Show Notes

Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn.

Visit the Southeastern Community College website

Explore JeffEbbing.com.

Follow Jeff on Strava. Heck, follow Mariah, too!

Mariah Tang: Did I say that out loud? Welcome to “Did I Say that Out Loud?”, a podcast where Stu Eddins and Mariah Tang reflect on agency life and answer questions from our higher ed and healthcare clients about the latest in digital marketing, content and SEO.

Mariah: Hey, thanks for joining us today. My name is Mariah. Usually we’re joined by Stu, but he had a little conflict. So I get our guest all to myself today. This is Jeff Ebbing. He’s the director of marketing and communications, the doer of all of the things that Southeastern Community College right here in Iowa. He spent 20 years inside higher ed marketing and he leads teams through enrollment growth, building departments and he has served as NCMPR national president back in 2023. Through his website, jeffebbing.com, he works with MarCom leaders who are ready to move from executing requests to shaping strategy. Most importantly, and our topic today is Jeff is a year-round runner. He does not skip more than two days a week, which I would love to hear about. And he runs with his fantastic dogs, Mr. Fantastic and Sawyer Dog. They are two active labs and Masters at Run Shaming him out of bed. I’ve got one of those myself. Jeff, thanks for joining us.

Jeff Ebbing: It is great to be here, happy to be talking about all things marketing and colleges and running.

Mariah: Yes, yes, yes. So this is a weird little topic and we both love running. So it works out great. And Chris, who is our AVP of marketing, big runner, several of us at Stamats actually. And so we thought, you know what, we’re going to spend half an hour on our little program nerding out about marketing and running. So Jeff initiated some, some of the fantastic running groups in the higher ed marketing space, namely at NCMPR. So,

Before we started recording here, we were chatting a little bit about whether running is just a hobby, whether it’s something that can be a marketing tool and like if you kind of think it’s both. So do you want to tell us a little bit, Jeff, about how you feel as a member of the running community, as a member of the marketing community and kind of how those things coalesce when you’re at a conference?

Jeff: Sure, well, first off, I’m a way better marker than I am a runner. And that’s probably not saying a whole heck of a lot. But no, it’s something that I have done for a long time. And I’m not a super-fast guy. I’m not going to win races. I will win for style, but I’ll never win for speed. And so it’s just something that I’ve done for many years. And I would go to conferences. And one of the cool things about a conference is the conference city. So I would…

I can’t, I gotta get out and go see wherever I’m at. So I would bring my stuff and go out and run in the mornings by myself, perfectly quiet, know, the garbage men picking up the trash and the laborers are all delivering all the good, whatever it is, right? That kind of a thing. And I just got a different view of the city. And I don’t know, about five years ago, I thought, this is silly, I should invite other people to go out with me. Partly because we had just been out a few hours the night before and I wanted to get them to come with me so then we would both be commiserating the next morning together. But it got to the point where people would say, that’s really cool, I wanna do that too. So I made it a public thing. And surprisingly, people are crazy enough to get up and go out and run the morning after the night of the conference. And it’s been a lot of fun to be able to, you know, I’m talking to people that I wouldn’t otherwise talk to. I mean, I would have met them and talked to them during the conference, but it’s a totally different conversation at the different atmosphere, you know, when you’re out in the morning and you are sitting in a, whether it’s a lunch or, you know, between breakouts.

Mariah: Yeah, yeah, I love that you incorporated the new city vibe. I got a little story. have to, I love telling this story. Everybody that knows me knows I’m terrible at directions, like real bad, even in the city that I live in. And I was in Cleveland for Content Marketing World and I’ve been there many, many times and I’ve run the same route there over and over and one morning I got there like a day early before the rest of the group was there. So I thought, I’m going to go run the route. I got so confused.

