Beyond the Logo: Building a Brand That Drives Sustainable Growth ft. Cat Holt (Coologee)

Over the past few months, so many of you have reached out asking for help with one core challenge: how do we talk about what we do—how do we get our branding and messaging right as we navigate sustainable business in such uncertain, fast-changing times?

I’ll be honest, this is one of my absolute passions as a host and as a practitioner. Because if we can’t communicate clearly what we stand for, the impact we’re trying to have, and why it matters, even the best sustainability work can stall.

So today, I’m thrilled to dive into this with someone who lives and breathes it: Cat Holt, a seasoned fractional CMO who’s spent her career helping complex businesses—from insurance and financial services to technology—turn brand into a true strategic asset. In this conversation, we explore why brand is so much more than a logo, how to win over skeptical C-suites, what climate risk and insurance can teach us about resilience, how to communicate sustainability without greenwashing, and where AI helps—or hurts—your distinct voice.

If you’ve been wondering how to stand out, stay honest, and stay human in your messaging while everything around you is changing, this episode is for you. 

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[Host: Lauren Scott] Welcome back to another episode of the Resilience Report. When we set up this show, I think we really thought that there would be a tremendous amount of interest around new technology / what was being introduced into the market. And what we've seen is that one of the top topics that keeps on coming back is branding and messaging and the value of these two different areas for companies and leaders from all different backgrounds. And this is absolutely the right path for us to have this next guest. I'm really excited for her to be able to share her expertise, especially as it overlaps with some of the fields from our previous experts. So with that, I would love to welcome Cat to the show.

[Guest: Cat Holt] Hi, Lauren, it's so great to be here, thanks for having me.

Well, on the topic of branding and messaging, you've come out quite strongly in the past to talk about the deep value of branding and how it's not just a marketing activity, but it really truly is an asset to the company. We have listeners from all different backgrounds who listen in from all different industries, who maybe aren't used to viewing it that way. Can you help them to better understand maybe how you got to that perception, and then why you are often bringing that lens in your conversations?

Yeah, it's an interesting conversation that I actually have all of the time with my clients and associates. Because I think that in this day and age, the idea of a brand, it feels much more like it's a logo, or a name, and some creative. But the reality is, is that that's not enough. to be able to succeed as a business in this day and age. I mean… The first thing we have to think about is the context within which we're having conversations with our audiences. It was, 20 years ago, much easier to connect if you just spent enough money, because you were able to get in front of the eyeballs of the people, usually through television, sometimes through radio, that allowed for you to make a name. But that's not how our world works anymore. And we are increasingly, as companies, showing up in social contexts. And so, knowing what conversations your brand should be having, and what you should be standing for, and what job you're doing for your audience is as important as having a good name, a good logo, and it's as important as the amount of money you spend. Because media is so fragmented. You have to have some kind of hook. That will allow for people to notice you, to remember it was you, and to give you credit for that when a need comes to light. And in fact, there's a lot of research that indicates that strong brands outperform the marketplace. You can take a look at one of the classics, which is from Interbrand. And looking at the top strongest brands in terms of brand health relative to the S&P 500. And they have continuously outperformed. And you can't de-comp all of the factors, but one very big factor that's very difficult to measure is the value of a brand. And so that's… that's what that is, and you have to be able to know who you are, what you stand for, and frankly, use it to guide business decisions at the executive suite, at the board level, all the way through customer experience and beyond.

And speaking of roles, you certainly hold a really interesting one that I was not familiar with, and I'm in the marketing world, and I would love to share that with our listeners. Maybe just start there, and then we can dive in a little bit more about how you're helping companies. So, the idea of a fractional CMO: when I was digging in, it's brilliant. But if you can share what that means, and then how you're using that role to support your customers in the market?

Sure. So the notion of a fractional CMO has become more popular in the last, I would say, 5 to 8 years, although, to an extent, it has existed prior to that. And I think what you're finding is there are a number of organizations that want to hire a CMO, but can't afford that caliber as a full-time employee. Typically, they also don't have the budgets that would warrant full-time from that person. And so, this category of fractional CMO is really a group of professionals that have the ability to be a CMO as a client-side, as we say in my business. But are offering it as a consulting service. And what's interesting is that people do it in very different ways. In other words, folks that are becoming those fractional CMOs are doing it in different ways. I personally have been a fractional CMO all the way down to the operational and HR level. And really, truly sitting at the executive table, like any employee. However, I'm a contract worker. I don't treat it as such. But that is the technical role that I have. And I think that it's becoming more and more important, because if you think about what a company is trying to do. Oftentimes, those needs shift over time, and I think that a fractional CMO can come in at the beginning of something when a company hasn't done the big, either direct-to-consumer initiative or rebranding initiative, and they're looking to build something for the first time. A lot of the fractional CMOs come from an agency background, so building something from nothing kind of makes us happy. Which is not always what you find in Corporate America. And so I think this notion of having somebody that knows how to build something from nothing, get a company to the point where eventually, yes, you can insource it, right? You'll know what the ROI is of that investment. But the first couple of years, it's often a better bet to bring in somebody outside, because it's going to be a lower cost from a salary perspective, and also probably a higher expertise in building something from nothing.

