What if your best marketing asset isn't your equipment or your ad budget—but the people already on your shop floor? In this warm, idea-packed Marketing Mondays session, host Chris Hyde and co-host Jenna Wenzel sit down with Lisa Middleton, Marketing Director at Smartpress (the online division of The Bernard Group), to explore "marketing from the inside out." Lisa shares how her team turns real employees into their most credible content engine—through an About Us page built on genuine staff photos and quotes, a wildly fun campaign where employees' pets "review" products, branded-tee "Smartpress in the wild" moments, internal newsletters, timeline walls, and nightly funny-photo emails from trade shows. Along the way she makes the case that culture and marketing shouldn't live in separate silos, that authentic and slightly imperfect beats polished-and-corporate in an AI-saturated world, and that a chance coffee-shop encounter in a company sweatshirt can turn into a real sales lead. Best of all, she insists none of it hinges on being employee-owned or having a big team: the lowest-cost, highest-impact first move is simply asking your people what they're excited about—and maybe handing out a free t-shirt. If you want practical, doable ways to boost morale, drive referrals, and market your brand at the same time, this one's a treat.
