, and and it's funny because marketing agencies have done a great job and I'm not, you know what? Marketing agencies are incredible. They do incredible things. I'm not knocking them at all. What they're doing is exactly what they were designed to do.

But we as consumers have said, well, if we're paying for, let's call it $10,000 a month in digital ads, that's gotta, that's gotta have an ROI, right? Right. So that's, we're spending that, that's gotta come back in a hundred grand ROI, but that is not what it's designed to do. And people have like, forgot that.

What digital marketing on a mass scale, you know, whether you're talking billboards, whether you're talking tv, whether you're talking Google AdWords, sure, some of that is going to convert back, but the main job was to build brand recognition for your company. However, brand recognition does not translate into sales.

And people forget that, right?

Adam Kimmel: Yeah. It's a part of it though. The brand needs to be, you know, you need to trust the brand, but then they work hand in hand.

Yeah. It's, it's kind of like a gate. You cross the trust gate. Okay. The brand is awareness. Is there, okay, well then do they understand my problem? If that's crossed, then you know, you kind of earn the right to move to the next one.

But all these things work hand in hand and yeah, it's harder. So yeah, if people try to bypass it, good news for the rest of us that don't, I think. Yeah. 'cause it looks so different when you have an interaction with somebody that you really have a genuine connection with. Yeah. Versus everything else out there.

It makes us stand out so much better.

Kelly Kennedy : Well, I, you know, I mean, once again, let's go back to the Samsung analogy. Samsung has already created trust with me, right? So guess what? They can spend all tons of money on media, brand recognition, passive marketing strategies. Yeah, I'm gonna buy the latest Samsung phone, but.

I established trust with Samsung a long time ago. Right? Yeah. Yeah. In that case, it works incredible. I think, you know, for consumer goods, things like that with trusted, reputable companies that we know and trust, absolutely. It works incredible. It does translate into dollars and cents sales. However, I think if you're like a relatively unknown company or a B2B company that does, you know, where relationship and repeat business is important.

Instead of spending all that money on digital marketing, you need to be spending that money on active marketing process stuff like me and Adam do, where you're having, you know, direct human to human interaction, people actually reaching out, building relationships on behalf of your company. That is what's gonna lead to trust and you know, sales over time.

Adam Kimmel: So as somebody that does digital marketing, I'll say, yes, agreed. But also don't forget the digital piece. I think for a while people thought, well, we can just write SEO articles and get traffic to the website. More articles, more people. Easy. Yeah. Uh, I've come to look at that as that's a channel. And so I think if you start generating trust, people have heard you, the next step they're gonna do is try to find your presence online.

So you've gotta be able to get found Yes. When they wanna find you. So yeah, I'm a big advocate for that, but again, as a channel, not as the entire strategy. And I think that's where, that's the, that's the correction. I think that 2024 shown us.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah, you, no, no. Sorry, sorry. I, I agree with you completely on that.

So you absolutely still have to have a digital presence.

Adam Kimmel: So I was gonna jump to the screen now. Wait a minute. Don't into that.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah, no, you're right, you're right. No, you absolutely do. But I think, I think, for me, since the beginning of the show, I've always said your active marketing, like, you know, your real human to human direct reach out should really be like 70 to 80% Yes.

Of your reach out. You still need that 20 to 30% on the digital site. You still need an incredible website. It still needs to be engaging, it needs that video. It needs to be, you know, shortened to the point, right? It's gotta be 20, 24 or 20, 25 level of what we expect for an online presence. Now, that also includes social media strategy, which is a relatively new one for a lot of companies.

And they're struggling with, how the hell do we leverage social media, you know? And I'm working with a client right now who had never, you know, I mean the multimillions, you know, I think we do about $30 million a year in revenue. They never had to manage a social media strategy before, and now they're grappling with, okay, crap.

You know, none of us really wanna do this. How do we do this? Right? So we're learning how it all works. You're right, it goes in unison. But I think the missing component, and it's not missing because people don't know they need to do it. That's the funny thing, Adam. Hmm? People know they need to build connection with people, right?

People know they should be making more phone calls. They know they should be attending more meetings. They know they should be making more connections, but we're afraid, right? We're struggling with that because I think as a society. We hoped we could go digital and our phone would just ring and we could get all the orders in the world, but we forget, you know, at the end of the day, we're humans.

