Neil Gray of Refractive Concepts breaks down why your marketing feels busy but isn't converting — and how to align sales, sharpen messaging, and use AI without losing your brand voice. For SMB owners planning 2026.
GROWTH PILLAR: Marketing & Branding
WHO THIS IS FOR: SMB owners / Solopreneurs / Corporate escapees / Leaders building systems
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: Practical ways to align marketing and sales, sharpen brand messaging that actually speaks to buyers, use AI without sounding generic, and plan a smarter 2026 marketing strategy.
Why does your marketing feel busy but not effective?
That's the question Neil Gray, founder of Refractive Concepts, came on Knack 4 Business to answer.
Neil has spent decades in B2B, B2B2C, partnerships, and SaaS. He's the marketing executive other leaders call when their message is not landing and their pipeline is not moving. In this conversation with Bernie Franzgrote, he breaks down the real difference between marketing and sales, why they should be one team and not two, and how to build a brand voice that actually sounds like you.
He shares why too many founders skip the basics — clear messaging and credibility — and jump straight to tactics. He explains how AI can scale your output but also scale your noise if you don't review what it writes. And he talks about the metrics that actually matter at each stage of growth.
Key topics covered:
Connect with Neil Gray:Refractive Concepts website | LinkedIn | Refractive Concepts on LinkedIn | YouTube | neilgray@refractiveconcepts.com
Sponsors mentioned in this episode:
Next steps:
Bernie (00:22)
Why does your marketing feel busy, but not effective? And how do you finally make your message clear enough to drive real results? That's exactly what our guest is here to break down. In this episode, he'll show you how to align your marketing and sales efforts, rebuild internal trust, sharpen your brand message, and design a smarter strategy for 2026. Our guest is Neil Gray from Refractive Concepts. He's the founder and a seasoned marketing executive
and consultant known for blending strategic vision and genuine relationship building. With deep expertise in B2B, B2B2C, partnerships and SaaS, He spent decades creating and executing strategies that boost brand awareness, drive customer acquisition and keep clients engaged for the long haul.
His full stack marketing skills and thoughtful leadership have earned him a trust reputation among business leaders who rely on his clarity, insight and results. Through refractive concepts, Neil helps companies understand what their business communicates, how it's truly seen and heard, because that's where real transformation starts.
Outside the boardroom, he's a hobbyist photographer and a proud wine enthusiast who believes great wine should be enjoyed, not overanalyzed. Neil, absolute pleasure having you here today. Do you have a favorite quote or saying, sir?
Neil (01:40)
Thank you for having me on. Yeah. In a business context, think the one that's come to mind more recently in my career is don't let great be the enemy of good. When you're in marketing and many things, but through a marketing lens, you have the opportunity to make hypothesis, launch experiments and optimize. You want to make sure that you get more out of doing.
than waiting for it to be perfect. It still needs to look professional, still needs to be capable, but that last 10 % of improvements in many cases is not going to give you as much as the learnings you're to get from being into market.
Bernie (02:15)
Why does your business refract instead of reflect?
Neil (02:19)
I have a-
I am, as you mentioned, Bernie, an amateur photographer. And some of the things I like taking pictures of, I just love color and bold, bright colors. And I made a little art experiment where I filled some milk bottles with ⁓ clear milk glasses with dish soap, different colors, and started taking pictures of the light refracting through it. So it's just something that's been on my window sill for years.
And when it came to naming the organization, we were looking for something that was meaningful to me. And refraction was just something my wife came up with as a name for the company.
Bernie (02:51)
I think it's a great answer. Thank you. So marketing, why toss your hat in that corner? And what brought you there?
Neil (02:57)
I started, I bounced around a little bit early in my career after I graduated from university and I ended up in a sales role. First it was demand generation and then I went into sales. I really liked the company and I had an opportunity to be the sixth person on the marketing team globally. So I transferred out of sales into marketing.
And that was eye-opening because when there's only six of you, you really have a lot of room to play. So I got to set things up the way that I wanted to. I got to experiment in ways that I never thought possible and marketing, unlike some other roles, it's such a big department. There's a variety. You could do something different every day. And that really held my interest.
Bernie (03:42)
You focused on B2B and then B2B to C. So it's almost a tongue twister. walk us through, know, how is marketing from business to business a good fit versus business to the consumer?
