Navigating the Wilderness of Marketing Success with Katie Smith

I'm Todd Miller of Isaiah Industries, manufacturer

of specialty metal roofing and other building materials.

Today, my co host is Mr.

Ryan Bell.

Ryan, how you doing today?

Hey Todd, I'm doing great.

How are you?

Doing well also.

So I'm curious if you read any good books lately.

Actually, I'm glad you asked.

I have, I've been reading this book on, anti gravity and it's just

so good I can't even put it down.

Can't put it down.

Okay.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

Pretty bad.

I have a question for you.

Okay.

What is

Where do pirates buy their hooks?

I've heard this one before.

I don't know.

At the second hand store.

I should have gotten that one.

But wait, they get worse.

I have another one for you.

Oh, good.

It don't sound so thrilled.

What do you call a song about a tortilla?

I don't know.

It's a rap song.

Oh, that's good.

That's a good one.

Get anything else fun at forest to throw into the mix here today?

I don't think so.

I'm ready to get into this episode.

Well, let's do it.

I'm excited about this episode.

It's going to be a good one.

so.

One of the things that, you know, I think you'll, Oh, by the way,

we are doing challenge words.

So each of us does have a secret word to work into the conversation,

somewhat surreptitiously.

Is that a word?

I think it is.

It's not a challenge word.

Anyway.

we do each have a challenge word to work into the conversation.

So you, our audience can be listening for our challenge

words and we'll see what happens.

We'll let you know at the end, whether we worked them in or yet or not.

But one of the things that I wanted to start out today is, you know, this idea

of what is it that makes a business stand out from their competition?

And I think a lot of times businesses kind of start out and they, they talk all

about the product or service they provide.

But the reality is.

It's the impact they have on the customer.

You know, that sort of human touch, that very personal thing.

You know, what is that impact on the customer that is usually remembered

and talked about by that client?

Um, far long after the sales complete and going to be talked about much

more than the actual physical product or service that company provided.

So, today I'm excited, our guest is Katie Smith.

Katie is known as the queen of the customer journey, she is a visionary

marketer dedicated to transforming chaos and stagnation into strategic success.

Katie is a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer or CMO, and she helps her

clients drive sustainable growth while invigorating their marketing games and

leading them to new heights of success.

Based in Livingston, Montana, one of our favorite places,

we have a team member there.

Katie's business is called Wild Path Consulting.

Katie, welcome to Construction Disruption.

It's a pleasure to have you here today.

Thank you so much.

I'm really excited to be here and chat with you both.

Well, very good.

Well, thank you again.

So, I know that you even have some history working specifically in the building

materials space, which is very cool.

But love to kind of start out with maybe some details on your background

and what brought to where you are today as a consultant, in marketing, and

also this idea of being a Fractional CMO or Chief Marketing Officer.

So, I've always made my own path in life.

I haven't really taken a traditional role.

I spent my 20s as an outdoor guide, learning how to take people into

the wilderness, make sure they have a good time, make sure we get

where we're going and back safely.

And then I fell into marketing because I really love connecting people.

I love connecting people with a need, with people who can solve that need.

I love communication.

And so I really fell into that role.

And one of the first places I worked at was a metal manufacturing company,

which fell in love with manufacturing.

I mean, come on, how fun is it to build things?

And then how do you communicate those needs out to people.

That's where I really cut my teeth and learned.

and then, because I need to make my own way in life, I wanted to experience

what that was like in other industries.

So I've worked in international nonprofit.

I've worked in FinTech, just trying to gain as much experience

as I can, but I think my heart and my home is manufacturing.

So, what I found is that.

People need, in those areas, in all areas, we need help communicating.

How do you say the right thing at the right time to the right people?

And when you are a large company, you can have a Chief Marketing

Officer who can provide a lot of leadership, can guide your team

through whatever gets thrown at us.

And, You know, why can't a smaller company have that same level of

leadership, that same level of strategy?