I stopped this poor woman on the street and I’m like, can you help me figure out where my hotel is? And after that, I was like, that probably was not the safest thing I could have done. But it does, it does kind of emphasize our next point. I mean, when you are in a new city and you are directionally challenged like myself, or maybe just, you know, wary of being out by yourself, especially if it’s dark, you know, early in the morning, it gives you that sense of community to be out with like-minded people who you know are there for the same reasons that you’re there. It just gives you somebody to chat with when you’re kind of feeling like, I don’t know if I should go left right here. What do you think? know, bounce it off with people just like we do every day in marketing.

Jeff: I’ve definitely had the same experience and a 5k turned into seven miles because I totally got misdirected wherever I was going. I think I even had Strava on my watch or Apple map, whatever I was. And I still got so, so lost. Well, not lost, but I just totally missed. You know how it is. You just, get going and then, I went way too far. I got to get back. And of course you ran downhill the whole way. Now you got to run uphill the way back and that sucks.

And no, I totally hear you there. And you’re right. Once you start running with people, and especially if you’re the guy leading the group like I’ve been, I have to like up my game a little bit to like know where in the hell I’m going. Try to get sometimes I’m there. Oftentimes through the organizations that I’ve been at, I have to be there a day early for set up or meetings or whatever. So I can go out and do a practice run the day before everyone else shows up. So at least I’m not totally blind leading the blind out there. Yeah, the struggle is real when you’re out there in a new city. It’s amazing, but you gotta pay attention.

Mariah: Yeah, yeah. And it’s, I don’t want to sound too cheesy, but there are a lot of parallels here between running and marketing. And it’s, you know, you’re treading new ground, you’re trying new things, you’re giving yourself a longer runway than maybe you need because you might get lost, know, something might not work out, shoelace breaks, whatever it could be. And you know, when you’re out there, kind of huffing and puffing that everybody that runs knows that first mile is always going to stink no matter what and everybody just slogs through it together.

But after you kind of settle in, you meet somebody who’s the same pace as you or, you know, willing to speed up, slow down to go with you. It’s a real opportunity to get some insights, get some, get some new perspectives on maybe problems you’re working on at the office or, you know, just trends in the industry.

Jeff: I, that is for sure true. I’ve definitely learned about a couple little tricks here and there about different things or you might go for an entire run and someone tells you about a keyboard shortcut that changes your life. I mean, that’s so silly little thing. Oh my God, that just saved me 17 days of labor over the next two years of my life. Something simple like that. And that stuff is so organic. It just comes up in the moment that you otherwise wouldn’t know. And of course that’s a, that’s a very silly basic example, but that’s the kind of thing that you get when you have these unscripted, there’s no goal. Some folks when they’re networking, they’ve got a goal. I’ve got to talk to you, find out where you’re from. They’re checking people off of lists because some people do that at conferences, but it’s very organic. Sometimes August strike up a conversation so that you just run slower.

Can we just, can I just keep up with you? Can we just talk about something and I don’t have to worry about this. And hopefully you’re knowledgeable about it and you want to talk about it then we slow down and I can catch a breath and you can teach me something.

Mariah: Yeah. What do you think about the professionalism aspect? Because like you, you go out to these events, you speak, you sometimes are the welcome wagon. You were the past NCMPR president. You know, me and some other groups that are out there representing agencies and vendor partners are, you know, genuinely interested in running as well. So what do you think is like the professional impact of mixing and mingling with the help or with your colleagues.

Jeff: I think it just comes down to, and I can’t really speak about how other industries and sectors, how they operate, but we’re real people. I think that’s the biggest thing. When you’re out there, like you’re saying, no one looks their best, especially after the run, let alone during the run. so if you’re a runner and you’ve done races, that’s the deal. You’re not looking dressed to the nines or whatever, or 100 % yourself and so being real and authentic, I think is is really. I’ll let you in on a on an insider tip. I’ll never interested in working with the service provider unless I trust them and most of the time the trust is not going to come from a sales deck. It’s not going to come from a visit, it’s not gonna come from surely an email or a cold call. It’s gonna come from face time hanging out with you, knowing who you are. And yeah, I can be very professional. Maybe I don’t even know you’re a runner before I trust you, but it’s the one-to-one time. And for me, and I would dare to speak for all of my colleagues, the more we trust you with just our relationship, our friendship, That does translate into professional trust and could ultimately be working together for a project or for a multi-year contract on things.

