[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign the podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney and I'm your host. Today's guest is Andrew Deutsch. Andrew Deutsch isn't your average consultant. He's a multilingual strategist who speaks the languages of business and psychology. Psychology having fueled business growth in over 100 countries. His superpower seeing hidden opportunities and solutions others miss. He blends practical business smarts with insightful psychology to craft bold innovative strategies for his clients at Fangled Group. Fangled Group is your one stop shop for strategic marketing and growth muscle. They offer a range of services from fractional CMO leadership to to in depth M and A research all the way to crafting killer brands and go to market strategies ready to turn every touch into an advocate of your brand. Learn
[email protected] or catch Andrew on his podcast the Fangled Cast.
Enjoy the show. Andrew. Great to see you my friend. Thanks for coming on.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Great to see you too. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Oh absolutely. It's my pleasure. I always like to thank the individual who introduced us and you and I met a few years back on Networking Hub assembly and the host is none other than Frank Agan who I think is an amazing human being and probably the best connector and networker in our in our country if not the world. I'll give him that credit. So thanks Frank.
So Andrew, I have you on for a few reasons and and I'll get to that in a second. But you know, in life when we're growing up and it's not a malicious teaching but people tell us life is linear if we do A plus B plus C D is going to happen and so we do that and inevitably life becomes non linear. Something happens externally that kind of changes the trajectory of our life and we have an opportunity to make a decision.
Now in my mind there's three different types of men and we can be this type of all three in the same day depending on our awareness. But there's man number one who lives life through blind spots and doesn't see anything different from the way he's living. It doesn't change anything and it turns out he's got regrets on his deathbed. Then there's man number two who goes through life, stuff happens, yet he sees it as barriers. He's the victim, he's blaming other people. Life can't change. Life sucks. Nothing changes. Same regrets.
Then there's man number three who you are. And it's the man I bring on this show. He's the man who at some point in his life realizes that there is a different way to live. He sees something. He doesn't see it as a barrier anymore. Now it's an opportunity to do something different. This is life happening for him. And I call those defining moments.
And I'd love for you to reach back as far as you need to Andrew, to tell us about the defining moment or moments that got you to be man number three. And you went from the Andrew Deutch you were to the Andrew Deutsch you are now and how that's moved you forward in life personally and professionally to mold who you are now.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Well, there's so many of those types of events.
Maybe we'll go back to. So my grandfather, who was a guy that during the Depression worked for pennies a day sweeping the floor of a printing factory till the day that he was able to find investors and open his own and ended up owning one of the largest printing companies in this region of the country. At one point in time they were doing, I don't know, 85% of all automotive battery labels in the country. And I had the opportunity as a kid. It was a goof off. I really, I had no intention of going to college. Figured I'd get a job after school. So I would work in the plant after school and also during the summers, sitting in a building in downtown CLEVELAND that was 100 something degrees inside, literally counting stacks of 500 labels. You put one on the table and you hit it with your thumb, sweating my everything off.
And in that process said, you know what? If this is the future without college, I'm going to go to school. So, so I set off to, to change my behavior. I went from having to go to summer school for two classes my freshman year after failing two classes to being, I think I graduated with something like I 3435 and. And got a, a scholarship in the meantime. I had, I had been an exchange student because I wanted to know overseas.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Oh wow.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: And I lived in Sweden for a period of time during my high school years and then got a scholarship as an international student and went to, went to college to study international business. Where'd you go in Wilmington in Southern Ohio. Wilmington, Ohio.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Okay. So you went to college back in the state?
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Yes, I got a degree in. In Global trade and or International International Administration was the title of the, the degree in technical English and figured I was going to graduate and get a great job.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: And the economy was Although people have weird memories. They think the economy was good then, but it was not. Everyone I knew was unemployed and opportunities in my field required graduate degrees. And even then, Most of the MBAs I knew were unemployed.
So out of frustration, I took a job working for a non profit.
Got it in Orlando, Florida. I moved down there and, and that's, you know, where I sort of not expected to, but really learned how to cut my teeth as a salesperson. Because in sales.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: And I always had that entrepreneurial spirit. I had lots of little businesses growing up. Even in college, I was selling stuff to pay my bills.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: But you know, I took, I took this job and, and learned what true value selling is. Imagine my product is a handshake and a certificate because we were raising money and running a program where none of the employees, none of the employees got paid. They were volunteers.