And so that's where the fractional comes in, where, I'm not beholden to just

one company taking up all of my time.

A smaller company doesn't need a full time fractional CMO.

So I can come in, I can look at what's going on with their team because I

have all this experience to draw from.

I can create a really solid path for them moving forward, and help guide

them through whatever life throws at us.

And then I can work with multiple people, which keeps my brain engaged.

and really, you know, I like to help those small medium businesses

have a competitive advantage.

You know, I have to imagine that, you know, doing the fractional

thing, you get exposure to a lot of different companies and there has to be

some overlap that has to help you with all of your clients, just having that broader

base of things to pull from, doesn't it?

It does.

I mean, honestly, we're solving the same problem.

The components are different.

And because I've worked with a lot of different companies, I

can think outside of the box.

I can bring in different solutions or we come up with different solutions.

So that's really one of the most fun parts of it for me the problems are

the same, but the solutions can be wildly tailored to whatever's going on.

Very cool.

And there you worked in that wildly word.

So, got to ask you, Wildpath Consulting, not exactly a common

everyday name by any stretch.

What's the story behind that name?

And, I guess what's more, what do you feel that name means to your clients or

means that you bring to your clients?

Yeah, so that really comes from my years of outdoor guiding and

this idea that, you know, marketing can feel like a wilderness for a

lot of people, and I am the guide.

I'm the guide through, so one of the, activities that I guided was

horseback riding in Yellowstone National Park and, in the surrounding areas.

So I'm in the lead, but I'm never facing forward.

I'm always twisted to the side in my saddle so that I'm watching my clients.

I'm watching what's happening behind me, making sure everyone's having a good

time, but I have one eye looking forward.

I know where we're going, but what's in our path?

Is there a bear in our path?

Is there a moose?

Is there a fallen tree?

How do we navigate the things that, that will often push us off our path

so we can still get to our destination?

Do I need to change the destination based on what's happening in our climate?

So taking all of those pieces.

That's how I work.

That's how I work with my clients.

That's how I work in the industries.

I've always got one eye looking back, making sure everybody's safe

moving along when I coming forward.

And then I'm a guide.

And so I want to join you on your journey.

I want to make it fun, exciting and just take us along on

a wild journey to success.

I love that analogy to being a wilderness guide.

Obviously you've thought about that and it went into the name of your

company, but, that is a great analogy.

I love that.

So I'm going to go a little bit off of what we had planned to talk about.

I'm going to ask you this question and if this, Doesn't work out.

We'll edit it out.

How does that work?

Sounds good.

I'm curious as a guide and it's interesting.

I have a cousin out your way who is a hunting and fishing guide, but I'm kind

of curious ever get in any precarious or scary situations as a wilderness guide.

Uh, yes, there have been a few, mostly involving wildlife.

So whenever you see a grizzly bear out, you know, your heart just starts pounding.

so I've been out, I prefer to see grizzly bears on horseback because generally

they're not too, you know, too bothered by that and they'll move on and move away.

But definitely have been out on horseback tours and come across grizzly bears.

I think, another one we would go out in the winter time, I'm a Nordic

ski guide, I was, and we would go into the park with a company that

ran snow coaches over snow vehicles.

And, you know, we have various stop offs.

So Fountain Paint Pots is, it's one of the best places to visit in Yellowstone.

It's beautiful, especially in winter.

And, the driver and I, we got there and people were kind of pulling away

cause there were a bison along the boardwalk, but we kind of decided, you

know, let's just, See what we can see.

So we took our people out and there were bison and, you know, some

were on one side of the boardwalk, some were on the other, but we felt

like there was a good safe gap.

So we took our people around and we saw the bubbling mud and

hot pots and the little geysers.

And then the bison just sort of started to come together around us

Wow.

On the boardwalk.

And we had to start kind of like dodging bison and and moving really closely and

get our tourists who didn't, they didn't understand, you know, I think they don't

realize that these are wild animals.

