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To explore this special category of brands further, we sat down with Alan Gilleo, CMO and founder of Leap Group Network. Since establishing the agency in 1999, Alan and the Leap Group team have worked with scores of family-owned and founder-led brands, including Texas Roadhouse, Heaven Hill, Lunazul, Congo: Alani Nu + Stori, Standard Bariatrics, Summit Brands, Fair Harbor Clothing and City Fish – just to name a few. Below, Alan shares some of the insights he’s gathered from over two decades of experience working with these rewarding brands.
*Author’s note: This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
How are family-owned or founder-led companies different from other clients?
In our agency experience, family-owned and founder-led companies tend to be more passionate. That’s true whether they’re the founder or they’re the next generation that’s taken over from their grandparent or parent. There’s a lot more personal investment in the success of the company. Many that we’ve worked with have maintained private ownership, so there tends to be less bureaucracy than in a public company with shareholders to appease.
They also tend to be much more involved. They want to be aware of marketing decisions that are being made and how the company is positioning itself and talking to its audience – and they have opinions about all of that. Even though you’re working with their marketing team, the owners and founders are always in the back of your mind, and you have to make sure they’re on board with the direction you’re taking. It’s important to make sure they have opportunities to be involved and participate and feel that their voice is being heard.
What are some of the challenges that family-owned and founder-led companies present for their marketing agencies?
They want to be more involved in all the company’s decisions, including marketing strategy and creative. But owners and founders also tend to be very, very busy! They’ll get involved in a project and then disappear for a while to take care of some other aspect of the business. It can be very inconsistent at times, and that can lead to a certain kind of disjointedness if you’re not careful. Not just for us, but also for our main point of contact, who’s trying to navigate the same issue. So again, building those strong relationships at the outset, establishing clear and open lines of communication, and really establishing trust between the agency, the owner or founder, and their team – that’s always helped us overcome those challenges.
Are there also unique opportunities they present? The Leap Group Model: A Masterclass in Collaboration
Absolutely. When you get an owner or founder behind an idea, they can pivot a lot quicker. There are fewer layers to go through when an owner or founder feels like they want to be involved in a project or you have their buy-in. It’s not like a massive public company where you convince a market manager, who needs to convince their manager, who then has to take it to another set of decision-makers before finally the CEO signs off on it.
That’s definitely something I’ve enjoyed about working with some of our founder-led clients – the way they just say, “Okay, that makes sense. I’ve got it. Let’s go.” They open up huge opportunities to make big pivots with the brand, and that’s really exciting to work on.
Do you have a specific example of a time when you got a founder behind something and just ran with it?
There were definitely lots of moments like that during our work with Texas Roadhouse. The founder, Kent Taylor, had a very energetic, “let’s go” type of mentality, and so that was infused in the company culture. When we started working with them, they had about 53 locations, so they were still a relatively small restaurant chain. And that gave them a much more entrepreneurial culture: “Let’s figure it out, let’s make it happen, let’s change it if it’s not working.” That’s the kind of culture that helped them grow to something like 627 U.S. locations, plus 29 international ones. The first international one was a Dubai outlet that we helped open.
So, for us, that was a lot of fun because we were able to try a lot of different things. They appreciated our transparency in saying what we felt was working and what wasn’t working. And meetings felt very comfortable, because we were actually working together. That’s very different from some of the bigger corporations we’ve worked with. Even though it’s a great relationship and you do outstanding work, it’s a different sort of environment. Everything has to be super polished because it’s going to be passed around to so many different groups and decision makers. You’re not sitting in the room with a founder and rolling up your sleeves and ideating together. Again, it’s not necessarily that one is better than the other, it’s just different.
Do you think the family-owned or founder-led label always fits into a brand narrative?
That’s an interesting question. Why not use it as a benefit? Because your brand heritage is completely unique to your narrative. That’s something none of your competitors can claim and it’s authentic and genuine. I’m thinking about all the work we’ve done for Lunazul tequila with the Beckmann family. They are the eighth generation of family members working to ensure their tradition and their heritage and their craftsmanship all continue to exist. That’s powerful stuff. Why wouldn’t you want to share that with your audience?
I think family-owned and founder-led companies do have to be careful when they reach a certain size. It can potentially turn consumers off if you come across as too wealthy or unrelatable. You see this a lot with celebrity brands. I mean, how much did Paris Hilton help the actual Hilton brand??
What qualities should family-owned founder-led businesses look for when they’re looking for their marketing agency?
As we already talked about, they need an agency that’s agile and can pivot quickly. I think that’s huge. And as an agency, you need to have the same level of entrepreneurial spirit. After all, you’re helping them build their personal business. You need to have a passion and a commitment to understanding their business, their industry, their competitors. Founders and owners are even more sensitive to that than other CEOs that may only stay at a company for a few years. You need to be a little bit more on your toes. I hate saying it that way because it sounds like you’re not for other clients. I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that’s when it’s your own business, there’s a bigger imperative to have an agency that really “gets” you.
Outside of that, I think you have to demonstrate being collaborative. And in a strange way, you have to be more confident. Owners and founders don’t need another “yes” person. They need someone to challenge them and help them achieve success. You need to be able to tell them if something isn’t working. They might not agree with you, but at least you’ll be talking to each other on a level of mutual respect. You have to be more of a consultant and a strategist, not just a production arm for them. Their name is literally on the check they are paying you with, so there’s a higher level of expectation that you’re bringing truly insightful thought leadership and strategy to the table. But I think that’s what makes it fun.
To learn more about Leap Group’s extensive experience working with family-owned and founder-led companies, visit our landing page here.
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