We require human to human interaction,

Adam Kimmel: but I think it's a good thing for society, right? I mean, we don't, we don't want to have to just go only digital and not deal with people. I think as consumers, we want to be able to deal with the human, to have a relationship when we want. So then we need to be, we should be willing to give the same the any other direction.

I think we need to be willing to make ourselves available and give the time and effort, which, yes, it's harder and it does take more time, but yeah, I think that effort, we owe it to our customers to put that effort in, to give them the best experience they can. Yeah. Yeah. I, I just think it's, it's too easy to try to take a shortcut and you don't really deliver on what you promised, and the relationship kind of sours and things go in a negative direction.

It, it's just taking care of those details upfront.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah I agree. It. The funny thing about it though, Adam, is that it's a shortcut, but it's not a shortcut because we don't know we need to do it. It's a shortcut because we're afraid. Right. We're a, we're afraid to make calls. We're afraid to make human to human interaction.

We're afraid of being judged. We're afraid of making mistakes, right? Like if I ask somebody, why aren't you making your cold calls? They'll say, well, I don't wanna look like an idiot. I'm afraid I'm gonna say the wrong thing. It's fear. It's fear of other humans. It's fear of, of being perceived as like, oh, who's this idiot?

Why are they, I mean, I think on that call, guys, I've made tens of thousands of calls. I still make mistakes. I still make mistakes. There are times when I make a pitch and I jumble all my words. Hell, there's times during podcasts where I jumble all my words and I get mush mouth, and I'm like, holy crap.

Mush mouth, right? Like it happens to all of us. You make the mistake and you move on, right? It. You shouldn't let your fear of making a mistake in a conversation, in an interaction, in a call hold you back from that human to human interaction because you're losing more than you're gaining by not making that call.

Adam Kimmel: And the, the good news about that is the more you do it, the better you get, the fewer mistakes come out. So it is, it is a momentum thing anyway. And so that's just the encouragement and, and reason to keep, keep going. You know? I think if something doesn't go well the next time, you know what to change.

You've got some data, you keep correct and yeah, you know, just look. But make sure that you learn the lesson and don't just keep pounding the same nail if it's not landing.

Kelly Kennedy : I love that. I love that. And I think there's another thing, Adam, that they struggle with too. And they say, well, I'm gonna make mistakes guys.

I make mistakes. Like I make mistakes when I'm learning, you know, a new customer, what am I gonna say if I don't understand the industry, if I don't understand the lingo, I make mistakes in the beginning. It takes time. Like, you know, like Adam just said, it takes time to learn how to say the right thing and to learn what order, what structure is going to work, right?

But the only way you learn it is by trying and learning and trying and learning. And eventually you'll know exactly what to say. And guess what? You'll still make a mistake sometimes, right? Like, we're humans, we make mistakes. And you know what? The best thing about living in this time is, Adam. I think we're more accepting of authentic humanness than we ever have been before in history.

Adam Kimmel: And I, yes, something I noticed about that is when you make a mistake, the. The response of the person you're talking to, they change into a human being. If you have this polished, formal, hands folded dialogue, and then you just blow something. One time I was talking with my hands at a lunch and I cleaned the cup off the table.

I, it was across the room and I was in, I was in the zone, right. I was going and I'm, and I just froze. I'm like, looking at the cup and looking at the person. I'm like, they just started laughing just like you're doing. Yeah. Like, and I'm like, okay, can we just, can I call timeout and go get my cup? And it changed the whole dynamic.

It changed the entire dynamic. I mean, this is a customer I've worked with not for many years. Love it. And we come back every time we meet someone else, if it's at a dinner or a, you know, bar or something, that story tends to come back to me and things. But that's a connection. It's a human connection. Yeah.

That really just, cha just took the temperature down on the whole thing and, and made it easy. It's so funny.

Kelly Kennedy : Man. I, I think I spent most of my life trying to be perfect. Really? Yeah. And I think what I've kind of realized is, holy crap, like it was hard on me and it was hard on everybody else. Right, right.

Yeah. We don't connect with perfect. And you know, it's funny 'cause we talked about this before this show, and I put out a post last week and I typed the whole thing by hand. It's the first post I have typed completely by hand in two years, Adam, by the time this show comes out, three years I hadn't done it.

