Marketing Happy Hour - Local Marketing 101 (+ How to be an Effective Team Member) | Teddy Cheek of The Escape Game

Starting point is 00:00:00 you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode.

Starting point is 00:00:56 This week, we're joined by Teddy Cheek, Senior Director of Marketing for The Escape Game, America's number one escape room. Teddy walks us through what it's like growing a brand across the nation, how to utilize local SEO tactics for online exposure, and what qualities he believes makes for an excellent marketing professional in any industry. Plus, why the escape game is a killer place to build a marketing career. Teddy offers some amazing insights on both marketing strategy and professional leadership. This conversation is going to be a blast and I'm so excited you're here to join us. So you know the drill, grab a drink, and let's dive in. All right, Teddy, welcome to Marketing Happy Hour.

Starting point is 00:01:33 How are you doing? I'm so good. I love this podcast. I am pumped up for this. We're so glad to hear it. Before we get started, I do have an important question for you that we ask all of our guests, and you might know that it's coming if you are a fan of Marketing Happy Hour. What is in your glass this afternoon? It is tea time here in Nashville. I've got some

Starting point is 00:01:54 Earl Grey, actually Earl Greyer. I don't know what the difference is. NSD Caffe. I'm pretty hyper, so I don't really do any caffeine fantastic Cassie what do you have I so I of course have two beverages today I have water and I have an Ouroboros I'm trying the olive oil martini it is non-alcoholic cocktail so we'll see how that is as my first time trying it so very excited about you I actually love that one, but they just like sold out of them, but it's totally fine. Maybe they'll, maybe they'll be inspired by our love for it and bring it back. But today I actually have a non-alcoholic Negroni made by Devil's Foot Beverage Company. They sent these over and they are actually amazing. It's kind of

Starting point is 00:02:45 more of a take on the Negroni. So it has like some sour cherry juice, lime juice, cane sugar, citrus zest, all the good things. It's more of like a soda. So it's sparkling. And if you've listened to this podcast before, you know, I love a good Negroni. So I'm loving it. Thank you so much to the Devil's Foot Brewing Company for sending that over to us. That was so kind. I love it. I love it. Well, Teddy, as Erica said, we're very excited. I've had the honor and pleasure to enjoy some of your games in the past.

Starting point is 00:03:19 So stoked to hear the behind the scenes of everything that you guys do. But first we have to learn a little bit about your experience and expertise. So can you share with us a little bit about how you got to where you are today as the senior director of marketing at the escape game? I'd love to. So I moved from Alabama to Nashville to go to Belmont university many years ago. And my whole plan was to, my band was supposed to make it so i didn't need to think about a future career like we um we made it we gave it the old college try uh as a band but that's everybody in nashville and uh and so the rock star or pop star dreams did not come true and it really depends who you ask because some people called us a boy band,

Starting point is 00:04:05 but we played our own instruments. So it's kind of, there was some white choreography to be fair. So I don't know, somewhere in that spectrum, boy band, rock band, that didn't work out. So I started thinking, okay, well, I don't really have skills. You know, what can I do? What do I want to do? And I remembered a show I enjoyed growing up called Full House. I'm sure you've seen it, right? And towards the end of the show, Uncle Jesse and Uncle Joey, they start this ad agency. And so there's all these scenes of them like writing jingles and pitching ideas for commercials. And so I think, you know, I was directionless and aimless watching an episode, a rerun of that. And I thought, you know what? I'm creative. I could do that. That's marketing. That is what every marketing job is. So I'm going to do that. And so I started looking for marketing jobs and in the search realized that like half of them are selling Cutco knives, but ended up getting my first entry-level job. A job hopped a little, not necessarily recommending that,

Starting point is 00:05:09 but that's the way it went down. And then ended up getting an email from a company in Nashville called CrowdSurf. And it's a company I'd followed for a long time. They do digital marketing for mainly artists, musicians, and some really cool ones. And so this looks like an amazing opportunity. I mean, they worked with everybody from, you know, rock legends to top 40 royalty and everything in between. And so

