Weekly Impact by Lay of The Land

Hi everybody, this Jim Havilland and this is Lay of the Land Weekly Impact and we're
continuing to work through the 50 Smart 50 honorees for 2025 as part of our season two.

this conversation is with Matt Sobel.

It's a great story because he's got a company called Brand Dog now, but he's a great story
of the transition of a family business.

He helped get it to a place of exit, a great exit, and now he's on to other things.

And all the things you're to learn through that process.

enjoy my conversation with Matt Sobel of Brando.

Welcome everybody.

I'm here with Matt Sobel of BrandDog and uh Matt, tell me a little bit about what you
think makes BrandDog smart.

What makes BrandDog smart?

BrandDog is a B2B growth marketing agency that has a unique setup.

I think that, guess, could be considered smart.

We sit on both sides of the fence as a principal.

So I'm the founding principal of BrandDog.

I'm also principal in a private equity firm called Green Harvest Capital, where we invest
in a variety of different types of businesses on the industry's front.

And historically throughout my career, I've sat from family business on the ownership side
and also on the marketing agency side.

So throughout my career, I've worn both hats of CMO trying to grow a company and also
agency owner trying to grow and support those CMOs.

And through that, what we've built at Brand Dog is a best in class performing agency
that's able to support those businesses with products that have stress test within.

businesses that I own and operate and I'm a part of.

So everything we're doing at Brandawg is a product or service before it gets sold outside
of our ecosystem.

It's something that we are actively doing.

It's showing value and worth for our portfolio of companies that we own and operate.

And so I'm extremely confident and excited to take those products and offerings and
deliver them out to the world.

But we are, we know that they work, which is a unique thing for agencies because, you
it's, it's not a typical model to be able to wear both hats.

rather than testing on the other people's dime, which is what the typical model is, right?

Which is important, you're gonna be doing new things.

Well, and tell me a little bit about that connection between the agency and the private
equity.

Are you primarily working with people that you're investing in with private equity or do
you go wider to market than that?

Yep, so as an agency, we 50-50 within the companies that we are investing in and also
external.

have tremendous amount of companies and businesses outside of the private equity ecosystem
that we're working with and we have a growth focus outside of that world.

Does that answer your question?

Yeah, absolutely.

I know as a, we work with a lot of impact architects, we're helping people, you know,
usually with growth strategy.

And what we find is typically, you know, all the businesses start with a subject matter
expert who's kind of trying to a business around it and their go-to-market stuff is all

broken.

uh you know, goes, and they're transitioning from founder led sales to...

uh a more mature sales and marketing program.

it seems like it would just seem to, as I was looking at your basic portfolio of things
you do, that that would be a natural thing to have happen.

If I were a private equity firm, I'd probably have a go-to with that stuff too.

100%.

It's a natural fit for BrandDog to be a fit for the private equity firm and all of the
communications or branding website growth efforts and campaigns that we need.

But in addition to that, you're absolutely right.

Any company that has gone through a series A and is going through this transformational
growth is a best fit type client for us.

Any type of business that's going through a new ownership, new leadership, they're on this
growth path and they're trying to figure out.

Typically what we see is they've outgrown

where they were, they came so far with the assets they've built, now they have a new
vision of what they're building towards and they need to sort of reset the table on a

stronger foundation to build towards what the future vision of the company is versus what
it historically has always been.

And that's what we work on.

That's great.

know in our practice, we often say what got you here ain't going to get you to the next
place.

ah you need to have that next thing.

that's great.

So Matt, give me a little bit of your story arc, a two minute version of you and how you
got to the place where you're getting an award for being smart.

well, sure.

So a couple minutes story.

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, Solon area, went to Ohio University and then came back to
work at Highland software for a brief stint.

I had a marketing and MIS degree.

So I started off in the software world, quickly realized that I was more excited about
joining the family business.

And so I jumped ship and I became CMO of my family business, which is a car wash chemical
manufacturing company called Diamond Shine.

We sold car wash chemicals.

nationally and ultimately after about four and a half five years of me being part of the
company CMO doing all of the that type of stuff that company was acquired and so all of my

work sort of I ended up with an empty whiteboard and a very different role and things
changed for me as it happens

Well, you know, but you've got it was a victory, right?

I mean, the work worked.

You got where you wanted to go.

You know, where the

big win and fantastic experience to sit and watch that acquisition be on the sell side of
watching a PE firm come in and acquire our business and watch that whole thing.

Looking back on it, I learned a lot just sitting through those meetings and being a part
of that experience is tremendous.

100%, you know, I think we talk about it as one of the great tragedies is when people
build a business and don't build it to the point where they can have an exit of

significance.

