This week's episode of Automation Unplugged features Erica Carroll, Founder & Fractional CMO of CharBett Strategies.

About Erica Carroll:

Erica has over 10 years of experience in the AV industry in technical, training, and marketing roles. She’s the Founder and Fractional CMO of CharBett Strategies, where she helps businesses in the AV industry develop tailored marketing strategies that are aligned with their overarching business goals. Erica's extensive experience in product marketing and training enriches her approach, enabling her to offer nuanced insights and innovative solutions to her clients.

As a passionate advocate for the AV industry, she served a three-year term as AVIXA's Content and Learning Committee Chairperson and currently co-hosts the Women in AV podcast. Erica also plays a pivotal role in facilitating the annual Rosie Riveter Explores Pro AV fundraiser, which aims to close the gender gap in AV and introduce more girls interested in STEM to careers in the industry.

Interview Recap

• What Erica’s doing at CharBett and why she saw a need for a marketing strategy firm specifically tailored to the AV industry manufacturers under $20MM in revenue.
• Her work advocating for women in the AV industry and the amazing Rosie Riveter nonprofit program.
• Why an early introduction to STEM is so important for getting more women in the industry.

SEE ALSO: Show #268: Director of Talent Acquisition at Amplify People Talks Best-Practice Hiring & Retention Strategies

Transcript

Ron:

Hello, hello there. Ron Callis with another episode of Automation Unplugged. Today is Wednesday, July 10th. It is a little bit after 12:30 p.m. Eastern time. Hope you're having a great day. This is our normal day, our normal time.

Ron:

So first things first, I'm gonna let for all of our regular listeners know that we are gonna be inventing and cooking up some new formatting for the Automation Unplugged show. And so stay tuned for those updates. You're actually gonna get those updates here. We'll drop video as well as audio if you consume the show in audio format to give you that exact formatting.

Ron:

But the short version is we're gonna be mixing in some different show types and show formats, both shorter format and longer format content. We're also gonna be designing our editorial calendar so that we're able to get something released weekly. So whereas right now, we've been doing a live show every two weeks, approximately every two weeks, twice a month.

Ron:

For those of you that are regular listeners, you know that that means sometimes it's, you know, literally every two weeks, sometimes those two shows happen in a single week. And that has to do with some of the challenges of scheduling live, both with my schedule, but also our audiences or our guests' schedules. We interview super busy people. So we're gonna be mixing things up.

Ron:

We're also gonna be mixing up both live content and pre-recorded content just so that we can kind of get some of these interviews that I know you all love and put some of those in the hopper, and that way we can get them better scheduled out. That is a normal, air quotes, "normal" type of show format that a lot of podcasts, someone there from Massachusetts, podcast.

Ron:

Podcast, that's a normal format a lot of podcasters do, which is getting their guests interviewing and doing all the post-production and then releasing that content. We're gonna be moving into some of that formatting and scheduling. So just kind of FYI, stay tuned. All of these changes are for the better.

Ron:

We've been doing this podcast since 2017, believe it or not, April of 2017. And our goal is to continue doing it well into the future. And we wanna make sure though that we're always delivering value and that we're delivering content that you all would want to hear and guests that you'd want to hear from on topics that you'd want to learn about. So we got a great team and I'm gonna name them. We got Dan and we got Rebecca as two principles behind the scenes.

Ron:

But we also have Kendall and Allison and others, Miguel with artwork, Carlos with some of the production that are involved in this show. So there's lots of team members here at One Firefly that help put this show on every month. And we just wanna make the product better. So we're hard at work. It's one of our approaches here at One Firefly is we're always trying to iterate and make things a little bit better. So we're gonna be paying attention to the podcast in that same way.

Ron:

That said, you all are here for show 269. And my guest is an amazing entrepreneur and marketer and industry AV professional and, dare I say, celebrity. Some of you have been following. I see her face down there. She's like, "Don't call me that." She's now shaking her head.

Ron:

Celebrity and she is just a fantastic human being that's doing a lot of good things, not only for her clients, but to help grow our industry and increase the role and opportunities for women within STEM fields and within the AV fields. And so our guest today is Erica Carroll. She is the founder and fractional CMO of CharBett Strategies.