So how do you motivate a team of unpaid workers and get people to give you money in exchange for a handshake? So you really learn how to talk about the value and how to really tap into. Absolutely, you know, who people are. But nonetheless, it didn't pay much.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: And I wanted to be in my, my chosen field. And again, an MBA didn't make sense. So I had a creative idea and decided to go back to school to study psychology to build out a resume showing that I had this background in human, human psychology that would basically talk about how. From the value of selling and all the things that I learned and industrial psych.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: You know, how, how, how could you build multicultural marketing and sales strategies? And it would separate me from the rest of the resumes. So what a great. Took took a major leap and signed up and got my degree, actually worked as a therapist, had a private practice for a period of time, worked for.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Psychiatric, if you don't mind me asking that. Which went into private practice for the therapy. How old were you at that point?
[00:07:23] Speaker B: See, it was 90, late mid-20s.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: I'd have to, I'd have to do the math, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: No, no, no.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So, so, and I, I studied and, and so I worked at the crisis center. I, I worked at a couple of psychiatric hospitals when I was in school as, as an orderly sort of tech.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: And then eventually had had private practice for a period of time. At the same time.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: After graduating, wanting to build, you know, the relationship so that I could start to work in global trade. Absolutely.
Because I had been an exchange student, which is why I brought it up. I got asked by that exchange Student program to get involved in their orientations of American students going abroad.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: So I helped reform, based on my training, the ex. The ex. The exit orientations that American students would go through before they went to central South America.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Wow. Okay.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: And an interesting thing happened because I took that, that risk of getting involved.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: The chaperones were coming up from Central America, South America, to take the students down. And they were all like high level executives and people in the know who got me started on projects.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: So I was doing creative, you know, trade projects with, with Costa Rica, with Ecuador, with Colombia and some of these countries.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: And was very successful at saying, yes, I think we can figure this out. I never did the, the promise and figure it out later stuff.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: You know, the, the pretend. The pretend, you know, but it was always. I've never done that. But I'm sure we can figure this out. Let's work together. So in 93, I had gone down to Brazil to work on a project that was supposed to take 90 days.
And, and in Brazil, they were in the process of the reform of their economy.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: New president had taken taken place. They were going to stabilize the currency and for the first time open the market to import export. So in the States, I was a guy who kind of knew stuff.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: There I was an expert because based on the fact that I knew more than they did, even though I didn't know that much.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: So the, the short of that is I ended up living there. I met my wife, had my kid, my kids are there, and lived there for about 10 years, building my business in Brazil.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Okay. All right.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: So, you know, talk about, talk about taking a risk.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: I, to be clear, expect that to find your wife and have no Brazil.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: And understand I only spoke English at the time.
So, you know, moving to another country where you don't speak the language is a whole other, A whole other level. I, I today I speak it the same as I speak English, but.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Oh, you do. Okay, good. Yeah, Yeah.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: I, I speak multiple languages just from travel. So anyhow, you know, took that major risk and.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: And it paid off. The worst that could have happened.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: Was it didn't. And I would have come back to the States and relied on someone to, you know, to get me back financially and do something else.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: So you gave up the whole therapy thing? Therapy, practice.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: But yeah.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Really, though, you, you.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: I use it every.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Yeah, every day.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: I use it every day as I'm building, you know, strategy for, for marketing and, and working with employees and building teams and consensus. And you Know, it's, it's later and you know, the career goes on into all sorts of different places. But you know, later on I was working for one of my clients who I set up in, in South America.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: As a consultant. When I moved back to the States several years later, they asked me to come on board and run their international division. So I ended up at that point actually doing what, what I studied initially all those years before. So I, it was a company in the, in the end of line packaging industry. Okay. And when I took, they were doing, I don't know, 3.2 million I think. And maybe, maybe it was 16 countries at that time. And I worked there for, I want to say it was almost seven. I forget how many years it was, but. No, five, five years. And by the time I left we were doing 14.4 million. I think it was in 75 countries.
So my typical year was 300,000 airline miles. 40 countries a year, never home. 220 days on the road.
And that was the next, the next multi change point. I weighed 365 pounds, could not walk up a flight of stairs without getting totally winded.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Goodness.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: And was working for the most bombastic malignant narcissists or there was a guy that was very difficult to work with.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: And I, after a, a stupid confrontation that I had no, no part in until I was dragged into it, I wrote my resume together and decided I'm done.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: Good for you.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: So I gave up the road, lost 160 pounds and moved on to strategic business development and marketing. And from there was doing, you know, multiple turnarounds of businesses. People would, people call us in when they're in trouble or they're stuck.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: And we've got a track record of making things great, making things grow. And, and all of that is because I was able to accumulate the most eclectic business skill set. Multicultural.
