Lee Frekeriksen of Hinge: How To Take Your Company From Good To Great

An Interview With Jerome Knyszewski

Think like a digital publisher. Today’s work-from-home environment has made traditional marketing techniques unfeasible, if not obsolete. Firms that generated 66% of their leads online grew twice as fast as those who generated only 33% or less. Push your prospects through the funnel with relevant digital content in the right format at the right time. There are few hard and fast rules as audiences vary in their learning styles and appetite for depth and detail. Some prefer podcasts to white papers. One of our clients posted a COVID-19 safety guide we helped them write. By including the right key words in the document, it was discovered by NPR and a high-profile client.

As part of my series about the “How To Take Your Company From Good To Great”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lee Frederiksen, an award-winning marketer, Visible Expert®, and renowned business strategist who helped pioneer the field of research-driven marketing. As the Managing Partner of Hinge, a marketing firm for the professional services industry, he draws on his Ph.D. in behavioral psychology and his entrepreneurial experience as CEO of 3 successful firms to help clients achieve high growth and profitability.

Lee’s breakthrough research on marketing and business growth has made him a recognized name in the marketing industry, and he has been quoted in a number of mainstream publications, including Fortune, The New York Times, USA Today,

The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Business 2.0, and Advertising Age, as well as numerous trade and professional journals. His research also forms the basis for

his numerous highly acclaimed books on the topics of organizational growth, marketing, and business strategy.

Lee regularly speaks at business and marketing events around the country, including Business Forums International, the American Marketing Association, the Interactive Marketing Association, and the Association of Accounting Marketing. When he’s not traveling to speaking engagements or working at the Hinge headquarters, you’ll find Lee at his home in McLean, Virginia, pursuing his interest in hot rods or watching movies with his wife, Candace.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Before entering industry, I was a research scientist, a tenured professor of behavioral psychology, and director of the departmental training clinic for doctoral students at Virginia Tech. My work caught the attention of Ernst & Young, where I later headed a regional management consulting practice that focused on issues related to strategy, human resources, and organizational development.

While at Ernst & Young, I met someone who was interested in my academic work on behavioral medicine. One conversation led to another, and we founded a venture-funded health products company that eventually won SBIR grants from the National Institutes of Health and patented behavioral change technology using some of the first pocket-sized, single-purpose computers. We sold more than one million units through direct-response TV and international distribution to companies that used the product in their smoking cessation programs.

I parlayed the hard-won lessons from our successful direct-response TV campaign into an electronics retailing firm and ad agency that, at first, specialized in direct-response TV but later diversified into media sales, international distribution and online retailing.

I’ve been helping companies of all sizes grow, rebrand, refocus, and launch new offerings ever since.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

Today, going from business to academia is a well-trodden career path. By comparison, the path from academia to business has less foot traffic. But in 1984, it was almost unheard of. When we formed the health products company, I was a research scientist by training. Never having started a company, I had to build up my business expertise while starting a business and managing its hyper-growth. That’s about as simple and easy as building a car while driving it.

In academia, your expertise is your brand. What I didn’t know was how important business expertise was in running a business. As naive as that sounds, sadly, it’s true. My academic background enabled me to understand the science behind our product, but not the science behind the business itself or the marketplace. We had a great product we believed in but no list of potential customers, which in our case were people trying to quit smoking. Every list that was generated would be purchased by tobacco companies. So we had to generate our own. That’s when we hit upon the idea of conducting an infomercial campaign, which in the early 80s were just a handful and none were high quality. We needed to produce quality infomercials that reflected our product and protected our reputations as behavioral scientists. With a lot of hard work on producing an ad that was educational, credible, and easy to digest, we were able to grow our run rate from less than $1M to $19M in just six months.

Through it all, we never considered giving up. We had no choice but to try something new in order to sell a product we believed in. As a result, we ended up pioneering a new method of inbound marketing.

