#103 - Reversing a 40% Enrollment Drop at Montana University
Featuring Jenny Petty and Stephanie Geyer
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SHOW NOTES
In this episode, Jenny Petty and Stephanie Geyer talk about their experiences in higher education marketing, focusing on their collaborative efforts at the University of Montana. They discuss the challenges of enrollment decline, the importance of storytelling, and the revitalization of campus traditions. The conversation also touches on the significance of indigenous representation and the future of marketing strategies in higher education.
Takeaways
The importance of mentorship in career development.
Building a modern marketing team requires collaboration and innovation.
Revitalizing campus traditions can enhance community engagement.
Storytelling is a powerful tool in higher education marketing.
Indigenous representation is crucial for fostering belonging.
Enrollment strategies must adapt to changing demographics.
Creating a brand identity requires input from the entire campus community.
Digital marketing strategies are essential for modern enrollment efforts.
Emphasizing retention is as important as recruitment.
Continuous learning and adaptation are key in higher education marketing.
Links:
Jenny’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennydurnanpetty/
Stephanie’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-geyer-553a862/
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(Done with AI so only about 95% accurate)
00:00:00:11 - 00:00:38:22
John Azoni
Well, hey, folks, today we've got a special two for one deal. Jenny Petty and Stephanie Guyer from University of Montana. Stephanie is the AVP for marketing and brand strategy. And Jenny. By the time this comes out, we'll have transition out of her role as vice president for marketing communications experience and engagement. And she announced this on LinkedIn. What's recent at the time that we're recording with a great post of these big things that their team has accomplished over the years, from reversing a decades long enrollment decline to telling powerful stories and elevating university Montana's voice in national conversations.
00:00:38:22 - 00:01:10:10
John Azoni
And I thought it would be a great opportunity to unpack these highlights and learn from Jenny and Stephanie's leadership, as well as the challenges that they came across in the process of doing big things. So I'm going to read Jenny's post here real quick, just so you know what we're talking about. So here's her post says, Just like Taylor Swift's I'm stepping into a new era after almost five transformative years at the University of Montana, I will be transitioning out of my role as vice president for marketing, communications, experience and engagement at the beginning of December.
00:01:10:21 - 00:02:00:16
John Azoni
Leading this incredible team has been one of the greatest privileges of my career. Together, we've reversed a decade long enrollment decline with five straight years of growth built and launched the Montana Make Montana making brand platform reimagined. How we approach and modernized enrollment marketing elevated U-M's voice in national conversations about higher ed research and the incredible work happening on our campus, told the courageous, creative and collective stories of this community revitalized old and created new traditions that have contributed to a campus culture of vibrancy and belonging, produced cross-sector licensing programs that celebrated in Montana's indigenous communities, paid homage to grizzly history and tied product back to story expanding reach and revenue along the way and
00:02:00:22 - 00:02:26:01
John Azoni
established a modern digital ecosystem that better serves prospective students, current students, alumni and partners. This work has stretched me, challenged me, and reminded me why I believe so deeply in the power of higher education to change lives, families, communities and the world. And then she goes on to say that she'll be entering into a new role, but will stop there and get into the episode for now.
00:02:26:01 - 00:02:37:17
John Azoni
And I'm excited to unpack these different accomplishments. Okay, So here's my conversation with Jenny Petty and Stephanie Geier. All right. Well, Jenny and Stephanie, welcome to the show.
00:02:38:17 - 00:02:39:17
Stephanie Geyer
Thanks for having me. Thanks.
00:02:40:16 - 00:03:03:03
John Azoni
Absolutely. So I invited you both on the show here after seeing this post of Jenny's. And I really like episodes that are punctuated with like layers that, you know, they have some some depth and have several, you know, subtopics. Anytime I see a good bulleted, you know, LinkedIn post, my eyes are like, Yep. All right. So I thought this was make for a great episode.
00:03:03:11 - 00:03:27:00
John Azoni
Excited to unpack, you know, these accomplishments that you guys have made together for our audience to get an inside look at, you know, a university brand from from a high level and tackling some pretty big goals. So great to have you here. I'd like to start off on a non-hybrid note. So I've been asking people lately, what's something that you've been nerding out about or that you're just like really into personally or professionally?
00:03:27:23 - 00:04:00:04
Stephanie Geyer
Yeah, I, I'm way because of the season that we're in right now. I'm way into repurposing and secondhand stuff and putting stuff out through poshmark and other channels just to not be such a giant consumer of new things, but to reimagine things. So I've been working on using some fabric that I died in an art class in 1995 or six.
00:04:00:16 - 00:04:28:15
Stephanie Geyer
It's called chivalry, and it's the ancient Japanese art of that was the precursor to tie dye. So it's all indigo dye on white fabric. And I was going through my extensive collection of craft supplies and so materials and I found some. And so now everything that I am making for people for the holidays is including stuff that I died in a previous century.
00:04:29:19 - 00:04:51:00
John Azoni
That's awesome. I very much appreciate the, you know, leaning away from consumerism, like when I and somebody like, go straighten up my house, I just have this attitude of like, there's just too much stuff. Like, it's just like some kids toys and, like, just random stuff. I'm like. I love just taking a trash bag and going through the house and just getting rid of stuff.
00:04:51:16 - 00:05:14:01
Stephanie Geyer
Yeah, Yeah, for sure. But I think the next step is to like, not just throw it all away, but to find people that could use it or swap it for something else or turn it into something else is what I'm trying to move at. I when my kids were little, I just sent everything to the Goodwill and I don't know if that's always the very best way that we can go.
00:05:14:09 - 00:05:16:05
John Azoni
Yeah. Jenny, what about you?
00:05:16:23 - 00:05:37:16
Jenny Petty
So I'm a huge bookworm. Most people who know me well know that I think that's my love. Language, bookstores, libraries. Just. I love reading. I always have. And my my oldest child, my son Henry, is reading The Count of Monte Cristo in his freshman high school English class. And that's one I've never read before. So I'm reading it.
00:05:37:23 - 00:05:55:09
Jenny Petty
And then my daughter, who's in sixth grade, is also going to start reading it. And I'm one of those people that I start to rabbit hole a little bit with a tiny bit of information. So I've gone down a very long rabbit hole about Alexander. I don't know how you say it in French. I took French and I can't even Alexandra.
00:05:55:20 - 00:06:18:13
Jenny Petty
Alexandre Dumas, the author. And you know just the history there is really fascinating of the way that he is kind of a pop novelist. But was writing about some really serious things that have now had legs for for a really long time. And it always makes me think about creativity and creating just for the joy of creating rather than for with a purpose in mind.
00:06:18:13 - 00:06:31:07
Jenny Petty
And I think the reason why his books have lived on is because they were great back then and they're still really great. So yeah, stay tuned for my dissertation on this. I'm not sure I have a month off, which is really dangerous.
00:06:31:07 - 00:06:31:21
Stephanie Geyer
John So.
