Mark Vandegrift
Welcome to the latest episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Vandegrift, and with me is Lorraine Kessler, Thing One, and we have a special guest today, Dr. Scott Powell, professor of marketing from Grove City College. Hello, Scott, how are you doing today? 

Dr. Scott Powell
Good. How are you doing, Mark?

Mark Vandegrift
We're doing real well. Dr. Powell, he has worked at Grove City College since 1991. You don't look that old. 

Dr. Scott Powell
Well, that's not what my students tell me.

Mark Vandegrift
He was hired as assistant dean of the college and was later promoted to assistant to the president and admissions marketing coordinator. And I think that's when we got to know you. Is that correct? [Yeah.] So it's been over 20 years that we've known you and that's just hard to fathom that we pitched Grove City College back in, what was it, 2003, is that what we determined?

Dr. Scott Powell
That’s about right. Yeah.

Mark Vandegrift
H held the latter two positions for 14 years, serving four different presidents, that's impressive, and assisting in a wide range of administrative operations for the college. In addition, he has been a member of the faculty since he was hired.

In 2006, he transitioned to full-time faculty status, and after completing a doctorate in marketing and additional years of successful teaching, he was promoted to professor of marketing, which you hold as your title today. Prior to starting at Grove City College, Dr. Powell worked in retail sales, buying, and advertising for nearly a decade. He had a contract drawn up. I love this story. We'll let you share it a little bit later to purchase the company that he was working for. And I think that was your uncle's company, is that correct?

Dr. Scott Powell
It was actually a very good friend of my father's. So no relation, but just longtime friends.

Mark Vandegrift
And then God intervened in a surprising way, and that led him out of retailing and into academics. And he's very passionate about marketing, teaching, integrating faith and learning, and mentoring students of whom he has taught over I think the count is 6000 plus now, right?

Dr. Scott Powell
Yeah, I'm at about 6,400 now.

Mark Vandegrift
Wow, that's great. And what we love is he's passionate about positioning. So that we'll get in, dive deep into that. In his courses, he dives deeply into marketing with an emphasis on what it means to be both a Christian and a marketer, as well as a consumer. His primary areas of expertise are marketing theory and strategy. He is constantly researching, studying, and observing the marketplace. So much so, that his wife, Christine, a Grove City college grad, doesn't really like shopping with him. So Scott, tell us about that last sentence.

Dr. Scott Powell
I call it field research. She just finds it quite annoying because I'm always pointing out package changes and point of purchase displays. Just like can't I just shop and I'm like, no, no, we need to talk about this. She tries to sneak out of the house without me and I'm like, I know where you're going and I'm coming.

Mark Vandegrift
Very good, and I know you're a bit of an entrepreneur. I loved the story that you told us about your book business. Tell us a little bit about that. You don't have to go into great detail, but we'd love to hear what you did there.

Dr. Scott Powell
Okay, sure. So a friend of an old college roommate of mine who's very entrepreneurial in nature, he came up with an idea and I kind of liked the idea that we could contract with companies, nonprofits that received a lot of book donations. So for example, Goodwill and Salvation Army. 

So I got in contact with them in the Pittsburgh area and learned that they get tens of thousands of books every week, which just kind of floored me and they usually don't sell very well in stores and so they would love to find someone to purchase them. 

So long story short, in a period of about 18 months, we found a warehouse, we incorporated an LLC, made a contract with a goodwill to buy pretty much all of the books in the Pittsburgh area that they had, hired three employees, set up a system of being able to scan these books and then resell them on Amazon. And our first 12 years, or 12 months, we actually made about $230-some thousand dollars in sales, which sounds wonderful until you back out all of Amazon's fees and we ended up clearing 4,000 bucks. So not real profitable and very labor intensive, but I learned a lot about e-commerce and we tried pivoting to sell to some used bulk book buyers that would buy huge volumes. And we tried selling on eBay for about half a year and ended up pushing just over a million, think a 1,300,000 books in two years, but just couldn't make any money. It's just, it's a really low profit margin, high labor business. So it was fun, but didn't last.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, we all have to learn in the marketplace like that, right? There's no better teacher than diving into business, especially in the world of e-commerce these days. Good. Well, give us a little bit of background. What led you to Grove City College in the first place?