And so we have to like get them from taking pictures without panicking,

get them to move in the right way.

So that was definitely a little touch and go between the driver

and I, but we got out of there.

No bison gorings, and, I think the people had a good time.

That had to be interesting though, cause they probably are

like, wow, what a cool experience.

And you're like, this is kind of scary.

Let's get out of here.

And how do we do that safely?

I saw a funny meme the other day that was like a lady standing right

in front of a bison trying to take a picture and it said like it's tourist

tossing season or something like that.

You know, I feel like they should do it more than they do.

Yeah.

They let people get away with a lot, but they are wild animals and

you should not be close to them at all.

Well, there's all kinds of analogies there too, because certainly

in marketing and business, we run into a grizzly bear now and then.

And, so that's cool stuff.

What about that geyser that exploded recently out in Yellowstone.

Tell us your perspective on that.

Biscuit Basin.

Well, Biscuit Basin is a really great site to go to, especially in wintertime.

The colors were really wonderful, but you know that it's not the

coming of the of the next volcano.

It was just really kind of like a hydraulic buildup of gases.

So sometimes that happens throughout the park.

Features are changing all the time in the park, which is one of the

things that makes it so interesting.

So these kinds of things happen often, not generally that big

or in such a populated place.

but I think it's really great that nobody was hurt and, just kind of makes it a

little more exciting and reminds you about just how wild and how cool Yellowstone is.

It's definitely, you know, one of my favorite places is why I've

chosen to live so close to it.

Spend a lot of time in Yellowstone, all seasons.

Very neat.

Yeah.

The footage of that was just incredible.

But yes, I'm glad no one was hurt and, everyone got away safely.

So let's get back on track.

I suppose we should, I'm kind of curious to hear your thoughts on,

what is marketing and specifically, any distinctions you call between

marketing and another word we use a lot, which is branding.

So I think that's a great thing to start with because what I think

of marketing as encompassing all the ways that we communicate with people.

So that's external internal, it's sort of a broad brush and then there are different

categories between, you know, within that and then branding, I think of it's like

the foundation in the framing of a house.

So, you know, a lot of people say, Oh, I just need a logo and maybe a fun

tagline and I'm going to design it in the way that I think is really cool.

And you can do that certainly.

But the better a foundation you lay for your business, the more

thought that goes into your branding, what it looks like, what it sounds

like, what's your tone of voice?

Who's your customer?

The better a foundation you're going to have, the better framing

you have, the easier it is to build up your brand down the road.

It helps you maintain, what you're going to do, it eliminates scope creep.

So the branding is really like, what are we, who are we, and how are we

going to communicate that with people?

And then the marketing takes that information and it just

helps you make decisions.

It's easier to say, yes, that fits within our brand.

No, that doesn't fit within our brand, rather than always kind of having

to decide every time a new marketing thing comes up, should we do this?

This is what's trending.

Is this something that we should be worrying about?

If you have a really strong brand, if you have a really strong foundation.

Those decisions become easy.

Yes, it fits.

No, it doesn't fit.

So I think it's important to put some good thought into that.

I actually help people go through rebrandings a lot.

And I'm really happy when they find me before that happens.

because it's really difficult, just like the foundation of a house to re engineer

that once everything's built up around it.

That is really interesting.

I love the way you explain that.

So branding almost becomes sort of like a litmus test, for a lot of, you know, what

your activity and behavior is going to be.

Good stuff.

Well, I'm kind of curious when you step into a company as a

Fractional Chief Marketing Officer, you know, what does that mean?

I mean, you just stay in one little silo trying to help them with

marketing things or do you end up touching more parts of the business?

How do you interact with your clients?

What does that look like?

Do you go see them?

Is it all done virtually?

You know, what are some of the nuts and bolts of it all also?

Yeah, so when I come into a company, there's no silos.