Neil (03:56)
So when it's business to business, you're largely offering a service to benefit the other organization. But when it's business to business to consumer, what you're doing is you and the other business that you're working with, whether it's a client or a partner, you're working ⁓ in concert to offer something to the consumer. it's, while everything ultimately is there to benefit whomever the ultimate end buyer is, it is just a different model by which you have to then
build trust, offer value, and then collaborate with them in the B2B to C side to make sure that they're getting something out of this too. Otherwise they will become a partner or someone that will work with you, but they won't be very engaged and all the effort you put it into securing that partnership won't go very far.
Bernie (04:39)
in marketing, even with the...
the vision of AI glooming over us, what do you think is going to be real? What's going to be smoke and what's going to be deliverable?
Neil (04:50)
Well, there's a few things. mean, I'm seasoned enough to have seen, you know, social media and Web 2.0 is going to be, is going to make marketing extinct, you know, as you know it, or e-commerce is going to put marketers out of business. People just log in and do whatever purchases they want to do by themselves. I think that AI's impact will be more profound.
the nose, but ultimately I don't think it will be, the sky is falling that a lot of people predict. I think it will, responsible companies will, not use it as an opportunity to cut jobs, but to reallocate people to higher value activities. so same number of employees doing different tasks. and then AI is, is a mechanism by which you can amplify your scale of what you're able to produce.
⁓ although definitely be very careful. Too many companies are putting out, they were already putting out what I call noise, just content for content sake. have to have something of value. AI has allowed people to scale that and you are just making a noisier and less valuable contribution to the conversation and good companies can stand out by, you know, going to market less frequently with their messaging.
and offering something of value every time they do and not just put out something for something sake. And if you're, if you're going to, if you're definitely going to use AI to write content, have someone review it. You don't want that to be your branding and then your branding ends up. Cause currently AI is, is very good at kind of generic high level messaging. If you, if you really want to underscore your brand is you need to have someone review what AI has come up with and then, you know,
alter it to make sure it really underscores your value proposition in your messaging and localize it for your region or industry.
Bernie (06:33)
Marketers oversimplify, but marketers genuinely either sell fresh eyeballs or hands. All founders think they're geniuses. I've never met one yet that didn't. What do you think a good marketing team adds to a founder?
Neil (06:48)
It depends. mean, when you're dealing with, if you're still calling someone a founder, you're probably early stage and your marketing needs are relatively small. Your, your marketing team is probably, you know, consists of one person that does marketing full time and maybe one person that does marketing part-time while they also do something else. they're probably internal hires or quite the frequently internal hires and they're usually just doing triage. They're usually just.
you know, doing as much as they can to support as many people as possible. So the, if you're going to prioritize something at that stage, prioritize your messaging and your credibility. Because while, while this don't directly translate into revenue, can draw a straight line to it, you're not going to get anywhere if you cannot define who you are and why you're important.
what clients are the best to prioritize and then how you service those. If you can't understand that for yourself and then communicate it to others, you're not going to have an easy time getting customers or prospects or in the founder's case, investors.
Bernie (07:48)
So everything seems to be wrapped around the messaging. And you were mentioning earlier about AI and it does a generic thing. sometimes I'm working on someone's bio and I hi, amalgamate this really long-winded story into a little tighter format. I'm going, I'm reading it I'm going, yeah, yeah, but you know what? Nudge again, focus on these three elements. Yeah, looking better, right?
And the reason I'm using AI is because when I write something, sometimes I write it from my perspective. And apparently my perspective is not necessarily easily understood by other people. So I'm looking for a simplified, it's my sounding board. But that said, when someone is that simple messaging for myself, I recognize, but when you're the founder or you're a business, whether you're a founder or not, is there a chance that you could follow up a message and you're not resonating with
who the message is for.
Neil (08:37)
Honour
Bernie (08:37)
side.
Neil (08:39)
You definitely that's certainly a big concern.
For a lot of companies, especially ones that offer similar products to their competitors, you want to differentiate yourself in a number of different ways. Now, sometimes that is in your price or your delivery or your service or your tech or combinations of several factors. If you start speaking in the way that everybody else speaks, you're really not differentiating yourself. You've got to find like a writer who finds their voice.
