Jo Ann Herold, Author and Marketing Expert at Herold Growth Consulting.
She is a c-suite, omni channel executive with expertise in leading organizations, brands, and teams to innovate, modernize, and grow. In all roles, she’s reported to the CEO and worked closely with the Board of Directors for private-equity, publicly traded and family-owned firms.
For board service, Jo Ann brings global marketing leadership, digital expertise, strong brand management, and e-commerce P&L experience. She has a track record of delivering record breaking of delivering financial results.
She has twice served as Chief Marketing Officer for The Honey Baked Ham Company. During her recent tenure, the brand experienced 20 months of sales and EBDITA increase through product development, brand development which has led to sustained and continued growth for the brand. She innovated the omni experience by launching BOPIS, and enhanced web and digital marketing resulting in 32% of all transactions generating from a digital platform. She also Identified the next generation of customer resulting in 22% of overall transactions and the e-commerce business doubled in size.
She also served as the Global CMO for Interface, Inc. and created Interface’s first truly global brand team, delivering product and brand strategies resulting in 5 consecutive quarters of growth and the highest stock price in Interface’s history. A team and culture catalyst, she also played a significant role in Interface’s bold global sustainability movement, Climate Take Back. She also served as VP of Brand and Communications at Arby’s Restaurant Group and was recruited to serve on the brand turnaround team. During her tenure, Arby’s experienced 11 quarters of sales and profit increases.
Her work has been lauded, including the National Diversity Council’s Most Powerful and Influential Women and two Effie’s for marketing effectiveness. She recently received a Lifetime Achievement award from the American Marketing Association and is the 2023 recipient of the AMA’s Marketer for Good.
She is the chief executive officer of Herold Growth Consulting serving multiple clients across industry sectors in B2C and B2B. She is the practitioner lead for Georgia State University’s CMO Roundtable where she leverages her network as the Past President of the CMO Club and AMA Atlanta to bring in CMOs, thought leaders and funding. As previous board chair of the Atlanta Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, she led the nominating committee. She serves on the executive board of Covenant House and teaches the Executive MBA Global Strategic Marketing course at Georgia State University and is a published author and a sought-after speaker.
Connect with Jo Ann on LinkedIn.
What You’ll Learn In This Episode
- Experiences as a marketing expert
- Discuss “Living On A Smile: 16 Ways to Live a Big Life and Lead with Love”
- Award from the Atlanta AMY organization
- Being a women in business and the impact it has had on her and how she wish to impact others
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by on pay. Atlanta’s New standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Onpay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Joanne Herold with Herold Growth Consulting. Welcome.
JoAnn Herold: [00:00:42] Hi, glad to be here.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your firm, how you serving folks.
JoAnn Herold: [00:00:49] So it’s Harold Growth Consulting and I serve folks through coaching and helping companies and businesses grow. And whether that’s through brand building or helping people within the organization grow, that’s what I do.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:07] What’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?
JoAnn Herold: [00:01:10] So I have been a marketer for almost 30 years. I started as a front line associate at McDonald’s and gave the birthday parties and of the Hamburglar costume. And through that just developed a love for hospitality. Great brands serving others had the opportunity to go and work for a big restaurant chain and did that for about five years, then was recruited to honey baked ham and served in all areas of marketing up to the chief marketing officer. From there was recruited to Arby’s Restaurant Group and headed up Brand and communications, then was recruited to a company called Interface, which is a flooring company that’s based here in Atlanta, which is all about purpose and design and sustainability, and then got the opportunity to go back to Honey Baked ham and serve as their chief marketing officer. So I’ve had a long career in marketing and helping businesses and teams grow well.
Lee Kantor: [00:02:17] One of the things you didn’t mention was your book Living on a Smile 16 Ways to Live a Big Life and Lead With Love. How did that come about?
JoAnn Herold: [00:02:27] So it really was a celebration and it is a celebration of mentors and friends and bosses and people in the community who have helped shape who I am and have given great leadership advice. And so the book is a bit of a memoir, but it’s also a guidebook. And each chapter at the end has ways that the reader can talk about their passion or purpose and their wise. So it really was just to honor all the people along the way who have helped me.
Lee Kantor: [00:03:06] If you were to pull one kind of takeaway from the book, what would be a good starting point for some potential reader?
JoAnn Herold: [00:03:14] So I use I did a lot of branding work for companies that I’d worked with and helped them develop their why and their values and through the book, I help the readers figure out their why, their purpose, their values. And so that’s a big takeaway. The chapters are all around passion, purpose, even playlists and how music helps feed the soul.
Lee Kantor: [00:03:49] Now, you recently won an award. Can you share a little bit about that?
JoAnn Herold: [00:03:54] Yeah, I’m so honored and humbled that I’ve been involved with the American Marketing Association for many years, almost 25 years, served as a volunteer. At some point, the president and now I co-lead the Executive Advisory Board and so was recently honored with the marketer for good. And it’s an award that’s given to somebody who exemplifies using marketing to do good in the community or for the chapter. And so I’m very excited because I love the AMA and it’s it’s such a wonderful gift to receive an organization from that I love so much.
Lee Kantor: [00:04:42] So now let’s roll up our sleeves and help some of the listeners. If a listener is struggling with their marketing or their branding or their some kind of low hanging fruit that you find that is there for most business people, but they’re just not kind of tapping into it?