You know, like there's so much trading off of life and focus as you're building something
to get to the end zone and go, oh, no one really wants to buy this.

That would be, that's a tragic moment.

So.

I completely agree, I think.

that's what we're realizing is so that was kind of our family business story arc was it, I
joined the business with every intention of being part of it longterm.

What happened was there was an industry wide roll up where the largest equipment company
got acquired and subsequently decided that we were going to be their chemical company and

it was hard to say no.

And so that was good.

Since then, once I left there, I've been living in agency land ever since.

I had a different partner and a different agency and since then have parted ways and
started BrandDog about two years ago.

But I've been in agency land ever since.

And so I was in a family business wearing the CMO hat, also a partner in an agency to help
that company grow and backfill all the needs.

being a one-man band, it's really tough to get everything you need done for it.

that type of business.

And so I sort of built out the agency partnership behind the scenes for myself and then
have sort of continued that situation forward as things have gone, which has really been a

phenomenal little recipe and experience for us.

That sounds fantastic.

well, tell me, I mean, one thing that, that I, when I talk to people that have exited,
they always ask me about, well, what's going to happen to all my people.

do you, was that a, was that a good experience or, or, or a mixed bag?

I mean, what I typically find is it's a mixed bag.

Some people have, will have great opportunities and some people just weren't going to make
the transition.

Yes, mixed bag.

Definitely mixed bag in this scenario.

that's being a family business, that is one of the hardest things.

And that's one of the things that we are most focused on in the PE firm now is being hyper
aware of uh those relationships, the people we're extremely, we take what we call a

nurturing approach to private equity, which you

Everybody has their line and their way of saying that they're not going to come in and
just strip and fire and do all of those things.

But we truly are not doing that.

We understand the tribal knowledge and the importance of the individuals who have brought
the company to the place that it's at.

was, you know, in both the ways that we had arms wrapped around us and didn't have arms
wrapped around us and different people in different places in the company.

That was a major learning thing for me to go through and see how some people got iced out.

Some people got arms wrapped around.

What was good, bad or otherwise and how it all transpired.

yeah, I mean, the reality of it is, I mean, even when a company is growing, I work with my
clients quite often, we're convincing them the people that got them here aren't going to

be the same ones to get in the next place.

mean, you could offer them the journey like, hey, you're going to have to become more of a
specialist.

That's one of the things we know transitions.

You have to go from being a generalist to a specialist.

know, when you're 12 people, everyone's a generalist.

But

You have to develop especially, do you want to make this journey?

Do you want to work in this larger organization?

And ultimately not everyone does.

So not everyone's going to make every one of those transitions, even if the ownership
doesn't change.

As things grow in scale, the team changes and grows in scales and we're going through
tremendous growth on the PE side and kind of going through all of that organizational

development right now, which is really fun to be a part of and exciting and keeps things
interesting, I guess you could say.

All right, that sounds great.

Well, so tell me, so I mean, through all of this, you've probably learned some leadership
nuggets.

What are the kinds of things that you've learned along the way that you could share with,
know, Sobel 20 years ago or something like that?

Sure.

think one of, as I reflect on that question, one of the things that immediately comes to
mind is the importance of collecting people and relationships and building.

a collection of those people and forming really strong bonds and relationships across
companies, company transitions or ownership changes or people's role change from place to

place.

The ability to have that network and be able to have those strong relationships with
people that you can call for advice, for help, for building a new team, for putting things

together is just completely instrumental in being able to move quickly and sort of clear
the roadblocks for business development and growth.

I love hearing that.

know one of the things that I coach all of my leaders through is this, they have to
transition from being an expert at something.

They also are subject matter experts, but they actually should be to being exactly that.

They are the cultivator of people.

They should be farming for new people.

They should be growing the people they have being leaders, building leaders, building
leaders.

That is your job.

If you want to be that, that, you a successful CEO or whatever kind of leader you are,
have, that is your primary role is to, is to managing the people.

and making them all successful.

Yeah, absolutely.

And sort of continuing down the lane of people.

Sorry, my dog.

I try to be prepared here.

Brand dog, right?

So, it's right on brand.

So with the people thing, I've really leaned into, we've assembled an extremely high level
team at Brand Dog, where I've really been focused on only bringing on people that have a

tremendous amount of experience and are the right type of culture and fit.

What I've learned is that

highly motivated people you cannot create.

You cannot create motivation in people.

really strongly believe that you can only bring on people that are intrinsically and
internally motivated and have that in them.

And then the risk factor is just don't blow it.

just don't do things that micromanage them and take that energy out.

Right.

