Russ: This is The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com. It's guest time on the show and I'm very pleased to have with me the guy that Forbes called The Celebrity CMO. I'm talking about Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Eastman Kodak. Jeffrey, welcome to The BusinessMakers show.

Jeffrey: Well, it is a pleasure to be here.

Russ: All right, well let's start by you telling me how a guy goes from South Dakota to being a CMO, a happening CMO at the Kodak Company?

Jeffrey: Well, you start with a telephone call, like most things, and it starts like most people in entrepreneurial businesses or small business, someone you know. And it's those relationships, and it was someone I knew at Kodak and I knew for awhile. They just picked up the phone and called and said, "Jeff, would you be interested in switching and getting out of what you were doing at the time?" which was running a small public relations firm. And the first time, I said no. I said, "No, I'm not interested." I really liked what I was doing, I was starting up a new business, which I've started many in my career, and I said I really didn't care to go do it. And about a year later he called me back and said, "Come on. Come on over." And by then I had the business going, it was started, a small little high tech company in South Dakota which we went out and did repairs on small business computers and small businesses -

Russ: Right.

Jeffrey: - and run their IT systems so we were outsourcing for small businesses primarily. And it was running well and so I said, "Okay." My attention span's very short, and so I just picked it up and went and did it and that's how I got started.

Russ: But that's a huge jump, isn't it? From -

Jeffrey: You know, I - it's not, I'm sorry to cut you off, but I'm excited. I was so excited to get there and I showed up early, so, like before the urine test, before I passed everything else, before my official date, I showed up a week early -

Russ: Okay.

Jeffrey: - because I was very excited. But no, and my father-in-law is a, you know, farmer/rancher in South Dakota and sometimes even when I've had smaller businesses he says, "I don't see how you do it." And I said, "Well Bob, it's just zeros." And even when you're in a big company, the same thing I would do at a small company in Sioux Falls, South Dakota or Houston, Texas or anywhere else in the world, I do it the same way at Kodak. It's just zeroes. So instead of having 27 employees in Sioux Falls, I got 27,000. And so instead of, you know, running a $2 million business or a $10 million business, I'm running a $10 billion business and so it's just zeroes. So I apply the same kinds of things at Kodak in making decisions as an executive officer of that company the same way I do in South Dakota.

Russ: Wasn't it a huge step for Kodak?

Jeffrey: Oh, probably, I think they're still saying it was still a risk, you know? Yeah, the average life of a CMO is 23 months and I'm at 3 years and 10 months. Every time I see the CEO, he's counting it down, you know? So -

Russ: Okay, so now, you're almost there four years?

Jeffrey: Yeah.

Russ: So you sort of got there right at the time where probably there were lots of questions about the Kodak strategy. I mean, we're talking about one of the biggest do-overs in American history.

Jeffrey: I like that term, it was a - it was a restart is the way I describe it, and it's a lot of the ways it was. At the core of everything we had, I mean we had this beautiful, emotional technology and it was just needed some cheerleaders and some people to get in there to change the mood. And that's what most entrepreneurs do, right?

Russ: Absolutely.

Jeffrey: They have these devout followers and they're really into what they do, and they really believe in it. And I'm one of those people, if I go and work for a company, I'm a change agent. And a lot of people say that and they're flippant about it. If I gotta believe in the product - and I believe in Kodak, man, I drink the Kool-Aid and I wear yellow underwear. I mean, I wear everything.

Russ: We'll take your word for it.

Jeffrey: Oh, my wife says we're going out to dinner tonight and you can't wear anything with a logon on it, you know? So I mean I eat, sleep it, drink it, just like, you know, like your listeners do.

Russ: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

Jeffrey: Because that's what you do in a business and it needed that kind of energy back in it. And so the CEO and the other senior managers, you know, we started recruiting people and they got people like myself and others who were real believers and who loved the brand and wanted to cherish the brand and get in there and problem solve, work the seams and become a cheerleader. And that's what I do - that's my job.

Russ: So when they brought you in, they said that, "We want you to be the change agent"?

Jeffrey: Oh, they - without question. My CEO said, "Your job is to create tension in the company." I mean, that's what a good marketing person does. And, you know, at the same time, build the team, build consensus and everything else, but what it is to push people. And sometimes you push too far. I've done that, too. Clearly, I mean - and I've been called in by the boss before and he's said, "Jeff, you're not supposed to cross the line." I said, "Well, you told me to take it to the line." He goes, "Well, I didn't tell you to cross it." So then I ended the conversation, "Well, now we know where it's at." You know, so that's the job that a Chief Marketer plays is to take everybody from the center of the table to the edge of the table and to create that tension. And you need people in the company that create tension, otherwise you don't get growth and you don't get the movement that you need to have. And I think your listeners, entrepreneurs, that's what they do.