I hadn't done it in so long because, you know, AI came in and it's like, oh, well I can use AI to like polish everything up and to make everything sound great. And AI does an incredible job. First off, let me just state AI will make you sound polished and perfect and great. Humans, we don't connect well with it.

And guess what? When I wrote that post, I guarantee you it had grammar mistakes. It probably had a spelling mistake. But guess what? I literally typed on it, Adam. Look, ma, no hands. I'm not using AI for this post. And dude, it is the most receptive post I have had in all of 2024, the most receptive post I've had all year.

No ai, no polish. Just Kelly, what is that saying? What is that saying?

Adam Kimmel: To me it says all the bots that respond to people's social media accounts are tailored to look at human content and respond. I'm just kidding. I'm quiet. No, I, I think it needs that. Yeah. When it sounds like a human, you get responses from humans.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. So we don't connect with perfection. We don't connect with perfection, right? Like that's Well, and if you try to be perfect, you can't get there. That's an unattainable ideal state that can't exist. So it's gonna be painful. To watch somebody try to do it and continue to fail and have to sit there and be kind of immersed in that, just take it down and be real and, it gets easier that way.

Yeah. If you just don't expect it of yourself or of others.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah. Yeah. You've been, uh, you've been writing content a long time, you know, at this point you are a content expert and, you know, what are the trends that you're seeing? Obviously this show is coming out late 2025. We're probably getting closer to 2026 by the time this guy's coming out, but, you know, talk to me, obviously if I, I would say 2023 was like the advent of ai.

You know, when I launched this show, Adam, I hadn't even tried AI yet. Like No, obviously I had, it's like I didn't know I was using it. Right. I didn't know my, like email filters were AI or anything like that, but. You know, I, I kind of say AI was the advent of Chat GPT. That's kind of like, I think like the commercialization of us understanding what it's, is that, yeah, I hadn't even used it, I don't think.

I used chat GBT for the first three months of me launching this show, and then I found it and I'm like, wow, this is incredible. Like, imagine what we're gonna be able to do with this thing. And I started using it for content. I started using it for, to help me write, you know, show notes. Don't get me wrong, still write my show notes with ai.

Would not wanna do it in person. There's certain things that it does that are absolutely incredible, but I'm backing off using it on my socials. I'm realizing that it's just getting lost in, in the mix. It's like you're not standing out at this point to use ai.

Adam Kimmel: It shocks me that people tout AI as a value proposition when every single person has access to it.

How could it be a value prop if everybody has it? It's like saying wearing a shirt is a value proposition. Well, we're all there. That's zero. Yeah. It's what you do from there. So, I mean, on, on the AI point, and I can talk more broadly about content, but AI is what I've learned about it is, yes, it can be a, a helpful tool.

It can help as a thought partner. Yeah. So if I've got an idea for an article, I do a good interview, summarize the interview, pull out the five, yeah, five key points from it, from your side. I did the same on my notes. Compare you know, here's the outline. Gimme three versions of this outline and four titles, and then you can kind of optimize that.

Yeah. With that. Um, and then I like to write everything myself, but then I'll have it I'll have it, review it and edit it. Could you edit this for, yeah. Grammar, spelling, whatever. But then can you, um, think of a different conclusion? The intros and conclusions are the key. If you lose the intro, they're not gonna read the rest of it.

If you don't wrap it up right, they're not gonna take the step you want them to take. So intros and conclusions for me are absolutely critical. It can be a partner there to help, make this, rewrite this in a way that compels the reader to take this step or something like that. So I, I use it as a, as a partner versus a do this for me.

'cause then it'll just say in, in, in the evolving digital landscape and all this kind of stuff and it just doesn't get the depth. You have to still add the depth.

Kelly Kennedy : Absolutely. There's still absolutely a place for it. You know what I mean? What I'll do too, like if I have like a proposal or a pitch that I need to make, I will put mine in and say, Hey, how would you improve this?

Right. To get this, to come to this outcome. And I think it does do a great job in that. I think, like I said, there's certain things that AI is incredible for. I think, structured things where you have to communicate something very, very. Specifically, or technically it can be really great, especially if you can fact check it and make sure it's technically right.

Right. That's right. But I think if the goal here is to create connection with another human, I think we have to toss AI out. I think, and I hate to say that I really do because I love using ai. I really do. I, it has saved me countless time, Adam, especially in the production of the show, especially in creating my, my show posts or whatever else that I need go out.

