How Positivity Leads to Advertising Success | Matt Brandenburg

David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Matt Brandenburg, who is the CMO of Clutch Solutions and the CEO of Clutch Solutions’ Brandendo, a full-service digital agency offering everything from SEO to CTV. Matt has a diverse background in advertising and marketing, from radio to Yellow Pages, he has been, in his own words, "On the cusp of various dying mediums" before moving on to the digital playground we live in today. Worth mentioning, Clutch Solutions was the 2022 CRN Triple Crown Award winner, and was recognized as a top 50 company on Inc. 5000's fast growth list. Matt, thank you for joining us. Matt Brandenburg: Thanks for having me, David. I really appreciate it. David McBee: Well, I'm excited to have you here. I want to jump into what you're doing that makes you win these awards and is making your company grow so fast. Tell me about that. Matt Brandenburg: Sure. Yeah, so I was fortunate enough to be brought into the Clutch team about two years ago. Clutch has really just done a really good job of hiring really good quality people. What's nice about Clutch other than the leadership and the culture they've created, is we also are Indigenous-owned. So as an Indigenous-owned and recognized MBE business, we get the opportunities to work with lots of other MBE-owned companies, and also, we work and do a lot of fulfillment with the various tribes. And because Clutch is traditionally what's called a VAR, or value-added reseller, they were always looking at things of what they could do to offer additional services. So one of those service they wanted to start doing and offering was marketing. So they acquired my little agency, brought my team over, and then we started Brandendo together, and then had me come in on the marketing side for Clutch directly, and because of that, we were able to then start offering marketing solutions to different tribes and other larger businesses as well. So we get the best of both worlds, which is nice. We get to go and work on the enterprise side with Clutch, get to work with all of these different tribes, and Brandendo does the fulfillment obviously, but then we're also able to work with medium and small size businesses as well. So we're able to really have a diverse portfolio with the individuals we get to work with. David McBee: All right. So forgive me if this is a dumb question, but are you advertising Indigenous businesses to Indigenous people or Indigenous businesses to the community? Matt Brandenburg: Both. Both. So everyone's going to have.... It's like any other business. So everybody's going to have what their own unique marketing purpose is. So we'll have for instance, one tribe where we just build the website for them, and then they want to do promotions of what they need to do for... Here's a good example. During COVID, getting information out to the people on where to get vaccinations, where to go and get healthcare if needed. So you have a lot of things for Indigenous folks themselves, but then outside the space where we're letting other people know that there's these businesses that are on tribal land that they could actually go to. So it's really both sides of it. David McBee: Can I assume that Geo-Fencing is a part of that strategy sometimes? Matt Brandenburg: Yeah. Geo-Fencing is a huge piece of it. Geo-Fencing, and what we're seeing a lot more of too is the OTT and CTV obviously. Because you have a lot of these tribal lands where they might have traditional cable, but a lot of them are core cutters already. So you're able to go in OTT and CTV a lot of tribal lands. It's really, really effective. David McBee: All right. Let's shift gears a little bit and talk more generically about your success. What is it that makes Matt Brandenburg successful? Matt Brandenburg: Well, it's being okay to fail is a big thing. I could proudly say that I have had big companies and bankrupted them, and I think that is something that a lot of people would look at it and be a little bit embarrassed about, but I have this mentality that is a little bit different than I wish more people had. And that is, every day I wake up and I go in, I annoy my children and I say, "Hey, what's your PMA today? You're positive mental attitude?" And it's a cheesy thing to say, but I am a real firm believer that you get to choose how you're going to start every single day and how that day's going to go. Now you're going to have things thrown at you, and there's going to be curveballs, but if you go and handle the smile and a laugh, you're going to be okay. The other aspect of that is this, and this is just in the line of business as a whole, and it's another thing that I annoy my daughters with on a regular basis. And I say, it's the best thing about money. What the best thing about money is, David? David McBee: What? Matt Brandenburg: You can always make more of it. So if you keep that mentality, that you could always make more of it, you don't harp on the fact that, yeah, I lost a $30 million company. You don't harp on that. What you do is you harp on, "Hey, I can make $30 million more." So you look at the wins on that side of it and you're able to rebuild. So I have one failure. I've rebuilt something to be even more massive, and that's what we're really trying to do right now. We're building something that is going to be very, very significant. And this is a new world for me on this side. I've always been a white label guy. I've always done fulfillment. We always did fulfillment for all these different groups that we've gotten to work with. So they're coming to us for the SCO. They'd come to us to run the display advertising or the OTT and CTV. So that's always been our background. That's still really kind the core of our business now, but we're doing this shift, which new to me, which is we're becoming more brand focused on the Brandendo side. Now, Clutch was easy because Clutch had an established brand. So just kind of riding the coattails to that has been a fun process where, because it's a known brand, everyone says, "Oh, the marketing's great." Well, the reality is they did all the work. I'm just writing the coattails of these guys to the very top, but now we're going to Brandendo, and we're really trying to make that into an established brand. And so there's a learning curve when you're actually talking about yourself and patting yourself on the back. It's something I'm uncomfortable with, to be completely frank, but it's something that we're getting some traction with, which was nice. David McBee: I love that answer. PMA, huh? Positive mental attitude, Matt Brandenburg: PMA, baby. It changes everything. It really does because you run into people who don't have that mentality, and you see it, and you surround yourself with people. It's cliche that my mom always said surround yourself with people that are good influences. And that's a true story. If you surround yourself with people that are going to be negative all the time, traditionally, you're going to see that the businesses are going to suffer. David McBee: All right, so I'm going to guess you're a reader. I ask everyone what book they want to recommend. So I'm sure you have one or two. Matt Brandenburg: The one that I am a huge fan of, and this is going to be an oddball one, is Ender's Game. Have you ever read the book Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card? David McBee: Yeah, that's sci-fi. Matt Brandenburg: Correct. And here's why. If you read that from a business point of view, it will actually go and it will change your alignment and thinking when it comes to a lot of things. So there's a scene in the book or a part of the book where Ender gets taken on by a bully, and he goes and gets a final hit in where unfortunately, he goes, and exterminates said bully, right? That's one part, so spoiler, I apologize. And they ask him, "Ender, why did you do that?" And he said, "well, I didn't want to win the battle. I wanted to win the war." And that line in that book has stuck with me for years, that if you are going to do something, do it for the long term. Don't do it for the short term. So it's an underrated book, especially if you're looking at it from a business point of view. David McBee: Well, I have to confess, not only have I read Ender's Game, I've read several of the Ender's sequels, so. Matt Brandenburg: Amazing. I've read them all. Shadow- David McBee: I never thought of them as a business book, but now I'm going to have to go back and consider that. Powerful stuff. Matt Brandenburg: You have to go through each one, because each one has a different lesson. I mean, the movies were a travesty. I don't care what anybody says. That could have been the greatest series ever, but they just try to rush it. I mean, the story of Peter, right? Peter and himself, he's a dictator and running everything the way he was doing it, being very manipulative. I mean, you look at the parallels of that business and today's society, and it's pretty interesting. David McBee: Well, thanks for that odd recommendation. I appreciate it. Matt Brandenburg: Absolutely. David McBee: And thank you for being a guest today on Simpli.fi TV. Matt Brandenburg: Well, thanks for having me. It was an absolute pleasure. David McBee: And thank you guys for joining us on Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee. Be awesome, and we'll see you next time.