Russ: Absolutely.

Jeffrey: I mean, they're not satisfied with the status quo. They want to see - they see the next thing, and by the way, they don't see the negatives in it, they see the positives in it. You know, it's -

Russ: Absolutely.

Jeffrey: You know, I had someone who called today, we had an article in a newspaper somewhere and they were mad because the reporter said we dabbled in it or so - weren't serious about this certain business that we're in. So all the people in the business are freaking out, saying, "Call them, and get them to change the word." You're not gonna get a newspaper to change the one word that they used to describe. And I said, "Why don't you look at that and take the word dabble, put a red strike mark through it and use that as your calling card that said, "We don't believe we're dabbling anymore, we're gonna go in and jump in it head first"? That's what most entrepreneurs would do.

Russ: Okay.

Jeffrey: And so turning it into a positive and that's what people need to do.

Russ: That's cool. Now, once again on this change is it right that the major shift of the core focus is complete now?

Jeffrey: Yeah, the core function, now we still have - and our Chairman put up a chart last year, I thought - and I told him, I said, "Look, I'm not sucking up to you, I think that's one of the most brilliant charts I've ever seen." It was a pie chart, just one slide, and to me it was the most brilliant slide - and anytime I've ever seen in the company. I'll tell you what it was. It had three parts to it. One part of it said that these are the cash businesses in our company. Another part that said these are the growth businesses, and the other part was these are the transform businesses, because we have different businesses inside a big business like Kodak.

Russ: Sure.

Jeffrey: And what it said was, "Hey, if you're a cash business pull your position." It doesn't mean you're gonna get all the glamour; it's kind of being a lineman on a football team, right?

Russ: Right.

Jeffrey: Your job is to block, your job is to tackle and you're not to touch the ball unless it's dropped, and do your job. You won't get the glory but you're the guy's behind the things that make it happen.

Russ: Right.

Jeffrey: And then he said, "These other businesses are our superstars. These are the ones we're gonna put the money in, these are where we're gonna invest our time and our efforts, and that's our growth business. So everybody get that and understand it. And by the way, you guys down over here, these transform businesses, we still love you, but start transforming. Get scale, grow, or we love you but we're gonna miss you." And to me, as a leader, I thought that was the clearest statement I've ever seen from a leader in a major corporation, and I told him, as I said before, and I wasn't sucking up to him. I mean, I said, "Boss, that is the best damn chart I've ever seen in my life." Because it just said, "This is what we've got to do." And I ran around that chart saying, "Look, look, look, this is your role, this is what you've got to do." And then from that you drive your entire strategy.

Russ: Okay. For our listeners that don't know the magnitude of the change, I mean, you went from film to digital. I'm still a little bit hacked off about losing Kodachrome, but I guess it's okay.

Jeffrey: So am I, you should have bought a lot more. If you'd have bought a lot more we wouldn't have lost it. So I'm just as ticked as you are, I should be more ticked at you than you are me. So that's the way it works.

Russ: All right, and you went from B2C to predominantly B2B.

Jeffrey: Yeah, well, we were in a B2B business I think for the large part, we just didn't know it.

Russ: Yeah.

Jeffrey: And so I think we were spending a lot of money in the old days in ways we didn't need to spend it, but that's not my call anymore.

Russ: Okay, okay, and you went from a primarily focused U.S.A. marketplace to a global marketplace.

Jeffrey: Global market, and which we are. I mean, we have about one-third of our revenues in Europe and one-third of our revenues in Asia and then, you know, one-third in the Americas. So yeah, a third and a third and a third, but we were spending a lot of our efforts and time focusing on America, primarily.

Russ: Right.

Jeffrey: And, you know, I'm - hey, we're an American company, don't get me wrong, I bleed red, white and blue, but our job is to serve our customers, and if our customers are outside the United States as well, we're gonna help them.

Russ: You bet. We're talking with Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Eastman Kodak and I'll be back with more with Jeffrey after this. You're listening to The BusinessMakers show, heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com.

[Aflac Commercial]

Russ: This The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com, and continuing on with Jeffrey Hayzlett, celebrity CMO of Kodak Company. Well, Jeffrey, I know that a lot of the change that you've initiated there is kind of out there on the edge. I mean, you're a huge advocate of social media. There are those that say you rank in the top 10 of C level executives that Twitter. You're a huge advocate. Did you run into any resistance when you first launched this at Kodak?

Jeffrey: Well, you run into all kinds of resistance to change no matter where you go. I mean, that's just the name. It's called change. So anytime you've got to change something it's gonna meet some kind of resistance. Now, I won't just say it's, "Hey, I'm a huge advocate of social media." I'm an advocate of things that work.