Dr. Scott Powell
Yeah, sure. It's a crazy story. I would say chance if I wasn't a believer, but you know, Proverbs says something like, you know, a man plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps. And I graduated back in the mid 80s and I had a management major. I always wanted to own my own business. So when I graduated, I was looking for a small business that I might be able to either start or buy. And as we mentioned earlier, one of my dad's friends, had a little retail furniture company. He had like 19 employees. I think they were doing about a million and a half in sales then. And he was looking to retire. He was about 70-ish and wanted somebody to take over his business. And I had known him all my life and I said, well, I'd be glad to come and learn your business. And if you would be willing to sell it to me and help finance the process. And not that I just necessarily loved furniture, but I just wanted to run my own business. And so I started and did all the grunt work. I, you know, delivered mattresses and furniture and heavy stuff. Despite my huge size, I was carrying lots of big things and installed carpet and I did the buying and I did advertising and sales and it just, I love, I just fell in love with the marketing side of it. And so I was literally about a week away from signing the contract to actually purchase this business. When, let me back up…

I had been teaching one evening sales class at Butler County Community College. And my sister-in-law had worked there and she said, we need someone at the school to fill in for one semester to teach an evening sales class. And I'm like, well, I'm only working six days a week. I need more to do. So I taught it and I loved it. I was the youngest person in the room. It was all non-traditional students. And I just thought this is really fun. So at the end of the semester, they didn't need me anymore. And...

I just was talking to people and they said, well, why don't you go to Grove City College and see if they're looking for a part-time faculty. So I walked in cold. I was 26 years old. I had all of one semester of teaching under my belt, one class, and I'd finished my MBA at Pitt and I was working in retail. And I, it's crazy. I walked into the president's office because I didn't know anybody on campus. And I just said, you know, could I have an appointment with the dean and “No, that's not the way we do things here.” So I'm like, well, what should I do? And she said, “well, you need to go home and write a letter to the dean and explain what you want.” So I did. I went home and pulled out my typewriter, right? Now you see those ancient, Museums of Ancient History, but I used this typewriter and I sent a letter. Nope, I never heard anything. So about three weeks later, I came back in. The woman didn't recognize me. I said, can I meet with the dean? No, you need to send a letter. I'm like, I've already done that. She said, well, perhaps that's your answer.

And I'm usually not kind of flummoxed for words. And I'm just standing there because I didn't know what to say. The door opens behind me and this very distinguished looking man walks in and I just took a shot. I'm like, Dr. Anderson? And he's like, yes. I said, could I have five minutes of your time? And so he's like, okay. And the screener, the secretary didn't like that too much that I escaped her. 

Lorraine Kessler
She didn't get up and block you physically.

Dr. Scott Powell
No, I think she shot laser beams in my back though. And. You probably don't want to hear this, but when I sat down, it's the middle of summer and there's a wasp on my tie. I don't know how it must've just landed there when I'm going in the building and I totally freaked out and I flicked it and it went right on his neck. And I'm, I'm petrified. I'm, I'm like literally, and he swats this thing and I was like so embarrassed. And I think I literally said, I should probably leave now. And he's like, no, oh, it's a sign. It was a Seinfeld episode. It really was.

Lorraine Kessler
My gosh. This should be in a Seinfeld. They should do an episode on this.

Dr. Scott Powell
And he's like, I've never had anyone flick a wasp on me before. And what is it that you wanted? And I said, I was just kind of looking for a part-time teaching position. And we started talking. And about a half an hour later, he turns to me and he's like, I'm not interested in hiring you as a part-time faculty member. And I'm like, okay. And so I start to get up and he's like, no, no, sit down. He's like, I'm going to be promoted to executive vice president of the college and I need someone to backfill my position. Are you interested in my job?