Marketing touches all areas of the company because marketing

is mostly about listening.

You need to listen to your customers.

You need to listen to every, person in your company has insight

into what a customer needs, what a customer issue is, and also

insight into how we can solve that.

And so I need to be able to talk with the CFO.

I need to know what the financials look like, what products are selling well,

what products are not selling well.

I need their insight.

Marketing and sales work so closely together.

And in a lot of our industry, it's.

B2B, which is sales led.

And so marketing needs to be a tool for sales.

In this day and age in this climate that we're in marketing and sales

can no longer be butting heads.

We need to be working very closely.

We need to not worry so much about attribution.

In marketing, we need to know what are you hearing in sales?

What do you wish you had during sales call?

What do you wish your clients knew before they got to you?

And that's how we can start making decisions.

Um, the people who are customer service have so much insight.

People on the manufacturing floor, they know timing, you know, they

know what promises we can make.

They have ideas about how we can make things better.

And so my job when I first come in is to listen.

I need to find some of that low hanging fruit so that we can get quick wins.

I need to build trust.

and I need to do a lot of listening.

So I don't come in right away with, I mean, I do have my ideas in the back

of my head, but I come in and listen.

It's about building teams.

It's about building trust so that we can all work together.

And a lot of times people have great ideas and nobody's really

listened to them or heard them out.

So, that's what I do.

You know, that first 90 days is how do I get to know this company?

How do I get to know this particular industry very well, very fast?

How do I build up the team?

And then, what are, you know, what's our goal?

What are we working towards so that I can start building our strategy,

based on all of those factors.

So you've used a phrase a couple of times, um, something like in

the environment that we're in today.

Kind of gives a hint that you feel there's some special challenges or new

challenges, new things we're running into.

Can you elaborate on that a little bit as far as, you know, some of the

perhaps new challenges you do think businesses are facing today and, you

know, perhaps even going forward?

Yes, so I think this was happening before

COVID, but COVID sped it up.

The customer has so much more control of the buying journey than ever before.

So with the internet, with everything on the internet,

and now it's their preference.

So they want to do the research.

They want to gather more information before they talk to somebody.

And so that really changes how we approach that customer journey,

you know, what does it look like?

It's so much less linear than it used to be because we're dealing with

people, they bounce around a lot.

You know, we might lay out, well, first they're going to experience

this topic and then we're going to lead them to watch this video.

And then we're going to ask them to download this book, but people

are going to come in with their own ideas and they're not going to do

that, they're going to bounce around.

And so now we have to build out.

several options of that journey the customer will take from first discovering

who you are to starting to build trust, understand if you can solve their

problem to wanting to talk to somebody and then going into the sales process.

We have to be so flexible within that and kind of create a space, a comfortable

space for people to bounce around in before they want to talk to somebody.

You're going to get a lot less people if the only thing on your website, the only

thing you're offering people is to talk to you and get a quote, it will frustrate

people if they can't do their own research first and everybody wants to do something

different for their own research.

You know, I love that.

And that's something we have talked a lot about here also is that, that

customer journey, yeah, it's just no longer A to B to C like it used to

be, and they may enter that sequence at all kinds of different levels

and all kinds of different places.

And yet, wherever they choose to enter at, you got to engage with them in a

personal way and, you know, take hold of that, you know, quickly and personally.

So, I love that and love that, you know, that's where you're leading, your clients.

I know another topic you talk a lot about is truth in marketing.

Seems like a good thing.

Seems like a common sense thing, but I'm kind of curious, doesn't

every company want to be truthful?

Are there some times companies that don't, or maybe they just

inadvertently aren't being truthful?

What does that look like?

That idea of truth in marketing.

So I think truth in marketing really comes in with authenticity as well.

There's a lot of pressure to put out perfection.

We are this perfect place.

And if you are talking about something, you know, I think a

lot of this might be like ESG.