Mariah: Yeah. Yeah. And it is, it is fun to have those, I guess, offline familiarities too. I remember, I’m going to say it was probably 2020 because I was working at home and I don’t normally do that. That’s just my jam. But I was sipping coffee out of a cup, interviewing a physician because I work with a lot of healthcare institutions. And he looked at my cup and he goes, hold that cup back up here. And I was like, no, is it one of the ones with like an F bomb on it or something? And it was a Ragnar Relay cup, which is like a race series. And he goes, dude, you’ve done a, you’ve done a Ragnar and this is like an orthopedic surgeon that we’ve been trying to get for months. And I’m like, yeah, you know, and we kind of geeked out and our marketing colleague was like, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but he was super forthcoming. And after that, he made sure he got me his edits real quick. Like, that’s kind of neat to have, you know, that commonality.

Jeff: You’re right. It just it makes us all human and I definitely and again in community colleges, especially there’s not There’s competition. Yes, but it’s not like I’m sure it is with even other higher ed institutions that are really competing for students of this type or that type or geographic region And so I don’t we don’t really see the competition as much but again, I’ve run and even run with you. I’ve run with people who are representing multiple agencies and doing everything. And all that stuff follows along to the side. It’s just we’re in this together. We’re gonna run. We’re gonna take some fun Instagram pictures. We’re gonna sweat a little bit. We’re gonna come back and we’re gonna feel good about how we started our day. That’s literally it. And then if some business happens, that’s great. But as you know, it’s just about being together and that sense of community. It’s not about time. It’s not about form. It’s just, we’re able to be ourselves even in this different city in that moment and nothing you know you never regret a workout right that’s pretty much what people say and that’s the same is true here.

Mariah: Yeah. And it gives you reasons to stay in touch long after the conference too. mean, nobody likes to get the spammy like, here’s our little pitch, but checking in like, hey, you told me about this marathon you were training for, this 5K or whatever it is. And you can authentically be like, I think that’s cool. And hey, I’m here if you ever need anything, you know, and vice versa. It’s kind of a nice vibe for sure. Last time when we talked, Jeff, you were talking about sometimes sharing on Strava. I like to do that as well. Many runners do and some, you know, some are off the grid and that’s cool too. But there’s that saying in running, like if you don’t have the Garmin it didn’t really happen. But I feel like that’s kind of similar in marketing and in higher ed marketing. If it’s not on Strava, if it’s not out here on social, if it’s not here, there or everywhere. That kind of vibe has really infiltrated a lot of marketing because of AI, because of the different ways that prospective students are reaching out or finding their information. So tell me a little bit about how that kind of always on everywhere all the time kind of mentality is shaping your marketing there at Southeastern.

Jeff: Well, I’m fortunate enough now, I don’t know if it’s because of I have aged out of having to be the person who manages all of our social media accounts on a regular basis, or they just finally realize there’s somebody a lot better than me, probably a little bit of both. But you’re right, I mean, that is definitely an always on gig, right? And so having that regular pulse on what’s going on, it’s important all the trends and the different things that are going on, you’ve gotta be in that moment all the time. so, like you say too, even though you might be contributing, you’re mostly consuming in that space, especially if you’re running a higher ed account. Yeah, I gotta put my thing out, but you might put between one and 20 things out in a week, but you’re consuming 10x that in what you’re seeing just personally or even professionally. So being in that zone, it’s critical to have that always on mentality in that space. And you’re right too, when it comes back to running, it’s the same thing. I definitely give out way more thumbs ups than I get thumbs up on my show. But that’s what it’s all about. I’m gonna support you for the things that you’ve been doing in you know, and live in your life. And sometimes when we have a bad run, if we see three or four on there and that feels good, or 10 or 20 or however many people you have engaging with you, that definitely does help. So yeah, there’s a direct one-to-one correlation.