Starting point is 00:05:30 took a job as a project manager, which I was not qualified for at all. I did not have the experience. And so kind of just dove in and told my wife, Hey, I've jumped around a little like this one, this one, this one's got to work. This one's got to stick. So whatever it takes. And so that's what I did. I basically worked around the clock, um, days, nights, weekends. I'm not complaining. I'm not the, like here to complain about work life balance guy. I love work. And I think it like contributes meaning to my life and I enjoy it, but that's the way it went. And so the result of that is I ended up keeping clients at an agency. That's hard. And so I kept my clients and got some new ones. And so what happened is the two founders decided they

Starting point is 00:06:18 were going to go to LA for a bit to work on. They had launched an office out there and basically left me in charge and gave me the keys to the Nashville office, which again, I was not prepared for, you know, I had barely hung out onto my own clients. And now I had all these project managers and their clients and, you know, leading a marketing team, totally different from marketing, you know, totally different set of skills there, but, you know, jumped in headfirst again. And I was so lucky to have that experience. It was great. Had a great time. Did that for several years. It was kind of a whirlwind because, you know, rewind two years, I mentioned being in the band. We all waited tables at this

Starting point is 00:06:57 taco place in Nashville, Taco Mamacita. And two years ago, this artist that I really admire, huge artists came in and they were celebrating an album release with their friends and I waited their table and they were so gracious and kind and they tipped me a thousand bucks and it was it was wild and then two years later for their next album I was supposed to go in and pitch ideas for it because I'd been promoted to lead the Nashville office and so I'm walking in hoping and praying this person does not recognize me. Like, I know you from somewhere because I wanted to be credible.

Starting point is 00:07:29 And they're like, you know, you went from serving me the taco and now you're going to tell me how to launch my album two years later. But it was a blast and I loved it. But it reached a point where I was thinking about what's next, mainly because me and my wife were thinking about, you know, our first kid. And again, it's not a work-life balance thing. It's just when you work with artists, they call you in the middle of the night all the time. It's just 24-7 all-nighters, it was a smash hit. It was taken off. You're hearing about it

Starting point is 00:08:05 everywhere. They're opening additional locations. And so I thought that would be really cool. This thing's kind of this, this huge growing, or it could be huge and it's growing. And so contacted one of the co-founders, went to coffee with him, which ended up being hot cocoa, which was fun. And I thought he was super cool for that because it was the middle of summer and he was like, I'll take a hot cocoa. I said, let's make it two. And that was it. That was the start. We really hit it off. And the Escapium had five locations at the time. And it's been just years of adventure and fun and learning and figuring it out and growing a team. I was brought in to build a marketing function and a team. And the last,

Starting point is 00:08:46 it's been seven years now, and now we have 38 locations and growing. Very, very cool. I love hearing you talk about your experience in Nashville. I lived there for a year after I graduated college, and I actually lived right on Belmont Boulevard when I moved there first. And so we're going to have to hear some of your old band's music. You'll have to send that to us afterwards. That's so awesome. Thank you for sharing all of that, Teddy. And it sounds like, I mean, you've been around the block in your career so far, and there's

Starting point is 00:09:18 a lot of skills we like to talk about with our listeners, just in terms of being an excellent marketer, but also just an employee in general. So what are some of those skill sets or qualities that you find are beneficial, not only in the people that you're hiring, but also for yourself as you've developed and grown in your career, just overall? First thing I say is be a cookie. And let me explain that. There's a metaphor we use at the escape game called skunks and cookies. And it basically is represents attitude and how your personal attitude affects everyone around you. You know, when you take cookies out of the oven, they smell great. They affect everyone in the room positively. A skunk is the opposite effect.

Starting point is 00:09:58 And so I'm looking to hire cookies, people that make the job more enjoyable for those around them. And it seems like there's kind of this attitude. You see it on LinkedIn now with some of the people coming out of school looking for jobs. And it's, you know, I'm not paid enough for that or I'll work that hard when I'm paid enough or that's not in my job description. And I just don't think that's true. I don't like that mentality at all. You know, people always say,

Starting point is 00:10:28 I'll be generous once I hit it big and I have more money. Same thing here. Like you're not going to work harder when you get a promotion. You're not going to skunk less. You're still going to complain. So I'm looking for that characteristic early.