I had no idea what to say. I'm a furniture guy.

Lorraine Kessler
Do I have to keep the woman in the front? Yeah. Yeah. It is crazy.

Dr. Scott Powell
Yeah, and guess who became my secretary? Right, so it was the craziest thing because I literally was one week away from signing the contract to own this business and I've got this contract and you know, Dr. Anderson was a pretty intimidating guy's like well, you've got a decision to make and so So I tore up the contract started as assistant dean and kind of admissions marketing coordinator for the college.

That was 34 years ago. And I remember coming in every day, don't get fired, don't get fired, pretend that you're smarter than you are. And I guess they never caught on until it was too late. So I'm still here. And so that's how I started. It's funny career.

Lorraine Kessler
That is a fabulous story.

Mark Vandegrift
And what was the collection of individuals that all mentioned Grove City College having, I mean, you were in Indiana at the time.

Dr. Scott Powell
Um, yeah, I actually went to school in Indiana and then I actually, came back after I graduated. My, my family grew up in Butler, which is about half an hour south of Grove city here and that's where I was living at the time. And so I had just completed my MBA at the University of Pittsburgh in marketing, and I'd been working at this store full time. And it was just kind of a random thing that I went to Grove city and the position was never advertised. They never interviewed for this. And I literally did an impromptu 30 minute interview and was hired. So it's just kind of hard to believe.

Lorraine Kessler
It's very hard to believe, especially with the wasp incident.

Dr. Scott Powell
Yeah. Yeah, I don't recommend that as an interviewing strategy. So, but yeah.

Mark Vandegrift
We call that making memories in our family. If it just went down as a regular interview, you wouldn't have remembered it.

Dr. Scott Powell
No, probably not. So that's kind of my whole professional career. You know, I served as that for six months and then I was promoted to assistant to the president, and I was teaching the whole time too. So I did, he's like, and by the way, if you take this position, you can teach part-time. So I've taught marketing related classes ever since 1991. And then in 2006, I decided to go full-time. So that's pretty much my career.

Mark Vandegrift
Very good. And what, you know, you have, I won't do the math, but you have 33 years of teaching history here, plus one year teaching one class. What, what has been over those years, what has been your favorite class to teach?

Dr. Scott Powell
Sure, I'm just going to say principles of marketing, the entry level class. Yeah, it is because I think there's such a misunderstanding in what marketing really is about. And when I meet people, they often ask me, you know, what do you do? I say college professor and it's a big smile. And what do you teach? And I say marketing and it's a big frown. Oh, you're one of them. And I'm like, who are they? All those people to just try and force me to get stuff, buy stuff that I don't want. I'm like
“No, that's not my definition of marketing.” I like to find out what people want and then give it to them. And so I like to see kind of the light go on in freshmen's eyes of, oh, so marketing is more than just sales and it's more than just advertising and kind of give them a nice foundation for what it's about. So that's the class that I get. I love all the classes I teach, but I think that's the most fun.

Mark Vandegrift
Lorraine, you and I always talk about what's being taught in marketing classes these days in most universities, and we're not seeing the angle of positioning in most of those. Either there's no interest in it by the faculty or… we're not really sure. So maybe you can give us some insight into that, Scott, a little bit more because you have a particular passion for positioning. When did you first hear about it? And then, you know, as a marketing philosophy, and then why did it stick with you as a preferred approach? Was this something that, you know, from the very beginning when you went to get your MBA at Pittsburgh, or is this something that crept into your life later on?

Dr. Scott Powell
Yeah, so it's really kind of interesting that when I started in 1991 teaching at the college, I had even in my MBA classes, I never even heard the word positioning mentioned that I recall. And I had never heard of, you know, the importance of perception and differentiation and positioning at all. I'd been taught very, I'm just going to say very theoretical complex definitions of marketing and very, I'm just going to say more scientific slash rational views of it, which I think most of us don't really buy that way. And so the first I'd ever heard of positioning was I grew up in a family who, a small family and, and we're all readers. I've always read. I've loved reading since I was a kid. And so when I started at the college, I was ripped out of the retail world and kind of thrown into academia.