00:06:32:10 - 00:06:51:03
John Azoni
Oh, that's what I do. Christmas between Christmas and you, I take I take a couple of weeks off and I just read a bunch of stuff like just all the books that I, and it's usually like work related stuff. It's usually like, I love reading marketing books and storytelling books and just things about how to run a business better and create better content.
00:06:51:03 - 00:06:58:09
John Azoni
I mean, it's just that's just the stuff that I love. I love doing and I love I love a good Barnes and Noble. Do you guys have a Barnes Noble by you?
00:06:58:15 - 00:07:18:21
Jenny Petty
Yes. I mean, I'll do any bookstore, though. I just love I love them all. The funny thing is, I had a copy of the county Montecristo, that I had owned for a long time, and it's over 1200 pages. And I was asking my son, I was like, his teacher sent out this very serious note about keeping them on the reading schedule, and he was like, Mom, we're reading the abridged version.
00:07:18:21 - 00:07:23:16
Jenny Petty
It's like 450 pages. So I'm like, Oh, okay, well.
00:07:23:16 - 00:07:24:07
Stephanie Geyer
I'll try to.
00:07:25:07 - 00:07:28:07
Jenny Petty
Fill you in on all the parts that you didn't have in yours.
00:07:29:13 - 00:07:59:18
Stephanie Geyer
So just to say, I count on Jennie to tell me what I should be reading next, because she does the legwork and I'm grateful for it. And I actually have it's not a first edition, but a really old copy of I think it's three volumes of that book from my grandparents. But I'm of a certain age where I have the attention span of a gnat and I would rather listen to books and do something else and multitask.
00:07:59:18 - 00:08:04:08
Stephanie Geyer
So I'm looking up to see a Spotify has it for me yet. Well, the.
00:08:04:08 - 00:08:24:13
Jenny Petty
Funny thing is that that movie sorry, we're down another rabbit hole. That movie is one of my favorite movies and it's so cheesy now that you watch it because I don't know when it was made, but it has Jim Caviezel in it and like, the special effects are horrible, but I just love the story so much anyway. Tangent John, we should probably talk about marketing and the University of Montana.
00:08:25:05 - 00:08:33:07
John Azoni
I love it. I love a good tangent. So how do you guys know each other? Explain. You know, I know there's like a mentoring relationship and then you guys work together. So.
00:08:33:17 - 00:08:46:09
Jenny Petty
Yeah. So I was at the Grinnell Conference in I don't know what year it was. It was 2016. Where do you remember? I had a where where I was in Denver. It was in Denver.
00:08:46:18 - 00:08:53:09
Stephanie Geyer
It was in Denver, Yeah, definitely before 17, maybe even as early as 14 or 15. Yeah.
00:08:53:21 - 00:09:19:00
Jenny Petty
So I hadn't been in higher ed that long and I was just I had come from the private sector and in particular a really large Fortune 500 gaming company and I was really struggling with the transition from private to public, well, from private sector to public higher education. And I ended up meeting a guy named Matt Hertzberg or at the conference, I went to one of his sessions and afterwards I went up to him and I was just like, I'm having such a hard time.
00:09:19:00 - 00:09:48:03
Jenny Petty
I don't understand. Like, I come from this world of doing lead generation. Nobody understands lead generation. And he's like, You've got to talk to Stephanie Guyer. And so I ended up because Stephanie lives in Colorado and I was in Laramie, Wyoming at the time, ended up driving down, bringing my whole herd of children. I have three kids and we were doing school shopping and ended up meeting Stephanie for a lunch and just finally meeting someone in higher ed who got me and was like, You're asking the right questions, you're not crazy.
00:09:48:16 - 00:10:24:17
Jenny Petty
And from there on out, we did have a mentoring relationship and then we worked together professionally in Stephanie's role as a consultant with our channel and just had a great I mean, we hit it off right away, had a great relationship. And then, you know, fast forward to 2021 and I got this job at Montana and I had been in the role probably about six weeks, and I was so overwhelmed with what was in front of me to give you kind of a picture of there's Montana's got so many strains and such great vibes and it's just a really special place.
00:10:24:17 - 00:10:43:23
Jenny Petty
But the marketing department had really been neglected for a long time and so and I had also been, you know, a victim to budget cuts and some of that stuff that happens in on our campuses. And so I walked in and it was like, okay, we have an immediate enrollment need that has to be fixed. We have to build this team.
00:10:43:23 - 00:10:55:14
Jenny Petty
The digital stuff is just a disaster. And there was just this day where I was staring it down and ended up calling Stephanie and saying like, What are you doing right now?
00:10:55:14 - 00:10:57:18
John Azoni
You know, I just like fix enrollment real quick or.
00:10:59:16 - 00:11:01:22
Jenny Petty
Stephanie, tell him what about and then what happened.
00:11:02:19 - 00:11:38:10
Stephanie Geyer
And what happened. So a little backstory. As the pandemic was winding up in 2020, I was one of the many folks that was exited from Cornell, and that ended up being a really, really great opportunity for me at a time when it was awesome to be able to just work from home. And so I went from there to an interim CMO gig with Modern Campus, and Jenny called me the day after I had wrapped that project up, which allowed me the opportunity to help rebrand modern campus.
00:11:38:10 - 00:12:05:23
Stephanie Geyer
As we know it now from this really clunky omni update plus Destiny Solutions thing that the company had named it. And so I was sitting in my little rental office because still pandemic and still three kids and my husband at home. And that mess necessitated a rental office and got Jenny's call just as I was sitting there on April 1st and it was April Fool's Day.
00:12:05:23 - 00:12:37:19
Stephanie Geyer
So I was like, Huh, Yes, real and thinking, what's next? And so when I left Arnell, I had thought, Well, I'm going to start my own shingle and maybe a podcast. Oh, that's original, right? And then I got swept up into the modern campus gig and that was terrific fun. Loved it. And so I was back to, Oh, okay, maybe I should get the LLC going again and how do I make a podcast and what do I have to say on the phone right?
00:12:37:19 - 00:13:10:11
Stephanie Geyer
And it was so intriguing to think about going to work on a single campus again after 23 and a half years with Grinnell. That started after six months or a six year stint at Wilkes University, small private in northeastern Pennsylvania. So in the intermediate time, I worked on more than 600 campuses around the world and thought, oh, one campus, how hard can that be?
00:13:10:13 - 00:13:11:13
John Azoni
Famous last words.
00:13:12:02 - 00:13:13:14
Stephanie Geyer
Socially, Socially. Yeah.
00:13:13:14 - 00:13:25:08
Jenny Petty
So that that's good to say. At the time she said to me, John, I'll give you six months and I was like, I will take whatever I can get, just come help me. And here we are five years later.
00:13:26:05 - 00:13:59:04
Stephanie Geyer
Yeah, yeah. Closing in on five. And I am so grateful that Jenny thought to call me. I'm so grateful that I have the ability to say yes and the presence of mind. I think like 5 minutes after I had campus to know that I had found a really good, a really good gig. And it's just been and continues to be delightful, challenging, mystifying in moments.