Starting point is 00:10:39 Someone who is an obvious cookie. There's so much you can teach, but that is really hard to coach someone from being a skunk into a cookie. So that's the biggest. And another way to say it is just, and this was my coming up, was just do your best and smile. That puts you in the top 10%. Like really, it's silly, it's cheesy, but if you always try really hard and just smile and keep a good attitude, you're not only going to keep your job. This is a Teddy cheat guarantee right here. You're going to get promoted. It's going to happen every time.

Starting point is 00:11:12 Yeah. Well, speaking of, it reminds me of someone we were talking about off record, Lee Cockrell, which is one of my mentors, former executive vice president of Walt Disney world. And one of the things he says all the time that I will never forget is attitude and reliability are the two qualities that will take you further in your career more than anything. So I'm glad you mentioned that because it reminds me so much of that advice. That's it. I love Lee too. His book, Creating Magic is so good. I need to read that one. I know Cassie has it in her library and I see it every time I go over there. So I'm gonna have to borrow that from you, Cass. I got you. Awesome. Well, I'd imagine marketing and experience like the escape game is a little bit different than marketing a traditional product or service. I'm just curious

Starting point is 00:11:54 to hear from you. How are you and the team currently marketing the escape game? First of all, I'll say B2C is awesome. It doesn't get the press that B2B gets on LinkedIn. B2C is a lot of fun. So that's one way we're different. I'd say for us, and this has changed for us through the years, it's balancing the hyperlocal and the brand. Like we need to sell tickets today in San Antonio, like the hyper local strategy, but also the brand that's going to feed like our growth and expansion for years to come. But those two feed each other. Everything you do does a little bit of both. You know, for example, like local SEO and working on your local rankings feeds your whole website, which helps the national brand as well. And so, you know, that's one way that I think we're a little different is we're having to think about both. And for the first several years, I only thought about the hyperlocal, like how can I sell tickets in Chicago today? The rest doesn't matter. That's how our business works. But as we're growing, we see how does that affect our trajectory with a new store?

Starting point is 00:13:06 Like, can we ramp faster if our brand is more known? Especially in our category, there is a ton of brand confusion, like so, so much. Like everybody thinks escape rooms. There's like one company that does those, right? That's those escape rooms. And then they're surely all the same. So for us, part of the challenge is going into a city and then establishing that's the real one. Like in Orlando, oh, the real ones

Starting point is 00:13:34 on International Drive, that's the one you got to don't. Maybe the others are okay. And we like a lot of our competitors. So we're friendly with them. But that's what we're trying to do is make sure people know we're the one. And that's, you know, that affects how we approach our local brand and our national one is too. Yeah, absolutely. And we're going to talk a little bit about local SEO

Starting point is 00:13:55 that you mentioned in a bit, but are you utilizing any other tactics that are especially successful beyond that and beyond those getting people in the door any other ways? Over the years, it's become really one size fits one. And I've tried everything. Think of a couple ways to spend money in marketing. I've done it. Advertising bathrooms, done it. Radio, yep. Billboards, brochures, street teams, you name it, we've done it it and so we've really over the years begun to take a more disciplined prove it or cut it approach because it is one size fits one for instance you know you go to hotels and you see those little brochures or rack card displays right um and so we basically for a year put them everywhere but on on them, we put QR codes.

Starting point is 00:14:45 So we, people can, you know, see where our location is and Google maps. So we see how many scans and then a coupon and we make sure the coupon doesn't end up on coupon sites and whatever. And what we found is in some markets, like we're getting a five, six, seven, eight X return. And in some, it's like a horrible thing for us to do. And it seems obvious you're like okay those work great in las vegas and pigeon forge tennessee and myrtle beach places where people are picking up brochures but we've we're taking that approach with everything we're doing now

Starting point is 00:15:16 and saying okay this because it works here doesn't mean it's gonna work here so that makes what we do exciting and fun but also really difficult because we go into a market not assuming we know exactly the recipe. Yeah, absolutely. I can only imagine what goes into testing all of these different markets, especially new market that you all have not gone into before. So on that, as Erica said, though, want to pinpoint local SEO here for a second. Could you let us in on some of those best practices regarding localized SEO? I know SEO is this big, huge bubble in the world that is pretty technical, but any kind of high level tips or strategies that you would recommend to other localized businesses to utilize? Yeah, I'll mention a few specific ones, but I'll start by saying