And I was speaking to someone I love working with recently, and he said how marketing and communications are often still known as the arts and crafts department, and maybe more of the fluffy side of business. How do you go about entering those rooms and convincing C-suite that there is that true, measurable value to a brand?

Well, the work I've been sort of pursuing for the last 25 years has been to identify ways to measure and prove, through more of a line of business mentality, the contributions brand makes to a business, to an organization. And so, I typically start by discussing business strategy first. Because brand strategy should either drive business strategy, in other words, you know who you're for, you know your audience is. Do you, as a brand, have permission to go into a new market, or launch that new product? And then the other way around: business strategy has to be translated into brand strategy first, and then marketing communications second. Because how you show up, how you help people believe that you can do something new, or be for people that you have never spoken to before is really, truly important. 

And so I see it more as a business conversation first. In fact, a lot of the work that I do is more, I think, considered sort of business or management consulting. And then brand comes in. Or, if I come in through the brand door, I often end up doing business consulting, because they are part of the same cohesive strategy. And I think because I come in with a different conversation, you know, we're not a traditional advertising or communications agency. In fact, we're struggling to talk about what category that we're in because of that. And you said something about arts and crafts. I've had a client who… I was helping them create a pitch deck to get a first round of funding. And the work, that I had done just… it wasn't all done, but I had positioned it, created a market category, and they were able to secure a pretty big sum of money, and he called me the next day, and he said, “oh, I get it, you're not just cake decorators”. And I was like, no, no, we're not. You know, and if you… if you take that analogy, you know, we're operations for a bakery. We understand the economics of flour and yeast. We know who the people have to be, we know how to orchestrate them so they come together. Eventually, you're eating a beautiful cake that tastes really good. But that's at the bottom of the process. That's not all of it. And when you treat brand, when you treat marketing as in operation. And when you value it up to the executive level and to the board level, it presents a very different, it creates a different conversation within the organization. And what I find is that it's a… a slow enlightenment that happens, where the light bulbs go off, and I love seeing that, when the light shines and people say, oh, I get it now. I get it now. And so it takes perseverance and the continuation of conversation, but… listen, if they don't see it that way, I'm not the person they should be hiring. And so, you know, it's as much about fit, too, and this is how I do it, this is how I see it. I've proven that value over time, so if you want the same kind of value for you as a company, then you're hiring me for a reason, so let's have that conversation and get to that common understanding.

To continue that train of thought as well, if we're all cake decorators, have you found, at least I can anecdotally say, that sometimes people feel like they're all a little bit of a marketing expert, and when you're coming in… and I would imagine if you're coming in at these early stages, maybe where someone hasn't had a deep marketing or communications role in the past. That you'll have a bunch of executives who maybe have helped grow the company over the years, they all have a perception as to what does the brand stand for. How have you managed to… rally those, I guess, maybe sometimes diverging voices towards that common direction and common goal. Is it showing them the science behind the art, or what does that look like?

So, there are different ways in which people that are very seasoned, very successful, have driven growth within their company come into this idea of marketing. And it depends on how they have been able to feel growth within their own company, then that will kind of dictate their biases or their belief systems. And so, if you have a leader who's come in through sales. They're going to have a very sales acquisition-focused approach to it. And I think the biggest falling down, typically, is that when you have an organization that's been part of the sales force, they don't necessarily understand brand, and they think of brand and marketing and advertising as sales support tools. And they don't understand that every single… in every single interaction is, in fact, brand building, and so they have to think about how are they going and having conversations that yield a lead that has a sale at the end of it? What are the supports they put in place to ensure that that customer is successful? How do those experiences show up? All along the way, there should be some higher value that your company is providing. And that you as an organization will continue to provide. And oftentimes, it's the story of the sales folks or the account managers that are, in fact, the forefront of what a brand story can and should look like. 