00:13:59:04 - 00:14:03:17
Stephanie Geyer
Productive, successful. Yeah. All the things I'm really happy.
00:14:04:11 - 00:14:14:02
John Azoni
So beyond the two of you, what was what's the greater team like? Like what kind of resources were you working with before we get into unpacking, you know, the accomplishments that you guys made?
00:14:14:15 - 00:14:36:12
Jenny Petty
So I walked into a team that had, I think about 11 or 12 people on it, and it was split at the time between like marketing and communications. But I would say marketing was this very, very sliver kind of of solely focused on promotion in kind of maybe some of the simplest ways. And so there was just a lot of work there to build that out into a modern shop.
00:14:37:01 - 00:15:00:21
Jenny Petty
At the same time, our counterpart on comms, Dave Koonce, who's the senior director of strategic communications, was morphing the comms shop. He got there about six months before I did from a traditional university relations function of just sending out press releases and doing that into a storytelling unit. And so that was a really nice time to translate. But we didn't have a digital team.
00:15:01:03 - 00:15:20:07
Jenny Petty
We had no social media, formal social media management, enrollment marketing was being done kind of all over the place. We had a trademark and licensing function that was keeping the lights on and doing a good job but needed to be plugged into the greater strategy. I mean, it was really a kind of a complete rebuild into a modern team structure.
00:15:21:12 - 00:15:35:03
John Azoni
So let's just go point by point. So reverse a decade long enrollment decline with five straight years of growth. So tell me about that decline. Let's zero in on enrollment and what does that take to turn that around?
00:15:35:22 - 00:16:10:13
Jenny Petty
So between 2011 and 2019, the University of Montana was the flagship in the United States that had the largest decline of traditional students, and it dropped 40% between that time, which is pretty startling. And when when I walked in, when Stephanie walked in, it was very clear that there was some low hanging fruit work to be done. I mean, as things as simple as cleaning up comms flows, cleaning up current student communication in a way that made it warm and welcoming rather than, you know, you owe us money, why aren't you paying your bill?
00:16:12:02 - 00:16:32:18
Jenny Petty
It was things like looking at our digital footprint and saying, Wow, we've got to rebuild our entire analytics engine that Stephanie took on because even that wasn't up to standard and it was broken. And so Stephanie and I, you know, one of the first things we did was focus on the digital what we ended up calling the digital ecosystem of, okay, we're going to go web first with this.
00:16:32:18 - 00:16:54:17
Jenny Petty
We're going to really use these properties. And we found out that we had been grandfathered in and that the University of Montana actually owned two dot edu domains. And when Stephanie and I found that out at a meeting, it was like there was a lightning bolt between us and we were like, okay, we're going to take one of those and we're going to build an admissions only site where we get the dot, the regular dot edu up to snuff.
00:16:54:17 - 00:17:16:04
Jenny Petty
And so that was one of our first big initiatives. But I would say, you know, it was an all hands on deck thing. Our whole Marcum team were up to 37, 38 people. Now is has some sort of role in enrollment. It's not just the enrollment marketing team. So it was bringing everyone in like content creators. How are we going to repurpose this content to use an enrollment comms?
00:17:16:15 - 00:17:42:13
Jenny Petty
It's our creative team of like, okay, you're cutting a video. How can you cut it to also have the admissions team use it? It's building a really deep partnership with our comrades over in enrollment. And I say partnership. You know, those relationships can be so tricky, but we are so ridiculously lucky to work with a student success team that includes, you know, current student in a retention focus and also enrollment of prospective students.
00:17:42:13 - 00:18:05:18
Jenny Petty
So it was a lot of hard work like it sound, you know, five years of success. I love when people present at conferences and you feel like, Oh yeah, they just did it. And it was so easy. It was really hard. It was really hard. Like we yeah, we're like up to our eyeballs in enrollment marketing for a long time, but just trying every year to just get a little bit better or get a little bit more sophisticated.
00:18:06:07 - 00:18:08:04
Jenny Petty
And we've seen that pay off in our enrollment.
00:18:08:20 - 00:18:31:13
Stephanie Geyer
Yeah, I'll just pile on and say that. I think one of the things that made it possible was that the core team that we had by and large looked at what Jenny was laying down and what I was suggesting we might try and they said, Yeah, let's try that, let's do something new, something different. And they were really open to and willing to learn.
00:18:31:13 - 00:18:55:23
Stephanie Geyer
And now I have the experience of having writers on our team asking me about the conversion percentages on a certain population in our undergrad enrollment funnel. And I could weep with joy because they didn't always know to ask that question or to care about or understand how to work differently based on the results or the answer.
00:18:56:17 - 00:19:20:10
John Azoni
Yeah, wow, that's amazing work because and I imagine coming into that and just stuff's probably all over the place comes, flows and language, this and that. And you know I think that sounds like a lot of, of work. So kudos to you for cleaning it up and finding an avenue to what what was the did you have to rebuild the admissions site from scratch or you built it from scratch?
00:19:21:01 - 00:19:59:10
Stephanie Geyer
We did. We used the CMS for modern campus. You'll remember I mentioned that company previously. I suggested strongly and then stepped away from the process that the institution consider that CMS, because of the advanced personalization functionality that they were offering and the roadmap that I knew from my time on the C-suite there. So we used modern campus and still have it in place to help us use primarily geo location to articulate different positioning things and content strategy.
00:20:00:00 - 00:20:22:03
Stephanie Geyer
If you're in Montana, chances are you know a little something about the University of Montana, and if you're in Missoula County or any of the five or six surrounding counties, you may have feelings about what it's like to go to a big school in your backyard. And those feelings aren't always positive. Right? You know, 16 year olds want to bust out.
00:20:22:03 - 00:20:47:22
Stephanie Geyer
They want to do something different. They want to get out of Dodge. And so the website, the admissions microsite allowed us to speak with them differentially and deferentially also to say, Hey, you, you really should come here. It's a terrific deal financially, but you probably don't know all the ways that University of Montana education can get you out of Montana, if that's what your heart desires.
00:20:48:08 - 00:21:13:19
Stephanie Geyer
And then, you know, things like Yellowstone and COVID put an emphasis on Montana in ways that maybe weren't exactly accurate or useful for our positioning and and goals. And so having the chance to say, oh, hey, you're not from here. Let us tell you what it's really like. And, you know, I hope you got a pair of waders and the life jacket and maybe some ski pants, because you're going to need.
00:21:15:05 - 00:21:18:11
John Azoni
You didn't think Kevin Costner is the best mascot for you guys?
00:21:20:01 - 00:21:26:12
Jenny Petty
We definitely don't rope grizzlies. We can tell you that for sure. Or fly fish from horseback. So.
00:21:27:02 - 00:21:35:21
Stephanie Geyer
Yeah. And taking someone to the train station is just a really ridiculously long drive. So no guts. Not what we do. Okay.
00:21:36:09 - 00:21:49:10
John Azoni
Well, good to know. Okay, so you built and launched Montana making brand platform. So tell me about that. What was it what were the problems that this new brand platform was attempting to solve?