And my mother, who was always buying books that she was always looking for things that would interest our family. And she said, I found this one called, Positioning. And I'd never heard of it. It was the original recent trout book. And I read that book and I, she had no concept, nor did I, of how that was going to totally transform my way of thinking and teaching. So I want to credit her with finding a book. I don't even know where she found it, at some store and just bought it and I read it literally over one weekend and I'm like, this makes so much more sense than anything I've ever heard of or learned before. So I mean, I had an undergrad degree and a master's degree focusing on marketing and I had never heard any of these things. Like this makes so much sense and this is the way that I think and it was just intuitive to me. So that's kind of how I first heard about positioning and then I just read every single book that I could find that that Al Reese and Jack Trout wrote. I have their whole collection. You might even see it on the shelves behind me. You can't put that whole shelf is their books. And I just grabbed everything. I just read it. So that's kind of my history.

Mark Vandegrift
I think you even have a quote out in front of your office that you should. Which quote was that? I can't even remember.

Dr. Scott Powell
Yeah, I actually have two. I have marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products. And the other one is customers don't buy, they choose. Differentiate or die. So I have those in big letters right outside my office. So none of my students can miss those things.

Lorraine Kessler
And you know, one of the benefits of positioning that I think is not talked about a lot is that it actually helps the customer to choose. It's an assistance. It helps like, do I want fast or do I want reliable? It helps me make decision in the tyranny of choice kind of era we're in. And that's a real benefit. I mean, that's very customer focused in my opinion.

Dr. Scott Powell
I agree. And I love the way that they really put forth the concept that customers think category first and brand second. And so I'm looking for an electric car. Okay, I'm getting a Tesla. You know, I want some family friendly entertainment. I'm going Disney. I mean, I think that's just the way we think. And when our family is like, well, what do you want for dinner? Well, let's get Italian. Okay. Do you want to go to Olive Garden? Because I really liked the fact of the category and then owning a category. That's the whole heart of branding.

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah, when we did the Appreciative Discoveries™, the first thing that I would look for in every client's history, we had them fill out an extensive backgrounder. And then we would investigate their competitors and a lot of preparation before we went into the session, because it was a four hour accelerated session. And in four hours, we had to help that client get to the decision and it had to be their decision.

And, but in doing that, one of the things that we really tried to focus on, what I tried to focus on was, can they own a new category? I mean, number one, is there opportunity to create a new category? That was always number one. And either that's on the table or off the table. And if it's off the table, then we got to go fish. But that to me is the high bar. And if you have the means to do that and the will to do that, that's the best way to position.

Dr. Scott Powell
Right, I completely agree. And that's why I like principles is because when you start at the foundational level and you teach this right out of the gate, you don't have to try and retrain people to think differently about marketing and kind of forget the things that they've learned and you're kind of building up. And it's so intuitive that when most people really understand it, they're like, this makes perfect sense. And this is how I think and that's how I make decisions.

Yeah, I just think it's just amazing. And it's funny.

Lorraine (19:38.052)
Are you familiar with the book, “Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow” by Daniel…? All right. There is no better case, right, for the idea that we make decisions, choice decisions, buying decisions, and system one thinking. Intuitive, impressionistic, imagist. You know, the idea that marketing, as you were saying, through your MBA, is talking about the rational side of the brain is like you're on the wrong side of the tracks, the whole way. Right? I mean, it just blows my mind. It's like the train's going the wrong direction. You're never going to get there..

Dr. Scott Powell
Yeah, it is. It really is because that's not the way most people approach the marketplace at all.