If you've come in through a founder mentality, then… the whole notion is, well, this is me, right? There's very little division between a founder's identity and the company that they have, in fact, started. And so it becomes an interesting conversation of acknowledging the growth that has happened to date. And then asking, do you want to grow? More? And have you been able to grow your business to that degree before? And if the answer's not or no, then the conversation is about, okay, so what we're trying to do is take you, founder, tell the story of you so that it becomes a representation of the folks that you're bringing in, so that you have consistency and continuity around your vision. So it's almost like taking a personal brand and turning that into a company brand, and showing them that the legacy lives forward when brand is managed at the executive suite. 

And then the other side of it are folks that grew up with, you know, P&Ls and Excel spreadsheets. And oftentimes, they've touched acquisition marketing in some way. And what they want is to have some data point that they can put into a predictive model that says, if I spend this amount of money, I'm gonna get Y amount of money back. And that's… that's fun for me, I love doing that. The challenge is, is that the number of variables that we would have to put into a model in order to make spend, brand value, audience behavior predictive: it's very, very big, because if you think about the top, top drivers of any kind of in-market response, you're looking at things that are wildly outside of our control. And often very difficult to predict. It's not impossible, it just can be challenging. Things like the macroeconomic condition, weather. Looking at whether or not competition has come in, whether your distribution channels are functioning the way you want. So it's a very different, analysis to have strength and confidence in our prediction. And so, what I typically do is try and contain it into smaller, bite-sized points. Where we do controls, you know, with or without an execution, and try to attribute the all-other not accounted-for lift to brand, but there's still going to be some noise in there. And so you have to work with folks that are very, very comfortable looking at linear, or collinear, or some kind of association, and say, well, this doesn't work that way, but we can get pretty darn close.

That's very helpful, and I love those different lenses, because you're absolutely right, depending on where someone's coming in from. A very different approach to what their perception is of success in that area. You're working in an area that I think maybe I wouldn't necessarily always… associate right away with marketing, and certainly your role as a fractional CMO, but instead of maybe the more traditional consumer goods world, where it really is top of mind, you have really helped companies in the insurance and financial services areas. How does that translate when you're going into that kind of work, and do you start with any specific piece, again, and knowing that you're not out there selling a pair of shoes; you're really selling something that's far more holistic, and I think maybe… A little bit more intimidating as the consumer, as well, when you're going into those conversations.

Yeah, it's funny because I chose that path early. Or it chose me, I think, because, you know, I started out in advertising agencies in New York and Boston. And it was also the dot-com boom. And it was also the beginning of websites, and everybody had an eye something for their website internet practice, right? Because digital was… was burgeoning, and it was, becoming something that everybody was thinking about, clicks and mortar. Was the… the beginning stages of my career, and… what I found interesting is, I get bored easily. And I don't like doing the same thing over and over again. I mean, within reason, but the notion of something that's complex. That's not straightforward. And I also have a background in psychology. I graduated with a degree in psychology. But I'm also a musician and an artist, and so bringing this idea of, wow, this is really complicated. I wonder how people feel about it. I wonder what kinds of stories we can talk about that will give them a sense of. ease, or trust, or empowerment, so they feel good about making that next decision. And so, for me, it kind of checked all the boxes. And so I like to say that I operate in the world of intangible and complex. Because in addition to financial services, insurance, which is… it's just a contract, it's a promise that if something bad happens, the company is going to help you recover financially. Same is true for technology. I have a lot of technology in my background, and right now is fairly interesting, because a lot of it is becoming, sort of. cloud-based, AI-based technology, and everybody's rushing in. And the thing about technology is that the product people, the salespeople, they want to make promises about what a product can do that's on the roadmap. And… so you go out and you launch it, and you say, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Oh, by the way, this bread is sliced. And then the next year, they come back, and they say, guess what? It's really sliced this year. And I… and you know, you look at them, and you're like, well but you said that last year. How are you gonna tell the story that explains it and builds on that trust, right? And so, you know, I think that's actually why there's the whole trough of disillusionment for Gartner and other of these analysts that are looking at false promises and whether or not an organization can deliver on it. That kind of complexity and parsing out what the value is, where a product is right now, I love that stuff. And I find it really interesting, and… I'm that dork that likes to learn about new things, pretty much that person that you can invite to any, any cocktail party. And talk to anyone, and have conversations about, what do you do for a living? Yeah, probably know way more than a person should about whatever category you're talking about, because I'm a perpetual learner, and I'm a perpetual teacher, and I find it more interesting than sneakers. In sneakers, or in some of the direct-to-consumer, it's the product design that sells. Yes, there's brand, there's marketing. There should be brand in the essence of that design. But at the end of the day, the work that is being done from a happy sales perspective is typically in product development. That's not the same in, you know, enterprise technology, consumer technology, financial services. In fact, it's very rarely the case where there is true product differentiation that becomes the reason people want to use you. And so… When brand matters, that's where I like to play.