00:21:50:05 - 00:22:11:12
Jenny Petty
So I really think of your brand platform as the foundation that everything else has to be built off of. And what was clear at Montana when I got there was that the the brand itself had been neglected. So we hadn't really updated the way nobody was really clear on. Okay, when we're talking about the university, what do we say?
00:22:11:12 - 00:22:25:19
Jenny Petty
Like everybody would just kind of default to like we're in Montana and it's beautiful. It's like, Yes. And every other flagship in the West is absolutely gorgeous. Like, that's not a differentiator. Yes. Montana has a beautifully special place, but it is.
00:22:25:23 - 00:22:27:23
John Azoni
I bet it was great.
00:22:28:17 - 00:22:47:21
Jenny Petty
Yeah, it's stupid pretty. When I first moved here, I'd be like, there's a mountain on campus. Like it would just blow me away every single time I walk past it. But that's not necessarily something you can hang your hat on for an entire enrollment marketing strategy. And so we looked at, you know, the work that Hibbett done in the past.
00:22:47:21 - 00:23:09:06
Jenny Petty
And I think, you know, the other part of branding is like the brand doesn't belong just to the marketing team. The brand belongs to everyone at the university. And it had never been built intentionally around, you know, feedback from campus. There was kind of taglines that that had been thrown out, campaigns that have been put together, but there wasn't that coalition building around the brand.
00:23:09:06 - 00:23:27:20
Jenny Petty
And so when we did, the Montana made Montana making work with Simpson. Scarborough We were really focused on doing it quickly because we were under a lot of time, you know, pressure with enrollment. I went to the president and said, I need to do this. I need to do this project and I need money and I need time.
00:23:27:20 - 00:23:36:12
Jenny Petty
And he said, Well, how much time? And I said, a year to 18 months. And he said, Can you do it in five months? And we did it in nine. We did it in nine months.
00:23:36:19 - 00:23:37:04
Stephanie Geyer
All right.
00:23:37:16 - 00:23:58:10
Jenny Petty
Still the fastest branding campaign I've ever worked on, but I think it actually helped us. There was an urgency that helped campus move really quickly. We made decisions. We still did a lot of great research, but it was finally work that really made campus feel, seen in it. And I think, you know, Terry Flannery writes in How to Market a university about the brand being a bridge and a mirror.
00:23:58:10 - 00:24:18:05
Jenny Petty
And I think that's exactly what we tried to do with our branding, was to make it both aspirational, but then also to really pull on the strings and the threads that make Montana so unique. And we did that and we also pushed to the limits. So we used really language that was much more of talking to a student than talking at a student.
00:24:18:05 - 00:24:40:23
Jenny Petty
In the beginning, we had a complimentary color palette that blew some people's skirts up. You know, we just we did really go a little bit. We took some risks with it and it paid off. And it's been really fun and it's really was cool to see. We launched it in April of 2022. And, you know, you never know how those things are going to go when you launch it to a community.
00:24:40:23 - 00:24:57:07
Jenny Petty
And we did a big brand camp with a bunch of people across campus. And what blew me away was the immediate demand for it. I mean, we couldn't we I thought we would have a little time of having to continue to roadshow and know people were so excited. The next day they were trying to order swag, asking for the color palette.
00:24:57:07 - 00:25:13:00
Jenny Petty
You know, it was just they were hungry for it and excited about it. And so I'll say my favorite part of the campaign is that the brand personality really leans into the characteristics of the grizzly bear. So it's things like playful and formidable stuff. And he helped me out.
00:25:13:12 - 00:25:14:22
Stephanie Geyer
You know, wise.
00:25:15:04 - 00:25:16:00
Jenny Petty
Wise, I'm straight.
00:25:16:05 - 00:25:47:18
Stephanie Geyer
And still curious. I love that juxtaposition. I'm remembering to when we launched the brand, the the room was packed and there was so much excitement and so much energy, and it was all like, Yes, let's go. And the power of that experience came back to me just about six months ago. I got to meet somebody from our legal team and she said, Oh, I know you, but you don't know me.
00:25:47:18 - 00:26:18:03
Stephanie Geyer
I'm like, Well, how do you know me if we haven't met before? She said, Well, I remember you on stage presenting the initial website that we put out for the campaign and, you know, she recited a few things that I said and I was like, Wow, this was years ago. And it was just the kind of fire and the kind of magic that campus needed to feel comfortable and confident that we were going to do some things really differently.
00:26:18:12 - 00:26:54:08
Stephanie Geyer
And that it would be okay. And then everybody, as Jenny said, was like, Well, how do I do it? And that has provided a really, really essential piece of staff engagement that I'm so proud of that we continue today, which is our team, even though Jenny talks about it really big, grows from 11 or 12 to 37. We also have taken on a couple of different sectors and lots of other projects, but we still don't have enough bodies to redevelop a website for an entire college all on our own.
00:26:54:08 - 00:27:40:15
Stephanie Geyer
We need assistance. And so we developed a coaching program and I guess it's because, you know, I'm a carpenter who knows how to hammer with a nail. So I turn to a lot of my team into coaches who are consultants. And so while we could go and say, Hey, here are some brand guidelines, we couldn't execute for them, but we could coach them and we could teach them some basics of like information architecture and website development and message scaffolding and timing and understanding about market segments and why they matter and why you need to not make a one size fits all message when you can do segmentation or how to make a social media account
00:27:40:22 - 00:27:57:00
Stephanie Geyer
stay alive, even if you're just one person and kind of only post a few times a week or less. So that has been, I think, an ongoing bit of joy around the investment that the university made in that brand.
00:27:57:00 - 00:28:16:23
John Azoni
That's a lot. I mean, that's a lot to communicate to so many people and so many departments. And I mean, even just even just, you know, cherry picking what you said about how do you keep social media active with, you know, one or a few people. I mean, that's something that's I mean, that's a whole pillar of what we talk about on this podcast.
00:28:16:23 - 00:28:48:08
John Azoni
I mean, it could be its own podcast, you know. Yeah. I mean, that alone is is hard for for people to wrap their minds around, you know, how to how to repurpose and how to build systems that, you know, build consistency. What was the hardest part of all that Just the whole the whole process of maybe like boiling University of Montana down to a set of language or maybe disagreements about what that language should be or, you know, what, in that whole branding process, what was hard about that?
00:28:49:00 - 00:29:20:14
Jenny Petty
I actually think the hardest part was overcoming some of the institutional trauma that the institution has. I mean, every big institution, every small institution has issues. I think Montana just got hammered with a bunch kind of back to back. And it really affected morale. It really people had fatigue when it came to consultants coming in. So that was one of the biggest things was overcoming this idea that, yeah, we're going to work with an agency, but it's not going to be the way that you've done it before.
00:29:20:14 - 00:29:51:08
Jenny Petty
And I'm going to show you how the right way to do this is. And I think using it as a moment of institutional transformation was something that now I look back, I don't know if we were doing it intentionally, but it was something that happened through this process. And, you know, there was a moment at Brand Camp when we kicked off Brand Camp where I asked everyone we had flower pots on every table that had dirt in it, and we bought seed paper and we asked everyone in the room to write down one thing they had to let go of to move forward.