I mean, I think, I think I've worked in my career in 120something countries.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
Wow. So you, so then you left Brazil, came back to the States with your wife and kids.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Back to Ohio.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Okay. And now I know that you own your own business now and I love the name of it and I have no clue how you came up with. Can you tell us how you got. Fangled group.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Yeah, we're the fangled group.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: So help me out here.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: The original, the original business was called the Deutsche Group.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: And, and I, you know, I picked it thinking that it, it gave some, some gravitas. It sounds like a much bigger company than it Was, Yeah. But when we came back to the states, it, it didn't occur to me that I needed to get it registered as a trademark name and eventually somebody to, to get even for us taking on some clients that they thought were their property created some legal issues for me to call my company the Deutsche Group. In the meantime, I started as an employee of this, this end of line packaging company. So I just let it go. There's a long story, but yeah, we're not going to go into it here. So when I came back out of there and decided to really get back into consulting, I was talking to one of my closest friends from my college days and we were joking about, you know, the strategic marketing as opposed to saying a marketing agency. We were going to be a strategy house that helped bring disruptive technology to the market for our clients. And he says, ah, you're gonna be one of those, one of them newfangled marketing companies. And I said, nah. He goes, oh, you're gonna be old fangled. I said, nah, we're just fangled in the moment.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: We're. We're not newfangled or old fangled. We're fangled.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: And we laughed and I put it on there and we, we formed that. I think we've 2014 is when we formed Fangled.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: And I'm telling you, people I met then, who I haven't talked to since will bump into me and go, oh, you're the fangled guy. It has great name recognition.
And what I like about it is that it does not have a positive connotation when something's newfangled or old fangled. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's good.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: Good. Right, right, right.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: So, so that, that sort of negative connotation forcing people to look it up and talk about it, talk about it is, is a very good conversational piece for us in terms of disrupting the mindset and getting folks on board to recognize some of the great case studies we have of projects that we've done.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah, well, give me an example of a current client and how you help them.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: I be a little careful because the one, the one major client we're working with right now, I have an NDA in place. I can't really tell you who they are.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: A former client. Old client.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: To give the audience the type of work you do so when they piques their interest, they can reach out to you.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So this, there was, there's a company that was very much involved in, in products for the woodworking Space.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: And there's a lot of. A lot of competition in. In those areas. But there's a. There's a specific problem that needed to be solved, and they had a solution for it. But every time they talked to people about it, they didn't quite get it.
So we did a. A market study and evaluation based on that problem of what is it about that problem that the consumer recognizes and doesn't recognize? And basically what. What it was, was it's a product that would replace clamping in a certain operation.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Speeding up the process and. And not leaving any kind of a residue, basically reducing the time that it takes to finish something and not complicate putting. If you're using adhesives and things like that on wood, Right. When you go to put up like a. A stain or a finish, it could show up.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: So. So instead of selling the, the concept of this product and what it did, we changed the story about the product in terms of what was the problem that it actually solved. How did it. How did it make the life easier? The woodworker and allow them to get onto the parts of the process that they really like to do.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Got it. That's a great concept.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: So, so, so we built. We built some. Some strategy around that. Another example was a company who was going to market talking about their product in the way that they thought was important. And they were basically talking about the raw materials that they use, the processes, the fact that they meet. They meet advanced testing in the industrial space. Everything they were talking about their product had to do with what would be considered like table stakes in a poker game. Everything that they talked about was what you had to do to be in business. An equivalent would be, we're making cars, and you should buy our car because we use steel and we put four tires and a windshield on it. So you have to know it's good.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: I love it. Yeah. So have them stand apart from the.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah. So we did a detailed market study. We spoke to their top 10 customers who had been with them for 20 years and never strayed. We talked to customers that use them as a second source. In other words, if my main supplier fell off the cliff, you'd be here for us. And we talked to customers that strayed.
And in that research, none of the value proposition the company was marketing had any bearing. It was. All of that stuff is normal. What we love about this company is they answer the phone when. When. When we have an issue. They're the only ones with flexible enough manufacturing to get us what we need when we need it because we goofed.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: The other part of it was we, when, when I do have a problem, I don't have to know how to do business with them. They just take care of it. I don't get an RMA form and be told in three months later get a result. I get a person on the phone, they jump on it, they resolve it and they fix it. So really the reason people did business with them was because they made buyers lives so much easier. Right. They, everything about them was a personal touch and customer service.