Starting point is 00:16:03 details. And that sounds silly and trite and like a few specific ones, but I'll start by saying details. And that sounds silly and trite and like there's nothing there, but it matters so much. We'll go into a market and we will have by far the most links to our website, which that's becoming less valuable over time. And we will have the most reviews

Starting point is 00:16:21 and the highest review quality. We'll have a 5.0 and our site is the fastest. And all these things, but we'll still rank number two at first for escape room, Seattle, fill in the city to somebody that doesn't have those things or those reviews. And you look at the site and you're like, this is no, I'm going to call Mr. Google. Surely there's been a mistake. This doesn't make any sense. And then what we'll do is we'll change the H2s on the page

Starting point is 00:16:47 and we'll rank number one the next day. It's little stuff like that and always finding, and it takes work to find the balance between user experience and writing like a human on the page and also doing the SEO robot stuff as well. Like get the tags, just write the H tags, use the keywords, like that stuff's super important. And it's always a moving target. Like a year and a half ago, site speed, that was the thing, like the core web vitals.

Starting point is 00:17:24 And it's still important, but that's gone way down. So a year and a half ago, I would have said, we're never doing a video header. It looks cool. It shows off our games in a cool way, but it puts a lot of weight on the site. It slows down the page. We're not going to do it. Now we're in a place where, okay, the speed is not the end all be all. We're still going to have a fast site.

Starting point is 00:17:43 So now we're A-B testing video headers as we speak. And so there's a lot like that. We put a lot of effort into building links and reaching out to bloggers and writers and so on and so forth. And now that every year is going down a little bit in value. So you need to be disciplined in your approach and you need to measure on an ongoing basis. And if you can make that into a game, even better. We have this thing we call the digital diagnostic score. And what that is, is it's a measure of how much of the available demand in any given city we're capturing. And it's a blended score, which means it's based on

Starting point is 00:18:20 like 12 different factors. It's crazy detailed. It's a lot of fun, but every month, every city has a little, Oh, we gained one point. We lost two points. We gained three points. And so as we're testing things, we say, okay, we're going to test something in these five markets. And then we're going to watch their diagnostic score for a few months. Cause it's late, you know, sometimes it's three months to see a result from something. And so that makes it a game for our team and pulling that score. It takes us hours. And that goes against conventional wisdom of you should automate this whole thing. It's too complex. I want to talk to an AI expert that thinks they can automate this score. It's pulled from so many random places with custom scoring. It's crazy, but it's worth it. Like I don't want to

Starting point is 00:19:06 automate our team all spending half a day, pulling different parts of the score and discussing it. That is the work. It's not the work to avoid. That is the actual work. Yeah. Do you have any words of encouragement to teams or businesses who think that SEO is an overnight situation? I know there's a lot of people who think you change one thing the next day, I should see the benefits of that. Cause I know it's, it can get frustrating, right? It's, it's definitely this process that takes time, but any encouragement there or any tips for ensuring that your, your efforts are tracked or just even seen a little bit quicker over time?

Starting point is 00:19:46 There are quick wins in SEO. So if you're looking for those, there are some, and you get a lot of that with the technical SEO. Your H tags, fixing errors, that sort of thing, like does have the potential to improve your SEO in days. The stuff that you know you should be doing that's a discipline, like responding to every review on your Google My Business account and optimizing that, that's where you're going to say, okay, it's going to take three months for our map pack

Starting point is 00:20:16 scores to improve. And what I mean by that is escape room near me, you see the three that show up first and they have the number of reviews, like that's going to take a little bit longer. So the technical stuff, fixing errors, like you can get some quick wins, but some of the other stuff I'd say expect three months. I think people said six to 12 months. Like for us, the writing content and blog strategy isn't super important or effective. So a lot of SEO talk is centered around that and that takes maybe longer, but that's not really a huge part of our strategy.