Right. Um, I'm not gonna lie I think I'm feeling a little bit sad about the fact that I might not be able to use AI to the extent that I was hoping I was gonna be able to, but I'm telling you right now, I have not been able to create the same level of connection through my AI generated content as I have through my Kelly Kennedy generated content.

Adam Kimmel: Yeah. And that's, I've found the same. It's, it's, it's two. Me, it's kind of too, just high level. It doesn't get the depths that you need. And maybe another caveat I might say with it is a lot of people are, are sensitive to, they don't want their content to be ai. So they'll use ai checkers to see, oh, is this, is this written with ai?

And I think we can still tell an AI article or piece or post when we see one. Yeah. But the danger of that is for the kind of content I write, it's pretty niche. For, as an example, industrial manufacturing, there might be some segments where I've written a large fraction of the content for that segment.

So the AI is gonna be checking me against me, I can

against you.

And I write kind of formally and I talk formally. So I'm, you know, I, I, I even got that objection a couple times. Like, well, hey, this is saying ai. I'm like, well, yeah, well, what source articles ask it, what source articles it looked at? And three of mine came up.

I'm like, do you see the problem here? So I think it's, take it for what it is, but understand that it's. Reading what's already there. Yeah. So you gotta understand the landscape and you, I wouldn't over rely on it. It's, it's, it's okay to use them, but just consider the, the source, so to speak.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah. Adam, what are you seeing, you know, we're heading into 2026 in this interview. What are you, what are you seeing for the trends for 2026 ? What do you think, is it gonna change? Is it gonna be the same? What are you seeing?

Adam Kimmel: Well, with the year out, this is sort of like predicting the future.

So I'll see a, we'll review it in a year and see if we're right. Um, I see, you know, thought leadership as still critical, that middle of funnel, you know, um, what are the options available, you know, and getting that deep subject matter expertise as. Still critical cornerstone kind of content. So what I, what I get a lot of requests for is, can you write me a white paper?

I try to get that into, can we develop a content strategy around the point of view of the white paper. The white paper's gonna make a technical argument supported with a heck of a lot of data, which ends up, then we'll get subject matter, you know, input interview once, write the cornerstone piece, then use that as source content for either some blog series or for social content or for all the, you know, some short form video.

Like there's a lot of different ways that you can repurpose it so that the repurposing, distribution, all of that on quality source content, I think is gonna be the shift. In addition to short form video, this with subtitles. I mean, if volume's on or volume's off, people wanna cut to the chase. I think TikTok has really influenced the way we consume content.

I'm not a TikTok user. Both my kids are, but I see LinkedIn shifting to more like that model. And if that's what. We expect to read, then we're gonna see more of that because that'll be more effective and, and rewarded more by the algorithms. So, um. Yeah, those are the two big ones. I see.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah. So, so you're predicting that and, and actually I, I thought that as well, we talked about it kind of briefly before the show, is I really think there's gonna be a massive pivot to authentic video.

Mm-hmm. And the reason being is, I actually think it ties back to that, that huge need for human connection. Yes. Yes. We're getting AIed out. I genuinely believe that we are getting AIed out. And I think that video can be an authentic way to communicate, maybe the most authentic way to communicate.

And I think, you know, I don't, I think the short form content is actually where it's at. I don't think we want 30 minute, long hour long videos. I think we wanna learn some type of lesson, have some type of motivation in five minutes or less. You know, like it's, that seems to be the way we're going.

Adam Kimmel: Yeah. And any point of view that we would have, if, if we can deliver it ourselves, that's gonna be more impactful. They're gonna hear it in our voice the way that we think about it. That's, I've had a lot of success with those kind of interview style content pieces, just because if you hear someone's perspective.

You know, from them. Yeah. It just is more clear than if you read it. You could get the inflection wrong, you could get the connotation wrong. So, yeah. Uh, yeah. It's just, it's way more authentic and I think you're right. People crave that right now.

Kelly Kennedy : Well, and I would say, you know, I mean, you've been doing quite a bit of video these days and I wanted to just chat with you about that because let me tell you, I have struggled with video and I know people hear that and they're like, dude, you're a podcaster.

Like, how do you struggle with video? I don't know man. I just, I don't, I feel it's different. And I have struggled and I have recorded plenty of videos that never came out. 'cause I'm like, I don't wanna release this. You know, like it's just, it's a fear I think. And I think it's a fear because it's a, it's a new medium for a lot of us.