Ron:

And she is joining us today from her RV and her Starlink connection. So if we do have any internet issues, you know why, but it was stable in all of our pre-shows. So I think we're gonna be good. Let's go ahead and bring in Erica and let's learn more about her. Erica, how are you?

Erica:

Doing well. How are you, Ron?

Ron:

It's another day in paradise.

Erica:

Wonderful.

Ron:

Another beautiful day in Florida. You live in Florida, correct?

Erica:

Sometimes, sometimes, yeah, in the RV, we live in Florida. Yep. I also have a house in the Georgia mountains, so I get a little bit of both, you know, both terrains, but right now, beautiful Florida, sunshine, palm trees, the rain this week.

Ron:

It looks like you're in the RV right now, correct?

Erica:

I am. I am in the RV, but in Florida.

Ron:

But in Florida, the RV thing, is this part of the year or is this, like how do you choose, when are you and your family, when are you guys out RVing?

Erica:

Yeah, we are part-time RVers. So during the pandemic, we did full-time, we sold the house, we moved into the RV full time. And actually, at that time, we were in a smaller RV, the Class C that has that traditional overhang over the cab.

Erica:

And when we decided to go full-time, we moved out of that, outgrew it pretty quickly. I think it took three weeks, and then we started looking for something bigger. So, working and living out of the RV. Eventually, we got a house in the Georgia mountains, like I mentioned, and now we're halftimers. So definitely during the snowbird season, we come to Florida, so late October to early April. And in the summers, we go out and adventure.

Erica:

So last summer, we went to Colorado. This year, we actually came to Florida 'cause we have a lot down here and we have to work on our casita. You can only work on it in the summer out of season, so.

Ron:

You just said a word, and I don't know what that word is, a gasita?

Erica:

Casita. In Spanish, you know, a casa is a house. Casita is a small house.

Ron:

Oh, casita. Your little house.

Erica:

Yes, yeah, it's actually a shed with a bathroom and a, you know, washer, dryer, laundry.

Ron:

That is awesome. Okay, all right, well, I actually wanna talk more about the RV lifestyle 'cause that has a bit of a thread to this work-from-home modality that's obviously been a really hot topic here, particularly since COVID. Although I'd like to think that One Firefly was doing the work from home thing before it was cool, because we made that move back in 2015. But we'll get there.

Ron:

Tell everyone about CharBett Strategies and your role within that business. What is that business and how do you work with folks?

Erica:

Yeah, so CharBett is a fractional CMO practice, and that's a Chief Marketing Officer practice.

Erica:

So for smaller AV manufacturers that maybe don't have the budget to bring in a strategic leader in that marketing role, either VP of marketing or at CMO level, going fractional is a really great option because it's more affordable and you get somebody to literally get all the people in the right seats in the bus and move the bus along and get it going.

Erica:

I like to say my superpower is really focusing on those bigger problems, solving bigger problems, workshopping things out, and making sure that the directions you're headed in marketing are actually moving with your business goals, not what they call spaghetti marketing, where you just throw something on a wall and see if it sticks.

Erica:

So marketing in general should be a business tactic. It's sales and marketing for a reason, and marketing is a function of sales. And if anybody tells you otherwise, they are absolutely wrong.

Ron:

I'm not gonna disagree with you at all. What are the typical types of customers that you work with, Erica? Like, what would you call an ideal manufacturer? I'm assuming it's a member of the AV community, so an AV manufacturer of some type?

Erica:

Exactly, specifically AV manufacturers who are, I'll say sub-20 million, who really are, they have a product, but we have sort of a noisy landscape right now. So you end up with a lot of like "me too" products, but something makes your product really special and you haven't found a way to get that to market, to really make it stand out and gain that attraction or the attention that your product deserves.

Erica:

So you have something that's really awesome, and now we just need to take it to the next level. That would be my ideal client just to help move those goals along and make sure that you get that visibility and that attention that it deserves.

Ron:

We One Firefly have, over the years and as we've grown, we've been approached more often by these, almost these manufacturers that you're describing, these smaller entities, whether they're here out of the U.S. or often out of Europe, and they're trying to enter into the U.S. And we, as an agency, are generally not a great fit for them. You know, we just, we haven't built our service and offering to cater to their needs.

