Growth, Autonomy, and Thriving in Private Equity with Meghann McNally of Wrench Group

Speaker A: The Next CMO podcast explores topics that are on the minds of forward thinking marketing leaders, from vision and strategy to leadership and emerging technologies. The Next CMO is sponsored by Planful, a platform to build, manage and measure your marketing plan. Track all your marketing spend and connect your budget with outcomes to measure your ROI. Check it out at planful.com marketing. Your CFO will love you for it. I'm your host, Scott Todaro, a 32 year marketing veteran, seven time head of marketing and co author of the book the Next cmo.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of the Next CMO podcast. Today I have with me Megan McNally and she's going to go through a wonderful cornucopia of marketing topics today. And I think you guys are going to glean a lot from our discussion and so today's conversation is going to be outstanding. Megan has got 22 years of marketing experience, 11 years in marketing leadership roles, and currently she's serving as the CMO for the Wrench Group for the past seven years, which by the way, is no small feat. It's amazing. I've been talking to a lot of, uh, CMOs lately and the tenure is starting to grow because it was a period of time where one year, nine months was an accomplishment. So seven years. You're going to have to give us some secrets on that. So welcome Megan, you know, love to hear a little bit about your background. Tell me, how'd you get into marketing, why you still here, and how did you last seven years?

Speaker C: Oh, man. Well, thank you so much, Scott. It's so great to be here. Um, I enjoy the podcast as a listener and so I'm humbled to spend some time with you, um, today and share marketing in my background. So thanks.

Speaker B: Yeah, checks in the mail, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. I'll be looking for it. Um, yeah, you know, my career in marketing really, and it sounds, you know, so, uh, I don't know, I'm aging myself, but I started, uh, in high school on financial aid and I was working in the development office at my school and I had to work after school every day and I made phone calls and talked about the school and tried to get money from people. Um, I got, I wrote letters, I mailed letters, I worked at, um, the auctions and the events and that was really my first kind of foray into the marketing world and marketing something to people and really digging into what the value is and why people would care about something to ultimately, in this case, it was donating money. And so that was really the start. Um, and from there, you know, my career was really shaped with a willingness and ability to dig in. Um, problem solve, fail fast. That was really a mandate. I moved after, you know, after undergrad I went and I worked for the Oakland A's and I was responsible. I was an intern there and I was responsible for their newsletter, their kids club promoting, um, fanfare and marketing the team. And in the Bay Area you had the Giants to compete with. Um, I was also a Giants fan, born and raised. And so working at the A's was, you know, couldn't believe it. But it was a marketing internship and it was an opportunity to just build. And so that was really the start to then dig in, um, and then move to selling product and marketing in. In uh, building products aisles of Home Depot with contractors marketing work for James Hardy building products and was focused on marketing and selling the product there and focused on brand expansion, brand strategy. Uh, when I went to Agco and I was at AGCO for about 10 years and held a variety of roles from again, brand building marketing to farmers understanding what made farmers tick as a customer set. Um, and here I am at Wrench Group and seven years as cmo. It's been incredible. Um, many people do say seven years. Oh my gosh. Right. Because again the tenure. But we have grown from when I started we were four brands. Um, and now we're 28 brands and you know, just leading and building a marketing team, driving brand strategy, figuring out how to change from really acquisition focused marketing to organic growth based marketing. Um, and building that all with private equity behind us. So it's been again as everybody's career. Right. Is sort of that journey into it, but sort of always that drive to figure out how to communicate in a meaningful way to people about the thing or the service that you're offering.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Uh, private equity. We'll, we'll get more into that later. Yeah. Also had a private equity experience. I won't say it was my, my favorite, but I will say that it uh, was a good outcome. At least that that's the, the positive.

Speaker C: And that's so positive. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. Ah, a couple other things that you know. I also was a marketing wonk in high school. There was actually a class that one of the teachers taught on advertising. And I thought I wanted to go work for an ad agency and be a madman and drink Martini, you know, all day in the 80s. Right. But that's uh, that I actually realized that working at an agency is not awesome. Um, so moved out of. The other thing is that I Actually worked in Major League Baseball myself.

Speaker C: No kidding?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I was down the street from you for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Oh, I know.

Speaker C: And here we go.

Speaker B: I know, I know, I know. But I'm not a Dodger fan, Right. I'm not a Dodger fan, but at the time, Frank McCourt on the team, he was a Boston guy and.

Speaker C: Sure.

Speaker B: Uh, so, uh, anyways. But, uh, yeah, that's a great experience.