A lot of us are learning it. I know audio production, like the back of my head, I don't know, video production like the back of my head. Right. It's not a skill that I've spent a lot of time working on. Yeah. Not to mention, I feel like it's a different level of connection. It's a different level of putting yourself out there.

You know, with this, with the show, we're out there in an audio way, right? Like, sure, we share clips from the show, there'll be lots of like clips of us. But it's never felt like video. It's never felt like that. Whereas a video speaking direct to your audience really is video. There's no two ways of going about it.

And I know for people that I've coached with myself. We're all struggling with how do we embrace video when it's something that has freaked us out. I know for me, I'm just going to do it. I'm just gonna go through the nitty gritty. I'm gonna go through that horrible learning process of having to learn how to edit and all that other fun stuff.

Thank God I have a little bit of editing skills from doing podcasts, but it's a new thing. I'm, for me, I know I'm gonna have to run head on. I'm just gonna have to face my fears and do it, Adam. But I know there's a lot of people that that might be too much to ask. You know? Do you have any advice for how they could maybe tiptoe into video before they have to jump in altogether?

Adam Kimmel: Well, podcasting would be the first thing I would say. I mean, try to get on some podcasts to have a conversation like this is sort of an intermediate video. I'm able to get validation and a response from you to things I that reinforces. Perspective and confidence. Like if I say something, I get the immediate reaction I expected or wanted, then things feel more comfortable.

With video, you don't get that. So at least get comfortable speaking, get comfortable formulating thoughts and ideas and kind of weaving those together to answer something directly. And then just write the, write some points down for video and practice it. Just record. Take the phone and record yourself on there.

Look at it back. Ask others to look at it. Yes, gimme the feedback. Let's hear it. Good, bad, indifferent. You know, feedback is a gift, but it's a little painful. So the more you get, the easier it is. But that's right. Yeah, start with, try to get on a few podcasts or if, if you know it's too difficult or your too early career, make one up.

Just, get on a zoom call with a, a colleague or a friend or a family member and just have a mock one and just get their feedback. But I think, you know, just seeing yourself doing it, how is it coming off? How is it being received? The quicker you see that, the, the more you'll know, you know, how you want your style to evolve.

Kelly Kennedy : How about for like the editing side? Do you have any advice to like, you know, a, a person who may wanna put out video, but they're not really sure how they should go about editing it? You know, you're putting out some great video. Talk to me. Uh, how, how have you been doing that?

Adam Kimmel: I mean, there are tools out there and there are partners that help do it.

So for me, I, I partner with a, a company to help me do that. I kind of. Worked with them and said, here's my brands, you know, here's what I want these to come off. Here's my style, how I wanna be perceived, you know, this, this technical expert, thought leader, but also helpful and human, I think. So that kind of combination.

But there are also, you know, I've found cell phone based ones that as a very first step, you can get where they have prompter. I don't have a link or one off the top of my head, but there are ones that have like the words that you wanna say. If you write a script, you can upload that. It's on the screen so you're looking at the screen.

And you can also kind of get prompted, um, to do that. So there are plenty of digital tools, uh, to do it. And then you can just upload the, those videos, uh, onto a LinkedIn or onto whatever platform you're, you're on. But, uh, I, I'm a big believer in the, especially if your mind tends to. Go on tangents, which so many of ours do, right?

Mm-hmm. Is how much, how distracted we are, have at least bullet points to keep you marching for the destination you have. Otherwise you'll wind up someplace else. So that's, um, especially to start too. Yes. As you learn to do the speaking versus writing, that's a great way to help keep things straight.

Kelly Kennedy : Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, like when I write out all my show plans for my individual shows, that's exactly how I do it, right? I have talking points, I have, you know, maybe three to five things that I'm gonna talk about with each of the major points, and it allows me to stay on track. The nice thing about that though is, is that I can look down, I can take a break, I can do all sorts of stuff with my podcast that you just can't really do in a video.

Right? It's, uh, it's interesting for sure, but we're all learning it. I guess my advice to you guys would be we're all a little afraid. So if you're feeling afraid, I don't want you to be like, oh my gosh, like, I don't know what to do. Just try it. Just give it a go. Everybody starts out afraid. I'm hoping that by the time you guys are hearing this, that I'm like, I'm past that fear and I'm putting out tons of great content, but as of this recording, I am still struggling with video guys.