We are environmentally friendly and you put out something and no,

In our world in manufacturing, you can't be perfect about it.

And so, you know, you see pushback with like the Amazons or like the

bigger companies, and then people feel discouraged when they actually are

doing what they can within their power to, you know, have clean air or provide

their people with a good work life balance, but they can't be perfect.

And what we're really seeing is that people are craving authenticity.

They don't buy into the mistruths or trying to just smooth everything out.

And so telling the truth is being authentic and it's saying, this

is as far as we can get right now.

And we're doing what we can, and not being perfect.

Or if you make a mistake, being honest about that, that builds trust, it builds

authenticity because nobody's perfect.

And so it makes you feel more real.

And when you're just trying to kind of weave a story to be perfect around

your imperfections, it's inauthentic.

People will smell it a mile away.

And so I take that pressure off.

We tell the truth because most people aren't out here doing bad things.

So if we tell the truth of the struggle, if we tell the truth of,

what's working and when things aren't working, then people start to trust

us more, we become more authentic.

So I can see that all over the place now that

you've explained it that way.

I mean, so many businesses, I don't think they're not trying to be truthful,

but you know, they're sugarcoating.

They're not necessarily telling the whole truth.

They're not being vulnerable with inauthentic with their struggles.

And, you know, what are our next steps?

This is, you know, where we got to eventually get.

so I love that you did a great job of that is really cool.

That's cool.

Good stuff.

So what does your typical client look like?

Do they usually come to you and you find that they're already pretty progressive in

terms of their marketing and you just kind of elevate them further or, sometimes the

clients come to you who are pretty stodgy and stuck in their past and, you know,

you got a long way to climb with them.

So I think there's a lot of different, you know, different types of

CMOs and different places in business.

I'm not here to convince anybody that they need to do marketing.

I need buy in because otherwise, if people view marketing just as an expense, Then

we're not really going to get anywhere, you know, and they don't need me because

they can just go and do your run of the mill advertising and nothing special

and invest your dollars there and see it as an expense and grumble about it.

That's not a good fit for me.

So I work with companies who are already forward thinking.

They probably don't know a lot about marketing or newer tools, but

they're open to learning about it.

They're open to experiencing it.

They know that they want to get to the next level.

I like to come into companies who, you know, they're past the

beginning stage, so they have their business structure figured out.

They know how the business operates, and now they're

ready to get to the next level.

And they know to do that, they need to instill some kind of marketing plan.

They may have one person doing marketing.

They may have a couple of people who have taken on pieces of

it aside of their regular job.

And I like to build a marketing program within the company.

So I like to help the company develop something that works within their

climate, within their environment, with how they want to build, with

the people that they already have.

I want to elevate that talent and then fill in the holes where they need it

and where we need it, depending on, you know, what strategy we've built.

No company has to do every marketing that's out there.

You may feel the pressure to follow the trends, but we

talk about being a trailblazer instead of being a trendsetter.

A trailblazer means that you're focused on your goal.

You're focused on where you want to go and that can help you pull

in exactly what you need and then not invest in, what's just going to

be extra, not going to be helpful.

There are a lot of tools that we can use and it's really dependent on who your

customers are, what your resources are, who you already have in your business.

So I like to keep things lean.

I like to keep things flexible.

and I like to keep things really laser focused and you know, people need

to be ready to go along with those ideas and ready to take some risks.

You know, marketing, I think of it a little bit like a science experiment.

So you have a hypothesis that's based on data, based on information,

and you test that hypothesis, and then you make decisions from there.

So it's not a guaranteed thing, but it's not a magical thing either.

Very interesting.

Can you share with us a story or two perhaps of a client whose business

was really transformed by, you know, having this greater focus on

marketing that you can bring them?

Yeah, so I think a great one of a great examples is I work with a metal

manufacturer here, and they had worked for a larger manufacturer and they broke off.

They wanted to make sure that they focused on the quality of life of

their employees and of their community.

and those were their major pieces.