Speaker C: I mean, working in baseball was, you know, it's fun, right? As a baseball fan, it's fun. And an athlete, it's fun, but also it's really hard work. It is. You know, the schedule, the. The demands you've got, people come. And so, um, again, marketing to that, and there's a lot of competition. There's a lot of sporting options for people. And so how do you get them to come in the A's again? That was, um, you know, Billy Bean, Moneyball time. That was when I was there. And the. The ability to sort of get that momentum, um, was fun marketing to work on.

Speaker B: So one thing I'll say about that, because I think you brought a really interesting point, and a lot of people will tell you to go out and. And. And do your passion, right? And so to say that I was a big baseball fan probably was a massive understatement. Um, but what I will say is that it actually working in baseball ruined it for me. Um, and the reason being is that when I'd go to the ballpark, I was working, right? And the ball game was happening in the back while I was talking to people in the front. And every. I had to be at every game. I had to talk to people every game. And so the problem with it is that when I went to the ballpark just to watch a game, it became very boring because it was not, you know, I was looking for that interaction. And I would be out there looking at the. The right field stands and saying, wouldn't that be a great place to put a billboard? Right? You know, and so it. I became. It became work to me. And so I encourage people. Like a lot of people say, well, I want to do my passion. If I do my passion, I'll never work a day in my life. Maybe, um, but. Or maybe you will ruin your passion for it because it will become work. So be careful, um, what you choose out there. I think everybody should do one passion play. But have multiple passions in your life just in case you ruin that one that you can still move on.

Speaker C: That's such an interesting point too, Scott, because Thinking about that, I think taking advantage of whether it's your passion, but also the things that as a person make you tick. Right. It's what I know for me is I'm super curious. And so finding marketing roles and teams or businesses that allow me to be really curious and build teams that are curious, like whether it's, you know, selling, building products, which. That certainly wasn't my passion. I never thought I'd, you know, be marketing underlayment for tile. Right. But the ability to really understand how to market that in something that again, you think is like, why, why does anybody want to pay attention to it? You know, it drove the passion to be curious and focus on problem solving, even though it was a completely different industry than Major League Baseball.

Speaker B: Well, and that's a great point. Like, how did you get into that industry? And I would assume that, you know, H Vac is a pretty male dominated. It is. Right. Um, so not only have you gotten in there, but you've survived and flourished. Uh, you know, 70 years. That's quite an accomplishment. You just talked about the growth and the partners that you're working with. Um, how did you go about doing that and why?

Speaker C: I love this question so much. I do. I love it because as a woman in leadership, you know, and it's so funny because I, you know, I think any woman in leadership gets asked like, how do you handle male dominated industries? Because I think that like, all industries are male dominated, really. Right. But maybe there's some that aren't. I've always been in traditionally male. What's up?

Speaker B: Apparel, right?

Speaker C: Apparel, right? Yes.

Speaker B: Male dominated.

Speaker C: Right. And I, I couldn't sell apparel or market apparel to save my life. But, you know, it's. I've always traditionally been in male dominated industries. Right. I mean, again, sports, building products, agriculture, home services, um, it's really challenging. It's challenging. Right. You've got to navigate as a female and I talk to other women. Um, you know, I mentor people on my team. Other women looking to get into and build their careers and become executives and leaders. You know, it's challenging, but I do, I think it's really motivating and energizing. Um, I was born with an ability to kind of read a room and understand that. I think a couple things that I learned early on in terms of being successful in male dominated and male created spaces is you have to pay attention. Right. I had to come in and know my stuff better than anybody else knew. So reading up on products, understanding the customer, knowing your numbers. I talk to my team about this all the time. Know your numbers, and we'll talk about private equity later. But coming in as a female, you're going to get the tough questions. You're going to get the thought that you don't know your stuff in many ways. And so knowing your numbers, being prepared, understanding what the customer is and who you're working with is so important. And that's really one of the core tenants of my career is educating myself and understanding so that I'm ready for those tough questions. Um, one of the things that I've also done, and I encourage people on my team, male or female, really, but in terms of women getting in and building credibility, right, there's, there's a level of street cred, uh, that you need to earn. And so one of the things that I've done and did early on was spend time in the seat. So I spent time and I learned how to install the product on the side of a building so that when I went in and I was talking to somebody, I could say, yeah, you know what? I've done that. I learned how to operate a tractor. I sat in the seat of a combine in the field so I could look at a farmer and say, you know, when he's looking at me, m going, really? What? You're trying to tell me? What? Yeah, you know, no, I'm not a farmer. I don't, I haven't been. But you know what? I've been in the product. I know how to operate it. When I started at Wrench Group, the first thing I did in my first 90 days was I rode with plumbers. I went selling with comfort consultants to sell H vac equipment. I sat in the call center and put the headset on and listened to phone calls and understood and put myself in that space with those people. And so building my career and also that longevity, understanding the work that the people you're working for are doing gives you not only the knowledge, but also the street cred. Um, you know, I think that's helped me gain respect, uh, from my peers, uh, and, you know, the, the people that I'm working with and also my team. So, you know, I go in with data, I make sure that I'm, you know, well read and educated on what's going on. And I try to get hands on, um, experience so that I can, you know, being there with people, that's awesome.

