THE CRUDE TRUTH Ep. 52 Breezey Clark West Texas Marketing Consultant

On this episode of THE CRUDE TRUTH, Breezey Clark stops by our Dallas Studio and shares with us some Top Dollar Marketing Strategies for the oil and gas industry. She shares how to be proactive and not reactive, and how to invest in your marketing and not just use it as an expense. Sit back and listen as she shares these great marketing tips and more. On this episode of THE CRUDE TRUTH, Breezey Clark stops by our Dallas Studio and shares with us some Top Dollar Marketing Strategies for the oil and gas industry. She shares how to be proactive and not reactive, and how to invest in your marketing and not just use it as an expense. Sit back and listen as she shares these great marketing tips and more.

Please reach out to Breezey Clark on Linkedin

Check out StatusJet HERE

Highlights of the Podcast

THE CRUDE TRUTH Ep. 52 Breezey Clark West Texas Marketing Consultant

Rey Treviño [00:00:00] Marketing. Is it a business expense or is it a business investment? We’ll to talk about that and much more on this episode of The Crude Truth.

Rey Treviño [00:00:55] NAPE is a proud sponsor of the crude truth. Be sure to register for the NAPE Expo 2024 February 7th through the ninth at the George R Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. Hurry and register today. NAPE where deals happen.

Rey Treviño [00:01:43] Well, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Whatever. Whatever time of day it is. Just thank you, as always, for listening to another episode of the Crude Truth. Well, as we continue on and just a wonderful year, 2023, I’ve just had again, the utmost honor and privilege to have some amazing guests on this year. And today, this episode is no different. Today I’ve got someone that is a marketing guru. Some of that also has their eye on the oil and gas world. When it does come to marketing and someone that understands it. More importantly than a lot of the other people that are out there today. My guest, hailing from West Texas, is Breezey Clark Breezey. How are you?

Breezey Clark [00:02:28] I’m good. Thank you for that introduction, Rey. I hope I live up to it now.

Rey Treviño [00:02:33] Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you so much and welcome up here to Dallas today and traveling all the way from West Texas.

Breezey Clark [00:02:40] Thats Right.

Rey Treviño [00:02:40] And well, how is driving?

Breezey Clark [00:02:42] You know, it was really great. I’ve been watching the weather all week because there were scattered thunderstorms. There were some severe thunderstorms in the forecast. But as I made my way up here, it was like the clouds parted. The sun came out a little bit and just guided me in right into Lincoln Center. So it was it was really great. It turned out to be a nice drive.

Rey Treviño [00:03:02] Oh, I was glad to hear that. And thank you very much for coming into town to do this. You and I have had an opportunity to meet there in Midland a couple of different times. And in fact, at one point I was able to use a studio that you provided for the interview that I did. And, you know, you and I got to start talking and I was able to listen to what you’ve been doing and what your background is and how you’ve been able to be into the oil and gas industry and now how you’re taking both your background and the oil and gas experience and just blowing up on that. So for listeners out there, breezey, tell a little bit about yourself.

Breezey Clark [00:03:39] Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And again, thank you for the introduction. When I got the opportunity recently to get into marketing, it’s not actually that recent because I’ve been doing different marketing tactics for myself for a while. The further I got in my career with oil and gas, the more I realized that it was more about the services that I was providing as an individual. Not so much just the different companies that I was working for, because it’s that personable experience that we need, especially in oil and gas, which is companies come and go, we have booms, we have busts, and it’s the relationships that you make and the impressions that you meet on people that really matter. And as we’ve moved more into, you know, the digital lifestyle that we have today, it’s important to to put yourself out there, your online presence, and to be consistent and to to be a source that’s going to contribute to what we’re doing. And I’m very partial West Texas. I’ve lived in West Texas for about seven years now. And so it’s definitely home for me. And I know that it can be fly by night. People come and go, but as we built something more sustainable, it’s not so much about the boom and bust and the inconsistencies. It’s about building a sustainable lifestyle and something that we can all count on could. Because before it was more about that fear based living. When is this going to end? When’s the shoe going to drop? And we still have that. It’s not as drastic, I think, as it has been. And I’ve listened to, you know, different people speak about a different public officials, different thought leaders. And it’s really the goal across the board to to maintain West Texas in the lifestyle that we have and the resources that we provide. So that’s why when I got more into just marketing, I have a strong affection for oil and gas and what we do to to market it towards the customer and not towards the fear of what may change. You want to be proactive with your approach and not reactive to what may happen.

Rey Treviño [00:05:47] Right. And, you know, in my teaser, you know, I talked about, hey, you know, we all use as business owners, we all use marketing as it spits on our taxes. Right. If it’s an attack. But we you and I, in our pre meeting, we talked about how you look at it more as it’s an investment rather than spending money just for tax purposes. Can you talk about that a little bit? How you see that going and what exactly you mean by that?