Mariah: Yeah, yeah. I’ve had many instances over my career where a video doesn’t work or an audio recording fails or like my pen ran out of ink, you know, I’m getting up there, we’ve had those days. And it’s that same deflating feeling of like, oh, my watch didn’t turn on or I wasn’t synced. I run with a girlfriend here locally and she has tracked at like a six minute mile and we were actually going more like a 10 to 12 minute mile pace. Like, just put it in there anyway, it’s fine. We’ll just tell people we’re super fast. So it’s kind of fun to look at data differently outside the office than we do every day. In marketing, really rules the day a lot of the time, which is great. And it should in many capacities. But when you’re out there, like you’ve mentioned earlier, spending half an hour, an hour, whatever your distance or your time is, just being human with other humans, I think a lot of us need that downtime. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. You’re talking about the whole Garmin thing. I just got a new phone about a month ago and I do have an Apple watch but I only wear it when I run. I don’t wear it regular for the day. And so it took me multiple days to get my watch to sync right with my phone. And you know, I’d be running, I’d push start, I swear I pushed start. I’d be a couple miles in the wind. Run started. No, I’ve already I would go back in and complain on Strava. I had to add two more miles to my route today, you know, because I get plus I use it to count my annual numbers, you know, but so you’re exactly right. I don’t know where that came from, but the struggle is real, I suppose, when it comes to make sure you’re tracking your miles. It’s part of it’s not so much, honestly, for what other people see, because, you know, when you see my mile, my splits, that’s nothing compared to, know, you’re right. have people who run twice the distance or twice the speed as I do. I just try not to look at their times. I just look at the miles and I just move my merry way.

Mariah: Yeah, like Chris, he’s going to kill me when he hears this podcast. He’s so fast, you know, it takes, takes all speeds. It takes all sorts. because you, know, you’ve got some people who really take, who really take time to, think through their responses who need that, you know, variability in their day to like try different things throughout the day. You’ve got others that can really focus and just do one thing and just grind through all the time. Those crazy ultra runner people. It really just takes all the different personalities and all the different types, all the different speeds to make an when I, it makes me a little sad when I go to conferences or when I come home and people see photos of like running groups and stuff, they’re like, I would never do that because I’m not fast enough or I don’t like how I look in my gym clothes or whatever it is. It’s like, just come try one time. If you show up and say, I’d like to walk somebody will raise their hand and walk with you. doesn’t matter if they’re the fastest person or the longest distance person, they’re going to make you feel welcome because that’s what runners do.

Jeff: You’re right, and I made a really big point of that when we were at our last conference in DC of because people, it’s a cool city, you know, all the monuments, all the things, I mean, and to see it at the golden hour in the morning really is a special time. And you might go be able to do it at night, but then you have all the crowds in the morning. It’s just crazy runners and the sun and you that’s it. And so it’s a different experience. And so I really was able to get people to be interested. But when they heard that we’re leaving at six a.m. Eastern time, and I got friends who were on the West Coast, that’s like leaving at like at 3 a.m., you know, because the time changed. So I had to post pictures, because I had done it a couple years ago, and you know, here’s the Lincoln Memorial at sunrise, here’s MLK staring into the sun at sunrise, and all these things, just beautiful shots. That got some people there, but I said, we’re gonna have two groups, we’re gonna have a walking group and a running group, and we did, and just like you’re saying, everyone had a good time. I mean, it all just worked out. So sometimes you definitely have to sort of really prime the pump a little bit and just it’s okay. It’s fine. don’t because there’s no expectations. We’re gonna get you back so you can get ready and still have your coffee before the session blah blah blah and just reassure people but it is to get them going. It’s you know ahead. It takes a long time to get them to finally commit to you know wanting to wanting to join you.