You've got to find your brand's voice. And these are the things I want to say. And often it's the nuance that subtly gives a wink to, yeah, this person really gets it. Or this brand really understands. And it's not using big buzzwords. It's relating to the audience. I think too many people try to write in a way that says, here's all the things I want to tell you. Instead of paying attention to their audience, these are the things I want to hear.
These are the things that will engage me. These are the things that will convince me. These are the things that I will take forth and help others in my company make the decision on.
Bernie (09:37)
Sounds like a fire hose moment. He deluging them and yeah, know, parsing it out to meet the, what they need when they need it.
Neil (09:44)
That's right. you need to certainly there's no problem using AI as a starting point, but you really still need to craft and shape the messaging at the end.
Bernie (09:52)
So I guess the kind of the next piece of the plan then is you have your marketing and you have your sales team. And you mentioned you work both sides of the fence. for the audience, what's the difference between marketing and sales? Because some people might think, and I know it's not, but some people think it's one and the same, right? Like, know, and yeah. What's the difference? Because each of them has a certain role and function.
But how do you get alignment and then what do they do?
Neil (10:19)
You know, that's a really interesting question because I think this is where a lot of businesses fail or fail to operate effectively. marketing is the easy answer would say is marketing is the front end, to draw people in and then sales is, is nurturing through the pipeline and converting them. but in reality, I think marketing has responsibilities throughout the buyer's journey in the sales funnel.
including to the moment of transaction or the purchase and then following up for, you know, to make customers sticky and to, to grow the business. I think marketing and sales are, while they're two different departments, what's often the mistake is that they're on the same team. They work for the same organization. If you spend your energy worrying about how you're going to better serve your customers, how you're going to out-compete your competitors.
you're going to do well. If you spend your energy pointing fingers at the other department because you don't really understand what they do or you don't understand the value that they offer or you don't understand what their process is and how they bring it to market, you're going to be out of step. You are going to be shooting yourself in the foot and allowing others to surpass you.
So marketing is typically, let's have the conversation, let's start the conversation. This is the thing we should be talking about. Here are the reasons why you should be listening. And sales is a continuation of that conversation on a more personal one-on-one level so that they can tailor the messaging, they can tailor the understanding and develop a solution that works for the customer.
Bernie (11:40)
They say in healthcare and maybe in consulting, one of the worst things you can do is prescribe before you diagnose. So if you are spending an hour diagnostic with a client, what questions do you want to add before you prescribe?
Neil (11:54)
They're all business related questions. They're not marketing, say for maybe the messaging. It's what business are you in? Why do customers buy from you? Why don't they buy from the alternatives? When you have a customer and they leave, why did they leave? What do you do well? What are your current goals? What resources do you have available to work with? There's no point in me designing as a consultant
a multi-million dollar approach if you bring in $500,000 in revenue every year. You know, are your goals growth related? Are your goals about pivoting into a new market? So it's more about understanding where the business at and where their goals are and what business they're in, than it is about, you know, immediately prescribing a marketing solution. And Wayne, I really align with the analogy that you used because I see that far too often.
Bernie (12:40)
So if you're dealing with B2B, is it different B2B national, local, international, or continental?
Does it all come the same stuff or, you know, same, same relationships or does it get more weird the further you go away from where you're located at? Like, you know, halfway around the globe, it's 12 hours difference. When you're awake, they're fast asleep.
Neil (13:02)
I think the basic activities remain the same. There will be some tweaks based on cultural time issues and considerations, but largely it's about building credibility, building trust, whether you're doing that locally or nationally or internationally, it's still the same foundation. It's just the scale at which you do it.
Neil (13:23)
Ciao!
Bernie (13:23)
When you left corporate, there was either too much bureaucracy, they helped you leave, or you just couldn't, you didn't feel you could shine. What did you find was the reason that you got into self-employment?
Neil (13:37)
You know, I took some time off after I left the organization and I did a lot of travel and it did a lot of just kind of recharging. And then I started doing some consulting and some mentoring just to kind of keep my skills sharp along the way. And I started looking for full-time work. And the more consulting and mentoring I did, I only mentioned mentoring because it's such a key part of consulting and advising.
I realized I really liked doing this. This is what I like and similar to when I said I moved into marketing for a small department, I got to do a lot of different things. No day was the same. Consulting is that times 10. You really have a broad variety of things that you're going to be interacting with. I've enjoyed the process of setting up my business. I'm enjoying the process of servicing clients and every client's needs are a bit different.