Ron:

And I've observed that a lot of times those, I'm describing a very generic situation, but often there's like some brilliant designer or engineer that has invented something that's really fantastic. And he or she knows that it would benefit so many people if it had wider distribution and/or was more widely known.

Ron:

But often there's little to no marketing strategy, often very little sales strategy about how to actually take that thing to market. And it sounds like your vision for CharBett Strategies is you are a potential perfect type of solution to enter into their life to help guide some of those strategies. Am I connecting the dots there correctly?

Erica:

Yes, you are. Absolutely. And a lot of times you'll end up, like you mentioned, with these really brilliant people that don't have a strategy, so they'll reach out to their marketing friends who are outside of our industry and they don't have the relationships, they don't have the connections, they don't know how the channel works, they don't know when to go through distribution, you know, when to go through dealers.

Erica:

What are all of the options and how you should be marketing to all of those different channels, those different avenues. And that's sort of what makes AV so special is it can't be a one-size-fits-all approach. You can't just have somebody come in. I mean, sure, they can run your social media, they can do your PR for specialized as well.

Erica:

And then where I come in, you know coming in with dealers and integrators running all of their marketing campaigns for them so specific to AV and they need somebody that understands our industry.

Ron:

Erica, I'm gonna give us a little bit of a pause here. Your internet or my internet or your internet. One of our internets is a bit laggy there. And so I'm gonna see if we give it a breather.

Ron:

Maybe it's gonna, the ones and zeros are gonna catch up to us. But I appreciate it. Just for the audience that's tuned in, either watching or listening, Erica is in her RV. She is connected via Starlink. And so just know that going in. We are going to have a good internet connection, God willing, but maybe it won't be perfect. So save all of your angry emails and telling me that the internet wasn't perfect. We know, but we still wanted to get Erica in here and we wanted to do our best.

Ron:

So that's the disclaimer, Erica, that will be at the bottom of this when we get it published out to the world. That's funny. All right, well, I appreciate that clarity on CharBett. And we'll go a little bit deeper into businesses using a CMO and such.

Ron:

But what would be interesting, I know for many folks that are tuned in, Erica, is just to know a little bit about your background. Could you go back as far as makes sense and kind of help us understand where you've been and what you've been doing?

Erica:

Yeah. So I'm going to go back a little bit further than I normally would because I think it's important for the reasons that I'm working on the things that I'm working on with Rosie, and we'll get to that later. So in high school, I was a terrible student, and I was a theater kid.

Erica:

I was never good at traditional schooling. And I tried to go to college. I went to school for graphic design.

Ron:

By the way, Erica. Jamie just dropped the note on LinkedIn and he says, "Erica is the best." There you go. Thank you, Jamie. Appreciate the feedback.

Erica:

We appreciate that. So I actually didn't finish college because I couldn't afford it personally. But I did learn that there was a different way of learning. And that was within the school I went to, it's now called Miami Ad School in Atlanta. It's very hands-on, it's very collaborative driven, and everything is about the creative process. And it was a phenomenal way for me to learn that I could learn in different ways.

Erica:

So anyways, I dropped out of school. I still did theater. I ended up as a lighting improviser doing lights at a local theater in Atlanta at Dad's Garage. And eventually started my own business because I knew that I wanted to make more money. And I know that if I'm unemployed, then I'm not trying hard enough. So I got out of what I was doing and I started my own business. For a little background there, my grandparents started many businesses as Cuban immigrants with literally nothing and made huge lives for themselves. So it's really important, that work ethic was really important to me. So I started...

Ron:

Inspiring, too, to see them doing that start and create a lot of big things from scratch.

Erica:

Exactly. So I started a business doing graphic design and personal assistance, technology stuff, helping people with their tech, you know who at that time, you have your token niece that you can call for help with your email or your camera or whatever. Anyways, I was very young and I had some failures, but I had some successes and I learned from it too.

Erica:

And out of that, I ended up working with a temp agency that had a position open at Digital Projection. And for me, it was like projection, lighting, it all sort of made sense. Like, you know, I understood it. And the role that they were hiring for was actually an event organizer. And at the time, I met with Mike Levy and Chuck Collins, George Walters, and they basically said, "Yeah, you could probably do this, but we want to create this other role for you as an applications engineer," which is just a fancy title for doing math.