They wanted a place that was fun to go to work to every day.

And they wanted to value families.

They wanted to make sure their employees could make their kids sports games.

That was important to them.

And we were also in a really interesting building climate.

So we were worried about, catastrophic growth.

And so my job, they didn't have any kind of marketing department,

but they knew it was important.

So my job was to assemble a team for them.

That could be agile, and decide how much we were going to invest so that we could

put our stake in the market, gain a good share, but also not overflow them while

they're still figuring out their systems.

And that was a really, you know, a really fine line to dance.

How much do we invest?

When do we invest?

What do we start with?

And so I have, luckily, what's something I love about being a, a

fractional CMO is that I have a lot of partners that I can pull in depending

on what kind of marketing we need.

I have an agency that I love and trust and we work really well together.

So, for this one, we needed a lot of manpower.

We needed it fast, but we needed it lean.

We didn't want to hire a graphic designer, hire a, you know, a

website specialist, hire a writer.

That's a lot of investment upfront when we didn't really need to, we didn't want

to go that, that fast and that hard.

So, we brought in an agency that has all of those parts and we can pick and choose.

But sometimes, you know, a graphic designer at an agency doesn't match

the company that we're working with.

So I have another graphic designer that I can pull in so we can make

things perfect or, you know, maybe they can do something faster.

So while I'm working with this company, I'm kind of like

assembling our dream team.

You know, there's someone on their staff who has studied marketing

was really interested in it.

And so I said, okay, come into this team.

With the company, we figured out, part time you can take

on these responsibilities.

I'll help guide you through.

I also have a business manager that I work with who really knows like

social media and all of these pieces.

So I compare them together and help grow people within that team

so we can be really flexible.

So it's all about what do we need?

What's the foundation?

The first thing we did was create a brand.

They already had a logo that they liked, but we created a brand around

their values so that we can pick and choose what we want to do.

We also really narrowed down who the customer was.

So within, you know, within our region here, you work with homeowners,

you work with architects, you work with contractors, the whole gamut.

And we decided to focus on contractors because there are four owners.

They had so much experience.

They can do custom, metal work, metal manufacturing.

They have a whole custom trim shop because that's where, that's

what they knew really well.

They'd all been contractors.

So we decided we're going to focus on contractors.

That's the way the business works the best.

It, you know, it's less time, we speak their language.

So that means that all of our writing, you know, we don't do Pinterest writing.

When we, you know, one of the ways that we've decided to, to just kind of

sustainably grow is to focus on SEO.

And so I have an agency working with them, they have a writer, and we together come

up with the keywords that makes sense for our audience and they're going to get us

the biggest bang for our buck in Google.

And then the four owners, they have all the knowledge.

So I set up an interview and I'm kind of going back and forth.

I know what the writer needs.

I know what I need to prompt the guys to say or to get them talking.

And when things start to, you know, there's a big gap between a writer who

has no building experience and then these guys with, you know, to combine, they have

like more than 60 years of experience.

And so I'm that bridge.

I make sure that we get exactly the information that

we need, that everybody needs.

And then we have these blogs that are really high quality.

They're not beginner blogs.

It doesn't sound like, you know, it's coming from HGTV.

So they're dual purpose.

They're, you know, that is one of the.

The highest driver of traffic to our website is Google

search, is organic traffic.

And these blogs are part of it and are big part of it and they're high quality.

And then the guys can use them in their sales, right?

So they're talking to somebody.

Somebody has a question.

Oh, here, let me send you to this blog.

People could come to our website.

They can peruse the resources, find something that's

actually helpful for them.

That builds trust.

So everything that we do has more than one purpose.

And we're not just going to do something to do it.

We're going to make it the best that we can so that it's valuable.

And I think that's the biggest difference and that's something that I bring in.

Cause as a fractional CMO, I'm very discerning.

We're not just going to do the baseline to do it.