That psychology background, I think, is so key in terms of understanding and how we message. Admittedly, when we first connected, I was so excited to talk to you specifically for a reason that I don't think all sustainability nerds such as myself would get excited about, but the insurance angle. Because the deeper and deeper I work in sustainability, the more I understand how insurance companies are gonna be at the absolute crossroads of businesses, consumers, certainly financially, how we're all moving forward. Even from a risk management perspective. And increasingly, insurance companies are being faced with the reality of extreme weather patterns, how that's impacting different businesses, different infrastructure. 

And so, the messaging is not going to get easier for insurance companies going forward. Do you lean into that psychology piece, or what can insurance companies do if we do have listeners thinking about it from that lens of knowing it's just going to continue to change and get more and more challenging? And then maybe even from the business side, in working with the insurance companies, are there things that they should be looking for as well?

Sure, and I think I might start with the business side first. Because I have, and have shared some of these ideas, you know, I had been in-house at Progressive Insurance. And had the great fortune of being able to work with some of the the best insurance minds in the business, and, had the fortune of looking at what the next, you know, 10, 15, 20-year business strategy should be, if we're confronted with this notion of automatic driving vehicles. Just for those that aren't familiar with, P&C Insurance, but the notion of the business model for companies like Progressive or GEICO when they are selling you a car insurance, it's because you have personal liability. Because you're the one driving it. when you change that driving experience, and you're driving an automatic car, right, so the Tesla's on… and the other self-assisted. You know, we have not gotten to that point of having everybody driving in a self-driving car, although we do have taxis on the road that are doing that in some cities: the risk shifts from us as individuals to the company, so it's a corporate liability. It's a very different business model. And so, if you're in PNC, and a big piece of your business is personal liability, you have to be thinking. Well, what do we do after this? And so, lots of conversations are happening right now, and a lot of them are around sustainability, about weather and impact. And so if you think about the way an insurance company can show up, it's really, truly having an ability to have a conversation and say, what are my risks, what are my liabilities, and how can I mitigate it? It's a winning proposition for both the insurer and the insured if there are strategies that can be worked on together, limit material damage or physical damage that we're seeing everywhere. And, you know, having been working in insurance for a very, very long time, even the insurance carriers are having a hard time predicting accurately predicting what the, environmental loss will be in any given calendar year. Because the fact of the matter is, is that the trends we're seeing now are technically unprecedented. Now, because we have had, unfortunately, year after year of unprecedented weather, we are starting to have trending and patterning. But you have to realize, too, that… The places that insurance companies are getting their data are also under pressure. Because, you know, we just saw the Farmer's Almanac, for example, just said it's going to shutter. Well, that's really a data-driven it's not… it's not… it's funny, because I used to think Farmer's Almanac was, you know, an old wives' tale, and that it was almost like looking for water with a stick, but it's not. It's sophisticated. predictive modeling around what the likely weather pattern will be within a given calendar year by region. 

The data that feeds that comes from things like local weather stations, airplanes that are flying. And in fact, when we had the COVID shutdown, the weather prediction models were less accurate. Because there weren't as many planes in the sky, which means that there weren't as many data points. that was gathering real-time information about wind and weather that would then go and feed into these weather prediction models. And you actually saw it in our weather forecasts for that period of time, they were less accurate. And so, you know, the weathermen are looking at the same types of data that the insurers are looking at. I think the weathermen are looking at it a shorter period of time, you know, forward-facing, but… I know less about that, so I'm sure someone in your listener group would say, that's not true, and I'd love to learn more about it. But insurers are definitely trying to predict, much further, because that's how they ensure that they're able to pay out in any of the claims that are filed in any given year. And so, if you have more flooding, that means you have a customer base that's going to have their cars declared totaled, because once a car is submerged in water, there's so much damage that can happen that it's really not appropriate to put it back on the road. That doesn't mean those cars don't go back on the road, it just means that typically your customer is going to get compensation for a buyback. If you have a lot of hail, that's physical damage. Not all policies cover that. 