⁓ So that's kind of where that was my moment of, you know, I do like doing this and I could make a go of it. And this is how I want to spend the foreseeable future of my career.
Bernie (14:34)
So when you're bringing things together for somebody and someone says, listen, consult with me, I want to get a marketing plan pushed out. What are the key metrics you're going to have them pay attention to? And over what period of time is it in the first week, first month, first hour, first second? Obviously the first second. I guess if you're on a major platform such as the...
the Super Bowl, that might be the first second, you'll have an instant reaction. But what are the metrics you're looking for? Where do you know that, yes, you're on target and or you're not, but let's tweak.
Neil (15:09)
It really depends on where the business is at in like what their place in the market is and what their growth stage is. If you are an established business, you have different metrics than you are if you're a startup or a recently funded business. So it is, it's difficult to answer that question overall, but basically the idea is to get a sense of where the company is now and what its next milestone is. So.
I would look at metrics from a marketing perspective, B2B marketing to clarify. I would look at it on a quarterly basis and then, you know, six months, year, two year, five year. Now the two year, five year plans are obviously ⁓ aspirational, but, and they'll change along the way. But in the short and midterm, the short term is about, how do I lay the groundwork? And those groundwork things could just be activities.
And then as you go further and further, you get to a point where you start talking about pipeline. So how many leads have I brought into the pipeline? What percentage of those got further into the pipeline? What channels got the leads further into the pipeline? Which ones converted at the highest rate? Which ones went the quickest? Those would be the areas because really you're just building a lead machine. And once you've built the framework,
you keep filling it with leads and then you keep tinkering along the way. What are the leads that sales is doing a great job of converting? Which ones are the ones they want to convert? Cause they're going to be engaged. I want them to follow up with all of my leads. So what are the ones that work for them? What are the volumes I can give it to them at? So I know that I'm giving you kind of broad metrics, but it's just because at different stages, there's a number of different measures.
Bernie (16:48)
Yeah, and that makes sense.
So what's your favorite one or two ways to get in somebody's face? Do you like emails? Do you like networking? you like conference? Okay.
Heres what's happening, y'all. I don't know about you, but... In a kind and loving way.
Neil (17:06)
Yeah. I think the two best ways you mentioned a couple, so I'll give you a couple. It's anything personal. email is easy to ignore email as impersonal.
Even phone calls is similar. You've got to, you understand that you have finite time and money resources. You have to make investments on things that are most likely to convert. What's the highest probability that this is going to turn into something? And while say networking is a longer term approach, the conversion rate tends to be higher because you're getting either a warm introduction or a referral, or you've already built a lot of the trust. You would spend a lot of time and money.
in advertising or emails trying to build and you're already getting that because you're doing person to person. So networking is certainly one, but that's not the only way to approach it. I would also look at thought leadership. And again, that gets back to some of the things we talked about earlier is if you are offering something truly insightful.
If you are offering something a little bit different, if you are not bombarding people every day and you're not part of the noise, you will continue to build that goodwill and trust with the people that you ultimately want to serve. And every activity, every touch point you have with them is a representation of your brand. And if you are known for, this person does great work. This person only puts out good content. This person is not always selling me.
they'll carry that mentality forward to when you're actually interacting with them in a sales process and think, okay, this person's already got a lot of equity with me. I'm gonna give them more of the time of day. You need to obviously continue those types of behaviors, but that is how you lay the groundwork for a longer term approach. And while networking is one-on-one, thought leadership can be done at scale, but it seeks to replicate similar benefits.
Bernie (18:51)
So what kind of ratio do you have for the connections? Is there an optimal, I'm thinking from a networking perspective or how many customers can someone in sales have before it becomes you're overwhelming yourself? You're gonna either underserve the client at large, because that's all gonna reflect back into the marketing, right? So is there a best way? Is there of a key indicator in that?
that, yeah, this is enough. need to either hire another person or do something different.
Neil (19:21)
It depends on how the business is set up. Some people have ⁓ salespeople and some people have salespeople and account managers. In the world I used to work in, they would call it hunters and farmers, people who would go in and get the business and people who would grow the business. So when you're producing leads, you want to produce leads, whether it's marketing source or the salespeople source it themselves or its referrals.