Starting point is 00:20:51 And then the last question on this, are there any specific platforms or tools that you are a huge fan of? I know Google specifically has a lot of this stuff built in directly into their platforms, but are there any other platforms or audit testers or anything like that, that you guys specifically really enjoy using? I have a great local SEO one. It's called Falcon or local Falcon. And what it does is that map pack I mentioned, or three pack or snack pack, whatever you call it, people call it different things. When you're looking up near me searches, that's really, it's based heavily on proximity, you know, because a lot of businesses, their goal is to own the block. For us, we're trying to own for miles and miles and miles. So what it does is it'll give you that search from a bunch of different places

Starting point is 00:21:40 on a map, like around a radius. And then we use that to create a score month over month is if you go out 20 miles, we're fourth for escape room, Chicago, you know, you look at all the different results and you watch it change over time. That has been really, really helpful for us. And then if you're using like Moz Local, Ahrefs, Simrush, like they all do really similar things. We use Simrush. That's a, That's a great tool for tracking as well. But the most overlooked one is just Google search. Go incognito and actually use it like a person and look at the opportunities. Where can you show up in the map pack and the main search and the images and the videos

Starting point is 00:22:21 and the people ask, what are the opportunities? Yeah, it seems so simple, like you would know that that's where you should go to figure those things out. But a lot of people just don't even know where to start. So appreciate you sharing those tools with us and a little bit of insight there. Another question that I have just around the local marketing aspect of what you do at the escape game. Are you speaking to different consumers in different areas with different copy or is it all the same? You know, what does that kind of look like when you're talking to different markets? A lot of the main brand messaging is the same because we do appeal to a really broad audience and that's intentional for our

Starting point is 00:23:02 games. Like we don't make escape games for a small like gamer enthusiast audience we hope they love our games but for us it's like we love three generations playing together it's a super accessible product um fun for everybody and so there's that but then there is there are places for specific messaging team building's really big for us planning birthday parties, even tour planners, that sort of thing. So if you're in a place where you know that's your reader, yeah, we write totally differently. If you're on the Visitor Bureau site looking for large group activities in Minneapolis, that writing is going to be totally different and talk about how we're going to accommodate your large group. Yeah, absolutely. It's so interesting to hear. We don't usually have a lot of people that work within the local marketing industry. So that's very interesting to me. Okay. We have to know, just shifting gears a

Starting point is 00:23:56 little bit, what is your favorite part about working for the Escape Game? You seem very passionate about what you do, but I'd love to hear your favorite part. Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to. And again, last time I referenced LinkedIn, but if you get on the feed, you might be like, this guy's job is lame. He works in an office and he doesn't job hop all the time and all these things. But I'd encourage people to make their own list of must have attributes for a job. There's a few of mine that we have here. One is the growth. Like we're a growing company. That's really fun for me. I loved playing the game Roller Coaster Tycoon growing up

Starting point is 00:24:32 because you're building this like theme park empire. And I get those vibes, you know, every day when I get here. The culture is another huge piece of it. The alignment this team has around our culture. And when I talk about culture, I'm not talking about go-karting and inside jokes and rituals. And oh, that's great. I mean, we provide team building services for people. That's great.

Starting point is 00:24:56 But what I'm talking about is alignment around the company mission, vision, and values. And so mission being, what's your purpose? Vision, what's the big goal, the values, how do you operate? Like, how do you, how do you work? And so being really public about those helps the right people opt in and people that have a different work philosophy. That's okay. That's great. We'll find somewhere else. And so I think we have a really great culture because we have a lot of alignment. Another one, the third one I'd say is the subject matter is fun. This is not boring.