And so how do we bring on the most energetic, the most energized, the most excited people
and bring them into an environment where we don't, we don't put out that flight and we

keep it going and we keep them energized and we keep them excited and keep them feeling
good and motivated and empowered to do the work and just don't get rid of it because

putting incentives and carrots and things to incentivize or motivate people who are, are
not there, it's almost impossible to create, but

It's very easy to burn it out in people.

And that's something that I've learned, I guess, from a leadership perspective that I
focus really hard on.

I know one of the things we do with all of our clients is we make them come up with some
kind of Goldilocks zone on either like employees per revenue, employees per profit,

whatever it is.

like in this zone, if you have motivated people, going to be in flow and they're going to
work hard and they're going to enjoy their work and they'll feel challenged.

But if you get too low, then people are going to get bored.

If you get too high in that, like I'm making too much money per person, they're going to
feel like they're just grinding me, man.

Yeah.

don't get in a flow state.

So there is a Goldilocks zone for almost everybody is what I've found so far.

So along the way, you've probably had some good mentors that have helped you along the
path.

Yes, the first one that comes to mind is my father and my uncle, both uh growing up in the
family business.

It was really my kind of foundational business story.

I grew up doing all the things in the warehouse and then transitioned into being in the
office, but sort of grew up in that business and really learning the ins and outs of what

does it take.

It's the little things.

It's thinking back around, you know, walking through the warehouse every morning and
saying hello with a smile to everybody to set the day.

Little things like that just to set a positive tone for the whole company and do it with
every person with intention in the morning every day.

Those things really rubbed off.

mean, there's big things and little things, but being a part of that family business and
culture really taught me a lot about how to operate and build these.

Long relationships where people want to work together and want to be on the team and have
a shared purpose And it's not it's not an easy thing and now we're doing it remotely brand

dogs a fully remote team So don't get to go walk into everybody's office and shake a hand
or say hello And so I have to find other ways, know i'm on our slack channel saying good

morning and sending a smiley emoji or sending something funny We find other ways to do a
similar thing.

Um, I do

Well, it's the intention.

It's the cultural part of it.

think, you we had so many times with a pandemic to teach people that, okay, you had this
accidental culture from people just bumping into each other around the water cooler

before, but now you have to be intentional about how we're going to create the same
feeling and the same connectivity and, you know, what we call in our practice, staying

perfectly connected.

know, meetings have to be effective and the right kinds of meetings, not just to to work
done, but also to stay connected and collaborate.

Yep, absolutely.

So any big mistakes along the way that were particularly educational for you?

Anything that comes to mind?

Big mistakes.

Well, I would say BrandDog as an organization being just under two years old is sort of a
foundation on me trying to fix a lot of mistakes already.

Not to say that there are any major foundational mistakes, but just built on sort of a new
vision and version of an agency that I was striving to create.

yeah, there's been a number of those things and a lot of it relates to...

saying no to opportunities, which I think is the hardest thing for growing young scaling
businesses to do is to figure out what to say no to.

And that's been something that we've spent a lot of time focusing on is who are we
actually a best fit for?

Who are we going to sort of say thanks, but this sounds like this is going to take us down
a rabbit hole and it's going to spin our wheels and it's not going to be a value to

anybody.

Yeah, we're not a fit.

We're not a fit for work for, you know, there's a.

do we identify that as fast as possible?

Yeah, I understand.

We talk about target market fit, but it really is comes down to that.

know, in our practice, we talk about, you know, hell yes.

We want nothing but hell yes employees, hell yes customers.

because it's a no, that's right.

Yeah, great.

Anything, anything we should do, anyone we should thank for getting you to this point.

So you're getting an award here.

Are you going to be at the event on November 6th?

we are going to be at the event.

We're bringing out the whole Brand Dog Cleveland team.

So Brand Dog, just real briefly, is an international team.

We have three members in Brazil.

We've got some in the Philippines.

We've got across the country.

We've got somebody in California, Chicago.

We're spread out, but we do have a core density in Cleveland.

And so we bring our Cleveland staff.

We're very excited.

We have a table.

We'll be there.

And we're excited to meet everybody.

As far as thank yous, I would think...

really my whole team, Emily Muskin in specific, who's my chief of staff and sort of almost
serves as a pseudo co-founder.

She helped me get this whole thing spun up.

She's really sort of my right-hand woman in the agency and really the full staff and the
team across the board has been instrumental in standing this business up so quickly.

Also, my partners at Green Harvest Capital, phenomenal partnership and arrangement that we
have there has been instrumental in the growth and trajectory that we're on.

I would be remiss to not thank wife and family, two kids, lots of support at home and a
stable base to be building upon at home is always important.

So those would probably be the most important thanks that I would give.

Yeah, great job.

Thanks so much and we'll hope to see you on the sixth.

Bye.