Going back to flooding, if you're a business owner, or if you're a homeowner. If you're in a flood zone, your policy often doesn't include that you have to get additional flood coverage, and oftentimes that's underwritten by the government. And we know that a lot of the regulatory changes that are happening right now are stripping responsibility from government and putting it back on individuals and corporations. There's likely to be a gap. And so, if the insurance companies can be partnering with the people that it serves to allow for there to be action that's in advance of a disaster, or to make it less likely that there's going to be a negative financial impact, that's win-win for everybody. You know, because their policies, pricing is absolutely predicated on the number of claims that have been filed in any given calendar year. So, if there are higher frequency of claims, or they're more severe. Then that insurance company's going to go to the state regulators and say, we need to raise our rates. Now, if there isn't the severity and the frequency. Through our own means, which, by the way, the biggest cause of an accident right now is distracted driving. So we all can do our part. For that, you know, a little PSA. Get off the phones, guys. And no, you can't have a business conversation and still be paying attention to the road, so… If it's that important, pull over. So yeah, so I think that we can come together, and I think there can be a partnership, but we're gonna have to make some changes in terms of how we live and the work we feel like we have to do in order to be ready for some of these environmental shifts that aren't going to go away. 

And some of these shifts have really been from taking the responsibility of talking about sustainability initiatives from maybe purely the sustainability teams, and it's now having to become part of the work done by the marketing team, certainly compliance and legal teams as well. But as companies are thinking about how to talk about their work, and that responsibility is coming back to the CMO within an organization, that responsibility is there. Do you have guidance that you're providing your customers at the moment, if from a regulatory standpoint, to your point, there are a lot of changes. We're certainly seeing it in Europe and Canada, part of the US as well, from how you can talk about sustainability initiatives, so… Any advice that you would have there as well for our listeners would be great.

So, I do see brand as an articulation of a company's purpose or mission. And it should reflect the culture. And the same should be true for any ESG, sustainability, programming, and messaging. Because there has to be some kind of continuity and cohesion in the efforts. If not, you're just chasing, you know, one ball after another over the field, and you're not playing a strategic game. It's too difficult to manage that. And so, I think it all comes back to the same core of knowing who you are, knowing what's important to you as an organization, and also, I think, probably more importantly, what's important to the folks that you serve. And, you know, if I take a look at… The volatility that's in the global market, and it's shared volatility, because we are such an integrated global, you know, commerce ecosystem, today. I think what's happened is there is a return to an expectation that companies will be investing more in the betterment of the communities that it benefits from. And I've used this story before, but I'll say it again, because I do believe you can… you can do good while doing well. And I also often encourage all my clients to have a higher purpose, give back kind of initiative, because It's genuine… it's genuine, reciprocity. And, you know, I look to some of the, old barons of… the oil and the, the steel industries. I lived in Cleveland for… 5 years, and there's a very, very amazing section of town that has a bunch of museums and cultural institutions there. One of them is the… Museum of Art for Cleveland. Well. that it continues to be free admission for everybody. Why? Because the Baron said that, you know, in order to have a workforce that is happy and able to kind of come back to work and to do really difficult jobs, they have to have something to do in their free time that is constructive, productive, community-serving, family-serving. And they created this endowment for the museum. They created the museum. And it continues to be funded by the endowment for the citizens of Ohio. And that's true for other museums in the area, and I… and I think about… how amazing that is, because it's not like the oil and steel barons had a great reputation from an ethics perspective, right? Their work conditions were not fantastic. But they also were doing this. And, you know, I think that it's something that companies should be thinking about. Right? Especially ones that have massive marketing budgets. What if you actually put that towards something that Is going to create a more sustainable future for all of us. You can still tell stories about it, you can still build your brand reputation, and also do something for the greater good. And so, you know, I'm… I struggle to explain what that is, because if you use the word socialism, people are, you know, cringing. So I've started to say, it's societalism. You know, it's about the society we live in. And everybody plays a part, and I think it's okay to be aware of that and still want to make money.

I think that's the special balance that we need to find, of kind of at that intersection of sustainability and business, or just being better corporate citizens overall. It certainly feels like things are changing so much, whether it is from public perception to these different areas, or even just the state of business, macroeconomic conditions you're talking about. And I know it's a very… kind of maybe, at this point, overstated statement of saying that the only constant is change, but it does really feel like change is happening so fast right now. How do you tackle that? Professionally within your own business, and then how do you consult your clients in terms of just navigating the speed of change at the moment?