Erica:

So I did, you know, geometry for a living for projection, specifically. And I became a projection nerd. And I still love projection and light and screen technology and all of that. So that's really where my career began.

Erica:

And it turns out I was really good at talking to people. So I would help with all of our internal trainings. And at the time, when the training manager left, he put my name in the hat, and that's how things sort of started spiraling into a career for me. I worked on and developed that training program more at Digital Projection before I went on to do training at Atlona and then at Mersive.

Ron:

Wow.

Erica:

Within all of those, to me, it was really instructional marketing or educational marketing, right? Because I still have to talk about the product and where it fits and all the applications and why it matters. But also I have to teach you the ins and outs of whatever the product is, whether it's signal distribution or projection or wireless collaboration.

Erica:

At Mersive, I was given the opportunity to really sit on the marketing team and learn from some of the best people and be able to give a lot of input. And I sort of became this go-to person for higher level thinking. How should we approach X? What should we be doing about Y? And I realized that that really was my superpower is like thinking outside the box, workshopping with multiple people, you know, listening and talking to sales and ops and product and engineering and helping move marketing forward through product marketing, through multiple campaigns.

Erica:

And I approached this point in my career where I was just ready for more again. So I didn't want to wait for somebody to tell me that I deserved a seat at the table, so I made my own seat at the table. I quit my job, I started my business and said, this is what I'm doing and this is my title. So here I am.

Ron:

Here I am, world, hear me roar. That's amazing.

Ron:

What was your, what are your, from your recollections when you first joined Digital Projection and probably joined an InfoComm show early on or did you ever go to a CEDIA show? Or were you always on the commercial side?

Erica:

Yeah. No, I went to CEDIA as well.

Ron:

You did. What was it like? Because I know one of your passions, and we're going to get into it is really increasing the role and awareness for women in this industry and the roles and opportunities for women. And that goes you know from the adults, but also goes all the way down to starting them, you know, in elementary and middle school and raising their awareness of opportunities.

Ron:

What do you recall when you joined this industry and that first job, that applications geometry job with digital projection, what was the, what do you remember regarding the quantity of women or role models of women, or the people that you were exposed to out of the gate?

Erica:

So few, so few. I remember at that time wanting, there were rumors of this Women's Council starting specifically with AVIXA. And it didn't really exist for CEDIA just yet, but there were a lot of groups sort of starting because I was sort of searching for other people that I could relate to.

Erica:

And I don't even want to say that looked like me. You know, just somebody that wasn't a guy. Not that it's a bad thing to be a guy. I always grew up being one of the guys, but sometimes it's nice to see other women around who specifically are not in like finance or back office or you know somebody who cares about the technology.

Erica:

Like I want somebody that's like interested in the cool stuff that we do and to be able to have those conversations with them as well. And back then they were so few and far between. I'm so glad that, you know, more people are definitely coming into the industry and staying in the industry or advancing from those back office positions into more public sort of sales or marketing or training positions where you know I can see the representation and it definitely makes a difference, especially when I attend events, of something that's approachable and something that's not.

Ron:

How do you imagine our industry would be different if there were more women in the industry?

Erica:

That's a great question. I think women offer a really unique perspective on the way that we interact with things and the way of the future is all based on user experience and how the people actually interact with the technology that we put into those rooms.

Erica:

And sometimes having that different perspective, having women speak up about what the experience was, because we'll talk about the nitty-gritty details of things and why something didn't feel right or anything like that, is incredibly important.

Erica:

But even more so, women have a really great ability to make decisions and make a difference in boardrooms as well. So the more that we go into the future and studies have shown how effective it is to have women in boardrooms as well, just to offer a different perspective and a different you know path to go towards. I think that in the future, technology could be greater as an experience because of bringing women to the table.

Ron:

What is the reason you think there aren't a higher percentage or ratio of women in the industry today? I mean, what do you think is the cause of it being formulated the way it's formulated?