Anything that we're going to do, we're going to do it really well.

If we're not, there's a particular reason why we're not.

So I think that's, you know, that's one of the best things.

And we've seen seven figure growth over the past few years.

And it's been steady and they're maintaining their quality of life.

They're maintaining the ability to go, you know, go on vacations,

show up for family, show up for friends, spend time in the outdoors.

They're maintaining all of it.

That's good stuff.

and I want to go back to something you said earlier and kind of ties all this

together also is this idea of marketing and sales needing to be lockstep.

And, you know, how often have I seen sales teams, you know, marketing produces all

this great stuff and sales teams later like, oh, I didn't know we had that.

Why didn't you tell me about that?

And so that, you know, communication and that ability to be able to

have a sales team that says, oh yeah, they did a blog post on that.

I need to send that to my client.

is really good stuff.

So I'm kind of curious, are there any, trends you're seeing right now that one

way or another, a company should be having on their radar to impact their marketing?

I mean, everybody's got to be looking at AI and with a thoughtful lens.

But I think it's.

It's really important to see how that's going to change, how it can make things

easier for you, but how maybe your competitors are going to be using it.

And that's even things like having an advanced chatbot on your website.

If you have a chatbot that actually helps somebody, versus somebody who doesn't,

you know, you can, that can help get people into your pipeline faster, So

looking around, seeing what's available, staying on top of things, but keeping in

mind your customer, what do they need?

Not getting too involved in the trends just because they're interesting to you.

It's going back to that foundation.

you know, it's like, You know, you don't want to add just a bag of

Funyuns to, to your mix without really thinking, does it go with the meal?

Does it go with what we're trying to do?

It's the same thing with marketing.

You don't want to just add something because it's trendy.

Makes a lot of sense, but I love that having your eye on AI also.

And yeah, I agree, I think every company needs to, I mean, and

chatbots are great, great use of that.

I think, I mean, you don't want to have a consumer that's coming to you looking

for butterscotch and you just keep telling them about lemons or something.

So, good stuff.

Well, Katie, this has been a great time talking to you.

We're kind of close to wrapping up what we call the business end of things.

Is there anything we haven't covered yet today that you wanted to be

sure to share with our audience?

You know, I think, the idea of when you should hire a fractional

CMO, I think a lot of companies, there's such a big gap between

you know, you have some marketing and then you have this leadership.

And I think it's important for companies to know that you can bring in somebody.

Sometimes I'll just come into a company for two months and we create a strategy

that they could execute themselves and then they have their path forward and

that can give you a competitive advantage.

So you don't have to be making, you know, 20 billion to hire somebody.

You can always, look in to.

having just a little bit of help and hiring fractional even for everything,

you know, you can have a fractional CFO.

You can hire a sales director for advice, but I think when companies

are in that transition from that like smaller side of medium and it's

such a big jump to the next step.

If you need guidance in any part of your company, you can find somebody

who can come in and provide that for you so that your company can

move forward without having to invest in a full time staff member.

Well, good stuff.

And certainly they would be very wise to seek out Katie Smith and WildPath

Consulting and we're going to put all your information in the show

notes, and we're going to ask you for that here in a little bit as well.

But, before we do close out, I have to ask you if you're willing to participate

in something we call rapid fire.

So these are just some simple questions.

Some are silly, some are more serious, that we like to ask our guests

and, see what your response is.

You up to it?

Oh yeah, I love these.

Cool.

Well, we will alternate.

Would you like to ask the first one, Ryan?

Sure, I would love to.

Question number one.

What is a product or service that you've recently acquired that

was a real game changer for you?

I love, speaking of AI, Otter AI.

I just have it running when I'm having meetings.

I get so into the meetings that sometimes I forget to take notes and Otter is

just transcribing it for me and then it can pick out the highlights and

it just makes everything easy for me so I can just be in the moment and

then not forget anything later on.

I love it.

