Hello, everybody. This is Michael Forman. I am with Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable Connections, and today I have an amazing guest. His name is Jamie Kasman . We've been friends for about 50 years, but we both started in New York. Worked our way down to Georgia he started really a creative director on up to his owning his own business.
But let me let, let me introduce you to Jamie and let him discuss everything with you. Jamie.
Hi, Michael.
Sure. Okay.
for 10 years. My brother and I put ourselves through school had money to buy houses when we got married later on in our twenties and kind of started their networking and relationship building on marketing our landscape business, basically really saying hello to people and explaining what we could do and.
Letting the work really prove itself. Most of the work we got even starting then was referral due to the great work we did. And that lesson actually has followed me throughout my life. And I could elaborate a little more on that later on. I went to Parsons School of Design for communications and then VSA for additional courses.
My first job out of college was working. If anyone can remember, we used to do paste up and basically that's when you made a mechanical to go to the printer.
So, the funny story is, as I was working out of Parsons, there was a sign above this big classroom saying, computer room.
And I'm going, what was that? What's going on? And, I learned later on, at my first job, that PCs, basically Macs, were coming in, and were going to be used to actually create mechanicals. So, part of my networking, I got a job working for TimePlex in their production department where we were doing, 1, 000 page mechanicals, believe it or not, for all the, Instructional, books.
And, I'm sitting there and around, around me, I see all these new computers. There was five, production people in there. I was a freelancer. And, they liked my work and they said, Hey, do you know about computers? I said, sure. Of course I didn't know a damn thing,
Of course,
I picked it up very quickly. Apple is very intuitive. Matter of fact, in good corporate sense, we worked on six months on the application was called interlace. And then six months later, they sent us a trainer. And of course, we've been working six months in this platform and then started training the trainer because we were doing things like illustrations in this basic page layout system.
The instructor home with a lot of hints and, different aspects of the platform that, can be used, in laying out these books. So I know that was a little long of an intro, and after that, I moved to Atlanta. And started in a production house, a company called SFI standard forms incorporated.
So you can imagine they were around for a long time and then making a shift like every printer to digital. And then I helped build their production, studio, and then became involved in sales and networking and, doing business presentations. What do you think, Mike, was that, what else do you need?
Let me ask you a question. What personal experience your business sense the most?
know, I guess I have the right and left brain. You know, most people have right. Most people have left. I definitely have the creative side, but I do have the business side since I ran my own business. So I was always aware of ROI. Great. You know, everyone wants ROI. I was able to, get into management, and sales not as a true salesperson, more as a networking and kind of a category expert.
So I would be brought in at the end to close the deal because I could speak to the marketing. I could speak to the business. I could speak to the strategy, the planning, execution, activation and how all that happened. And again, you know, in my career, it was always transitioning, to digital and obviously today it's a hundred percent digital, but still back, 20 years ago, it was a combination and evolving that and then getting into social media in the past 10 years.
And working that, how to make themes and campaigns and actually reach the market and reach the people, using my network of people to do that. So everything I've done, it's been a team effort. And not only did I network to get business, I networked. To have freelancers, everything from writers, video production, illustrators, photographers.
So it takes a team, just like any movie, if you see a thousand names when it's in the credits. It does take a team to put together a good campaign, follow through, and then report back on, on success.
Well, you know, that that's interesting, but with everything you've done, what do you think is your biggest check? Where was your, your biggest challenge how did you overcome it? So
created. It has to be, a collaboration with the client and the sales person and the production team. So that, that's probably the biggest hurdle of trying to get people to understand how the new technology works and the investment and follow through.
So there's always been a fight of budgets. They continue today. It's just expensive and you have to have the fortitude to do a campaign. When I mean a campaign, it's more than just. One social media trying to go viral. It's a year or 18 months of planning and then responding to that and measuring and every quarter changing and pivoting.