Erica:

Yeah, I think this all goes back to a few things. You can't be what you can't see. So as a little girl, if I don't see little, you know, other women in technology roles, I don't think that that's a career path that I should even be considering. That's just in a subconscious mind of a child. You know. Certain people fit certain roles. When you think of a pilot in your mind, if I said, can you think of a pilot? I'm going to bet it's not a woman. But women can be pilots as well.

Erica:

And same thing with technologists and doctors and scientists, astronauts. Astronauts obviously have had a little bit more of an influence there, bringing more female representation. But all of these other professions typically align with the subconscious thought of, oh, that's a female.

Ron:

So that would then lead me to believe that's... I guess we could go there. That's why you're behind the Rosie Riveters effort is to try to get the girls younger. I mean, do you mind just sharing? By the way, I'm going to put on screen right now. Kat's here at team One Firefly. She says, "Love this. Erica is such an inspiration, a great example to all the women in our industry. I want to be her when I grow up.".

Erica:

That is so sweet. I love Kat. She's great.

Ron:

And actually, you know what? I have to give Kat credit. And you credit, Erica. I should have mentioned this at the beginning of the show. People might miss this now if we're in the middle of the show. You, Erica, were on Show 262 with us with Automation Unplugged, along with Amanda Wildman and Maryellen, Oswald, and Jody Larsen.

Ron:

And that show was hosted by Kat Wheeler here at One Firefly. That was an awesome show. You guys did an amazing job. The bar is set very high for me, Erica. I'm just very stressed about really delivering here because Kat knocked it out of the park, as did you. But anyway. Rosie the Riveters. I'm going to put it on screen so you can tell us what that is and how you're involved.

Erica:

Sure. So Rosie Riveters is a nonprofit based out of Virginia. And they have a focus on building girls' confidence one STEM kit at a time. So basically, it comes down to there's plenty of STEM programming once you get into middle school and high school, but there's not as much in those elementary school years. And that's really when children start to decide for themselves, those unconscious biases we were talking about where you belong in the world and what kind of role you think you might want to aspire to.

Erica:

So the more we can get involved at an early age, the better it is for their future in STEM to begin with. So Rosie Riveters provides programming to schools and at home as well, where you can work on STEM projects and it aligns with age-appropriate curriculum that follows them throughout their primary education as well and gets them involved more in STEM specifically through a productive struggle.

Erica:

So they start from a finished product and they have to work backwards to build whatever it is. So think about like building IKEA furniture and you skip a page and you have to disassemble it all, you might feel extreme disappointment, disassemble it, reassemble it, but then that pride and sense of accomplishment that you have, that is what we're striving after for these little girls. Now, I say little girls, it's also available to boys. It's classroom wide. We don't discriminate at all.

Erica:

But for every single kit that we build with, so we have sort of a sub-segment that's Rosie Riveters Explorers Pro AV. So we talk about how Pro AV fits into these STEM kits as well through binary coding.

Erica:

We had a really popular one for sound waves. We're able to put a one sheet into each one of these projects and all of the photos, any depiction you see of people working in the field are all women from AV, even though you know the kits are being distributed to an entire class.

Erica:

Grade level, excuse me, that's what I'm going for. Not just a classroom, but an entire grade level at a particular school. So something really cool that came out of this, the soundwave kit specifically, they built harmonicas out of popsicle sticks and rubber bands, and you get to see the sound wave and talk about the reverberation.

Erica:

And then I had one of my developer friends develop an app for us at sound.avgives.com that is actually a sound meter. So these classrooms would make the harmonicas, and then they get to use a tool that we use in AV, a sound meter, and they get to measure their sound. And then the winners got onto a leaderboard. And then our friends at Shure provided a classroom set of headphones for that winner, specifically in Aurora County Public Schools in Denver. Their district was in on this competition and they were able to win that classroom set of headphones.

Erica:

So engaging them early, showing them how cool it is, and letting them recognize these brands so that when they get old enough, they can actually choose to go there, right?

Erica:

When you're a kid and you drive by McDonald's every day, by the time you're 15, you think, "Oh, I can go work at McDonald's." But when you're five, six, seven, and you start seeing these brands show up in these kits, maybe it's Legrand, maybe it's AVI Systems, you know, whoever, these different logos, and they show up and they see the building in their own backyard, and they go, you know what, I can tell you what they make in there because this is what we did in our classroom.