Academics are inured to hard work and committed to a life of continuous learning. And when your work centers on scientific research, you must have a passion for experimentation. This is why we never quit and were open to taking calculated risks with infomercials, a format that had few, if any, experts back then.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

While none of the mistakes were funny at the time, my first consulting gig comes to mind. A colleague and I had been conducting research on fear and anxiety. We decided to deliver workshops based on our research to ski instructors in Aspen and Vail who wanted help with instilling caution in their students. Before the workshop, we anticipated participants to have a certain degree of skepticism about our research and pushback on our recommendations. We had assumed that instructors, with their mastery of the slopes, would be more cavalier than the average person about safety and risk. On the contrary, they turned out to be the most committed, detail-oriented workshop participants, shattering our earlier mental picture of ski instructors’ complacency. We would never underestimate our audience again. This experience underscored the importance of doing research on your target audience.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Our research-driven approach to marketing helps us stand out from the competition. Unfortunately, marketing agencies have developed a reputation for lacking rigor, unable to back recommendations with sound research data. Thousands of firms around the world make strategic decisions with the help of our research-based insights on shifting buyer behavior, the techniques and processes of high-growth firms, and practices that cultivate strong, enduring brands. With the business environment turned on its head and businesses leery of taking unnecessary risks, firms are looking for advisors they can trust — ie, those who understand and have the expertise to address their issues.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

First, embrace your lack of control. You’re not in control of a lot of things: the pandemic, the recession, the fact that your kids are attending school virtually, etc. And, that’s OK. Whatever control you thought you had was just an illusion anyway. You have two choices: pretend you’re in control or accept the reality that you aren’t.

Second, find out what you can control and spend time on that. Clean your closet, focus on a work priority, rearrange the garage, engage in self-improvement, start gardening, or play the guitar. Whatever it is, focus your energies on it.

Third, develop if-then plans. Rather than worrying something will happen, plan what you will do in the event that it does. We didn’t anticipate COVID. No one did. Nor did we know what would happen after it hit. We developed different scenarios and charted what courses we’d take in response. If A happens, we’ll implement B. If it doesn’t, relax.

Fourth, go back to embracing your lack of control.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Mrs. Johanssen was my favorite teacher in elementary school, one of those people who are naturally warm and encouraging. She taught you that you were worth something, that your ideas were important, and that you can do great things.

I remember one episode that changed my life. In fourth grade, I had to recite “The Night Before Christmas” at our holiday program we had at our little school. I was terrified that I would forget my lines. She told me that I would do a good job and that, even if I didn’t, it was OK. That understanding launched my career in public speaking.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. The title of this series is “How to take your company from good to great”. Let’s start with defining our terms. How would you define a “good” company, what does that look like? How would you define a “great” company, what does that look like?

We judge firms by their financial performance benchmarked against those of their peers. We define as great those firms that experienced 20% or greater compound annual growth in revenue over a three-year period while exceeding 25% gross profit. We call them High-Growth Firms, and they come in all sizes, from small to large. For some perspective, High-Growth Firms grew 3x as fast as their average peers and were 2x as likely to be highly profitable. On average, 90% of their growth stemmed from organic growth rather than M&A activity.

On our scale, average performing firms are good. Their profit figures ranged from 11–24% and their positive growth fell below 20%.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to lead a company from Good to Great? Please share a story or an example for each.

#1: Keep up with the changing needs of your target audiences. This means conducting research that goes beyond anecdotal evidence. Why is this important? First, the pandemic and its aftermath have just changed your buyers’ needs and behaviors. Second, firms that conduct market research at least once each quarter grow 2x as fast as those who don’t. Is it any surprise that those who know their audiences are better positioned to know where the gaps are and close them?

#2: Be where your prospects are looking — these days, mostly online. Firms with robust digital and content marketing programs grow faster and are more profitable. Our studies show they relied less on travel and in-person events before 2020 and have swiftly adapted to a largely virtual business environment since the shutdown. By leapfrogging competitors with digital marketing and business development techniques, they were able to spread valuable content online that caught the eye of buyers — within and outside their traditional geographies — who were searching online for answers to new problems.