I think I saw the other day where Zoom has something like that now too.

They just came out with where they will actually, you know, create a

summary as you're talking type thing.

So cool stuff.

Second question.

What did the first grade Katie hope to be when she grew up?

I wanted to be a professional horseback rider.

Oh, well, you get to do some of that.

So that's cool.

Like the ones that race?

I was thinking jumping, the ones that jump,

Oh, jumping.

but I guess I was a professional horseback rider

for a little bit.

Yeah, just in a little bit different of a form.

I'm

not sure that's the, the, professional horseback rider is a way that

a lot of people make a living, but, some of them do out there.

So that's

Yeah.

All right, question number three.

What non family person in your life have you had the longest friendship with?

Uh, I think it's my friend Whitney.

So I did a stint as working in a rock climbing shop.

I was a rock climber and, she walked into the shop, and we became instant

friends, and we're still friends to this day, and that was, we've

been friends for over 20 years.

That's awesome.

I always think that's a fun question to ask because it's something

you don't often think about.

but, yeah, I think it's a fun question.

Okay.

This next one, dogs or cats.

Dogs.

That's a pretty common response.

Yeah.

I like cats.

answer.

You like cats, but dogs are better.

Dogs are better.

I foster dogs,

Oh, that's right.

You do the dog

sitting.

So,

Okay, question number five.

Do you prefer circus clowns or mimes?

Ooh, I think maybe circus clowns because you can hear them coming.

That's interesting.

If you've seen this, these videos of this mime at SeaWorld, I think it is.

Yeah.

He's kind of funny sometimes.

Okay.

Next question.

What is your favorite meal?

You know, I, um, being in Montana, I'm a big fan of regenerative

agriculture and I have a couple of like meat subscriptions from local

Ranches, so I love to have a nice, steak, from one of our local ranches

and, just a nice, you know, local salad.

So I love to have a local meal.

That's awesome.

I love going into new towns and, you know, of course you're eating at restaurants.

I'm always looking at farm to table places and places that source

locally and all that type of stuff.

So good stuff.

Yeah,

Question number seven.

Would you rather have the ability to see 10 minutes into the future

or 150 years into the future?

10 minutes.

That's interesting.

I think it's, that's probably more useful than seeing 150 years.

Probably my curiosity would get me on the 150 years thing.

10 minutes would certainly be a heck of a lot more useful.

I feel like you'd have no context in 150 years and it

would just be so anxiety producing.

You'd be lost.

Yeah.

That's true.

It's true.

Well, Katie, thank you again.

for folks who do want to get in touch with you or learn more

about, WildPath Consulting, tell us some ways they can do that.

Sure, so you can visit my website which is followthewildpath.

com and I really like to hang out on LinkedIn so you can find me

there but my name is Katie Smith and there are millions of us so you

have to search Katie Smith Wild Path Consulting and then you can find me.

Good stuff.

Well, we will put that in the show notes as well.

So, thank you again.

This has been great.

I know you got your challenge word in Katie, which was

Funyuns!

Funyuns.

Good job.

I worked mine in, which was butterscotch and Ryan got his as well there at the end.

Circus clown.

Good job.

I kept thinking has he worked in Circus Clown yet?

Yeah, you got her in there.

Good job.

Well, thank you again, Katie.

This has been a blast and very informative and I hope very much that our guests

check it out and learn more about Wildpath Consulting and maybe bring you

into their business to help them out.

Thank you all so much.

And thank you to our audience for tuning in to this very special

episode of Construction Disruption with Katie Smith of Wildpath Consulting.

Please watch for future episodes of our podcast.

We always have great guests.

Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or YouTube.

Until the next time we're together though, keep on disrupting, keep

on challenging, keep on looking for better ways of doing things,

and don't forget to have a positive impact on everyone that you encounter.

Make them smile and encourage them.

So God bless and take care.

This is Isaiah Industry signing off until the next episode

of Construction Disruption.