00:29:51:08 - 00:30:14:15
Jenny Petty
And then they planted that in the planter. And then in the spring we had flowers blooming from those pots. But there was this moment of like, if we're going to do this, we can't have acid and people need to be invested and they need to have hope again. And so I think that was the emotional labor behind the scenes that nobody really ever talks about with brand projects, but just getting overcoming people's concerns and fears.
00:30:14:15 - 00:30:38:04
Jenny Petty
I mean, once they saw the creative, which was pretty wild the first time they saw it, they panicked because I did the same thing. I thought, this is never going to fly. But then you start to see it and you're like, Oh, this is us. Like this. There's something here that feels really special. And so it was just walking that road of, you know, people's fears and anxieties and past issues that they might have had through this stuff and still making it happen anyway.
00:30:38:17 - 00:30:59:16
John Azoni
That's amazing. That's a lot to shoulder, especially when you have the fatigue of things that have been done before and the trauma, as you know, as you said, which is it? Very I mean, my wife is a trauma therapist, so I very much see that as yeah, that's trauma. You know, when when something is going to trigger you and just trigger these negative emotions.
00:30:59:16 - 00:31:15:11
John Azoni
So I wanted to I wanted to ask the next thing in your post was re-imagined how we approach and modernized enrollment marketing. So what did that end up looking like? Was that the microsite that we talked about, or is that something additional or different?
00:31:16:00 - 00:31:31:06
Jenny Petty
I think it's more of a philosophy at all that Stephanie really talk more about this. But I mean, we've had a grip it and rip it kind of we're we're like, we're not just catching up. Like we're going to leapfrog. And so we have we've done some really cool stuff. You know, Stephanie will share some of the things that we've tried.
00:31:31:22 - 00:32:02:08
Stephanie Geyer
Yeah, there are a lot and there are more coming and some in process that will be around out in the world soon. I think that one of the management ethos that we share is be really fearless about trying your very best hunch and find partners who have the same vision and are willing to go go hard and try something that might not work in.
00:32:02:08 - 00:32:35:09
Stephanie Geyer
Not everything we've tried has, you know, been as successful as we had hoped. But from each when, and especially from each failure, we've been able to learn and grow. I think the foundational components coming into view around analytics and just making sure that everyone on the marketing team understood the fundamentals of recruitment, marketing and why it was important that we cared about in-state versus out-of-state Western undergraduate exchange versus other out-of-state.
00:32:36:01 - 00:33:04:18
Stephanie Geyer
Why We have to have different messages from the same family to talk about those different marketplaces as we're trying to bring people in. And then I think another another ethos that helped us is managing vendors really intentionally. And that's something that in my consulting years I saw a lot of opportunity and a lot of bad examples where somebody would purchase something.
00:33:04:18 - 00:33:51:16
Stephanie Geyer
Sometimes it would be a president or cabinet member would purchase something and then hand it to the mid-level team and say, Hey, here, here's the thing, I bought it, go figure it out. And the alignment between what they purchased and what the institution needed is sometimes a little way off or a little off. On the other hand, having the team work with us to get excited about new vendors, trying new things that really wanted to experiment with us and getting their buy in as we were going through purchasing and getting things going from the get go and having really intense, honest, meaningful relationships with the vendor through planning and development has gotten us so much
00:33:51:16 - 00:34:22:09
Stephanie Geyer
further than I've seen Many of my former clients go where, you know, they were kind of half in, half out because they didn't know that they really wanted this or they really wanted that budget to go to another staff member, not a high paying consultant in fancy shoes show up on their campus once a month. So using that experience on the vendor side, I've really been happy to see my team make my vendor partners work really hard to find new ways to keep us happy.
00:34:22:09 - 00:34:38:01
Stephanie Geyer
And it continues on a daily basis. Just had a meeting with another one and they were eager to say, Hey, we thought of you when we spun this up. Would you like to try it? Would you like to try it for free? Oh, yeah, sure. What have we? Well.
00:34:38:15 - 00:35:07:06
Jenny Petty
I think a couple of the things, you know, we've thought about the digital ecosystem as more than just website, right? So we've reimagined our social media strategy where our social media manager, Emma Dorman, who's just absolutely amazing, has really given our social accounts a personality that matches the brand. But it's it's not just your standard higher ed account where it's pretty picture of campus with a nice caption, which she really has thought intentionally about it.
00:35:07:06 - 00:35:29:05
Jenny Petty
I think also we've had some really great early success with, you know, some AI tools. We're big fans of college Vine and held, though they have just been amazing partners to us and so that was another area of just jumping in and trying some new tools, being early adopters too. I mean, we were probably one of the first universities in the country to have an AI recruiter and just continuing to try.
00:35:29:05 - 00:35:47:20
Jenny Petty
I think it's an arms race right now in enrollment marketing to see what the next generation of tools and what's going to work really well. And we've been lucky to experiment and try that. I also want to say we were really lucky to also be able to experiment in adding a new position on our team with the title of brand experience Manager.
00:35:47:20 - 00:36:09:19
Jenny Petty
And that woman is Karen Slater and she is a powerhouse of all sorts of things and I would really describe her as a catalyst. But that piece is one of those harder to measure. It's very much qualitative kind of data that we have around it. But Karen's whole role is to help students, either whether they're prospective or current, to find a place as a belonging and community on our campus.
00:36:09:19 - 00:36:23:14
Jenny Petty
And she has done that phenomenally by being a connector across campus. And we've built programing that has become traditions. We've revived traditions. She's just really intentional about co-creating with students. And that has been a huge part of our enrollment marketing strategy.
00:36:24:13 - 00:36:56:03
Stephanie Geyer
I love that that and I love having Karen as part of my team because it takes me back to the fundamentals that I learned through my work. In no evidence in a previous century where retention is marketing. Retention is a part of recruitment. And having her so closely connected to our campus community gives me a really great kind of qualitative market research opportunity to say, Hey, how is this going to smell?
00:36:56:11 - 00:37:17:22
Stephanie Geyer
You know, like, let's we're thinking about doing this thing. What do you think about this thing? Would you show it to your students, the zoo crew, the kids that are students that are constantly coming through her office? I'll sometimes ambush them and say, do you like this thing about this? And it's just delightful on the fly, real honest feedback.
00:37:18:14 - 00:37:22:16
John Azoni
I love that. And I'm going to start saying, how is this going to smell from now on?
00:37:22:18 - 00:37:31:01
Stephanie Geyer
From now on, a sniff test in my team will tell you I'm sniff testing constantly. Hey, it's a smell like good cheese or not so good.
00:37:31:09 - 00:37:53:14
John Azoni
Yeah, well, on that note, Jenny, you mentioned old traditions and new traditions. So let's let's just jump down to that point. Revitalizing old and creating new traditions that have contributed to campus culture of vibrancy and belonging. So why was that? Well, I imagine on some level it was important to accomplish because as you said, Stephanie, you know, retention is is marketing.