You want to, you want to produce it at a level that, ⁓ that the salesperson can handle. you don't want to have them either drowning or in a desert. so it needs to be, you know, consistently applied and you want people at different stages. You know, some of their calls should be to net new clients or prospects. Some of them should be to existing people in the funnel and trying to get them a little bit further. and then if they're also the account manager, they need to have the time to understand what the customer's needs are.
⁓ are we still doing it for you? We still giving you what you need. What do you have upcoming that we can service you on? we introduced this new product. Are you aware of that? And if they don't have the time to have those conversations, then their book is too big. they need to have a more appropriate size book so that they could properly service everyone. Your brand is not your logo and your color scheme. Your brand is how people feel about you.
and they feel about you through perceptions and touch points. And if your perception is, man, I can never get my person on the phone or they're not responsive to emails or LinkedIn messages, that's your brand. That's at least part of your brand. So you need to be cognizant of that when you are designing the book of business that the person is expected to manage. And as you said, working backwards, how do I funnel leads that way at that volume?
Bernie (20:55)
people only call in marketing teams when they've dropped the ball. Would you rather fix something or build something? Would you rather do greenfield or repair with a new client?
Neil (21:06)
I know. think that's interesting.
I think Greenfield can be fun in terms of you're setting up the base requirements, which tends to be very similar at that stage, even though the industry is different. If the growth stage is the same, presumably you're in ⁓ early stage, or I'm giving you an example of early stage, your market position is relatively small. Your brand awareness is probably not incredibly high.
So the basic elements tend to be similar. How you develop them and deploy them is different. So that's very interesting. When it comes to like a brownfield where it's an existing business and they're saying, look, we've been growing at 8 % year over year. We're profitable, but we really need to be growing at 12. We have tried these five things. We can't figure it out. I love those situations too, because either I'm helping them decide on a new way to go to market or usually what it is is
Well, what are you doing internally? What are your processes look like? I imagine in many cases, the more effort you put on to your sales and marketing relationship or the how a marketing operation is professionally run. So are they doing the right things day to day? Are they executing well? Are they planning well? Are they communicating well within the marketing team? Efficiencies there are probably worth in many cases more than spending
X amount of dollars on a new digital campaign or Y amount of dollars on an event. But again, you never know till you kind of get in with the client and get an idea of what's going on. So I think those are really interesting. Maybe that's perhaps my answer, but I enjoy definitely doing both.
Bernie (22:38)
You find that the, one of the things I've noticed if you're doing large business or you're dealing with a large client, like, you know, if it's a B2B scenario, but they are monolith, the odds are they'll have an RFP, RFQ and RFI. Is that another avenue for, you know, getting in and reaching them? Obviously, if you win the RFP, you're in, know, now it's account manager time. But do you find those processes also help in the marketing?
You're out there, you're bidding, you're getting to see what other people are doing. And at the same time, even though you may not be successful in the bid, you're actually showing up going, tada, I've got X. Maybe you lost it just on minor technicality versus who won it.
Neil (23:21)
I think it's interesting because in RFP, RFQ, sometimes you get feedback, oftentimes you don't, which is very frustrating because you can't optimize. I understand why they do it, but I think in many cases, everyone would be best served by giving general feedback about, well, this is what was missing or this is why we chose that. But in general, an RFP and an RFQ,
That forces the sales and marketing and other departments to sharpen their pencils and really start working together and get concrete on, what are we going after here? What are we looking to do? So it's a great way to get people to align. And marketing adds a lot of value there, either in the process of doing that or helping to develop.
the relationships that get you to a point where you're, you know, sometimes you have to be asked to be in an RFQ. It's not just a public thing where anybody can apply. So building out those relationships, creating the credibility in the market. So people start asking those questions like, hey, could you please submit? Marketing has a role there.
Bernie (24:17)
Would it make sense then to attend conferences held? I'm thinking of certain industries, right? Like in the healthcare space here in the province of Ontario, they have something called OHA, Ontario Hospital Association. know, people, vendors will show up there going, hi. My cleaning cloth, you know, I'm thinking back to the microfiber days when it was first launched, right? know, wouldn't want to rub that over your cat because it would totally denude the cat. But you know, was, you know,
but that's probably how it got introduced. Do you find that a good way to start that process and as the marketing element or are you more into trade journals and trade news going out as going to that we're here and we do spectacular stuff.