Speaker B: I, I, you know, I got to be honest with you. I've heard of method actors, but you are now a method marketer. Um, and so that that is phenomenal. But you know what? You bring up an incredibly important point. And we see this especially in technical or, uh, um, companies or, you know, things that. That involve science, like pharmaceuticals, other things along those lines. And you'll actually see the head of marketing not fully understand the products. Um, they kind of lean into just doing outreach and the kind of messaging from other parts of the organization that don't fully understand messaging. And they put out very confusing messages. And, you know, as a result of that, I mean, you don't fully understand it. I said the other thing that you said that I think is incredibly important. Now, I want all you CMOs to take note of this, okay? Now, it may be inherent in you, okay? But you need to learn how to listen and read a room. Now, some people can go into a room and within five minutes, they can actually give you the life story of 10 people around the table. They just have that ability. But if you don't, if you have blinders and you go, you have got to learn, Meghan, that is such an important point. So you're at the Wrench Group now. You got. You got to position this company. And, you know, frankly, there's a lot of things going on. I went to your website to take a look at it, and, you know, there's a lot going on there. So, like, how do you. How do you go about positioning this company that has a slightly different model than what I've seen out there?

Speaker C: Sure. Um, you know, from a marketing perspective, when I came on board, the mission and vision of Wrench Group was very simple, but also really unique, which is really what attracted me to it. Um, I was not. I had not been in the private equity space before. So I came from a publicly traded company. Private equity was new, but the mission and vision was steadfast. And that was one in a very heavy private equity space. Home Services is very hot for private equity, um, because it is recession resistant, it's fragmented, lots of break fix, good margins. Right. It's a good business for private equity type model. Um, the focus though, was on keeping local autonomy. So that's been our model, and that's continue to be our model is when all others in our space are consolidating and then rolling up into corporate entities. So many of my competitors have corporate marketing teams that do everything for that location. Our model was we have to keep local autonomy and the things that make the local business really, really great. Gotta keep that intact and then look for ways to accelerate. So when I came in as CMO1, that role didn't exist when I came on board. Um, so that was a new role. And there were local marketing people, but my team focused on building a marketing model that helped accelerate what was happening locally. And so what I had to do is go, okay, what are things as, uh, a marketer, what are things that all of our locations are doing that maybe we could gain some marketing efficiency or marketing effectiveness if we did it? Not the same. Because what happens in Phoenix, you know, the customer is different than that of Jacksonville, but all of us care about customer reviews and all of us care about communicating our brand messaging. We all care about those things. And how can we do it where we can leverage our size and strength but make it feel really local? And so as, as the CMO of Wrench Group, both working with the location, making decisions on what I and my team don't need to get involved in making, you know, picking and choosing. We don't have to get involved in every single thing that our local marketing teams do because, uh, we don't need to be the expert in community involvement and what works in Austin to motivate customers and really gain that community involvement. But we can look at know digital performance marketing and how best to leverage Google as a paid channel to accelerate and drive efficiency. And so I've worked to build a team and a focus that prioritizes areas of marketing efficiency and marketing effectiveness while keeping that local motivation and, and autonomy.

Speaker B: Yeah, autonomy, that's a key word because you said you are private equity owned. Um, we are. I didn't feel like after we were a private company that got acquired by private equity, I didn't feel autonomy. I actually felt less autonomy. So, you know, talk to me how you carved out autonomy working with a private equity group. Yeah, you know, they're laser focused on the numbers and everything and costs and what's the roi. How'd you make that transition?