So I think the, the biggest negative outcome of constant change Is the toll it takes on the people that are managing it. And if you have a culture that… Just wants to perform no matter what. And that has ethos that creates competition without collaboration, I think what you end up creating is a group of people who are running fast but running scared, and that that can often translate into business decisions that don't truly serve the long-term needs of that organization. And for myself and my company, you know, I founded this company, Dino Catano and I founded it, over 4 years ago, so we're in our 5th year, which… Any business owner knows that if you can get to 5 years, the likelihood you're gonna get to 20 is really high, so… We're just gonna keep on plowing away here. But we did found it because we are both corporate refugees. Because we both were not treated well, or did not want to be a part of a culture that kind of ate its own. And we founded it with this belief that you can do good work with good people and still get ahead. Maybe we're taking it a little bit slower, but I'd rather build it right for, like, longevity. And so, we do have an expectation that… If we're working on something, we're a team, we don't have surprises, we work with each other. We, with our clients, it's one team attitude, too. We're not presenting at, we're collaborating with. And if there's an issue, either on our team's side or on our client's side, where people aren't being treated well. We have a conversation, because the teams that succeed in an ever-changing world… Succeed because there's a trust that their humanity will be respected. There is a support of fail and fail fast, and then learn and move forward. And so we create situations where, you know, I'm asking my team to do things that are really hard, or have never been done before. Remember, I started by saying I don't like doing the same thing twice now. It's one of the reasons I can't be a cog in the corporate, corporate machine. But it's not without help. And I'm not asking people to do something that I don't already think, you know, given all the time in the world, I could do… So I offer that help to make them successful when they need it, in order to have them at least show up, and frankly, if there's a failure, fine. But we did it as, like, a joint contract. Right? We're gonna try this thing, and we'll be honest. It may work. It may not. Here are the risks of doing it, and here are the risks of not doing it. Let's have a conversation. And that test and learn… being comfortable with test and learn, being comfortable with the unknown. And doing so in a way where… It doesn't trigger anger, or fear, or those negative responses that uncertainty can trigger in all of us. I think that's the most important thing a leader can do in this day and age, because the reality is, you're right. It does feel like things are changing at an incredible pace. We have to find a way to be okay with that, and also lead so that the growth is with people, it's not at the expense of those people.

I think I had a physiological sigh there when I was listening to your approach. I think it's so important right now, to your point. It is a little scary, I think, with how fast things are changing, and everyone is just… bracing for impact a little bit, but if we can create those cultures within our teams where it's safe to learn and to grow and to grow together, I think that is so key. One of the areas that you can't go anywhere without people talking about, and especially as it pertains to marketing and branding, is the use of AI. I think it's been very interesting to watch perhaps those whose voices weren't as strong be elevated over the past year and a half. At the same time, I'm also seeing a little bit of, homogenization of voices, where it feels like because of that, everyone's starting to sound a little bit more and more the same. What are your thoughts on AI in the marketing and branding space, and are there opportunities where you see it being a good thing, and are there other areas that are making you maybe a little bit more concerned as we go forward, and for your customers?

I will be a complete fan of AI. I love it. I absolutely adore it. I have, I have 3 teenage daughters, they all… I'm a single mom doing this as well, and my oldest is actually studying sustainable agriculture at University of Rhode Island right now and animal sciences. So, this is a conversation we have often in our house. And, you know, I think a big problem with AI right now is understanding the offset of the energy drain it has. And what… what we can do as a result of that. And so I will caveat anything I say next in an understanding that we're not there yet. Although, it's interesting if you take a look at how different countries are adopting AI, you know, in the US, it's very much been around the technology itself. In China, it's been about the energy and the energy network that's going to, allow for there to be, better usage and consumption of AI. And so, I do think that we have to take a look at both, because everything's a balance. I haven't heard enough about the energy sustainability conversation in the United States or North America around AI. So I think that's missing. But when I think about those tools, you know: you're a female leader, business owner, executive, so am I. And I see AI as the great equalizer, particularly for women. Because, historically, we have had to work harder to get something that our male peers have gotten without that much work. In fact, if you take a look at the age of entrepreneurialism. With men, it's much younger, it's 20s and 30s. With women, it's older. Typically, it's 40s and 50s. Why is that? Because we historically have felt like we're not ready for the next thing, whereas men have historically felt entitled to the next thing. Why am I saying that? Because I'm not sure that dimension of… Thinking as a female leader that you have to put in all the work to be sure and confident in a recommendation is going to go away. I will tell you… AI makes it a breeze. And I think that the key to AI is understanding that, like any other tool that you have at your disposal, it helps you do what you do better. It doesn't replace what you do. 

And we have to remember that AI was created as if it was a human. And the way I think about it is, you know, any… whether you're using Gemini, Copilot, any of the other generative tools that are out there, let's not even start talking about the embedded AI and bespoke tools, which is also an area that we are in. We're, in fact, developing AI products for clients right now. Mostly because their value proposition is going to be disintermediated by AI, and so how do you continue to serve your audiences and prove your brand value when AI is coming to threaten it. And so that's how we think about product development and AI. 