So, don't feel bad if you are to, I think that's kind of what I wanted to bring out. And you know, Adam, you're a business development expert as well, and I just wanted to kind of chat with you. We're, we're talking to a lot of new businesses, a lot of new business owners, and usually it's me giving the business development advice.

But today I want you to give the business development advice. So if you're a new business, what are your top three recommendations that you would give to help them grow and establish their brand presence?

Adam Kimmel: Make sure you start in the right place, which is what the business goals. I think too often people wanna start, they have a new product and they automatically assume that the website needs a complete overhaul and that the, they need a content program.

And you're starting at the end when you don't even really know what the story is that you need to tell. So what are the goals of the business? Start with the financials because you need the business development efforts to support that. Just as we were kind of chatting before the show make sure that those are clear so that you can define plans that can deliver those in a way that's reasonable if it causes you to have to have hundreds of meetings a month or, or more.

This isn't sustainable and the, and the, there's a misalignment. So why would you spend a dime on a plan that doesn't have any reasonable success, chance of success? So that would be the first one is just understand what the goals are. Are they reasonable? And is this. Is this landscape something you can win at?

The other one is, is get as familiar with the kinds of roles in within customers that are decision makers. I think so often the people that I work with, especially in marketing, are manager level, who, you know, have authority, but they're not the decision maker. So you can do the best job in the world at convincing that person they've gotta take you.

Move you up the chain without you in the room. So there are ways I've solved that. Uh, loom videos are a great one. Um, just to kind of walk through, you know, if you share a PowerPoint deck or something, just walk through the highlights of that and executive summary in a loom video that then that contact can share internally.

So it's you making that case even asynchronously. Um, but having someone else have to do that, remember what you said, frame it the right way, how you would frame it seems unlikely. So put your customer and your, you know, contact at your customer in the best chance of success by, uh, equipping them with the, the tools that they need.

And maybe the third one is. To partner with technical experts and commercial salespeople. I, I look at BD as really the center of the hub. I mean, we, Kelly, you say, you know, enough to be dangerous. I, I wanna make us know enough to be effective. So what, how do we unlock the SMEs? So get familiar with their style, with their approach, with the way that you can get that critical information out of them.

But then what can you give sales to help them be effective to close? Because if sales doesn't close, everybody loses. If the SMEs can't get the information out, everybody loses. So BD really is kind of the. The center point of all of that to collect that information, frame it in a way to set sales up for success, to hit those metrics.

Kelly Kennedy : Love that. Love that. Absolutely. You need to have, you know, it's one thing the BD typically isn't gonna close the deal. You're absolutely right. You absolutely need to have the subject matter experts and the salespeople in there to be able to really wrap that thing up. I, I agree completely. Adam, take me into Ask Consulting.

Take me into it, man. You've been doing this. What? Uh, we're at 10 years. 10 years of Ask Consulting, my friend. Congratulations.

Adam Kimmel: Well, thank you. It's funny. No. November 27th, 2014 was the birthday of A-S-K are my initials. So that's as innovative as I get. Um. But it, it's worked out because it's sort of like if you need consulting help just ask.

And there's, you know, cheesy things that I can say about that. My kids hate that one. So, you know, hopefully don't, they don't listen. But, uh, yeah. So 10, 10 years ago, so, I mean, I started doing content writing. It was a matter of like, oh, hey, remember that project? We did it. Former employer. Can you write a summary about that?

Like I kind of mentioned before, it's sort of doing that I realized that people would ask me for content with absolutely no strategy behind it. I need a blog post because my competitor wrote one. Mm-hmm. I need to talk about this topic because I heard about a trade show. That's not a strategy, that's reactive.

And, and being reactive is the, is the wrong way to do it. 'cause you're not gonna do it as well as the first one you heard and you're gonna be late. You know, then I started helping with content strategy. So the last probably four to five years I've been helping my clients figure out what to write about, what forms doing that discovery work for, what are the audience pain points, target client personas and, and really defining that value proposition.

I'm always shocked. And how bad companies seem to be at understanding their right to win best product, best service. That ain't it? Mm-hmm. That doesn't work at all. Like, what are the competitive ones? What do customers like about those? What do they hate about them? Is this problem worth solving? Like, you've gotta be able to articulate that.