#3: Think like a digital publisher. Today’s work-from-home environment has made traditional marketing techniques unfeasible, if not obsolete. Firms that generated 66% of their leads online grew twice as fast as those who generated only 33% or less. Push your prospects through the funnel with relevant digital content in the right format at the right time. There are few hard and fast rules as audiences vary in their learning styles and appetite for depth and detail. Some prefer podcasts to white papers. One of our clients posted a COVID-19 safety guide we helped them write. By including the right key words in the document, it was discovered by NPR and a high-profile client.

#4: Build a strong employer brand. Your corporate and employer brands are two sides of the same coin. Strong brands draw great talent, who in turn enable companies to deliver on their corporate brand promise. In a study we conducted during the pandemic, 57% of job seekers across career stages considered culture as important as pay when evaluating job offers. Similarly, cultural fit outweighed work experience among 75% of recruiters. The upshot is that culture matters on both sides of the employer-employee relationship. If you want to win business, you’ll need to attract and keep great talent. You can do this by cultivating the right culture.

#5: Make talent management a business development task. You need recognized talent with the right expertise to meet the moment. Today’s uncertain economy has engendered an atmosphere of low trust and high risk avoidance. Widely recognized experts who can flex their expertise and a track record of success on those issues across a range of formats and channels — blogs, podcasts, webinars, guest posts, etc. — are more likely to earn a wary buyer’s trust and in so doing their business.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. Can you help articulate for our readers a few reasons why a business should consider becoming a purpose driven business, or consider having a social impact angle?

Our research on employer branding shows that culture and purpose are priorities to job seekers across all career phases, especially in competitive markets. Organizations with a healthy culture and purpose can attract and retain key talent. They can also attract partners and resources that share the same overriding purpose.

What would you advise to a business leader who initially went through years of successive growth, but has now reached a standstill. From your experience do you have any general advice about how to boost growth and “restart their engines”?

I’ve had to manage through the same challenge, as have our clients. The root cause of such standstills is often being out of sync with your market. Maybe you don’t have the right products or the right promotions or the right delivery. You can break out of a slump by doing research on your audiences and competitors. What are your audiences most concerned about? And how are you better and different from your competitors?

Your growth can also stall because you simply lack the resources to continue growing. In professional services, this is often because you can’t recruit people fast enough to serve more clients.

Generating new business, increasing your profits, or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?

Having observed the economy cycle through peaks and troughs over the past few decades, I’ve seen businesses lose traction in difficult times once they lose confidence in their ability to grow. They start to view the failure of other businesses as portents of their own failure. Rather than address the issues, they are paralyzed by them. Once they’ve convinced themselves that there’s nothing they can do, they end up talking themselves out of even those activities that could save the business. The key here is to do the research and question the assumptions we make when we analyze the data. Otherwise, we allow our filters to distort our own data.

In your experience, which aspect of running a company tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?

How do you strike a balance between optimism and paranoia? You need a healthy level of both to run a company. Without it, people lose hope, trust, and confidence that they can get through hard times. On the other hand, they must keep a vigilant eye on what can go wrong so they can change course quickly if they have to.

Another delicate balance is that between making quick decisions and doing the research to make the right decision. One extreme can lead to rash decisions and the other, to analysis paralysis.

As you know, “conversion” means to convert a visit into a sale. In your experience what are the best strategies a business should use to increase conversion rates?

Behind every purchase is the intention to solve a problem. Getting prospects through the funnel is a process in building up their trust in your ability to help them. This is no more true than in professional services, where buyers look to sellers for answers and sellers educate in order to convert. Market research is a crucial first step to gaining mastery of your audience and your place in the sandbox. It helps you understand your target audiences’ challenges enough to speak to them directly, decide whether they’re worth solving, and choose the best approach for the situation.