Starting point is 00:25:28 We make games. And so that goes a long way for me. And then fourth, the last one I'll say is the team. It's fun. I mentioned the skunks and cookies. We've got a lot of cookies. We have a positive team here. And then our leaders, like our company founders are

Starting point is 00:25:46 brilliant. I'm not just saying this because they may hear it. Like this is a masterclass. There's three of them and they're all totally different. And that's a huge, people need to look for that opportunity is where they can learn and grow. We have Johnny, who's one of the founders, who's just this like wild, creative innovator, like go fast, mess things up like that piece. And we have James, who really built this culture and is like the shepherd and protector of that. And then we have Mark, who is the wisest business person I've ever seen, decisive. He never misses with decision-making. And so watching those three is something I really value here. Yeah. And having the balance of all of them and having their perspective all within the elements of the business as a whole. I love that. Just curious to hear a little more on the team aspect as a marketing leader, how are you building team chemistry? How do you inspire your team and what does that impact have on the business as a marketing leader, how are you building team chemistry? How do you inspire your team? And what does that impact have on the business as a whole? For sure. The team chemistry, it goes back to what

Starting point is 00:26:53 I said with alignment. People think chemistry, okay, that's a word people use a lot. And it's this magical motivator that enhances collaboration. There's a new definition for it. And everybody wants it. And so they're doing everything to get it. And they're back to the go-karting and the team rituals and the inside jokes. And those things are sprinkles on a culture cake. They're nice to have. is that alignment and having the right people that agree about a purpose for the company and what we're trying to accomplish. That's what creates the chemistry. And so that's half of the buy-in equation. The other half is, and as part of the marketing leader's job to get buy-in. And so you can have this big, inspiring plan. And we've all done it as marketing leaders. You have the big meeting, you play the music, here's the new plan for next year. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be so fun. And you're like, man, that fell flat. Like, I don't feel like they bought in, they bought into the company, but they haven't bought into the specific plan. And so I realized my, the framework I use for buy-in, I took from

Starting point is 00:27:59 heist movies. Like think every heist movie ever, there's a scene where the leader tells the team about the nearly impossible plan. And they talk about the challenge this plan is going to be. And they talk about the risk and the reward of it. They emphasize how everybody's important to the plan. And then like clockwork in every movie, they look around and they say, you in? And the team one by one, they're like, yeah, let's do it. Let's do it, boss. Let's go. And so that creates a really nice framework.

Starting point is 00:28:29 The first part, tell the team the plan. Give them a painful detail of what the plan is. Provide the clarity. You can't buy in if you don't know exactly what you're doing. Then the second part, acknowledge the challenge. There's nothing as demotivating as like, this is going to be cake. We got this. No problem. That's not exciting. Acknowledge the challenge. There's nothing as demotivating as like, this is going to be cake. We got this, no problem. Like that's not exciting. Acknowledge the challenge. Three, talk about the risk and reward, the stakes. People connect with story and no story is complete without stakes. That is what is to be gained or lost. And then acknowledge how everybody's really like, we can't do it without all of us at our best and then that last step is the one everybody leaves out is the un there's something and i've read about it

Starting point is 00:29:11 psychological about not assuming people are going to opt in but making them take a small action it can be silly it can be like if if you're in if you're bought in if you're going with me on this write it on a sticky note and put it on my desk or send me a little email or whatever it may be. It increases by and it's I don't understand the science, but apparently it is science. And so I found the heist movie framework to be quite helpful. That's incredible to hear. And I love that you bring it back to the heist movie because who would have ever thought of it like that, but that's so true. Throughout my career so far, I've been involved with several marketing teams and, you know, the ones that I've had, you know, the most, I felt the most valued in are the teams that, you know, acknowledged everybody's

Starting point is 00:30:03 part within what they're trying to achieve. And I think that's so important. You know, some of the ones that maybe I didn't identify that well with, and then I wasn't motivated as much to succeed in my role. There was just no connect between what I was doing on the day to day and how that really impacted the business as a whole. And I think it's super important to be able to communicate that as a leader so that your team knows what they're working towards. So I love that. Speaking of, how do you expect your team to be growing in the coming years as the company continues to grow? I know that was a part of wanting to come on Marketing Happy Hour. We've got a lot of listeners here who are looking for their next step in their careers. Give us all the selling points on why it's amazing to work for the Escape Game

Starting point is 00:30:46 and what you want people to know about working for the company in the future. Sure. Yes, absolutely. So currently 38 locations, but there's a lot of growth happening. We're moving at a clip of 10 to 12 new locations a year. We're also launching new games at existing locations, which increases the throughput at those.