Uh, and so I started helping businesses with that, with content strategy, but then I realized there was really no business strategy a lot of times behind that. So that's what led to the fractional BD endeavor is to say, like, I, I get that you're not really sure you're right to win, or you may not have the best technology, should you quit and go away.

No, it's, it's a messaging and a positioning problem. I can help you with that. I would get a lot of this objection. We launched a product in a totally bomb. What market research did you do before you did that? What, anything, who did you ask outside your company? Mm-hmm. Because you've talked yourselves into thinking it's a great idea.

Yeah. But the market doesn't agree. So that's the foundational work that a lot of times an external consultant can help with, because it's a perspective that isn't, that hasn't been kind of wrapped around itself internally. It's like, yeah, I work with three other companies like yours, and here's one way to do it that would make you different than them.

And kind of having that external partner. So I've seen a lot of value in offering that perspective to come in and say, all right, I, I get what you wanna do in your point of view, but I think we need to sharpen this area, or maybe pivot from this segment to this segment given the level of competition or, you know, your technology advantage or whatever it ends up being.

Kelly Kennedy : I love that too because actually, you know, I've found in my entire time of doing this show, Adam, I've only spoken with one other value proposition expert. That's crazy. Dude. 300 episodes, two value proposition experts. And it just shows that like, it's so critical, but there's so little people out there focused on it.

Adam Kimmel: And I think what I've seen too is the ones that are the most effective, it's often inversely related to how many words. It's if you need a bunch of words and paragraphs to articulate that, you're not clear. And it's okay because that's the hardest part to get right. There's so much competition. People are level up their games.

It's good for the consumers, but for us as business owners and, and you know, fractional leaders, we've gotta be able to be sharp and articulate that. And that's why I think writing is such a, such an important. Strength to be able to understand what you hear and how to frame that in the right way. But companies just don't get that right, right now.

Kelly Kennedy : Well, I think right now too, and companies are relying on ai, they're kind of feeding it a bunch of data and saying, Hey, what's our value? Now, I'm not sure a machine can tell you why a human would value it.

Adam Kimmel: Well, and the machine looks looking at the existing landscape, I mean, you're going the opposite direction.

You need to be looking in between the existing landscape and the, you know, I know that AI is good, but I just, that seems like a, the opposite of what you should do.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah, no, for sure. Let's talk about the power of emotion. 'cause in my mind, I think you need to be able to entice emotion to truly create value.

Has that been your experience as well?

Adam Kimmel: Well, yeah. I mean, if you don't believe in something at some level, you're not going to put enough of yourself behind it to have it work like this. My business, I, I firmly believe in my business's ability to help clients. Grow and do better. And I, I love to do it. And when it's done right, it's the most energizing thing in the world.

Yeah. I think business development as a discipline is that way too. Uh, if you like listening to several of your episodes, I was kind of, you know, we were chatting before the show and I'm out on a walk or a run and I hear some, some words of inspiration about a topic I'm passionate about. The pace picks up, I start kind of getting excited and wanting to keep going and charge through the, the wall.

So, I mean, I, I think marketing and, and bd, if done right, should inspire that emotion in the person you listen to. I mean, I presented last year to a group that was kind of skeptical. They were reluctant to have the meeting. Yeah. They didn't wanna really be there. They were late. They were looking at the watch before, okay, we only have 30 minutes.

Well, two and a half hours later, we were all standing up kind of around the whiteboard, ideating and innovating. And that as an engineer and as a, you know, somebody who's wants to help people grow, that's, that's the most energizing experience you could ever have as an outcome. Just getting the buy in throughout the meeting.

You see the tide turn, you see the, the interest and people start leaning forward and well, have you thought about this? And then they're in. Yeah. But it was that emotional connection, the why behind what all of this is about in the first place that did it. And that's, that's a tough thing to get right?

'cause if you want to play on emotion and really highlight that, you need to have it and believe in it, but then also be able to communicate it in a way that doesn't sound inauthentic. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, but it's, it's critical. I mean, that's the quickest way to success is to get somebody excited about what you, what you're talking about.

Kelly Kennedy : I'm so thankful that you touched on that specifically, uh, that I'm happy that the BDP has been able to, to excite you and get you pumped up 'cause Sure. You know, I realized early on that my biggest struggle when I started BD was my own self-confidence, was my own belief, like ability and belief in myself that I could actually accomplish the goal that I was hired to achieve.