Erica:

And you know, kids will tell you the same thing 5,000 times if they're excited about it. And they're able to make that connection for themselves that AV is a possibility within STEM as a career path.

Ron:

I think that that's brilliant. I'm going to, I'm gonna add this to the screen, just so everybody that might want to go check out, let's see if I can get technology to behave. Look at that.

Ron:

So there's the rosieriveters.com. Do you have maybe recommendations for how anybody that's listening or watching that might want to learn more about Rosie Riveters or the ways, whether individuals or organizations could become more supportive of their effort? Do you have some of those ideas that you could share?

Erica:

Sure. So we actually have our own website, avgives.com. If you wanna get involved in the fundraiser specifically for AV, all of the money goes directly to them. But a few of the ways to get involved. Number one, hosting packing parties. If you wanna get your own community around getting these kits made, and then you can deliver those kits to a grade level within your own backyard. So you can pick a school or we can pick a school for you. That's up to you in your own area. That's a great way to get your community involved.

Erica:

Obviously, monetary donations are also always welcome to make sure that we're getting those kits in hands. And sharing the word, really, just, you know, if you want to reach out to me, I'd be more than happy to talk to you about your specific situation.

Erica:

I know we've talked to Ron and his team here at One Firefly about how we can get One Firefly involved with Rose Riveters. And they have a distributed team as well.

Ron:

Yeah, we're coming on board. So we love what you and the team at Rosie Riveters are doing. So I definitely want to give you guys some airtime. I think there's an opportunity for all of us in a community, in this community, to reach out and, number one, help the young ones, help the kids, but also expose them to what's possible.

Ron:

And there is this I don't know the exact science behind it, but I know I've read it on a number of occasions. There is this trend or this action that happens with young ladies. At some point, I'm going to be approximate here. Like in elementary school and middle school, they can be doing really well in your math and your science classes. And there's some point where they transition into high school. It's not that they suddenly didn't become capable.

Ron:

They're as smart or smarter sometimes than the boys. But a lot of times they start diminishing in their numbers in those classes. And then when you go to college or apprentice schools or whatever that after high school learning is, often those numbers of women going into those fields, again, are just further reduced. And so I can tell you as an employer or the employers, the manufacturers and the folks out there that would want to hire people, in many cases, there's just a smaller pool of women, of total candidates.

Ron:

There's a smaller pool of women for some of these technical fields to even be considered. So you've got to go to root cause if you want that to change. And that's what I love about what you, Erica, and the group at Rosie Riveters are doing. You're trying to go to the source and change patterns there so that ultimately more women are entering the STEM workforce.

Erica:

Yeah. Now you know we're not changing anything in the next three to five years, but the next generation, the next 10 years of people entering the workforce, we're really hoping that that's where we're going to make that impact.

Ron:

Yeah, it's a long game. There's no quick solve here. This is a challenging problem to solve, but a very noble and appropriate problem to solve. I mean, I believe as an employer, the more diversity that I have in a room trying to solve problems, the better ideas and ultimate solutions result from that critical thinking, that brainstorming. So that's, you know, people of obviously different sexes, different religions, different backgrounds, different, you know, economic backgrounds, countries of origin.

Ron:

I want as much diversity in that room as I can get so that I'm getting some really good problem solving. So we're trying to do really hard things.

Erica:

That also goes back to the whole work-from-home discussion and, you know, increasing the general poll of who you can pick from that's gonna work for you. If you have a headquarters and you say everybody needs to be located within 50 miles or 100 miles of this city, why would you limit yourself and where your company could go based on the brainpower that's in this little bubble?

Ron:

I'll speak self-servingly in 2015. I mean, I started this business in '07 and I was hiring exclusively in South Florida. And I was having the challenges of hiring in South Florida because just for those that aren't from Florida may not realize, there aren't that many universities here in South Florida. And those that are here, generally the kids that go to those schools, go to those schools and then leave.

Ron:

Because there aren't that many, and I'm just going to compare it to other parts of the country where there's high densities of places to work. Florida is a tourist marketplace, right? So it has a service economy. You know, restaurants, hotels, and service is an abundance of those jobs, but there's just, it's not that there aren't none. There are just less other types of jobs. And therefore, as an employer, it was just harder.