Lorraine Kessler
No, it's not how our minds work. We're system one driven. And what happens is, and I think, Roy Williams said this, right? But system one thinking, which is that more intuitive, automatic, it makes system two, rational thinking, want what system one wants. It convinces it, you know? It gives system two the rationale for why it should want what system one wants. I just think that's...

Trout does a really good job with that in his books too, but I just felt like it's another confirmation in this Nobel Prize winning book. Yeah.

Dr. Scott Powell
Yeah, I agree. It literally, that one book [Positioning] made more of an impact on my thinking than my entire graduate degree of other more, more heady understanding and logical understanding of marketing. And I'm going to say doctoral level too. Trout and Ries don't get the respect they deserve even at the doctoral level because, and I remember raising their names in one of my first classes and I kind of got this rather condescending look from this rather academic person and it's like, well, that's nice if you believe that, but this is the, you know, this is the academic way to approach that. But I think I convinced him later.

Mark Vandegrift
It feels like the complexity part of it is what most academics like because they can spin, if you will, in the academia. And those people on the street, like Trout and Ries, they need that gut. What is it that's going to sell product? And I think that's, maybe you've answered the question in a long about way in that positioning is so simple to grasp that it just doesn't provide enough extensive fodder in the academic circles to spin, you know, talking about it enough and having enough debate and philosophical discussion and diatribe around it. But we who have to sell more product, you know, you talked about selling mattresses and furniture and all that. You didn't sit there and get all complex on, oh, how am I going to do this? You went instinctual with it and probably noted that differentiation works every single time.

Dr. Scott Powell
Yeah, it really does. Absolutely.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, it's a difference between the real world and the theoretical world. And what I would do if I was in academia, I would simply quote Michael Porter, who makes what Ries and Trout says much more complicated and highfalutin. And I would just simply use him because they all love Michael Porter or David Akers. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right.

Dr. Scott Powell
Oh yeah. And that's true, right? Oh yeah. You get taught Michael Porter all the time. And I'm like, okay, that's just a little bit more confusing way of saying what Traut has said much more eloquently and simply. Yes. Right. I agree completely.

Mark Vandegrift
Well Lorraine, you had some questions about higher ed in general, about some of the things that they're doing with marketing themselves. So I'll let you kind of dive into those questions if you want.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, there's a couple of questions. You know, one of the things that sometimes we talk about in terms of repositioning a category or what's going on, there are forces other than competition that affect the brand. The macro forces that come from the outside, changing behaviors, changing beliefs can affect a brand. So, you know, you have to adapt, I think Trout calls it, adapting to crisis, competition, and change, right?

So one of the things that you said right off the bat was that you had four different presidents in how many years? 20?

Dr. Scott Powell
I was in the office 14 years and served four different presidents.

Lorraine Kessler
That's like a shorter time than CMOs in America, right? I mean, that just, I mean, it's real to me, an institution of higher education, right? It has a sustainable kind of image. It has to have a long-term kind of sustainable. It can't be shifting with fads, right? It does have to respond to trends, but that's different than fads. And under four different leaders in that short amount of time,

How has Grove City navigated that?

Dr. Scott Powell
Yeah, it was really interesting to watch. And you got to remember that I was 26 and I had no experience in higher education. I mean, I'd been a student, but I'd never been in college administration. And so to be in the president's office with four people who had very, very different strategic ideas about the college, very different management styles, very different communication styles, it was a lot for me to kind of keep my ear to the ground and learn what do I need to do here and how can I help kind of guide this ship from a marketing perspective? Because when I came in, when I started in 1991, the first president, he called us Freedom's College. And this is the college's history book written by Lee Edwards. I don't know if you've ever heard of Lee Edwards, but very conservative. And we were kind of the red, white, and blue America's best kept secret conservative school that told the government, “keep your money.” And that was kind of our position. And I decided that I wanted to go back to the very founding days and see what really was the original position that our founders had for Grove City. And I actually became quite a fan boy of our founder. Grove City was founded by a 27 year old. And that really resonated with me because I was 27 at the time. And I'm like, I'm assistant to the president, but there's no way I could have ever founded a school.