JoAnn Herold: [00:04:57] Well, an easy branding tool for personal branding is LinkedIn and leverage. Linkedin, you know, using all the tools, whether that’s the background photos or your personal profile and recommendations and posting. So that’s a great tool. I’m a huge believer in networking and helping others, and I think people can build their brand that way. And it’s just, again, using your your talents and your good to help others in the community.
JoAnn Herold: [00:05:38] Now.
JoAnn Herold: [00:05:39] No, go ahead. I was going to say, you know, a blend of social media, but also really getting out there and being in person.
Lee Kantor: [00:05:47] Now for you, having come from a lot of work in a corporate setting and now having your own entrepreneurial initiative going with your growth consulting firm, can you share a little bit about how that transition has gone? Because it’s a little different working for yourself, right, than it is working for a large organization with tons of resources?
JoAnn Herold: [00:06:07] Yeah. And you know, it’s it’s been a great learning. I’ve had a lot of help and mentors give advice, but, you know, some of it’s just, you know, setting up my own it and learning how to do it on YouTube. So so it is very different. But I work with some awesome clients who I love and every one of my clients is purpose driven and trying to do good things in the world. So, so that’s, that’s been a real joy. Um, you know, but being an entrepreneur, you do really have to roll up your sleeves and, you know, one day I’m the accountant, the next day I’m the IT person. And then the rest of the time I’m out working with my clients and trying to help them do great work.
Lee Kantor: [00:07:04] Well, when you define a niche like you have of I’m going to work with purpose driven organizations, how do you then take that and translate that into a marketing plan to, okay, now how do I find these purpose driven organizations to even let them know that I exist? How do you go about kind of building a marketing plan that gets you out in front of the people that matter most to you?
JoAnn Herold: [00:07:25] Well, some of it is is back to what I was saying about LinkedIn is a great tool, but all of my clients have come through referrals. So it’s been people I’ve worked with or people who have referred me to them who think it would be a good fit. So, you know, a lot of it is just letting people know what you’re up to and how you can help and, um, and then, you know, reaching out and staying connected.
Lee Kantor: [00:07:58] And then when you do that, how do you do? You create a lot of thought leadership, like how do you kind of stay in front of these people in a elegant, non salesy way if possible?
JoAnn Herold: [00:08:08] So it’s coffee or just catching up, going to lunch and, you know, seeing where they might have pain points and ways that I can help. And so a lot of it’s just the hustle and but also doing it in a way that’s to your point, not salesy and it’s with a genuine interest to help.
Lee Kantor: [00:08:36] And is there a kind of an early way to do work with you, like a simple way to get a project going? Do you start with like a project and then maybe over time it expands? Or do people hire you for like a big initiative?
JoAnn Herold: [00:08:51] So I’ve done a little bit of both. I’ve done some big brand building projects where it’s been around even changing the brand name and helping tell their purpose story. And in that case, I hired some people who and we call ourselves all the right people who truly are experts in that area to, you know, maybe a little simple project that turns into a bigger project. So it’s a little bit of everything. My model, though, is, you know, if it’s a big project and it’s out of my wheelhouse or something that I can’t do on my own, I will work with other partners to help that client out with what they’re looking for.
JoAnn Herold: [00:09:39] So part of your value proposition.
Lee Kantor: [00:09:41] Is having a robust network, knowing who’s out there and who’s kind of been vetted and who really are the subject matter experts.
JoAnn Herold: [00:09:49] That’s absolutely right.
Lee Kantor: [00:09:51] Because at the end of the day, you’re just trying to help somebody solve a problem. Right. And you might be the right solution. Or maybe you can help them, you know, point them to the right solution.
JoAnn Herold: [00:10:00] Exactly. Yes, exactly. And so, you know, if sometimes I’m not the right person because of the networking, I’ve got a lot of people to tap into. And so sometimes I’ll partner up with somebody, too.
JoAnn Herold: [00:10:15] So what do.
Lee Kantor: [00:10:16] You need more of? How can we help you?
JoAnn Herold: [00:10:19] Oh, gosh. Um. More kindness, more good in the world, you know. Others doing random acts of kindness.
JoAnn Herold: [00:10:32] Can you share a story maybe that.
Lee Kantor: [00:10:34] You’ve come across or maybe you were a part of where there was an act of kindness that stood out to you, that you were able to share and then kind of pay pay that kind of instance forward.
JoAnn Herold: [00:10:45] Yeah. There. Recently I was at coffee with a friend of mine and there was a gentleman who was homeless and his feet were hurting him. And we called 911 because he was in a lot of pain. But in the meantime we noticed that he had worn through his socks and didn’t have any shoes. And she quickly ran over to a retail store next door and bought him a bunch of pairs of socks. And what that showed was, you know, even little, little acts can can do good things for somebody, you know. And after she did that, 911 came and, you know, we we’ve been saying good thoughts and sending the gentleman a lot of a lot of love.
Lee Kantor: [00:11:44] So if somebody is listening in is part of a purpose driven company and would like to learn more about your services, is there a website or a way to get the book a way to connect with you?
JoAnn Herold: [00:11:56] Yeah. So the book is on Amazon and it’s called Living on a Smile at 16 Ways to Live a Big Life and Lead With Love. And my website is Harold H. R old Growth consulting.com and also LinkedIn. Well I’m very active on LinkedIn and would love to connect.
JoAnn Herold: [00:12:23] Well, Joanne, thank you so much.
Lee Kantor: [00:12:25] For sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.
JoAnn Herold: [00:12:28] Oh, thank you so much, Lee.
JoAnn Herold: [00:12:31] All right. This is Lee Kantor.
Lee Kantor: [00:12:32] We’ll see y’all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.
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