No buyer ever lost their job because they had a mistake from this plan. Whereas with competitors that was the case. They went from about 38 to 85 million in two and a half years and were able to sell that business.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: You know, the value your fangled group provides, Andrew, is unbelievable for an organ for any organization that is struggling with getting their message out.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Most businesses fail because they're all focused on the tactics.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: You know, we're going to build a website, we're going to do this and that, but they don't have a core value oriented, customer focused strategy.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: To then choose those tactics.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: We, we've seen multi million dollar companies that are out doing, you know, these Google Ads trying to draw business when in fact there's a finite customer base. There's, there's, you know, 800 customers in the country that could do business with them. Y, and they're out there. I, I, I equate it to trying to kill mosquitoes with a shotgun. You know, you're, you're, you can't do it now if you focus, you know, if you know who all of those customers are and you have a personal outreach to every single one of those and understand those businesses and focus it, Your, your cost of acquisition goes way down. And, and, and you're much more effective. While your competitors are out there hoping that some white paper will get somebody's attention. We're talking directly to the customer. You know, I love what you said.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: About cost of acquisition because that's as important as getting the customer. Because if you get a customer, but what you're going to make is the cost outweighed what you're going to make. Yeah. Cost of acquisition plus getting the, you know, acquiring the right customer is, is you're looking for.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: And when you do acquire, you've already got the personal relationship that you need.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: To, to, to, you know, it's not just cold inquiries every day and hoping that that web lead is right. You know, years ago, I Laughed. I was doing work for a company down in Georgia that was in the beverage packaging business and one of the things they would redeem decommission factories and used equipment and the SEO strategy. One of the things they had were these huge stainless mixing tanks and, and we would get inquiries all the time for military tanks, scuba tanks, and people were paying money.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: For on those clicks to have a guy call and say, yeah, how many, what size scuba tanks do you carry? And it's. Well, you just cost me a $50 or $2 or $10 depending on what the lead was. And we don't sell scuba tanks. So when we, when we refocused all of that and, and started to build strategies about talking directly to the kinds of people who use used stainless tanks. Yeah, we, we spend a third to less of what we were spending and, and we were actually getting leads.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it's targeted.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: So Andrew, definitely the audience now has captured, I believe, because I have the essence of Andrew Deutsch and they're going to want to get in touch with you. So folks, Andrew is very, very present on LinkedIn. So reach out to him on LinkedIn or you can go to his website, fangled group.com f a n G L F A N G L D Fangled Group G R O P dot com. It's worth the conversation. Absolutely.
So Andrew, I have two questions for you. All right.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: Only two.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Just do the two final questions, my friend, because I want to give you the opportunity to. You're sitting with 7 to 10 year old Andrew. You want to give him advice about life.
What would you tell him?
[00:21:50] Speaker B: I'm going to steal from the great Warren Zevon. Enjoy every sandwich. He said that the David Letterman a few weeks before he died.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: No kidding.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: That was his last Letterman asked him, you know, if you had something to tell the world at the end, what would it be? Enjoy every sandwich.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Enjoy every sandwich. I love that. I love that. Well, didn't expect a Warren Zon, but that's very, that's deep man.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: American philosopher and musician.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Absolutely was. Huh? All right, switch hats. Now you're sitting down with young Andrew, the young businessman, young entrepreneur, and you want to give him advice about business. What would you tell him?
[00:22:28] Speaker B: The only people who advance to great levels are those that learn strategy, not tactics. Tactics are secondary. If, if you learn and understand strategy, you can understand where, what, what all of the pieces are before you start looking at how to, how to take it to market.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Love it. Strategy before tactics.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: You know. Yeah. And most entrepreneurs Especially go start with the tactics rather than the strategy.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: Well, that's where you begin in your career. Hey, get this newsletter together. And otherwise. But if you don't look at every one of those tasks as to what, what. What is the outcome of this? What does it do if. If I do. If I say this, what. What. What changes in the way that it affects people? What. What is the core strategy of the business?
[00:23:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: And. And always have that focus, no matter what tactical thing you're doing, you know, you gotta. You gotta earn your place. Absolutely. You don't. You don't start as the CEO.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: And to get there, you have to really understand strategy.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: Very true. Very true. Well, Andrew, I want to thank you for not just coming on, but coming into my life, my friend.
Just the fact that we were at the same networking group at that specific time and finally have connected, there's a reason why. And you've added a lot of value to my life. And now certainly the audience is so. Thank you, my friend.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: All right, you take care of yourself, Andrew, and everybody else out there. Take care of yourself.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it.
I'd like you to answer this question. Are you living the life you want to live, or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second, because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my website at www.prophetcompassion.com.
feel free to also email me at drewrophetcompassion.com I'd love to have a conversation with you. Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: For.