Speaker C: It's a really, it's. It is a constant navigation, really in full transparency because we are backed by private equity and performance margins, ebitda. Ah, those matter so much. And I would say probably some of our operators would argue that they've lost autonomy. Right. That is a reality because they're accountable for numbers and communicating numbers in a different way than before. Right. So there is that level of how do making sure that we as an executive team help navigate that. And that's one thing. I think there's two core things as a marketer that we constantly sort of push on is are we sending this message to our locations or are we doing the work for reasons other than making the customer experience better or helping our locations do something that they couldn't do otherwise. Uh, and so really grounding on those pillars, and again my team and I talk about this all the time. Are the things that we're working on motivated solely by cost cutting, um, making poor decisions related to short term or long term marketing impacts on what the marketing mix might be. These are constant conversations. Um, and I think the core pillar is challenging the decisioning to make sure that we're focused on what is going to help a location and that customer experience. And it's not easy, right? I mean truly, because it is so different than one location and that owner operator who built his business getting to make those decisions locally. We're trying to preserve that as best we can. And are we getting a five time return or are we getting a seven time return? And what do we do differently? And so it's, it's a constant navigation with the, the need to say, okay, are we making. What are the reasons why we're making this decision and what is the short term and long term impact for the customer?

Speaker B: So interesting. How big is your team, Megan?

Speaker C: My team is right now about 12.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: People.

Speaker B: So it's a good sized team. And so after private equity came in, did it grow or shrink or did it.

Speaker C: I was a woman of one.

Speaker B: Oh.

Speaker C: From. So in 20, uh, end of 2018 when I came on board, I was a person of one until the beginning of 2021.

Speaker B: So you, you basically have grown it to 12.

Speaker C: Correct.

Speaker B: Under uh, the guise of uh, private equity.

Speaker C: Correct. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Because we're always looking to cut. So they are well done. They are.

Speaker C: Right. I know. And you know, the focus again is being really specific in the areas in which we build support. So the core areas of my team are related to brand strategy. So helping, um, I've got team member who brings brand strategy, brand messaging, um, you know, brand execution, you know, 30 years of that to the table. And so, you know, working with locations to help elevate brand messaging, um, providing them consultation and support that they couldn't get otherwise or they'd have to outsource to an agency and pay top dollar. Bringing in that level, um, of support performance. Marketing is a big area. So data analytics, campaign performance, really making sure that we're leveraging marketing capabilities within the space. So in our space, bottom of funnel, pay per click, um, Google, Bing, Yelp, those are key drivers. We've got to make the phone ring in our space. And so bringing in experts to Help navigate the complexities of Google. The ever changing landscapes now with AI, um, algorithms that are making decisions that no one you know can understand. Bringing in experts who can help again the local teams navigate those waters has been where the focus is. So not layering on people that are either redundant or unnecessary. It's laser focused in what are expertise areas in the marketing space. Brand strategy, messaging performance, marketing, digital user experience that can help accelerate locations at a single marketer at a location, even at $100,200,000,000 company, which those are the companies that are part of Wrench Group. But a single marketer or even a small team, they can't possibly be experts at everything. And so layering that on to help give them the fuel to then execute locally. And that's that balance again of private equity, um, you know, cost cutting versus fuel.

Speaker B: So interesting. Just a couple quick questions. Uh, you had mentioned are you using a lot of outside contractors or you know, or outsourcing pieces of your marketing? You're not? No, it's so when you started hiring. Because I get this question all the time. So it's always interesting to Hear what's how CMOs approach it. What were your first three hires out of the 12?

Speaker C: That is a great question. Um, I hired my um, brand strategist and market research person first. Um, really a second in command if you will, who could work directly with our locations as well. So going back to reading the room and understanding who we're working with is somebody who brought that level of experience. So that was one is my brand strategist, um, and customer market strategist. So he was first. The second was a, ah, UX UI digital content person, um, and she worked with locations. Our websites at our locations are the first place people go. They Google and then they go to the website and they call or they fill out a form or they schedule online. So that was my second person to work with locations on uh, transitioning and transforming their website spaces to improve customer experience. The third was an analytics person and they were essentially all really around the same time and without the data, without understanding the marketing KPIs. Um, also for us, because we are a comp, we are made up of 28 brands taking that those marketing analytics from every location. They were all different. A lead, a job, a call. None of them were the same on how they tracked them. And so for me to then answer to my board and say leads are up and down or these are the channels that are delivering the greatest return on investment, that was really uh, essentially in the Beginning. It was impossible. It was impossible. I couldn't look at the whole and say I could look at each location and then aggregate those together. So my analytics person, um, and now there's a few people on that team are critical, uh, because again without the data showing up at a board meeting with my private equity was a scary, scary, scary move.