Starting point is 00:31:05 And we've got something really new and exciting. You can check it out, greatbiggameshow.com. This is a whole new concept that we've launched. The first one in Nashville, the second one's going in a town called the Colony, which is in DFW. And then we've got a few coming the next year. It's a live immersive game show where you're a contestant. And so we're growing that as well. And so what that's going to do is there's going to be jobs and roles that open up here. And so I'm not exactly sure where we're going to feel the pinch for growth first. And so I look for the person first more than the skill.

Starting point is 00:31:40 So if someone's listening to this and says, that sounds like the kind of team I want to be on, and I love marketing. And that sounds fun. Like reach out, like I will find a way to slot the right person with the right attitude on this team. Like we can make that work all day. That's so encouraging to hear as somebody who's been in the job market, you know, and you're trying to figure out what roles are going to be the right fit for you. And you're not really thinking so much of what company do I really want to work for? Just, you're just looking on LinkedIn at what positions are currently available. And you're like, do I fit in there? But it's cool to hear a leader talk about,

Starting point is 00:32:20 you know, if you're really passionate about the company that they're working for, or you're, you know, displaying characteristics of somebody that would be a good asset to the team, that you're willing to kind of create, you know, positions for somebody that you want to have on your team. So that's super encouraging. I love that. For sure. Absolutely. Well, Teddy, this has been amazing. So thank you for everything so far, but we have to close with one that. And let me, let me explain what I mean by that. Like that is usually the fear talking for leaders. Like the real, the reality is hire great people and coach them to be even greater. And you are going to have to, as a leader, coach people that are smarter than you with better potential in the future, but it's still your responsibility to give them

Starting point is 00:33:25 coaching. And the framework I use is CGP. It's the founder of Shake Shack, Danny Meyer created it, constant gentle pressure. And if you're on our team, that's what you can expect is there's pressure. We want to be a winning team. Like there's pressure to succeed. It's built in to being a good team. It's constant. It's not at the year in review. It's not once in a while. And it's gentle. We're going to have a good time doing this. We're people. And so there's going to be constant gentle pressure. And if you remove one, here's what happens. You remove a gentle and you're a jerk. You remove constant and you give a whiplash. You remove pressure and your team has no expectations.

Starting point is 00:34:05 So all three totally go together. But the whole, I think at first I had heard that advice at CrowdSurf as a new leader, hire great people and get out of their way. And that's just not it. Yeah, that's great to hear. And it's such unique advice from what we've heard before. So thank you for sharing such a great perspective

Starting point is 00:34:24 and definitely something to marinate on. So thank you for that. And thank you again for everything that you've shared today. It's such a refreshing conversation. So we've loved hearing from you and learning from you, but on that, where can we stay in touch with you and everything you personally have going on, but also the escape game and all the amazing brands you guys manage. Sure. For sure. For the escape game, keep your eye on the escape game.com and our social media at the escape game. You'll see us launching new locations and games and hopefully stuff near you. If you know, to keep up with me and you know, I talk about marketing leadership and write about it a bit. My site, teddycheek.com has some marketing leadership advice and you can also feel free to message me on LinkedIn.

Starting point is 00:35:05 Fantastic, Teddy. Thank you so much for being here today. We really appreciate it. Thanks so much. It was so fun. Thanks for listening to this week's episode. We hoped you loved it as much as we did. If you enjoyed the conversation, we'd love to get your feedback on the episode.

Starting point is 00:35:24 Head to the review section of your favorite podcast app and let us know what you thought. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week. We are so excited to share that our first ever free marketing happy hour digital resource is now available. Download the dream career game plan today at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. That's marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. This five-step workbook will guide you through defining your goals, building your network, diversifying your skills, influencing

Starting point is 00:36:05 where you're at and investing in your growth. Cassie and I created this resource with marketing careers in mind, but the framework can be applied to any industry. Our hope is that this workbook will help you truly elevate your career, whether you're in the market for a new position or just looking to make your mark in your current organization. No matter where this resource finds you, we are cheering you on every step of the way. So go check it out at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie to download and make your career dreams come true.

Marketing Happy Hour - Local Marketing 101 (+ How to be an Effective Team Member) | Teddy Cheek of The Escape Game

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