Ron:

Air quotes, "harder." And it wasn't great. And so we made a big, bold, scary move in 2015 to stop demanding and requiring local employees drive to the office. And our first step was, well, you don't need to come to the office, work from home, because guess what? Our customers aren't coming to our office. And the technologies were abundant enough to where you could do cloud computing and video conferencing and such.

Ron:

And then we expanded to hiring remotely and around the country, around North America, around the United States originally, and then even beyond the United States, there are so many talented people all over the world that want to work. So then COVID happened and everyone was forced into some version of this. And suddenly, you know, at least for us at One Firefly, it wasn't that big of a deal.

Ron:

But it's very limiting for many employers to only, is there a puppy in your background there, Erica?

Erica:

There is, yeah, and she needs to potty.

Ron:

Oh no! She's asking mommy to go potty.

Erica:

She can wait. She's okay. Yeah, no, it's okay.

Ron:

She said, "Mommy, I'm not okay. I need to potty.".

Erica:

I know. She'll survive.

Ron:

She'll survive. But in fairness, I think there are, obviously, the installers, there are roles that have to be local. The work is local. You may not have to come to the office, but you do have to be in the local marketplace. What's your opinion on what needs to change in the industry in this subject?

Erica:

Oh, well, I think that a lot of times there's these older companies that have this motto of that's the way we've always done it. And if we can get past that, literally, it's just thinking outside the box just a little bit.

Erica:

Like you mentioned, there are absolutely needs for local roles. But otherwise, you know, think globally. Get more diversity, more perspective. Work from home and return to work, I think, are all really silly terms because I think, and same thing with like, "the new normal," because it's just work. That's all we're doing.

Erica:

Whether I'm joining Zoom meetings from an office or joining Zoom meetings from home, it's just work. It's the evolution of where we are. And being able to rethink that at the C-suite, you know and giving your team that flexibility will you know happy people have happy customers. And I think that you'd be able to see the difference in your own company, you know, just by taking that sort of perspective.

Ron:

I agree. I recently reconnected with a marketing agency owner. I just talked to him last month, and I had spoken to him in March of 2020. Apparently somebody in my network had connected him to me. And the conversation that I had had with him at that time is that working remote or having a remote team, like everything can be fine. You just have to work on your project management systems and you might have to modify some of your SOPs, but the modality of working from home is awesome.

Ron:

And he was very scared, I mean, air quote, "scared" about what it would mean for his business. And so my connection with him last month was, and I didn't realize the impact that I had had on him. He's like, "Ron, that talk in March of 2020 helped put me at ease." And he said, "The reality is, we're stronger today."

Ron:

So this was June of 2024, four years later, he said, "We're stronger today, fully remote team." He's like, "Our team is happier. We've grown our business. We're more profitable than we've ever been in the history of the company." And the change is really a mindset change from leadership down, that it can work. And then you might have to modify some methods or processes within the company.

Ron:

But I agree, there's some companies that just seems like sticks in the mud and stuck in their older ways of thinking. I'm not here to say they're wrong. I will tell you, I think you're limiting their workforce.

Erica:

I agree. 100% agree. Yeah.

Ron:

I think that's interesting. I do want to, very quickly, and I'm mindful of your little one there that needs to go out and use the restroom, but I did want to touch on, you, Erica, are the host of Women in AV. This is with AVNation, Tim Albright's media operation there. Can you tell us about that podcast? And for folks that want to subscribe to listen to Women in AV, what type of show and content they can expect to hear and receive on that podcast?

Erica:

Absolutely. So the Women in AV podcast has been sort of a passion project. And I am grateful to Tim and AVNation for giving me this platform as well, because this all stems back to you can't be what you can't see. And this is just one more resource for women and you know other girls to see where we are in the industry as females in the industry. So I do ask about you know where people have come from. How did you land in AV? How did you get here?

Erica:

And this is, you know, just talking about it's just women talking really. We don't talk about women's issues so much as we just talk about where you've come from, mentorship, what you would, you know, kind of career advice you would offer to somebody entering the industry and offering that as a resource to people actually entering the industry.