Russ: Okay.

Jeffrey: Okay? Social media has to be one of those tools that work.

Russ: Okay.

Jeffrey: If you're a small business or entrepreneur, I mean, if you're not doing this, I think you're an idiot. I got to tell you that and be real upfront about it, because this is OPM, other people's money. It makes a small company look like a big company. You can be as big online as a big company like Kodak, as a major brand. You can look the same online as a Fortune 100 company and you can have two people and be operating out of your bedroom. And so I think for social media for small businesses and entrepreneurs is a great tool. But what it does for a company like Kodak makes us fleet of foot, makes us look like a small company -

Russ: Okay.

Jeffrey: - which is important for a big company to look like. It doesn't have all these filters, doesn't have all these corporate bull crap that goes with it, and you can directly talk to an Officer and person, a real live person, how nominal is that in a big business? And that's what social media allows us to do.

Russ: Well, probably the biggest social media advocate that we've had on this show before was Lionel Menchaca, the original Dell blogger.

Jeffrey: Oh, yeah, he's done a good job.

Russ: Yeah. And just the thought process of putting yourself out into the world in representing a company like Kodak, like Dell, that has millions and millions of customers out there really opens the door. Have you ever gotten any complaints on the social media?

Jeffrey: All the time, yeah, sure you do. I mean, it makes your sphincter tight when you think about the control that you're gonna lose, you're gonna let loose on that.

Russ: Right.

Jeffrey: And you can imagine the attorney's, everybody else. But you know what? You never controlled it to begin with.

Russ: Right.

Jeffrey: In a brand you don't control the brand, the people control the brand. All you can do is control the service or product that you deliver. A brand is nothing but a promise delivered.

Russ: Right.

Jeffrey: And so when you go out there and you put on the Internet. We have had - I've got pictures out on the Internet where somebody took our brand, put it on some woman's panties, had the woman wear them, bent her over at a trade conference and took her picture.

Russ: Yeah.

Jeffrey: That's not my idea of a Kodak moment.

Russ: That's right.

Jeffrey: But, you know, now it is one, but it isn't the one I want to have. And so you lose control of those things, but - and we drive to, you know, find those, purge them and everything else, but what you want to do is people are gonna be people, good or bad. So, you know, and by nature most people are good. And you get some things, but what you want to do is engage with people, and that's the important thing. So I want to know about those complaints as fast as possible. I want to know about those people who are having issues or problems because the longer they go on, and every small business in the world knows out there cost you more to go out and get a customer back than it is a new customer.

Russ: Absolutely.

Jeffrey: So you don't want to lose the customer you've got because you've already got an investment in that person. So we want to keep that customer happy. And so that's what social media allows us to do.

Russ: Well, and I've also heard you talk about your term ROI on social media.

Jeffrey: Yeah.

Russ: Share that with us.

Jeffrey: Well, everybody talks about return on investment; I want to talk about return on ignoring, because these conversations are going on with you or without you and I'd much rather participate. And so if you're ignoring all this stuff that's going on out there, I mean, there's free tools for entrepreneurs. In fact, by the way, go to kodak.com and go to our blog area and you can actually get a free social media book that tells you how to do this, and we just put up one on mobile marketing. So if you don't know how you're doing it we give you the guidelines, procedures, policies, tips, everything, free, no charge, we're not charging anything for it, and you can be able to do that. So that's a great way to learn.

Russ: I'm shifting gears now because my goodness, the product line now that Kodak has, I mean, it straddles a whole lot of different categories, but I still feel like that there's a lot of people that don't realize how extensive it is. For instance, your little pocket HD video camera.

Jeffrey: Oh, yeah, the new Playsport and the Zi8 and the Zx1 that we have, all the names of the products are moving more towards names than letters, a little bit easier to remember in the future. It's one of those marketing transitions we make. But yeah, we have basically three types of categories of products. We have our - and you really look at it consumer - our B2C and our B2B, so our business products, and there in the film area, we have a film products group, we have a Consumer Group which makes Ink Jet printers and digital capture devices like camera, the still cameras as well as video cameras, and then we have our Graphic Communications group which is our printing division, which is our commercial print division which does massive Ink Jet machines and software and workflow for commercial printers. So -

Russ: What do you think right now is your coolest product?

Jeffrey: They're all my coolest product. There's no one product that I love over - that's like choosing your favorite kid. And, you know, I might like one a little bit more, but I never tell anybody that.

Russ: Right.

Jeffrey: So that's the way you want to look at your products. Now, we've got some great halo products, our new HD pocket video cameras are rocking, our Ink Jet - consumer Ink Jet, you know, our message around Pricey Ink Stinks!, and you're getting ripped off. I don't say - I should say you're getting ripped off, other people tell me you're getting ripped off.