Implementing a content marketing program is another important step. Every piece of content acquaints your audience with your expertise and draws them closer to conversion. By making this content not only educational but easy to access, you further cement their confidence in your ability and earn their good will.

Of course, the main way to increase conversion rates is to create a trusted and beloved brand. Can you share a few ways that a business can earn a reputation as a trusted and beloved brand?

In B2B marketing, especially professional services marketing, there are three dimensions to your brand’s strength: reputation, visibility, and relevance to your target audience. When you strengthen any or, more ideally, all three, you fortify your brand. There are five strategies to build up all three. First, develop and distribute online content that educates your audience on the most effective ways to solve their problems. If you write articles or produce videos that educate rather than promote, and share them online, your audiences will more easily find you and link your expertise to addressing their problems.

Second, raise the profile of your organization’s experts. Most companies have experts who remain largely unknown outside their client groups. If you showcase their expertise through insightful podcasts or articles, to name a few, you’ll build up their personal brands, which, in turn, will give your corporate brand a boost. In psychology circles, we call this the halo effect.

Third, partner with reputable brands that target similar audiences without offering competing services or products. In professional services, partnering with recognized, reputable industry or trade associations will bolster your credibility and visibility. In today’s low-trust unpredictable environment, a trusted third-party’s validation of your expertise will help you stand out from competitors.

Fourth, grow your presence in social media. Everyone is looking for what they need online. Our research shows that professional services buyers are using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, in this order, for business. Now that in-person events are on hold, you’ll want to increase your visibility online. Your website and these platforms are good channels for spreading your educational content.

Great customer service and great customer experience are essential to build a beloved brand and essential to be successful in general. In your experience what are a few of the most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience?

Any business leader should keep their finger on the pulse of their audiences’ pains and goals and how they work. Delighting customers starts with understanding their emotional and practical needs and what they’ll find remarkably helpful and unanticipated. Help them address consequential problems that seemed unsolvable or that were off their radar until you brought it up.

Find out what they are and watch them closely. Are they linked to speed, quality, variety, depth, or empathy. Chances are factors will shift.

What are your thoughts about how a company should be engaged on Social Media? For example, the advisory firm EisnerAmper conducted 6 yearly surveys of United States corporate boards, and directors reported that one of their most pressing concerns was reputational risk as a result of social media. Do you share this concern? We’d love to hear your thoughts about this.

You need social media to be visible. These platforms are great channels for spreading expert insights and ideas. But if you have an unhealthy organizational culture or disgruntled clients, social media will amplify a bad reputation. If you have anything to be ashamed of, you should be afraid. This is not an issue I’m concerned about. And you shouldn’t be if you lay the groundwork for good stakeholder management — whether that’s you managing the team or you and your team managing clients.

To minimize the risk of being called out by employees and clients, cultivate a healthy workplace culture and frequently communicate and share your insights with clients, respectively. The more relevant your expertise to the client’s business challenges, the more they’ll want you to communicate with them. Another risk mitigation strategy is to have a purpose, plan, and policies for your use of social media.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

What I find common is the copycat strategy. Founders build a business model based on competitors’ business models then charge less. They skip finding out what their target market needs and how they can fulfill those needs in better ways.

Another mistake, one that’s easy to make when you don’t research your target market, is to offer too much at the start rather than specialize. It undercuts your ability to differentiate your business and to deliver value effectively and efficiently.

Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

It would be a movement around spending more time listening and less expressing oneself. Don’t be afraid of silence.

How can our readers further follow you online?

Readers can follow me on @LeeFrederiksen and https://www.linkedin.com/in/leefrederiksen/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!

About the interviewer: Jerome Knyszewski (Kenchefski) is the CEO of HeavyShift. Jerome serves as an advisor to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies as well as entrepreneurs who disrupt their industries and therefore tend to be targets of malicious online attacks. His company builds, protects, and repairs the online presence & reputation of many celebrities, products and beloved brands.