Ron:

I love it. And I do want to, I'm gonna share back on the screen here your corporate site. So do you mind again, Eric, kind of sharing the service offering? If someone does, you described earlier when we started the show, the type of ideal customers, the type of businesses, it sounded it was like sub-20 million revenue AV manufacturers that are seeking CMO or outsource marketing help.

Ron:

What is the typical type of service offering or engagement types? What does that look like for those that might want to learn more?

Erica:

Yeah, so I can engage with companies in three different ways. The first way is by doing a full-on workshop where you just need strategy and you wanna be able to take it wherever we will engage in a workshop and outline everything that makes you unique, how you play differently within our space, different channels you should be considering, or even different audiences you should be considering.

Erica:

And I can provide that strategy to you and you can run with it. After that point, if you don't wanna run with it, I can absolutely come on in an engaged role and help make sure that that strategy actually comes to fruition.

Erica:

The other option is as an advisor, and that is you already have a marketing team in place. You have people doing, you know, the graphic design, the social media, maybe some content creation, but you wanna make sure that everybody's headed in the same direction and you need that strategy and that leadership to make sure everybody's headed where they need to go. And that's just checking in every couple of weeks, making sure that the train is on the track and moving, chugging along.

Ron:

That is awesome. For folks that want to get in touch with you, Erica, how would you recommend they do that? Would you want them to give you a call? Would you want them to email you? What would you recommend?

Erica:

Yeah, if you want to email me, Erica at charbett.com. Not just about CharBett as a CMO, but if you want to be on the podcast, if you want to talk about marketing, any of those things. You want to talk about Rosie Riveters? Absolutely hit me up. On the social medias, you can find me at TheEricaCarroll in all the places. And obviously you can check out my website, charbett.com.

Ron:

Awesome. Erica, it's been a pleasure having you on show. Believe it or not, this is show. Let me look at my number here. This is show 269 of Automation Unplugged. It's been a pleasure having you on. Thanks for joining us today.

Erica:

Yeah, thanks for having me on, Ron.

Ron:

Awesome. All right, folks, there you have it. Show 269, Automation Unplugged. We've battled a little bit of internet stuff, a little bit of puppy needing to go potty stuff. But Erica is a brilliant marketer and entrepreneur and really leader in our space.

Ron:

I also, in case anyone is curious, I was introduced to Erica because of her efforts with Rosie Riveters. And we here at One Firefly are always looking at ways to give back to the community. It's one of our core tenets here at One Firefly is to give and give back. And I also, I love personally, and I know many members of our team love to really try to find ways to help youth become more exposed to career opportunities and career options and STEM in particular.

Erica:

And so there was just a really neat way to connect the dots there. And so One Firefly is going to be getting more involved with Rosie Riveters. And I know my leadership team and myself are kind of inventing and exploring exactly how we do that. We want it to be more than just money, but, you know, can we do some of those build parties? Can we, you know, support schools and/or communities?

Ron:

So we're talking to Erica, who's been a part of those conversations, as well as the leadership there at Rosie the Riveters. And stay tuned. We'll share. I'll try to give you guys and gals updates as we explore and find those best ways that we can ultimately get involved and put our time and attention and resources where they'll make the biggest impact.

Ron:

So on that note, this is, obviously, this show is live. We're gonna be moving to a varied set of formats of live shows and pre-recorded shows with the whole intention of delivering content that's most valuable to you all on a more consistent basis. Our target is to get content out weekly. So just stay tuned. I have more for you in the coming weeks with that update.

Ron:

And then you can expect a steady stream of Automation Unplugged content hitting your feed soon. So on that note, I hope you all have a wonderful July planned ahead. I know we at One Firefly have a big all staff event coming up in a few weeks, which I know I'm super excited for to see all my team in person. That's gonna be just a really fun mix of fun activities and some learning opportunities there as well.

Ron:

So we've got some, we've been 10 toes down in all the programming and planning for that event. So I'm gonna sign off. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week and I will talk to you soon. See you all soon. Bye for now.

Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

Resources and links from the interview:

• CharBett Strategies LinkedIn Page
• Erica Carroll LinkedIn Page
• CharBett Web Page