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Kicking Off Year 10

In IT services, everyone says the same thing. We’ll handle your tech. We’ll keep you safe. We’ll be there when you need us. So how do you build a brand that actually means something when your product is invisible and your buyer never wants to think about you?

We’re kicking off Year 10 of He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™ with exactly that question. Ten years in, we’re still asking the same core thing this podcast has always been built on – what makes a brand actually work – and Loree Faucett gives us one of the sharpest answers we’ve heard in a while.

In this episode, Jaci and Michael sit down with Loree, VP of Marketing at ITS (Intelligent Technical Solutions), a national managed IT and cybersecurity services provider. Loree came up through Apple and HubSpot, has marketed everything from interior design to oil and gas software to winches, and now leads a 13-person global team navigating one of the most crowded, undifferentiated industries in B2B.

They get into what it looks like to walk into a company as a regime change – replacing a founder-led marketing function without breaking what’s already working. Loree talks about building regional presence for a national brand, why trust and referrals are beating digital campaigns right now, and how LLM-driven search is changing the way qualified buyers show up – and why you can’t always see them coming.

If you’re a B2B marketer trying to differentiate a service nobody wants to think about, make the case for human-led creative in an AI-first world, or lead through organizational change without losing your team – this one’s for you. And if you’ve been with us since year one, thank you for ten years of conversations – here’s to the next one.

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Most B2B marketers think branding is a logo and a tagline. Erik Koenig thinks it’s a line on the floor left by a robot. And that instinct is exactly what separates a trusted brand from another systems integrator in a sea of sameness.

In this episode of He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™, Jaci and Michael sit down with Erik Koenig, Vice President of Business Development at Hy-Tek Intralogistics — a warehouse automation and systems integration firm helping companies connect products to customers faster through robotics, conveyors, software, and engineering-driven design. Erik came up in B2C agencies working with Colgate-Palmolive, Butterball, and Walmart before making the jump to the client side, and he has spent the last decade proving that the fundamentals of brand strategy translate everywhere.

They get into how Erik builds a lean internal team that operates like an agency, how a 50×50 multi-story trade show booth lives or dies by its content schedule, why AI is both the biggest threat and the best intelligence tool in his toolkit, and how he’s fighting to keep the human voice at the center of everything before answer engines rewrite the rules.

If you’re a B2B marketer trying to build a real brand inside a complex, engineering-driven company without losing what makes you different — this one’s for you.

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Most mortgage companies compete on rate. Chelsea Vonder Haar competes on relationship.

In this episode of He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™, Jaci and Michael talk with Chelsea Vonder Haar, the first-ever Chief Marketing Officer at USA Mortgage, about building a national marketing engine for 200+ loan officers — without stadium naming rights or a massive ad budget.

Chelsea breaks down how her team uses direct mail, video, and local partnerships to make individual loan officers more valuable to their referral partners, not to promote the corporate brand. She covers EDDM, QR tracking, first-time homebuyer seminars, and why she treats her internal loan officers like clients — plus her path from marketing coordinator to CMO in an industry that too often treats marketing as a cost to cut.

If you’re a B2B marketer building a referral engine in a commodity-driven industry, this one’s for you.

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In B2B marketing, the biggest challenge isn’t always budget or bandwidth – it’s standing out in a market where every competitor looks, sounds, and says the same thing. 

In this episode, Jaci and Michael sit down with Joya Scarlata, Director of Marketing at InterraIT, a B2B IT services firm serving clients across industries from automotive to retail to manufacturing. With over a decade of marketing experience, Joya knows firsthand how difficult it is to differentiate a service-based business in a crowded, fast-moving industry.

The conversation covers what it really takes to build a recognizable B2B brand when your product is invisible – a service that’s hard to explain and even harder to make exciting. From navigating the “sea of sameness” in the IT space, to aligning marketing and sales, to knowing when your messaging has stopped working, Joya shares honest, practical insight from the trenches.

If you’re a B2B marketer struggling to cut through the noise, make the case for branding internally, or get your messaging to actually resonate – this one’s for you.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at razorbranding.org

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What does it take to walk away from a name your organization has carried for over 160 years – and replace it with something no one has ever heard? For Jeff McCarthy, SVP and Marketing Director at Bank Five Nine, it took research, courage, a tight-knit team, and an unwavering commitment to standing out in one of the most crowded markets in the world.

In this episode of the He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™ Podcast, Jaci and Michael sit down with Jeff to walk through one of the most complete and compelling rebrand stories we’ve heard – from First Bank Financial Centre to Bank Five Nine. It’s a story of competitive audits, internal discovery, board presentations, and a brand launch that landed right in the middle of a global pandemic. Jeff shares how his team did it all in-house, why they chose red in a sea of blue and green, and how a three-word mission statement – make lives better – became the culture north star that unified an entire organization.

Whether you’re considering a rebrand, trying to justify one to your leadership team, or simply trying to understand why clarity and differentiation matter, Jeff’s story makes the case better than any textbook could.

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• How a name change gave Bank Five Nine permission to tell a 160-plus-year story
• Why internal buy-in is just as important as external launch strategy
• The risk Jeff took by keeping the rebrand in-house – and why it paid off
• How the Wisconsin State Fair became the bank’s biggest brand megaphone
• What “make lives better” really means when it’s more than words on a wall

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at razorbranding.org

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In this episode of the He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™ Podcast, Jaci and Michael sit down with Wendy Gugora, Director of Marketing at Prairie Capital Advisors, to talk about what it really takes to market a boutique investment banking firm in a space where the service is deeply personal, the sales cycle is long, and most business owners do not fully understand what they are being sold. 