And I think many of us in bd, at least at one point in our career, and maybe for a grant, a lot of our career, we're not like, completely bought into ourselves. We might be completely bought into the company, we might be completely bought into the product, but our belief internally that we can do it, that's the missing point.

And so a big part of the BDP has been how can I instill confidence? How can I give people that thing that they have inside of them? How can I bring that out? And so, hearing you say that, man, it's, uh, it's all worthwhile.

Adam Kimmel: Well, yeah, and I think that it's also helpful. I mean, we get compliments throughout our days and years, so keep those, keep a file of those.

Have have a bad day file where you can go in and go, you know, LinkedIn testimonials are a great part of that. Like, no, you've done good work for people in the past. And you know, it's also a good kind of way to see what, what's the kind of work I should lean into versus move away from. Um, but also just to, just to keep that confidence up to like, no, I've done this, I've done this for people before.

Here's how I've helped. Here are some of the results. Being able to articulate those results. But I think just for internal confidence too, just to know like, no, this, this is working for people. Yeah. Is it, does it work every time? No. Is it perfect? No, but it does work and you know, I'm honest and genuine with my approach and the way I wanna do things and, you know, I get to kind of sometimes look into those things and go, yes, it's I'm glad that I did it and I'm glad it worked for someone to help them.

Kelly Kennedy : Yeah. Yeah. Adam, you do business development, you do technical content writing, content writing in general. What are some of the other services that you provide?

Adam Kimmel: Uh, those are the big ones right now. So I, I do the I'm calling it fractional bd 'cause I can engage, you know, at a more deep level. Um, content writing and strategy.

I also do product development support. So, I mean, with these, all these patents, my brain thinks in innovation whether I want it to or not. So, yeah, a lot of times, you know, clients will want to grow their business, but then I'll get into some of the product discussions and, you know, here's my product and, and we'll just get into a natural conversation as engineers about why did you do it this way and have you thought about doing it another way?

So I've helped some clients create other products or services to help differentiate them. Another one recently was a, a service that, you know, one, one of my clients had a kind of a lean service that they wanted to do, and. It's just more traditional kind of lean principles, but applied in a quicker way for smaller for smaller manufacturers.

And so that process was unique. It allowed them a look at the business, and it was a way to differentiate from some larger companies that weren't as agile and nimble. So that kind of, you know, new products insights and new service insights, you know, supporting their clients in a different way is something I can help with as well.

Kelly Kennedy : Amazing. Amazing. And you're based in Milwaukee, correct?

Adam Kimmel: Yeah, Milwaukee. So about an hour, almost exactly an hour doing north of O'Hare Airport Chicago.

Kelly Kennedy : Amazing. And obviously you service the entire US if needed. Can you also service like Canada?

Adam Kimmel: I certainly can. I, my clients actually, I have more non-US clients at the moment than us.

Amazing. I mean, maybe it's a half and half, but I have clients in Asia. I have clients in Europe. Um, I have worked with ca, uh, Canadian clients in the past. And of course us. So yeah, I mean, as a. BD isn't unique to geography, right? So I think, um, it, it's, yeah, I'm happy and I, and I enjoy international collaboration.

I, I love the perspectives. I love talking to people in other parts of the world because I think you can get insulated to, to points of view and things where you are, but to bring an insight from, oh, hey, my client in Europe is doing it this way. Have you thought about that? That's valuable. So I've found that it interests me, of course to learn, learn about everybody, but also to, to bring those insights from a global perspective, not just a national.

Kelly Kennedy : Amazing. Amazing. And obviously you're on LinkedIn how else can people get ahold of you?

Adam Kimmel: LinkedIn's the best one. So the Adam S Kimmel is the handle, and then my website is assk consulting solutions.com. And uh, my email is just a kimmel at assk consulting solutions com. So yeah, always up for engagement, uh, for reach outs and.

Discussion.

Kelly Kennedy : You know, before we end today's show, Adam, I just want to congratulate you. Your content strategy is awesome. Your videos are awesome. What you are doing is awesome. Keep it up, man.

Adam Kimmel: Well, same to you. It's been a pleasure.

Kelly Kennedy : Been pleasure.

Until next time. This has been episode 284 of the Business Development Podcast, and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His. Passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.