And his name was Isaac Ketler. And Isaac said, I would like to establish an institution that would help develop young leaders capable of pushing civilization forward on every frontier. I'm such a fanboy that I memorized that. And to that end, I want to establish an institution with a tripartite mission, a threefold mission, academic excellence in a thoroughly Christian environment at a price that families of modest means can afford.

So it was really those combination of three things that made us kind of strong and unique because there's lots of good schools, but they aren't conservative Christian. They're not affordable. The Ivy league schools. There's a lot of affordable schools that aren't necessarily quality and certainly aren't Christian. And there's lots of other Christian schools that kind of do similar things, but it's all three of those things that kind of make us unique. 

And so one of my very rudiment, I have it hanging here. One of my very rudimentary first marketing pieces was, we're a court of three strings. And if you're looking for quality education in a Christian environment and an affordable cost, we're the only game in town. You can get one or two of those anywhere else, but we're the only place that really has all three. And that was a difference from this. And so when that president left, his real focus was on the academic rigor of the school. He was about getting our applications up, our acceptance rates down so that we could call a better student body. It was really about being independent. The next person that came in had a more Christian emphasis and wanted us to kind of steer not just rah rah rah the flag in America and freedom, but also be go back to kind of the thoroughly Christian nature.

And then other presidents had different views. So the ship has kind of moved a lot of different directions. And honestly, Mark, your, your alma mater Hillsdale, kind of took this up and ran with it and communicated it way better than we did and kind of eat our lunch in that position. You know, they've been very consistent in, in being independent and the whole Imprimis newsletter they do. And I have a lot of respect for Hillsdale. And so.

Mark Vandegrift
That’s what's interesting though, they were founded as a Baptist institution. That part is basically gone. They're trying to come back a little bit, but they're not thoroughly Christian, if you want to use that phrase, nor would I put them in the affordable category, although they do a lot to assist their students to go there. But yeah, freedom is their cause. Independence from the government is the way they say it.

Dr. Scott Powell
They do.

Yep. Correct. Yeah. And even though the Supreme Court case is Grove City College versus Bell, they're the ones that really picked it up and ran with it and have positioned themselves quite successfully, I would say, in that position. 

So that kind of left us and me as a young marketing director that was trying to navigate a lot of presidential challenge or changes, I should say, in different positioning strategies. And so I, the first president challenged me to describe the college in seven words. He's like, if you had seven words to tell me why I should think about coming to Grove City College, what would you say? And he was an interesting guy. He really taught me the concept of parsimony in communication, getting to the point and very succinctly. And so I thought a lot about that. And along with this kind of cord-of-three strands thing, at that point in time, we were by far the most affordable college that's like us. And so I went back with the seven word position of “the most affordable top ranked Christian college.” So if you're looking for some place that has a challenge and is conservative and Christian and you wanna be able to afford it, we're kind of your place to go. And as Hillsdale has done a really good job with fundraising, I think they have like a billion dollar endowment or something, it's very large.

Mark Vandegrift
Yes. And 98% of their donors have never stepped foot on the campus.

Dr. Scott Powell
Yes, that used to be a really significant part of donations to our campus, but that has, that has, it's not as important as it used to be anymore. I remember when I was assistant to the president in 1991, we would often get, you know, letters from people. “I appreciate your stance and here's a check to support that.” And it was really central to who we were. But I think as Hillsdale kind of started to own that position and we kind of were going slightly different ways. That's when we had to kind of reposition a little bit.

Mark Vandegrift
That’s where we’ll leave off for this week. Tune in next week as our interview with our interview with Dr. Scott Powell, professor of marketing at Grove City College, continues. Scott shared his thoughts on Grove City’s position, and the state of college marketing in general. See how Grove City stacks up against some surprising trends in the college application rate and overall student body makeup.

If you haven’t liked, shared, commented, or told your friends about the Brand Shorthand podcast, please do. And until next time, have an amazing day!