00:37:53:14 - 00:37:57:21
John Azoni
But me how that that played out what what new traditions came out of that.
00:37:58:11 - 00:38:20:16
Jenny Petty
Yeah. So when I arrived on campus we had there's market research that had just been completed that showed one of the reasons why prospective students weren't choosing the University of Montana was because they had a perception that the campus last lacked vibrancy. And so there was a lot of work kind of being done in pods to try to to try to fix that and address it.
00:38:21:03 - 00:38:40:05
Jenny Petty
And I was noticing early on that the president was talking to everybody about traditions, but nobody was really owning it. And I thought, well, I'm going to shoot my shot. I love brand experience. I've always thought about the work we do in a system like that. And so I said, Hey, I want to add this position and this person's going to be the Connector of Traditions.
00:38:40:05 - 00:39:05:20
Jenny Petty
And she did do that. And, you know, one the oldest traditions on our campus is this thing called the Foresters Bowl, which our College of Forestry and Conservation students put on. And they actually an old building on campus. And it was an old gymnasium. And every February they change it into an old mining town logging town. I always say mining because I'm from a mining family, no old logging town.
00:39:06:10 - 00:39:26:06
Jenny Petty
And the logging, I mean, they literally build like an old west town inside, all from natural materials. They do it every single year. It is crazy. You walk in, there's a band, there's dancing, there's like a museum that you can walk through and see all the past balls there. You can get your haircut, you can get married and divorced.
00:39:26:06 - 00:39:46:00
Jenny Petty
You can put somebody in jail like it is. It's a wild it's a wild thing that you just it's so Montana, but also so unexpected. And it almost died. They had to cancel it in 2020. We weren't sure if they would be able to bring it back. It hadn't been canceled since the world pandemic and well, yeah, in 1990, I don't know.
00:39:46:03 - 00:40:05:20
Jenny Petty
A long time ago. Yeah. And so all of that history was at risk. And so, Karen, our brand experience manager, really worked with the students to make sure that it could continue and sustain. And we got it going again. And it's it's just been so amazing to watch like they sell the tickets out now, Like now five years later, they are back at it.
00:40:05:20 - 00:40:24:11
Jenny Petty
And what we've noticed of the brand experience work is like often we can just be the incubator, we can get something going again. We can help infuse ideas and resources into it, and then we hands it off. And so that's what we've done with that one. In terms of new traditions, something that we launched years ago was this thing called the freshman float.
00:40:24:23 - 00:40:42:11
Jenny Petty
So we every year at the end of orientation, our entire freshman class, however many of them would like to. It's voluntary. Grab a tube, they get on a bus on campus and they go up to the Clark Fork and we drop them in. We have the Clark Fork borders one side of our campus and we drop them in and they float the river together.
00:40:42:11 - 00:41:05:21
Jenny Petty
And that has become something that feels like it's existed forever. But it's actually only about five years old. And it ties so well into our brand because one of our brand pillars is around the idea of stewardship. And so not only are we putting them on the bus and saying like, have a fun time, we also have river guides on the bus to explain how to be good stewards of the outdoors, how to be good recreation on the river.
00:41:06:04 - 00:41:25:04
Jenny Petty
And it's funny, you know, the river's always pretty low by the end of August, but these students come off and they're like, Hey, I almost died watching these rapids. And you. So it's also it's a real bonding experience and that's really been fun to see that grow and again, incubate. We did that for a couple of years and we handed it off to student success and it's continuing and growing and that's been really fun.
00:41:25:16 - 00:41:46:05
Stephanie Geyer
I love to talk about that in larger settings where. We talk about how hard it is to recruit our classes with shrinking population and, you know, being in a very small state in terms of population, but huge in terms of geography and saying, Yeah, yeah, we did all right, We beat our numbers and then we put them all in the river.
00:41:46:10 - 00:41:48:18
Stephanie Geyer
Hmm, hmm. And when don't get.
00:41:50:06 - 00:42:00:15
Jenny Petty
It's very safe, I should mention, for the president of the university, always like people to know that there are personal flotation vests available if people so choose.
00:42:00:15 - 00:42:01:01
Stephanie Geyer
Yes.
00:42:01:17 - 00:42:19:15
John Azoni
Could I imagine that makes for great stories? Which reminds me, you know, you you had mentioned storytelling in and this being a storytelling podcast. What were some of these stories that you told? You mentioned telling courageous, creative and collective stories of this community. So what did that look like?
00:42:19:15 - 00:42:43:10
Jenny Petty
I feel like we have a storytelling machine. I mean, name a topic we are writing. We were writing amazing profiles on current students, on young grads about the outcomes that are happening. We are writing amazing research stories. We have we had a class that was about calling bullshit from our journalism school, wrote an amazing story about that. I mean, Steph, I'm sure you have other ideas.
00:42:43:10 - 00:42:44:22
Jenny Petty
You just got so much content.
00:42:45:16 - 00:43:16:09
Stephanie Geyer
Yeah. And it doesn't just come from like what's latest and new, but just looking back and recognizing some accomplishments that are still valid today. Like a grad student who invented bear spray, which is if you visit Montana or live in Montana or I'm a part time resident, I guess there I do indeed own some bear spray and it's in the closet of my office and is often borrowed by my full time campus team.
00:43:17:06 - 00:43:29:11
Stephanie Geyer
You just have to have this. And so Bear Spray began at the University of Montana with one of ours. Like, that's a really connected piece of our fabric and lifestyle.
00:43:30:00 - 00:43:50:12
Jenny Petty
Yeah. I mean, if you asked me, like stand out stories over the last couple of years, of course, like Lily Gladstone being nominated for an Oscar, she's also one of our alumni was alumni. It was just an incredible moment and she's been so good to our campus. And so that was just the photos, that storytelling visuals that came out of her visiting Montana and just incredible.
00:43:50:19 - 00:44:17:22
Jenny Petty
I would say we also have a really strong indigenous and Native American population and all of that. Storytelling has just for me been I've learned so much through this role and through being exposed to that. And, you know, we do a big line every year with our and seven which is a Nike program that celebrates indigenous basketball. And we've really turned that into an opportunity to showcase the different tribes in Montana to to every year.
00:44:17:22 - 00:44:31:04
Jenny Petty
We have a native artist that creates a piece of artwork that we then incorporate into our retail experience. And in the storytelling around that has just been so meaningful and so impactful. And that's been really awesome.
00:44:32:02 - 00:44:40:23
John Azoni
I love that. And you guys, you mentioned in your post you did a cross-sector licensing program celebrating Montana's indigenous communities. Mm hmm. So tell me about that.
00:44:41:11 - 00:45:07:03
Jenny Petty
Yeah. So that's the seven program that I was just mentioning. It started off like, so if you do the seven program, Nike, essentially they do two games a year, your basketball team does two games a year where they wear turquoise jerseys and it's, you know, voiceovers and stuff like that. But with our indigenous population on our campus and understanding in Montana what an important piece of our history that that is, we were like, we can go bigger than that.