Mariah: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, if running is not your jam, a lot of conferences I’ve been to the last few years have implemented, like you mentioned before, walking groups in the afternoons or the evenings. Some do sunrise yoga, which is really cool. That’s the one where I’m like, I don’t know about that. I’m not very flexible. But I mean, there’s something for everybody. I mean, it’s just another way to, if you’re not into the bar scene or if you’re not into the, you know, going to the vendor-sponsored events or what have you, or even if you are and you just want to roll in and be a rock star that morning still wearing your glitter from the night before. People will appreciate you just as well. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff: Uh-huh. I actually that’s the one that’s probably the one thing I haven’t seen is me going out and them coming in. That’s the one thing I probably haven’t. It’s probably happened. I just haven’t paid attention to it.

Mariah: Yeah, there you go. Well, what events are you training for this year, Mr. Jeff?

Jeff: Well, I didn’t do any races last year and I paid the price for it because I just never got to where I wanted to be. And so I committed to doing a half in May. So I’m looking forward to doing that. It is going to be ugly and there will be walking involved and probably some crying. But that’s fine. I’ll get it done and I will be a better person for it. then we’ll see it comes out of there. I don’t normally do a lot in the summer because it’s hot, right? It’s Iowa. But then I’ll probably come back and get into something in the fall. How about you?

Mariah: We call it crunning. My running buddy and I call it crunning when you hit that point. You know, I think that’s a nice parallel with marketing too. Sometimes you have a day where you’re running. I’m one of those weird ultra people, like the lock in and get her done types. So I’m doing a 50 mile event in May. That’s just kind of off the script kind of thing with some friends. then in September we’re doing the 100k so that’s my first attempt at that but I’ll have a good group of friends running it with me and probably watching me cry and hate my life choices so it’ll be good.

Jeff: Well, I will tell you when it when it comes to drawing parallels between running and marketing I’ve really leaned into the past few years with my team of setting SMART goals and one of the most important parts of the SMART goal is the measurable and also you know other all important right but measuring things and if you whether you run in a 5k a half marathon or an ultra marathon, you just break it down, you know, when I’m running a half or a full, okay, got my 5K down, done. Ooh, okay, got the 10K down, done. Half, I got the So you’re making small goals, and marketing is the same way. So a really big goal is just a whole bunch of small goals.

But you gotta set it up that way. I can’t just say, I’m gonna go run a marathon and run the whole distance. I’m running, like I said, I’m a 5K, I’m feeling good. And then 27, whatever the numbers are, 26. If you’re running 27, you ran more. Is it considered an ultra? It’s 27 and ultra, I don’t know. We’re gonna say this for this conversation. So when it comes to marketing though, setting those SMART goals really does, that is probably something that I would say I probably learned from running and just inherently in doing that.

And then after doing it with intention on applying goals, I have seen our team accomplish more, we’re more efficient in the work that we do and it’s more our work and not necessarily other people’s work. I we’re incorporating theirs into ours, but we’re setting the goal, we’re setting the direction, and they’re coming along for the ride with us as opposed to us meandering and getting lost in the host city and running twice as long as you wanted to that day. And so I think that there was a correlation there with goal setting.

Mariah: Yeah, I love that. For me, the S stands for snacks. Stay hydrated, eat your snacks. You’re going to survive in marketing and in running. Jeff, it’s so fun to talk to you all the time, especially when we get to nerd out over stuff like this. So if people want to find you, connect with you, pick your brain, what’s the best way to do that?

Jeff: Smoke signals or candy grams. I prefer chocolate if you’re able to make that happen. But if neither of those are readily available at the FTD Florist’s closed shop, you’re welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn. Simple jeffebbing. Find me or find me on jeffebbing.com. You can take look at all my great stuff there. Love to talk to people, make connections, go for a run, go for a walk, or talk about running and walking. Or not.

Mariah: There go. There you go. Can’t beat that. All right, Jeff. Thanks a bunch. Good to see you. Happy trails. Bye.

Jeff: Thanks, bye.

Mariah: Thanks for listening to “Did I Say That Out Loud?” with Stu Eddins and Mariah Tang. Check out the show notes for more information about today’s episode. And if you have any questions, concerns or comments, hit us up anytime at stamats.com.