But if you think about you and I as leaders, and how we can use it. Even as marketers, It's almost like your intern. And you have to… you have to ask an intern very specific questions in order to get an output that you want. Oftentimes, you have to ask that intern to do it again a couple of times. Oftentimes, you have to feed it information so that it has the context for the answer. That's true for AI, and I just went from a person to AI there, so I apologize. But, I think that's the way to think about it. And so, the way I've been using it… Is by doing the work. But if I have to get smart on a topic, sure, I'm going to ask AI to summarize that research for me. Making sure that I'm asking for it to only go after credited sources, right? So it has to have a .org, or a .edu, or… Some kind of authority, within it. I am going to ask for it to help me. Write a deck from a very specific strategic, outline. Only because I would ask an intern to do the first draft. I'm not gonna turn that deck in. At all. And in fact, it's gonna change very much. But at the same time, it allows for me to show up and be there for my kids and my clients and my company. And still get the work done. And so, I do see it as an incredible tool. For knowledge workers. And I think that every knowledge worker should be embracing and adapting, and I promise you. It's not as scary as it seems. It feels weird at first, because you come to this screen, and it just has a question search bar, and you're like, how do I use this? Like, we kind of want more buttons? And the reality is, it's a conversation portal, so just start talking to it, and doing it in an inquisitive way. 

But you are right that it can regurgitate the same information over and over again. And, you know, because we're developing AI, we know that It's because you can't have this computational engine go out and truly ping all the possible sources of information, synthesize it, and bring back an answer in the 5 or 10 seconds that these platforms bring back answers. And so, there's always going to be an AI context limitation. Where it's going to go to the things that are maybe 10, 15, 20 sources of information and summarize from there. Now, in all likelihood, and I don't know this for a fact, but if it were me. I would be embedding things like, in the algorithm for searching for information, things that would otherwise have shown up, like SEO or authenticity scores for websites, because what it's doing, unless you create your own knowledge lake, it's… Looking across the web. And getting information from the web. And so it's going to go to the same sources, and so if you ask a question in the same way as I do, it's not always going to be exactly the same, but it's going to be mostly the same. Which means, then, what AI will be giving you if you don't tell it to do differently is a regurgitation of what's already out there. And what's already popular out there, which is where you get to that sea of sameness. And that's not going to help anyone move forward, and so… You have to manage the output as a branded output. Getting back to the very beginning. Now, what's… you can teach your AI tool. What's the company's mission? What's the vision? What's its personality? Who are some of the leaders? Have it go, and look and understand. How do they talk? You know, you're constantly changing your instance of AI. Now, it doesn't have memory into perpetuity, it's clearly dumping it, I think, like, every 30 or 60 days, so you have to refresh. But… It's a really powerful tool if you remember that you're the driver and you're not taking your hands off of that wheel.

From a branding perspective, too, I was speaking to some peers in the space, and they were just saying it's such a useful tool. You're making me think of it, of… if you haven't been doing a consistent job with your brand, and you ask AI to regurgitate what your brand stands for, or kind of how you're showing up, and it feels off, there's a chance that it's because you haven't necessarily been consistent in the market. 

100%, and… It's also going to shift the way we as branders and marketers think about building our brand, because, increasingly now, queries that otherwise would have been one-click to a website, or no-click answers. How are you going to… be found. Right? Oftentimes, as marketers, we're using website behavior, cookies. Some kind of data, tea leaves. To be able to find… The folks that have engaged. Or to find people that are like the folks that have engaged. What are we going to do when that isn't a thing anymore? And it comes back to, you gotta do something that's of higher value, because it used to be answering straightforward questions well… Was what a website had to do. Maybe we have to be thinking differently about that.

I would also love to ask a couple questions on… to go back to what you're talking about, that you and your co-founder were in the Corporate America world, and you made the decision to go over to the consultancy side. We definitely have listeners who are at career crossroads. Often, we've had listeners mention to us that they're looking to maybe align more with values-based work than necessarily where they've been before, but I think we see it with students, we also see it with professionals at crossroads. If someone is listening and thinking of maybe doing that transition, because they see a way to do it better, would you have any advice based on that decision you made 4 years ago that you could share with them?

