“Who the heck is Kyle Craig?”
By Lee Miller
To say he is a “Master Marketer” would be putting it lightly.
And wrong.
Because even though Kyle has worked on multi-million dollar campaigns, dived into 50 different industries, masterminded killer product launches, published articles, been on stage as a featured speaker, and written hundreds of reports, letters, papers, ads, and presentations – that would hardly describe him.
His career in marketing is in its second decade, but that’s not the whole picture. Usually around this time, most guys are just getting their sea-legs. Kyle’s driving the boat. If you told me he’s ultra-ambitious with a steel-trap mind, you’d be closer to the truth.
I’m just glad I met him before he became rich and raised his fees to the level where only oil-tycoons would hire him.
The big question in my mind has always been: “How does he pull off so many things, in so many projects?”
Well, the answer is simple. He’s earned it. Through blood, sweat, tears, lots of risk, burning the midnight oil, tens of thousands of dollars on study, and learning the ropes through mistakes and failures.
Quite simply – Even a tiny crumb of marketing information from Kyle
could help you make a fortune!
Kyle’s a pretty diverse guy. He’s had an amazing ‘life education’ and has been involved with everything from playing music in bars, fishing, and years as a runner. He’s been an advertising salesman, writer, corporate manager, computer engineer, entrepreneur, and even a company turnaround specialist.
He’s a nice guy once you get to know him, but he comes across as a man of few words. When you first meet, he may only say 4 or 5 words. That is, until you get him on the topic of business or marketing.
You see, even though Kyle’s a top-notch marketing guy now, it wasn’t always that way. His deep sea of
knowledge didn’t come easy. Kyle started out as an engineer. A computer engineer to be exact.
In that job, the level of difficulty was pretty hardcore, considered hard even among other programmers. His job was programming the little computer chips that sit inside your laptops, your cell phones, medical devices, aerospace devices, and almost every other ‘electronic’ device you can name. Although I’ve never discussed it with him, I’d bet his code is running in hundreds of millions of computer chips, all over the world. I don’t think he would mind me saying that. That’s quite an accomplishment for anyone.
(Update from Kyle: The actual number is 3 billion devices – 3,000,000,000)
After his years in the engineering world, he moved to marketing. That was the jumping off point for a pretty fast education. He traveled non-stop, to over 75 U.S. cities and 25 International cities, including Tokyo, Yokahama, Seoul, London, Paris, Barcelona, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. He’s been on the speaking platform at conferences with HP, Microsoft, Motorola, Intel, Cisco, Google, Redhat, Samsung, and Siemens, with several of those featuring prominent speakers including George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Over his career since then, he’s had the great opportunity to work with local, national, and international
companies includes Boeing, ARM, Analog Devices, St Microelectronics, Hitachi, Samsung, Bosch, Freescale, Infineon, Intel, Siemens, Qualcomm, Mediatek, Toshiba, MIPS, Kyocera, LG Electronics, Cisco, AMD, and many more.
That’s where he gained his street cred. Because even though Kyle is in marketing, he leveraged his technical skills in quite a unique way.
Let me explain.
If you’ve met techie types, you know they love data and they love tearing into complex things. The love of learning is the reason he’s led such a diverse life. His need for data has led to gigabytes of files and notes on all sorts of marketing systems, tests, and results. He’s collected success stories, old ads, classic books on advertising, and almost every marketing program out there. That’s also the reason why he can run the numbers on your project and tell you how to make it profitable.
But it’s this next part that really strikes a nerve.
Kyle actually sat down and started digging
into the psychology and neuroscience behind marketing!
Seriously. He studies the human brain and how it reacts to marketing messages. He’s even started a book about it. It’s how to get inside the heads of your customer with your marketing.
If you’re in business, here’s why that matters to you.
Kyle understands the little nuances and complexities of marketing, has collected tons of data on successful campaigns, and understands the psychology behind it all. He’s a veritable warehouse of ideas.
From Kyle: “Here’s how I think about it. Most businesses are trying to fish for customers with a single rod. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes all you have is a single rod. But sometimes you’re using the wrong bait, the wrong line, the wrong lure, or you’re in the wrong spot. I have hundreds – even thousands – of rods out. So if I walk by you while you’re fishing, I can take a look and tell you the things you’re doing wrong, and how to tweak it so you’ll start catching fish. And not just any fish, the BIG fish.”
That’s why Kyle is known as the “Master of Tweaks.” Whatever campaigns you’re working on, he’ll have ideas – more than one probably – on how to make it bigger, make it better, make more sales from it, and make it more profitable.
In fact, many other marketers and business owners have sought out advice from Kyle for years. Former
colleagues and clients still email him to get his input and feedback on things. I do it too. I’m glad I have him as a resource.
Now, Kyle will be the first to tell you he doesn’t have the Midas touch. I won’t say that either. No professional worth his weight in gold will say that. But I can say this – a lot of what he says and does works.
I know if I have a marketing problem, he’s the one to fix it.
I just hope he continues to answer my emails after he raises his fees. I’m not an oil-tycoon.
— Lee Miller is a musician, writer, producer, and owner of the production company, Local Color. He lives outside of Nashville, Tennessee.