If you have to, one client, we did a kickoff. And realized the messaging in the beginning was just slightly off. And we made a few adjustments and it exploded. So just knowing to look at the data, seeing what's coming through and then pivoting is also very important. So those are the things I've learned throughout my career.
yeah, so it's really not a one and done type situation. It's you have to constantly. Look at it and evaluate it and pivot where you aren't, so to speak, you know,
Correct. Correct. And I was heavily into B2B, so it's not B2C, it's not a product. You know, we did some product marketing, but for the most part, we were B2B. You know, selling enterprise accounts, get brand awareness for enterprises, you know, for printers. You know, things that are very hard to market because you're competing against an industry that's been around 100 years.
and trying to introduce new technology. Sometimes it's a tough sell that it's a little more expensive, but in the end it's the R. O. I. Is substantial.
You talk about the ROI often. but here you are, you owned a business when you were 13
Networked and marketed everything you had to do on up to CEOs. So for somebody just starting out. What type of a networking tip or what could you suggest somebody to do really that they can start tomorrow and really just start networking and getting out there?
Well, one of the best network is friends and family. You just have to ask. Just have to ask, do you know someone? And just give me an introduction. Cold networking today is tough just due to, you could throw a resume out there and, you're competing against, thousands.
And you're also competing against the bots that's really going to select you that may or may not be a good fit. So starting with friends and family, even after graduation, following your friends and where they're going and seeing, looking at their network, you're asking to share that network.
It's really right there in front of you. You just have to ask and don't rely so much on actually The social network, online and so forth. This is really a make a phone call, do an email, try to do a one on one and, tell people what you're looking for and how they could help you. Again, filling out applications, not a bad thing, but again, you're competing, you're competing against so many when you have a warm introduction saying, Michael, I have a friend who has a position open.
I'm going to connect you with him, whether it's a phone call, email, or text. It's going to go a long way and that goes to our business. It's about relationships. Starting new relationships is like starting a new friendship. It's not easy. You have to have the same legs or the same mind of what the target audience is as far as selling and understanding that audience.
So having a warm introduction is really. The best networking advice I could give. And that's really how I've worked my whole career. Not only with, the corporate, but when I had my own agency, atomic wash, it was through referrals. We were referral based. We did try the social media. My partner was kind of into that and we spent money.
But our best success, was me pounding the pavement. Calling your friends that moved to new businesses and had a new position and say, all right, I'm going to give you two months and I want to knock on that door and just get an introduction. One of the business, this is biggest successes. Was just doing a quick presentation of a PowerPoint. Now this wasn't an ordinary PowerPoint. It was a video PowerPoint with a storyline and voiceover. And, it was kind of. Well, the audience and they started when they start talking about how we could do this. Within our agency, you know, you have them one and that, that one presentation led to millions of dollars worth of business in a five year relationship until they got acquired.
So you don't always have to have, the biggest agency. You just have to have really good content and really smart presentations that tell your story succinctly.
Yeah, you would have to get to the no like and trust, right? You know, to know you to like you and trust you. But that trust factor is like the best. Because everybody knows you, listen, they love you, you're a nice guy. Now, do they like you? Well, then you're kind of, you know, fit with a little bit. But, trust you.
That's the number one thing. So when you're making that presentation, and you're getting to them, and all of a sudden they know you, they like you, and all of a sudden they trust you, can do wonders.
Exactly. And you really start off, just ask for a small project. It doesn't have to be a 100, 000 project or a 10, 000 project. The first project that we did for that million dollar plan, it was 2, 500 and we proved it ourselves. We got it on time and they loved it. They gave us a few more. Then we got to a presentation, a PowerPoint presentation.
Then we got to trade shows. Then we got to social media and then we got to branding. So really the way we built trust was building success and it's really success for the client. I'll tell you a story, where I started in production.
Work my way up to, VP of creative services. I had 14 over the 13 years I had 14 bosses.
That's what my job is. This is what I did for your predecessor. And we were making success.
Unfortunately, he made some other mistakes, not in marketing, but was replaced or moved on in the company,
We just built success Let us prove ourselves by showing you what we could do and how we never fail That's one of the things that we said we never fail if it takes us 10 times to reach that that goal and the expectation that you have the price is not going to go up We're going to get we're going to get there because if if
Okay.
we missed it if we failed that's on us It's not always on you now A lot of times the clients didn't know what they want and they would give us misdirection But we would evolve it fairly quickly.
And, you kind of learn that, all right, this one may just, what I would call, this is a marketing project. So we didn't make any money on it, but we proved that we could take something that's really difficult, that they couldn't articulate and build success and have something that they could show to their executives and superiors and be proud of.