Neil (25:00)
Usually it's a multi-pronged approach to be honest. Events are great. They jumpstart the trust process. They jumpstart the lead generation process, but it's three days out of the year. And you can't just be fed on those three days. You need to do a number of events. Ideally what you do is in the example you used with the, was it HSA? I'm sorry.
Yep. So I would in, in that scenario, my general approach would be, well, what other ways did they offer me to get in touch with their audience throughout the year? How can I use their, their rails to promote what I want to promote? Now, usually that is a sponsorship or thought leadership or an interview, maybe an advertisement, probably a combination of the, the, and then it leads to an event.
So ideally you'd be laying the groundwork by introducing yourself with some of those items and then start having a conversation about some of the things you want to do with the audience, maybe within the interview. And you start covering some off some of the topics that would be relevant to that audience. And then it ends in, hey, we'll be at this event, why don't you meet us there? If you just parachute into an event or like a monthly meeting, you're only gonna get so much value. If you do the work to now
you're genuinely involved in that community, you'll reap more benefits.
Bernie (26:11)
So you, ⁓ you're in corporate and you decide you're leaving and then you go for a bit of travel, a bit of golf, and then you go back and you say, no, I'm self-employed and you have your business card and your laptop and your cell phone. What did you not know? You did not know. And what was that? What was the biggest aha that that corporate gave to me without me even knowing corporate gave to me and you had to learn a new way to live.
Neil (26:37)
That's interesting.
I think I expected that I would have to wear all of the hats myself. I think that's probably fairly well known, but the degree to which I have to do that in the ways that I have to do that was probably a little bit more than I expected. know, some things play into my natural skill set as my background. So those things came easily. Other things were more involved than I thought they'd be and I spent more time on them.
And yet other things that I thought would be a lot have actually whizzed right by. So while I expected the process to look like X, it did just not in the way I really thought it would be.
Bernie (27:11)
So have you started marketing a wine company set? Sorry, since you like wine.
Neil (27:16)
Yeah, actually I have a perspective here. I am not a wine snob. I think that wine should be enjoyed either on your own or preferably with people. And the maximum enjoyment of wine should be find the wine you like, find it for as low cost as you can get it, and then go out and find more wine that you would like and experiment.
and share it with your friends, share with people that have a similar interest. I think that wine, the wine industry in particular, although you're seeing this with like craft beer and similar, is doing such a concerted effort in their marketing to position it as craftsmanship and imbuing it with these things that don't really matter, but it sounds interesting or people tend to forget that this is just a consumer packaged goods sale.
Like the more you pay to be on the higher shelf, you'll be on the higher shelf. The less you pay, you'll be on the lower shelf, which is fine. And so just, I understand why marketing teams do that, but for me, it kind of creates an elitist environment. And I don't like that. Wine should be enjoyed. Wine should, there shouldn't be a barrier to enjoyment of wine. You know, find what you like, find what tastes good to you, share it with your friends and let them do the same for you. That's what it should be.
Bernie (28:25)
and try to avoid drinking it early in the morning.
Neil (28:27)
Yes, yes indeed.
Bernie (28:29)
If you go to a lot of self-help courses, they always talk about find what you love and you'll never work a day. If you were going to have a magic wand and you could get work strictly at Faux Pay, either in wine or photography, and it just came to you, what would be the most fun? What would you want to not do? Because then it would be work. Tell me a story.
Neil (28:53)
I would definitely do wine if I could just make the money I wanted to make out of it and I would do it in the way I've just described. I would make it more open and more appealing. There's really kind of two elements to wine. There is the farming element and then there is, you know, being a vintner where you actually make the wine. I have time for both. I enjoy the idea of both. So I would do that. But for me, photography is more like meditation. I tend to shoot on ⁓ manual mode.
because I like the thought process of, you know, I need to consider these elements for taking the shot, like the settings on the camera, but I also then need to figure out where I need to stand to capture this because if I'm taking a landscape and the sun is shining a certain way, I need to go over here. So that to me is just a reset, a great way to mentally get back to where I want to be. And I wouldn't want to sully that by trying to make money at it.
Bernie (29:43)
It almost sounds like a parable of marketing. I'm just gauging it based on what we've talked about and what you've just mentioned now. I'm going, if you do this, you'll have that impact.