00:45:07:03 - 00:45:27:09
Jenny Petty
We should celebrate this and we should we should really blow this out. And so the first year we had a young man who was alumni design a new design for us that we then used in retail, and it has been now we're in the fourth year of it. That line consistently is our number one selling merchandise in retail.
00:45:27:09 - 00:45:51:18
Jenny Petty
It's just I think every year when it hits the shelves right around Thanksgiving, it's fascinating to see the Indigenous community come and start shopping. And for me there was this moment of realization of two things like one, we lump all these tribes together and we don't pay tribute to the amazing intricate differences that there are between culturally, socially, between the tribes.
00:45:52:04 - 00:46:12:09
Jenny Petty
And so it was a moment of reflection of like, we can do better, we can show these this history and we can do better representation of our tribes. And the second thing was just how important representation is for belonging. Like, this is the first time our native counterparts on campus went into the bookstore and had merchandise that was that was made for them.
00:46:12:19 - 00:46:30:02
Jenny Petty
And that was really powerful to watch. And think. You know, often as marketers, I don't think we think our work hits that deep, but it certainly can, and it did in this instance. And so that's been a just an incredible, incredible program that has been really meaningful to work on. And we blew that up. Right? It wasn't just merchandise.
00:46:30:02 - 00:46:50:19
Jenny Petty
It then became, okay, how do we invite indigenous students from around the state to come to campus during these games? And how do we connect them with enrollment? And how do we talk about the researchers on campus who are doing work with our native communities or who are themselves? Like, We really blew it up into a much larger kind of ethos of our storytelling structure.
00:46:51:07 - 00:47:18:13
Stephanie Geyer
I'll pile on and say it for me, that aspect of working with the university was giving me an opportunity to learn more about a market segment and help my team learn more. We, you know, we thought we knew how to do it until we started really talking to people like Dr. Carl Bird, who's on our campus staff and is the former president of Lafayette College.
00:47:18:13 - 00:47:44:14
Stephanie Geyer
Is that right? Yeah. And so having access to a campus partner like Carla and to be able to say what's the best way for us to invite our indigenous prospective students to campus and learning that it's about inviting the family capital, which is very inclusive and can be very expensive? I come from a family of three, four kids.
00:47:44:15 - 00:48:16:20
Stephanie Geyer
There are six of us. Like even the idea of all of my brothers coming with me and my parents to visit my college was unfathomable. I didn't actually visit, but this is a very important right and moment in their families. And so learning like and making my old brain learn some new tricks in terms of how to develop messages and counselors and segmentation, that's not pandering but is meaningful and accurate and true.
00:48:17:10 - 00:48:20:19
Stephanie Geyer
That's exciting to do something like that.
00:48:21:08 - 00:48:41:02
Jenny Petty
I agree. I would also add, John, it's important to note that most of the proceeds from that retail line go back to the CU Kio powwow that happens on our campus. It's a student run powwow. It's one of the oldest in the country. It's absolutely incredible to go and experience that. But the money from the retail line goes back to support that work.
00:48:41:06 - 00:48:43:15
Jenny Petty
So it also felt really meaningful in that way.
00:48:44:04 - 00:49:03:19
John Azoni
That's really cool. What was the I mean, we just coming out of Thanksgiving at the time of recording this, what is the vibe on campus? Because I always get in my feed like this. Mixed opinions, you know, around Thanksgiving and what it means and should we be celebrating and shouldn't we be celebrating and what's the vibe on campus?
00:49:04:09 - 00:49:23:23
Jenny Petty
I think it's the same as that. It certainly wasn't this year was not something that came up in any of our public conversations. But I think it is something that, you know, we always keep it's an evolving, ongoing conversation that we have on our campus. A lot. You know, even we have a year. My gosh, Steph, what's it called?
00:49:23:23 - 00:49:44:10
Jenny Petty
The land Acknowledgment. The land acknowledgment. You know, that we say when we're at events, but there's even, you know, debate about is that just another way of trying to make ourselves feel better? So I think it's what I love about the University of Montana is that it's a place that's really open to debate and tackling some of those big, hard topics.
00:49:44:21 - 00:50:15:04
Stephanie Geyer
I agree. I feel like for myself and my family, Thanksgiving has become something that is more, you know, gratefulness and not looking into some manufactured history that is is partitioning and inaccurate and patently wrong, but looking more into community and support. I think one of the things that I love about my visits to campus ago was about once a month and I stay for a week.
00:50:15:04 - 00:50:46:08
Stephanie Geyer
I'm heading up there on Sunday. Is the family Native American Summer, and the last time I was in town, there were some ceremonies going on and they're open to everyone. And I go and I participate and. I'm humbled by what I experience and I'm humbled by what I don't fully understand. But just having access and proximity to these kinds of things reminds me why Higher Ed is such a great gig.
00:50:46:13 - 00:51:07:23
Stephanie Geyer
You just there's never a moment you don't have some opportunity to learn or experience something new. And for that reason, I gave up my career in advertising agency and before that in Atlantic City Casino and before that a tiny television news station. So I'm glad I landed here.
00:51:08:16 - 00:51:17:16
John Azoni
I love that. So what's next for for both of you? So, Jenny, I know that you have some next steps. I'm curious to hear Stephanie, what's what's next for University of Montana?
00:51:18:06 - 00:51:19:23
Stephanie Geyer
Yeah, Yeah, Tony, you go.
00:51:20:10 - 00:51:40:21
Jenny Petty
Two days ago was my final day at the University of Montana. I'm in my first ever month long work sabbatical that I've never done before. That not to answer yet. I'm sure that will happen at some point, but I'm really excited. I'm so grateful for the time I had at the University of Montana. I'm so grateful for the team there and what we were able to accomplish together.
00:51:41:07 - 00:52:02:20
Jenny Petty
But I had a really great opportunity come out of the blue to join Simpson Scarborough and help them build their new advisory services product line. And so I'm really excited to be moving into the consulting world and helping more campuses do the work that we've done, especially thinking about the organizational development and the team development work that is needed to make really big work happen.
00:52:02:20 - 00:52:23:11
Jenny Petty
And something that I'm personally super nerdy about. Stephanie's like, Don't send me any more journal articles, which is fair, I guess she doesn't ever say that, but that's how I thought she feels. Yeah, she thought it real hard. No, she's always been so supportive and yes, I'll be joining them in January. Very excited. Everyone will still see me.
00:52:23:11 - 00:52:30:01
Jenny Petty
I love Higher ed. I'm still dedicated to this space and I'm still in Montana, So yeah, very excited to start that.
00:52:30:14 - 00:53:03:20
Stephanie Geyer
I feel like Jenny and I have traded spaces. She's walking into a role that's somewhat similar to one that I inhabited with Arnelle for a lot of years and served me well. I learned a lot. I saw so much and experienced things that have really set me up to, I hope, be successful with my team at Montana. And I think I'm drawing on a lot of the things that I learned in working with a wide range of schools, and I feel like there's still work for me to do.