Wendy shares how Prairie has built its brand around thought leadership and education rather than traditional sales tactics, using more than 20 webinars a year, books, client storytelling, and conference speaking to help business owners understand their ownership transition options long before they are ready to act. She also talks about growing her marketing team from a team of one to a team of six, navigating a brand name challenge in a crowded Chicago market, and how a recent logo refresh energized the entire firm right in time for their 30th anniversary. From maximizing conference ROI to measuring what is actually working and cutting what is not, this is a smart and practical conversation about doing professional services marketing the right way.

Key Takeaways

• Thought leadership and education are more powerful than sales tactics when the service is complex, high-stakes, and once-in-a-career for most clients
• Telling client stories in their own words builds far more trust than any promotional content a firm could create about itself
• Maximizing conference ROI requires a clear pre-event, during-event, and post-event strategy – not just a booth and a hope
• Evaluating every marketing initiative against clear goals ensures resources are spent on what is actually working and dropped when they are not
• A logo refresh done right energizes internal teams just as much as it strengthens external brand perception
• LinkedIn is the right platform for a B2B professional services audience – knowing where your audience lives and focusing there beats being everywhere at once

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at razorbranding.org

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In this episode of the He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™ Podcast, Jaci and Michael sit down with Danielle Dobbs, First Vice President of Marketing and brand positioning expert, to talk about what it really takes to build marketing that works when budgets are limited, audiences are distracted, and the temptation to skip strategy and go straight to tactics is everywhere.

Danielle brings over 11 years of experience working with growing businesses across the United States and draws on her work in both agency and in-house roles to make the case for process over guesswork every single time. She walks through her proprietary Refine framework, shares why a message that tries to reach everyone reaches no one, and explains how understanding your audience deeply enough to know who you are not for is just as powerful as knowing who you are for. From balancing short-term wins with long-term brand building to why frequency matters far more than reach in today’s noisy ad environment, this is a grounded and practical conversation about doing marketing with real intention behind it.

Key Takeaways

• Going straight to tactics without a strategy is one of the most expensive mistakes a business can make
• A clear and focused message will always outperform a broad one – trying to say everything at once means nothing lands
• Knowing who you are not for is just as important as defining who you are for, and most businesses skip that step entirely
• Frequency matters more than reach – being seen once by thousands of people is far less valuable than being seen repeatedly by the right ones
• Breaking content into smaller pieces over time builds more rapport than publishing everything at once
• Every business has a unique story and differentiator – the Refine framework exists to help them find it and communicate it with intention

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at razorbranding.org

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In this episode of the He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™ Podcast, Jaci and Michael sit down with Bryce McCuin, Director of Marketing at BankSouth, to talk about what it really takes to build an authentic brand inside a community bank competing against institutions with far bigger budgets.

Bryce brings a rare perspective shaped by nearly two decades across luxury real estate, fulfillment logistics, and nearly 12 years running his own creative agency before moving in-house at BankSouth. He shares how leaning into real relationships and real customer stories – rather than stock images and rate promotions – is what separates a community bank from the noise. From managing scope creep with agency partners to knowing when to trust their expertise and when to push back, Bryce brings hard-won wisdom from both sides of the client-agency relationship. He also talks about the imposter syndrome marketers are feeling in the age of AI, why discipline and intentionality matter more than speed, and how the slow is fast mindset applies directly to the way modern marketers need to approach the tools at their disposal.

Key Takeaways

• Community banks cannot out-spend the big institutions, but they can out-relate them by showing up as real people in real communities
• Letting customers tell their own stories on camera – without memorized lines or staged setups – produces more authentic and compelling content
• Having agency experience makes you a better client because you understand scope, boundaries, and what clear direction actually looks like
• Marketers should lead with curiosity and questions, not with a list of everything a client is doing wrong
• AI creates real efficiencies, but only when you feed it the right source of truth – skipping that step means spending more time fixing than producing
• Staying the course on a campaign long enough to see results is one of the hardest and most important decisions a marketer can make

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at razorbranding.org

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In this episode of the He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™ Podcast, Jaci and Michael sit down with Heather Johnson, marketing leader at TIE Industrial, to talk about what it really takes to build a performance-driven marketing function inside a multi-brand industrial company with a small team and long sales cycles.

Heather shares how her background spanning agency life and in-house roles shaped the way she approaches strategy, prioritization, and vendor relationships today. She also breaks down how a website redesign delivered a 454% return on investment in just six months, why bringing every vendor into the same room for an annual audit changes everything, and how shifting customer stories away from individual transactions and toward long-term relationships unlocked a more compelling and authentic way to market. From managing six distinct buyer personas across three brands to educating internal teams on the why behind every marketing decision, this is a practical and grounded conversation about how to do more with less while still moving the needle.

Key Takeaways

• A tactical background makes you a stronger strategic marketer because you know where the high effort and high impact opportunities actually live
• Tracking website ROI requires simplicity – unique phone lines, consistent attribution methods, and a team that knows exactly how to input the data
• Bringing all vendors into the annual audit and strategy session ensures everyone is rowing in the same direction from day one
• Shifting customer stories from transactional wins to long-term relationship narratives creates far more compelling and memorable content
• An outside perspective is essential because you cannot see what you look like to someone who does not already know you
• Optimizing for the right search terms matters more than optimizing for high-volume ones that attract the wrong audience entirely

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at razorbranding.org