Yeah. So, I'm in my third business model. So, I apply that, give myself grace, test and learn approach to even the business that Dino and I founded. And that has to do with shifts in client needs, economic realities, knowing a bit more about running a company. This is the first company I've launched. I have helped another company so far, and I'm looking forward to… I just incorporated a third, just a month… this month, actually, and so… I feel much more prepared to begin that journey now than I did when I began this journey in September of 2021. But, I would say that… Again, I'm a female. So what I would say is, you're going to be very good at the thing that you do, right? So if you are an environmental scientist, you're very good at being a consultant around all things environmental science. When you're doing it for yourself, you have to also be very good at… Accounting, and billing, and scoping contracts. And those contracts are legally binding. And so, making sure that you have an accountant, a lawyer. Sometimes you have to make sure that you have business development, you have to market yourself, you have to brand yourself. 

In truth, you're always looking to start conversations, because you have to keep yourself top of mind when a need appears. And the truth is, is, you know, if a company, an organization, an institution has a need for an environmental scientist, they're gonna, like, they're gonna talk to 2 or 3 people, maybe bid it out. And then one of you is going to get the contract, so you better be one of the people that you think about, that they think about. Because even then, you only have a 33% chance of getting that contract. And so, you have to be okay with… Just going out, having conversations, knowing that a rejection is not a rejection of you. It's probably timing, or politics, or… What the other circumstances can be. And it requires some kind of, you know, fortitude and tenacity and perseverance for it to be the thing that you do long-term. And so, having that honest conversation with yourself, probably with your loved ones, with your family. And allowing for you to be open and vulnerable and saying, what do you think? And asking people, you know, if I were to do this, where do you think I would struggle the most? They're going to give you the right answer. And then you have a decision. Do you get better at that thing, or do you hire people that are good at that? And obviously, once you start hiring people, it's a very different business model. But you have to be truthful with yourself, and… When you are, you're gonna be fine. And it takes a lot of work. I'm hardly ever not working. But that's okay, because I'm doing something I really love.

To that end, I do want to ask you, because I think when you're a founder -certainly, if you're working in a space that you truly believe in. You mentioned leading into your community, maybe using them as a sounding board. Have you found other tools that have allowed you to come back and recommit to the work? You're mentioning you're almost at that magical 5-year figure, you’re just… 10 more months of, you know, figuring this out, but are there… is there anything that you've come to realize really helped you to refuel yourself?

I am far more successful when I am obnoxiously asking other people to help me. And so, that is exactly what I'm doing right now. And it can be hard, because, you know, as an entrepreneur, as an individual, I pride my ability to manage things on my own. That is all falsehoods. You know, I am unabashedly asking my teenagers, they're 16, 17, and 19, they're part of this household community. Girls, I'm not the only one doing the chores. You can step up. I need your help. And if they don't, I let the house get messy. Because it's not just my job. I asked my personal friends and my partner. I say, I need help on this thing. And we figure it out together, or, you know, right now I'm fortunate enough to have somebody in my life that reminds me to go for a walk, or… I love swimming in the ocean, even in the wintertime. Water soothes, that's why I live in Rhode Island. And it's just a reminder, because it… you can kind of get in that Energizer Bunny mode. And having somebody that you're willing to listen to, and you have to stay willing to listen to. And I've also reached out to my professional network and said, this is what I'm trying to do, can you help me? Even in the act of having conversations with folks like you, I've been asking questions about, I plan on doing my own podcast. What are you using? How are you doing it? What do you like the best? What do you… what do you dislike? Because it's in the asking of help that you get closer to your goal. And that you're able to become a better version of you, and your company becomes a better version. And I think… When we stop asking for help, it's when we turn in, and that's when it gets too hard to manage. And there's enough hard stuff in life, we don't need to do that to ourselves.

You're such a natural on the mic, so anytime you have any questions about podcasts, just let me know.

I'm going to take you up on that!

Well, thank you so much, Cat. I do want to ask you one last question, but I do want to thank you for all of your time and your insights. I think this is exactly what our listeners are hoping to get in terms of better understanding the role of brand in the changing landscape. So we like to end every episode of the same question, which is, what do you think it will take for businesses and leaders to be resilient going forward?

I think it's going to take humility, and humanity. We have to be humble enough to know That we don't always get it right. And we have to have the humanity to know that we're on this planet with all these other people, and we're all connected. And that matters. And I think that if more leaders act with humanity, and with humility. Then we'll have an entire new generation of leaders. That are going to rewrite the book on what it means to be a business leader in this interconnected global world that we live in, and I hope for that.

Humility and humanity. I love it. Thank you so much, Cat. I really, really appreciate your time today.

Thank you, this was so much fun, and really, really love this conversation. It's really fantastic that you're having these for folks, because I think the topics are super important.