And that's what we did. And then the ROI would be better. So it was really again, collaboration and coordination with our clients and with our staff, the dedication of working late, working weekends, sometimes, just an agency life and the highs and lows of really busy.
And then sometimes, we'd have a gap, but, Chris and I, built a business. And our practice was to have enough money in the bank to support all payroll and all expenses for a year. Took us about three years to build that. So we were confident that, even in a low, we could support our staff.
We had a staff of 10 at the highest point. And we could support them for a year. Of course, knowing we would get more business, we were confident we could do that, but we never wanted to lay anyone off. We all were in that position and we were not going to do that. And we did not do that. And then, we got acquired.
By a business and sold and then worked, for another five years for that corporation.
So, so let me ask you a question. So you've, you've told me all sorts of networking and marketing ideas, how you made it and everything else. Tell me, what's your favorite marketing tactic?
You know what? Getting someone out to lunch or dinner kind of breaks the barriers.
For me, it's always around food.
You know, to dinner?
Exactly. You know, have drinks, have coffee. It just takes it out of the office and you can have a conversation. You talk a little about families and get a little more history about them. Get some of their true pain points. And how we could provide solutions to those pain points. And that's what our job is.
We're there to help them.
That's the number one thing. Everybody's got a problem, every business, everybody. And what you have to do is you have to find the solution to that problem. And if you do that reasonably priced, you're going to make it.
Yes.
So you'll have everything. So let's try to close this up here a little bit and give me your number one takeaway that my audience can start doing tomorrow they wanted to start networking.
It's, a big question, by the way, because I wouldn't recommend, doing a few different things, you know, social, media as far as your social media, your friends and group of family, is a good place to start because you tell people that, hey, I'm looking for a job or I'm looking for a project.
This is this is my skill set. Just get me, introduction. That's really, again, I'm going to really harp on that. The other one, I would recommend depending on where you are now, I'm coming from a creative aspect, right? I would get a headhunter if you're looking for a higher level position, because they really could actually position you, for, a project as freelance headhunters or a full time position.
They really help and, I've had great success actually hiring from them, over the past 30 years, and it's a great way to expand your network that you would never be able to get to. So they're getting you that warm introduction, saying I have a perfect person for your firm, and, they have this skill set and keep your resume current.
And to the point, because that's what people want to see. They want to see what you can do, how you could think. And I was always looking for thinkers, by the way. That was my main thing when I was hiring people. I could always train someone to work on a platform, but I can't train them to think. So if you can think and show them that you could think, You will be hired because that's what they want.
Thinking is problem solving. And if I get someone to solve a problem, I could sell that whether it's design, whether it's a trade show, whether it's, promoting a new product or how to promote a new product, if I get someone to offer, a unique, view on how to sell that, that's a winning networking proposition.
So when you speak to people, you just can't say all the successes I had. You tell them how you did the success, almost like a case study of yourself. That's going to help people how you came up with it.
To show them the sketch that you started. If you started on a napkin, great idea. I do that all the time.
We even go back sometimes and say, Hey, you know, because we sketch on the whiteboard and then we don't take a picture and we said, Oh, we shouldn't have taken a picture.
So if you did it from a sketch, just show them, this is where I started. And here's the end result, whether it's a paper, whether it's a magazine ad, whether it's a video, whether it's social media, show them how you developed that kernel of an idea and actually expanded it to actually promote a product or service the client was asking for.
And people like that. That's what I look for when I'm hiring.
Yeah, you can show me the process.
absolutely, absolutely. And that's what I was looking for. Also, when I was hiring, I would also look for the same thing because I can teach them how to use a piece of equipment or how to do anything else. But you can't teach them to think. You can't. OK, so Jamie, let me ask you a question. If somebody was interested in Jamie Kasman. How could they get in touch with you?
they could email me at jamiekasman@gmail.com
Everyone's surprised you were able to get that. Yeah. Jamie, J-A-M-I-E-K-A-S-M-A-N, at gmail.com. And, I'll get back to them. And, even if they're just asking for advice, anyone in your audience needs help, feel free to email.
And I will get back to him right away.
Great. Jamie, I want to thank you. You are a wonderful guest and I look forward to talking to you again.
Thank you, Michael.
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