Fran Biderman-Gross is the CEO and Founder of Advantages, an award-winning New York-based end to end communications agency. She is also the co-author of the book, How to Lead a Values-Based Professional Services Firm: 3 Keys to Unlock Purpose and Profit, which she wrote with Don Scales.
Fran works with senior executives to see the results of purpose-driven marketing and leadership. She leads her clients on an invaluable journey of brand discovery that reveals their personal and organizational 3 keys: Purpose, Values, and Story. She empowers leaders and organizations to infuse meaning into everything they do so that their visions become realized.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Fran Biderman-Gross shares the story of how she came up with the idea for her book, How to Lead a Values-Based Professional Services Firm: 3 Keys to Unlock Purpose and Profit
- Why Fran also shares stories about failure
- The ABCDE lesson and rules for leaders
- How Fran helped Andrea Herrera of Boxperience launch a lumpy mail business in just four weeks
- The follow-up that makes lumpy mail work
- How Jay-Z relates to lumpy mail
- Fran talks about the lumpy mail campaign she launched for the National Society for Jewish Education.
- Fran talks about losing her husband and other challenging moments in business and how she pushed past them
- Fran shares the highlights of her business career
In this episode…
When you open a swanky, membership-driven bar that has millions of dollars in paraphernalia with the intention of using it as the perfect place for a private breakout, how do you sell it? How do you get high net worth individuals excited to fork over a small fortune for this luxurious experience? Think exclusivity, lumpy mail, and direct response conversion—at least, that’s how Fran Biderman-Gross helped Jay-Z’s 40/40 do it.
On this episode of the Inspired Insider podcast, Fran Biderman-Gross, CEO of Advantages, shares with host Dr. Jeremy Weisz all the best tips on how to get the most out of lumpy mails and how it can drive your business through the scales. She discusses how Jay-Z relates to lumpy mail and direct response conversion, how she helped the Boxperience launch, and she also talks about the ABCDE rules of leadership and why it’s important for leaders to keep them in mind. Stay tuned.
Resources Mentioned on this episode
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Episode Transcript
Jeremy Weisz
Dr. JeremyWeisz here Founder of InspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. And some of you’ve heard of some you’ve never heard of, and I’m gonna introduce today’s guests in a second. Fran Biderman-Gross and Fran, I always like to hear about the challenge stories. And so, you know, Fran was actually nice enough to introduce to Andrea Herrera of Boxperience. And so definitely check out that episode and Fran actually helped them come up with she gives you a bunch of shout outs Fran of coming up with the name and all the kind of the residual stuff around the campaign. So we’ll talk a little about that. And we’re going to talk lumpy mail, we’re gonna go deep in lumpy mail. If you aren’t using direct response or lumpy mail, I think you’re missing out. And so I love to geek out on this topic. And before we introduce today’s guest, this episode is brought to you by Rise25. I cofounded with my business partner, John Corcoran, and we help b2b businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 partnerships and clients and we help you run your podcast. And you know, Fran for me, I know for you, it’s the same thing. The number one thing in my life is relationships. And so I’m always looking at ways to give to my relationships and a podcast is a way I’m not seeing any better way to profile them, their thought leadership, their company, give to them on the podcast. So if you have questions about podcasting, we’ve been doing it for over 10 years, you go to Rise25.com you can hear John and i bantering like an old married couple on the video. And check it out. And today’s guest I am super excited to chat with just a breath of experience. Fran Biderman-Gross is the CEO and Founder of Advantages. And it’s an award winning New York based end to end communications agency. She is also the co author of the book, how to lead a values based professional services firm, three keys to unlock purpose and profit, which she wrote with Don Scales, check that out. There’s videos on YouTube about it. And I just, I love their philosophy. And starting with purpose. Fran works with senior executives to help them clearly see the results of a purpose driven marketing and leadership. And you know, Fran, I know that kind of the answer the book is you are helping them on and you were brainstorming, you’re like, Listen, we need to go deep on the purpose here. And there’s always a push back with seals like is that fluffy stuff, right? Is that really gonna help the bottom line. And you’ve proven that over and over again, when you focus on the purpose and values and the mission and through your book, purpose, values and story that really empowers leaders and organizations to infuse the meaning which, which allows them to have a why which allows them to drive the sales, right. So clearly. So thanks for joining me, and people can check you out. Advantages.net. So I’m super excited to dig in. And we’re gonna talk about lumpy mail. But I want to start with the book for a second and the how you came up with the title in kind of, you know, part of how you came up with the title is you go in to a company, and you’re thinking purpose and values first. So what’s your approach when you go in to help a company?
Fran Biderman-Gross
So, first of all, I love talking about the book it’s my kind of favorite topic, especially these days. So the book is a bit of an organic result of me being hired to join an internal competition, a logo competition, and a close friend of mine said, Hey, the CMOS having trouble finding a purpose driven agency to design a logo. And I’m like, yeah, you know why? Because we build brands, we design logos, but we actually build brands and the logos that represent the brand we built. And I hate when people challenge me, and she’s like, Fran is a really interesting opportunity. Go take it. And I did and the end result was of that meeting, I did I joined the competition. It was three internal teams. I had never heard of this global company invest this before they had merged with zog digital their new mandate was invest this digital.com You should go check them out. It’s great branding. And I did I presented in 42 minutes, I pretty much took all their briefs in a very polite way. I interviewed the only thing I had, by the way in 30 days was a deadline to come up with some, some logos and the creative briefs and the individual briefs that I had from the prior companies and anything I could find them LinkedIn and Google. That’s it. I also had 30 minutes, 30 minutes, and no more with eight global executives who are on the decision making committee. That’s it. So I started with the CEO Don.
Jeremy Weisz
By the way, this is such a tough task, because it’s so subjective. Like one person could think this is the best logo we’ve ever seen in our entire lives. Another person could say, I think my third grader can do that. So it’s, it’s it’s terribly subjective.
Fran Biderman-Gross
It listen design is subjective period. And it is not an easy task. But I figured, listen, I had nothing to lose, and I don’t don’t like I’m super competitive. It’s a, it’s a terrible strength that I have. And I did compete against myself because I was about it really, as much as it was competing against them. It was about like, what could I do in 30 days to design something that would have meaning, and probably actually politely challenged what they gave me, which is what I did, and then deliver four incredible logos. I don’t know all of them were so incredible. But again, it’s about its objective. So is about what everybody liked. And then of course, I saved the best for last, I gave it to them in a digital way. So they could feel it, they could touch it, I printed business cards with them, they really were able to interact with it. When I left, the CEO said, I’ve been doing this a long time. That was 42 minutes of value that I haven’t seen in a while. So I kind of felt like wow, that was that was a great compliment. And of course, they said, Hey, we’ll let you know if you made it to the semi finals, we’ll call you tomorrow is to this day, as have never seen any of the other work. And they just said. And I was surprised because the CEO called me not the CMO who hired me and said, Great presentation. Congratulations, you made it to the semi finals. I want to see you in my office Monday. And I’m like, no problem.
Jeremy Weisz
What did you do on the presentation?
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