Neil (29:55)
Yeah, it's, it's definitely that it's, think it is. Marketing is an absolutely massive function, but at the core it's project management done well at scale. And you have to work back on all the factors that are going to influence this. and similar to as actually it's a really good way of looking at it. Similar to what you've just described is, well, what are all the inputs and how do they impact each other? And if I'm going to go forward, what's the input going to be in time and output?
So how do I need to rearrange this before I get started? So yeah, that's an excellent analogy.
Bernie (30:26)
So do you work with art directors then you go you come hither and then the person that writes the scribe come hither and you know let's do our first iteration and then keep working it down until you get a kind of a crafted message and then you look at the at the company and going so this is what you're doing this is your objective this is who you're reaching this is the thing that tunes most into them is is that what you're doing because you said project management which means then you know you're not you're not the ⁓
the master of all the skills, but you go, yeah, I know what I like, but you do it better. Come here. They're almost like the renovation I went through. I was watching the guy laying tile. You know, I could do that. Just would look like hell.
Neil (31:03)
Yeah, it's well, that's it. It's basically coordinating a number of other resources so that you could get more output than you would otherwise yourself. But I wouldn't I wouldn't just bring in say a marketing writer as you'd suggested. I would talk to sales, would talk to operations, I'd talk to product, get a sense from them. Why are you important? What is your value in the chain? How do customers take value from what it is you do? Because that's how you're to get to the nuance we talked about before.
how are you going to sound different than everybody else? So do all that kind of work as well as outside research and then that's when you can start crafting things.
Bernie (31:38)
that speak to the person? heard a manufacturing plant, this one person would put a little chocolate chip, like a Hershey's kiss in every package and then did it on their own steam. They weren't looking for compensation or anything. It became so popular that when it wasn't happening, people were calling back. They're going, where's my kiss? And the person going, you're what?
Neil (32:01)
Yeah.
Neil (32:02)
You know that I think that's it's interesting one and two is for me, ⁓ one that it was organic and you know, there's, there's something at some point you plan so much that it just doesn't feel authentic anymore. so the organic things are sometimes such a pleasant surprise. and two, I think people mistake the business they're in as
Well, this is what I produce or this is the service I provide. The business you're in is the value that you offer. So if kisses were the value of this person offered, like I just liked, I didn't necessarily love the chocolate, but I liked that they did something different and they thought of me and it made it personal. And now I have better feelings about this organization because that is part of their overall brand. That is the value that you're offering more than the, what it is you actually, your output is.
Obviously that's important, but I just wouldn't define it as that. You define it as your value.
Bernie (32:50)
you know, let's assume that we had a listener that just absolutely fell in love with you. What a kiss, a chocolate kiss.
Neil (32:56)
Bye.
Bernie (32:59)
How long is the dating process? How do they, what is the, should we, should we not? You're doing the right thing, you're not. I'd love to have you, but you don't fit. How long does that usually take? Does that usually also involve a small cost or not? Tell me how that would go.
Neil (33:15)
Um, it depends on the scenario, but for the most part, it doesn't take that long. Uh, it'll take a few hours, probably over the course of a couple of meetings. Uh, I would get the sense of presuming that they wanted to meet with me. Uh, uh, I would get a sense of what their business is, what their goals are, where they're at in their business, uh, stage market, um, what, what problems are they looking to solve?
I would probably go away, digest the information and then come back and talk to them again. And just keep refining a little bit further to make sure I'm away from the situation that was brought up before about don't prescribe before you know what the actual causes are. usually depending on the complexity of the need, usually that is, you maybe two to three hours total space that over a couple of meetings.
Bernie (34:03)
And is there a book or a podcast that a client could dip their toe in? Or is the best way a website? What's the best way to reach you and get a sense of what you do?
Neil (34:13)
Yep, they can reach out to me at Refractive Concepts and certainly across LinkedIn, my name, despite the fact that it's only eight letters, it is frequently misspelled. It is N-E-I-L-G-R-A-Y. And you can find me, you can contact me via email at neilgray at refractiveconcepts.com.
Bernie (34:34)
Neil, I want to say, you know what? This has been awesome. And thank you. How we got into Hershey Kisses, who knows? That said, thank you for being our guest to my cohost, Wayne Pratt, and you, the Knack 4 Business listeners, we appreciate your time. And if you want to know more about photography and wine, Neil's there. But if you need clarity in what you're talking about, about your business and reaching the market, Neil's the gent to talk to.