Speaker B: Oh. Oh God, yeah. I mean, yeah, like the greatest day of my life was being able to show, oh look, by the way, we spent you know, $10 million in marketing. Oh, and marketing delivered back, you know, 3.65x gross margin adjusted ROI. You know, that's when the board goes, okay, uh, how do we get more money to the marketing team? Right. Um, you know, obviously they've earned it. If we give you a dollar and we're getting a dollar, uh, three and 65 cents back, that's a good investment. And this is one thing. So I, I love the fact that you're a third hire with somebody uh, that's doing marketing analysis. Right. Because uh, you know I've, people always ask me and I say, well the, you know a demand gen person, I always say a um, product marketing person. So you understand the buyer and the products and then the third one is going to be marketing ops. Right. Somebody that can analyze the data. So it's interesting, um, everybody's approach on this. I think, I think a lot of people do what you did with a higher content expert going to do a lot of content marketing. Um, it's going to be interesting to see how a lot of the AI tools shape the way people make investments in content creation moving forward.

Speaker C: We're seeing it now, I mean in our space, you know, it's allowed us, AI has allowed us and my content team from a user experience standpoint. And again in our space, the volume of people who go to our websites to then click to call. Right. Our business is backed on sense of urgency and that really helped prioritize who to hire. Where are our biggest needs at that time? Acquisition. Right. New acquisitions. Again, when I came on board there were four locations. We now have 28. That customer and market strategist was critical to say, okay, when we go into a new market, what are the core things that we have to do to make sure that we're successful? But then that, that content person and that uh, UX person, it's if we're getting 100,000 people to our site, especially if there's a weather event and only 30% are converting, how do we get more if we just increased it by 5%. That's significant improvement. Right. And so that making valuable content, but also converting content was so necessary. What we're seeing now with AI is one, it helps us test and learn in a really accelerated, uh, way. That's the one thing that we're seeing is we can't necessarily just rinse and repeat AI, uh, generated content on our site because, again, with search and algorithms, it can dilute it. However, it absolutely has expedited my team's ability to test content. We can do a B tests faster than we've ever been able to do before. Oh, does schedule now work or meet my technician? Which one converts better? Using AI to help us be, um, faster, um, and kind of fail faster and learn quicker is something that we've leaned into, um, um, because it. The risk. Right to where you were going. The risk is that we just generate a bunch of AI content and now we don't need any content authors. Right. I can see that transitioning, where maybe the volume of content is different than a content person might generate. However, we're leveraging it to try to learn and test what's going to drive and increase our leads.

Speaker B: All right. I think that the AI content thing, it's definitely faster. It's not necessarily better. I do think if you use it as kind of an accelerator and then add a human touch in there for differentiation, uniqueness, brand elements in the writing, because the AI can only do so much for it.

Speaker C: It really can. Actually. My team and I, yesterday, we were looking at, um, a sizzle video that they're putting out on a new, um, a new service and offering that we're doing. And I took a run through it and absolutely obliterated our logos. And it was kind of hilarious because they made one of our logos like it. Truly, we looked at. I'm like, what happened here? Right? So you've got to be so careful because it just, it, it can help and it can be an accelerant, it can be, you know, a lever, but it requires, you know, it requires some, you know, savvy approach to how best to use it. Um, because sooner or later people are also going to start seeing through it. I mean, we as consumers know immediately if something's just completely generated on AI. It's obvious.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a little too polished. Um, so we come to our last question, which we ask all our guests. Uh, what is the best piece of advice that you could give either an aspiring CMO or a current CMO that you think would help them do their job better?

Speaker C: I will say Three things. Know your numbers, know your business, and be curious. If you approach whether you're working with a peer, a boss, a teammate, someone who works for you. If you are steadfast in understanding your business and your numbers, and then curious about what is possible, you will succeed.

Speaker B: I completely agree. And I'm going to add another point that you made earlier. Listen, um, it is amazing when you're sitting around, whether it's a group of customers you're talking to or partners or internal employees, salespeople, executives. If you listen, it's amazing the amount of information you can pull in together when you brought up that point. I think a lot of heads of marketing kind of get to a point where, like, I know what I'm doing now and it's like that listening process ends because that there's no one right way to do marketing and there's no one set way to do it. I've done it. I've been a marketing leader seven times. I did it different every single time. It was no consistency. So you gotta listen.

Speaker C: That's so important.

Speaker B: I completely agree. Megan M. It has been amazing to have you. This is a great conversation. We'd love to have you back on a future, uh, podcast episode if you're willing. Everyone else out there.

Speaker C: Great.

Speaker B: Well, it's great for me. I just don't thank so much.

Speaker C: Scott.

Speaker B: Yeah, but, um, audience out there, go to the next CMO.com, register for the community. Tons of free stuff up there. We're putting up this. This podcast will be up there. Obviously you're already listening to it, but There are another 129 podcast episodes for you to peruse through, plus all kinds of templates, best practices, tips and tricks, um, that you can use to do your job better. It's all free for you. So thanks again for listening and we look forward to seeing you on another future podcast episode. Thank you.