Russ: Oh, you are, believe me, I know about that.

Jeffrey: The high price of ink. So, you know, you're getting a printer for almost free and paying $70.00 for an Ink Jet cartridge, you're paying way too much. Most expensive liquid on the face of the earth.

Russ: Right.

Jeffrey: And, you know, small businesses, save yourself some money, go out there and buy Kodak because you ought to be buying one of those printers.

Russ: So that's Kodak's whole Ink Jet printing strategy is to be the -

Jeffrey: That's it.

Russ: - low priced ink.

Jeffrey: Not so much low priced ink, but fair priced ink and that's what it is. I mean, we're still charting - we're making half the profit that the other guys and they're making a killing. So we're doing pretty good. So -

Russ: Okay. We're talking with Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer of Kodak, and we'll be back with more with Jeffrey after this. You're listening to The BusinessMakers show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com.

[Aflac Commercial]

Russ: This is The BusinessMakers show, heard here and online at thebusienessmakers.com, continuing on with Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer of Kodak. Well, Jeffrey, I understand there's a book scheduled to come out here shortly.

Jeffrey: That's right. I've come up with a book called The Mirror Test which is the questions that you have to ask yourself to make sure your business is surviving and growing. You know, I've been an entrepreneur all my life and Kodak's the business company I've ever worked for. It's been a very entrepreneurial effort in the last couple years of the turnaround. But I'm writing about some practical advice for businesses. I redefine the elevator pitch and the new elevator pitch I'm calling the 118. That elevator pitch is 8 seconds is the average attention span of an adult and 110 seconds is the average elevator ride. So you've got 118 seconds, 8 seconds to hook me and 110 seconds to sell me. If Moses can do it in 10 Commandments and two tablets, you can do it in less than that yourself. So, you know, those are the things that it, you know, and businesses get away from that, and now I'll go into - I'll listen to small businesses or other people pitching us and they got all these PowerPoint presentations and they're 30 points long, and this is to get it down. So I get it down some real key questions, I talk about strategies around other people's money, how to leverage it. I talk about social media extensively for - especially for small businesses. It's a book for small businesses and how you use big business principals in small business on main street. That's what the book's about and I've started more businesses than most people can fill up days in a calendar with good memories, because I've just done it. I mean I started a pheasant farm one time to try to corner the market on pheasants and realized there wasn't one. So, you know, I've done them all. I've had cell phone companies. I've had television stations. I've had public relationships firms. I've had printing companies. All those things I started. I love to start businesses and I love to sell them as well. And I love to grow business, and this whole thing is about The Mirror Test and are you asking yourself the right questions? Are you looking in the mirror? Are you the leader that you need to be in order to make the business grow?

Russ: Sounds like a perfect book for our audience, man.

Jeffrey: It's - well, I can't - I don't know everybody in your audience, but if you're helping make business and you're The BusinessMakers, this is where it needs to be is right here.

Russ: Absolutely. One question about these companies that you started, what is your favorite one that you did?

Jeffrey: It's always the one I'm in now. It really is. I love all the companies I've done. I love every experience I ever get into and whether it was selling barbecue tickets door-to-door when I was a kid, and winning the baseball bat and the glove and winning that first prize and second prize and third prize, or today selling emotional technology for Kodak. They're all to me the same. And so The Mirror Test it gives those examples in it. You'll be able to get it from Hashette, it starts on May 5th, you'll be able to find it. It's on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, you can preorder it now, but May 5th is the day it's gonna be in the stores, and I ask people to buy it. And you can find it on hayzlett.com, h-a-y-z-l-e-t-t-.com, or on any of the major online sites. Or walk into a store and buy it the old-fashioned way.

Russ: All right. Before I let you go, and you've already touched on this quite extensively with your book, but let's imagine we have an aspiring entrepreneur listening right now. Is there any general advice that you would give them?

Jeffrey: No one's gonna die. I mean, I tell people that all the time on our team. You know, you've got an idea, stick with it, but make sure that it's gonna fog the mirror, make sure it's the business. Some people will put all their money into it, don't chance anything you don't know that's gonna win, but make sure you vet it right, you get the right kind of advice and surround yourself with some really smart people. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, I've got a lot of energy but I have a lot smarter people that work with me and for me, and they've saved my rear end many a day, and that's what most entrepreneurs need.

Russ: Great advice, Jeffrey. I really appreciate you giving us some of your time.

Jeffrey: Thank you very much and go out there and make more business happen.

Russ: There you go, that's Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer of Kodak. And you're listening to The BusinessMakers show, heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com.