00:53:03:20 - 00:53:31:11
Stephanie Geyer
And so we're tackling I in a lot of different ways. We have partners that are helping us do that. But as I'm looking at website performance data, I'm still a little shattered by our organic search numbers still on a downward trend. Well, we're still trying to measure the impact of AI and zero click search. You know, like that weighs heavily on me and I need to try a lot of things.
00:53:31:11 - 00:54:01:05
Stephanie Geyer
So I've been investing time in Reddit and understanding the impact of Reddit content and conversations about the university and how and where that affects our website traffic and our engagement with prospective students and their families and current students. So that's a new area of subject matter exploration for me, and I like that. I'm still finding new stuff and finding new pathways for my team to explore.
00:54:01:17 - 00:54:02:03
Stephanie Geyer
It's good.
00:54:02:10 - 00:54:11:10
John Azoni
I love that. And Stephanie, you're in luck. Your timing is great because the episode that we have coming out in two weeks is all about Reddit.
00:54:12:03 - 00:54:13:02
Stephanie Geyer
Oh, excellent.
00:54:13:15 - 00:54:31:09
John Azoni
And it's it's with Ross Simmons, who owns a marketing and a distribution to different companies marketing and then a distribution company. And we talked to all about Reddit and how you know what to do once you have a subreddit and you know how to act, how not to act on stuff. So I was first and I've been fascinated by it too.
00:54:31:09 - 00:54:54:05
John Azoni
And Reddit. Reddit has been within the last week we just I just started a subreddit for the podcast and have been trying to, you know, get on there and try to figure out like what, you know, how do you how do you do this? Because it's a different beast than it is, but it's so important because yeah, zero Click Search is like primarily referencing Reddit.
00:54:54:05 - 00:54:57:02
John Azoni
So if you're not on Reddit.
00:54:57:02 - 00:54:57:13
Stephanie Geyer
Yeah.
00:54:57:18 - 00:54:58:12
John Azoni
You're missing the boat.
00:54:59:04 - 00:55:24:00
Stephanie Geyer
I'm I'm eager to see that episode. I have started but not launched the subreddit because we're still in the sniffing around. I've, I've put a few few toes in the water to good results so far. But comportment and Reddit comportment there know that that's the word that Redditors would use. But it's the word that I think of. You just need to know how to behave.
00:55:24:08 - 00:55:31:05
Stephanie Geyer
Yeah, and it's different. It's really different. So. Well, great. Thank you for that. Yeah.
00:55:31:14 - 00:55:36:07
John Azoni
Well, it's been great having both of you. I would love to know where can people connect with each of you at.
00:55:36:19 - 00:55:55:00
Stephanie Geyer
LinkedIn is great for me. I know Jenny's Jenny's there. She does a much better job of saying things and responding to things. I'm a little bit more of a lurker looky loo than I am a poster these days, but that's a great spot for me. How about you, Jenny?
00:55:55:07 - 00:55:59:18
Jenny Petty
Same. I'm a firstborn daughter with a lot of opinions that I share on LinkedIn, so.
00:56:00:02 - 00:56:08:19
Stephanie Geyer
That's something that I have. Yes, that's something that we have always shared in common. We're we're both in charge of things and it's worked out really well.
00:56:09:11 - 00:56:30:22
Jenny Petty
You know, I wanted to add to John, we didn't touch on this and you feel free to cut this, but having Stephanie join me and stay on it. Montana has just been such a gift. I think, you know, we often think of careers as being linear and like stepladder and say, you do this and that than that. And I think, you know, for Stephanie, she came on board and she said to me, like, I'm going to be your lieutenant.
00:56:30:22 - 00:56:46:10
Jenny Petty
Like, I'm out of here. Be here to back you up. And you're very easily she could have come in and been like, I've been a CMO. Let me tell you how to do this job. And she did not do that. She was still a mentor to me and still a coach, but in a way that was just so meaningful for me at this stage of my career.
00:56:46:23 - 00:57:03:11
Jenny Petty
And I hope one day in my career I can do what she did for me in this moment of my career because I literally thought I was going to have a stroke in the first like six months. I had this job and she has been there for the moments when it's been like, What am I doing? I don't think I can do this.
00:57:03:11 - 00:57:24:14
Jenny Petty
And she's like, You're going to do this. You know, it's like the pep talks, the understanding of the pressures. Very few people, unless they've been in these roles, understand the way that you're trying to communicate up and over and sideways and you're juggling glass balls and issues, management crisis, it just so much comes at you. And Stephanie was there as one of those people who I just knew I could hand things to.
00:57:24:14 - 00:57:42:23
Jenny Petty
It would be fine. She would show up for me and it's just been such a gift. And so I just wanted to make sure to add that as part of this podcast, because it's something that I hope other people who are at the same stage of their careers as Stephanie think about of how powerful it can be to have somebody as a number two who has been in your shoes.
00:57:43:12 - 00:58:09:22
Stephanie Geyer
I am eternally grateful for the opportunity and let me spin it in a way that might be unexpected. Having been in a number one position here and there, I got to tell you, if you can walk it back to a number two and that is the sweet spot, that's where you don't have to go to executive leadership, cabinet meetings or show up in fancy outfits.
00:58:09:22 - 00:58:40:21
Stephanie Geyer
You can wear your puffy bird hat to podcasts and then hunker down and do work that gets done and has and is really meaningful in the kind of like day to day. Jenny moved our ship from going there to going where it needed to go, and that was everything. Not having to worry about that and just knowing I know how to get this piece from narrative there and I know how to get this piece from there.
00:58:40:21 - 00:58:49:13
Stephanie Geyer
I'm going to raise up a team to go there and do the things that is so much fun. It's I get paid for this. It's delightful.
00:58:50:04 - 00:59:08:18
John Azoni
That's awesome. Well, it's been so great to hear you about both of your relationship. It's been super great having you. You know, great to see how your partnership has played out into, you know, these really big accomplishments and all this hard stuff, you know, that that has come up. But Jenny, enjoy her sabbatical. It's been really great. Learn from you.
00:59:08:22 - 00:59:16:20
John Azoni
Hope you have lots lots of Dancing with the Stars. And Stephanie will be looking forward to seeing what's next for University of Ontario.
00:59:17:12 - 00:59:30:23
Stephanie Geyer
Well, keep an eye on us. We have more things coming. And also just do a little callback. According to Spotify, it's going to take me 46 hours to listen to Count of Monte Cristo. Wow.
00:59:31:04 - 00:59:33:02
Jenny Petty
A pretty long road trip. That's the.
00:59:33:15 - 00:59:45:20
Stephanie Geyer
Trip. I think that's like January one, 2026 will start. Then you can check in with me maybe about September and see how far I love it.
00:59:46:00 - 00:59:48:01
John Azoni
Well, thanks so much for being here, you guys. Appreciate it.
00:59:48:09 - 00:59:50:10
Stephanie Geyer
John, thanks for what you do. We appreciate you.
