Marketing With Purpose Kit: Bringing Purpose and Empathy into Marketing

**SPEAKER_1** (0:03)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Mike Liwski** (0:15)
Well, Martha was really serious about getting this going.

**Ash Maher** (0:19)
No, absolutely, she did.

**Mike Liwski** (0:22)
Well, welcome back to the Marketing With Purpose Kit. It's a series of The Bliss Business Podcast, as you may know.
Really in this series, what we're doing is exploring what it really takes for marketing leaders like our guest today to create impact that goes beyond the numbers. I'm Mike Liwski and in each episode, we sit down with CMOs to explore their leadership approach and the strategies that are driving performance but that more importantly, are really resonating with their audience. Together, we'll dive into what's working, what's not and how purpose and empathy really can transform the way that a brand connects with people. Let's just jump right in and get started. Today, I'm pleased to have back and be joined by a very close friend of the show, Ash Maher. He's the Chief Marketing Officer at Falcon Wealth Planning. Ash brings a lot of really deep expertise in digital marketing, strategic growth, as well as client engagement. We'll definitely really want to hear his insights. He's demonstrated a track record of managing and optimizing ad budgets north of a million dollars annually while delivering outstanding ROI, which is key to be able to run budgets like that. Ash also blends technical mastery with empathy-driven innovation, including GENAI to enhance the productivity and the revenue of his campaigns. And then as well at Falcon Wealth, Ash's focused on scaling the brand's influence and growth with the goal of really surpassing a billion dollars in assets under management. So today, what we're really going to do is we're going to explore bringing purpose and empathy into marketing. And I'm genuinely excited really to have Ash back on the show and to dive in. So, Ash, welcome to the show.

**Ash Maher** (2:21)
Thank you. This is exciting stuff.

**Mike Liwski** (2:24)
It is, man. It is. So we'll jump right in. Before I guess we get to all the other topics that we want to talk about today, it's important. I'd love to hear why was the key point of bringing purpose and empathy into marketing, the topic that you chose really to explore with us today? And what makes it really important in today's day and age?

**Ash Maher** (2:47)
Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, first off, the reality is that, and I'm sure you can look at the statistics, about 60 to 70% of employees across the country are disengaged in the workplace. And a lot of times it's because of practices done in businesses that they're not even aware of, right? They're focused on growth, focused on moving fast and getting those numbers the way they're supposed to. And a lot of times people who feel they're being treated like a number end up not performing as well as they potentially can.
What I'm finding today is that everybody is being led or compelled through some type of hero's journey that they're called on. And if you don't allow that person to come into an environment and be acknowledged for the contributions they could have to the space, then technically then you get a bunch of order or order takers that a lot of times will end up being disengaged in the workplace and not getting the things that we need done. It kills innovation, it kills the ability to push the needle forward, as a collaborative unit. So for me, empathy was a big one, because a lot of times up to this point, especially in the financial industry, it's known notoriously for individuals being treated like a number, being treated not well, pretty much being used and abused until they have nothing left to give. And I wanted to come in and change that. And we found that in my first day at work at Falcon, I said, hey, you guys are going to get the best lead gen possible. But that's not going to be my big act. My big act is going to be creating an environment where people will genuinely enjoy working here. And ultimately, we did run into some hiccups along the road of mentalities from the top and the mentalities from middle management and so on and so forth. But choosing to stay true to your values and say, hey, no, the data speaks for itself. People who are engaged that have a purpose that they're following, knowing that their leaders empathize towards their situations and works within their situations, typically the numbers have spoken for themselves. The results have been uncanny. The awards we've got have been uncanny. But then I also saw the opposite effect of actually following a principle where I had to be tough on people unnecessarily, and I saw the result of that, which was not great. So really seeing the success of having people excited to be at work, knowing that they're valued at what they do, their contributions are valued, that they have ownership in what they're doing, and they're held to a level of autonomy, just coming together that responsibility that they have towards what they own has led to incredible results as we've seen Falcon grow. And just so you know, we completely passed the 1 billion mark. We're now at 1.4 billion, and we continue to keep growing.