Breezey Clark [00:06:12] Yeah, absolutely. Because it’s more about your approach and in what you’re trying to achieve. Because with with marketing, if you don’t utilize the right tactics for yourself, it can just be an expense or it can just be seen as as a tax write off or an expense that can be utilized. And you’re just trying to find somewhere to, you know, to to put out that amount of money that that is allotted to you. You know, maybe your company has a budget that that is spent on marketing, but you don’t necessarily use the right tactics for your business. And there’s a lot of there’s a lot of different tools out there that depending on what your services are and what your goals are, that would determine what’s going to be most beneficial. And you can end up getting a larger ROI if you you implement the right strategy and you don’t just go with what’s trending or you don’t just go with what you think you might want, but how you’re going to reach your customers, how you’re going to get your brand out there, and how you’re going to be able to elevate yourself to different levels. So as far as you know, what is the right marketing strategy, there isn’t a blanket approach across the board because especially, you know, I always go back to oil and gas because my background is so ingrained in oil and gas from being in the steel firm, running equipment and working with welders to doing QC work and coordinating and being on location or in an office that I know a little bit more the ins and outs of how the industry works. So I can see how one tactic may work for a certain part of the industry and be completely ineffective in another. So it’s for me when you start at ground level and you think about if somebody is driving down the road and they see one of your trucks and they see your name and number across the side of the door, or you have a billboard or you have, you know, something out there in the physical presence of every day, then they’re going to Google you. They’re going to look you up online. They’re going to look at your social media accounts. They’re going to go to your website and see what it is you offer. Do you have a professional presence? Do you have good standing on Google? Do you have good reviews? Do you have any reviews? Are you on social media? Of course. In oil and gas, we’re all very partial to LinkedIn. And it’s it’s very well known in West Texas that LinkedIn is an effective way to communicate and stay connected within the industry to know what’s going on If you have services offered. I’ve certainly offered things on LinkedIn. I have got exceptional business from LinkedIn and it’s amazing. It’s a great resource because with oil and gas, of course, it’s it’s national, it’s international, but we have a really strong hub in West Texas. And so that can link us all together very quickly. But it’s important to know what’s affected and where you need to be. And so when you can go to someone’s LinkedIn page or you can see who works there, there’s credibility behind it, There’s presence, there’s there’s support. You know, who do you work with? Who what connections do you have that this company also has? Are you on Facebook? Do you do any other kind of social media branding? The different social media platforms are getting more popular for oil and gas depending on on what you do. And if you enjoy that, if you have a younger generation working for you that they can they can really take the reins on that and make something out of it. I’ve seen plenty of different companies successful with TikTok videos because that’s that’s where everybody’s at right now. And I’ve never done TikTok videos. So it’s that’s not my thing. But I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff on there and and it’s and it’s fun, you know, and it’s another way to to make it science.

Rey Treviño [00:09:51] Well, I definitely don’t know anything about Tik tok myself other than every now and then. If people ask you to do your Tik tok, I’m like, No, no, not

Breezey Clark [00:09:58] No. And I mean, it’s like for a. It’s just for me with marketing and myself as an individual. Like, I just I don’t have any any use for it, but I definitely think it’s something that you could use, that you can build your brand or your company and, you know, build up your, your employees. That if that’s something that that they’re good at because you you can make really great tik-tok videos that that are fun to watch that are educational that you know show your services or what you’re all about. So that goes back to, you know, your physical presence out in the world with, you know, you’ve got your name and number on a track. People are going to look you up, and that’s one step in the direction of marketing. So when people look you up, what are they finding? Do you have an online presence? Do you have a website? What does it look like? Is it easy to to navigate? Do you have calls to action? Are your services clearly listed? Those are the types of things that I can help people with very easily and you can get into the background of all of that with SEO. AH can people search you by keyword is if you have all this money invested in billboards and you’re out on the road. But if somebody looks up a hydra about company and you don’t come up on the first page of Google and you’ve invested all of this money in a billboard, you’re still going to get overlooked if somebody hasn’t seen that billboard.

Rey Treviño [00:11:16] I hadn’t thought about.

Breezey Clark [00:11:18] Yeah. And so but that’s that’s part of my job to be able to to help somebody invest their money wisely and spend it on on the right tactics, because it’s not just about one approach. It’s about finding the right combination of all of the strategies that are going to build your business on a daily basis, on a monthly basis, and then you can start seeing that return depending on are you getting calls, are you do you do you have a, you know, radio commercial? Are people hearing your your ads on the radio? Are they seeing you, you know, come out more and more in, you know, digital advertising or in just, you know, in social media, so social media in general that people are following your page, they’re liking your stuff. And so even with, you know, you know, paid marketing solutions, they still need to be paired with your own due diligence on what you’re doing for your company. Do you have a marketing department? Do you have somebody that’s in charge of all of these things and are they doing their due diligence or the job that you’ve hired them to do? So there’s a lot of different branches that go into.

Rey Treviño [00:12:19] There is a lot of different branches. And you know, you’ve highlighted that. You’ve spent the last, you know, five plus years in the oil and gas industry working for different companies. But let’s talk about also what you did before that, because you’ve just unloaded and really shared a lot of top dollar information that companies should be. Paying for. So I’d like to just let people know about what else you’ve done in the past that you’ve been able to now take all this knowledge. If you don’t mind sharing just a little bit about that.

Breezey Clark [00:12:50] Yeah, I’ll definitely get the highlight reel on that one because we don’t have that much time. But how I got into oil and gas and media in general and marketing before I came to West Texas, I had I had done some traveling for a while. I had worked in oil and gas a little bit and the pipeline division across the country and where like with Pipeline, that’s just, you know, with natural gas, it’s it’s very short term work. It’s you know, it’s it’s one major component of oil and gas. But, you know, of course, in West Texas, it’s more about the ins and outs and the daily functioning facilities and flowback and drilling. And, you know, with Pipeline, it’s all over. It’s connecting one location to another. And that’s kind of what I had grown up around. And that was my first opportunity to to really work in in that environment. And I’ve learned how to run equipment and learned how to to grease the machines and clean them and do very basic, you know, low, low level, low level experience. But it was from that that I had first been exposed to oil and gas. And so that that’s a little bit of my background as to, you know, how I’d even known about the the industry when I went back to to college after I’d done some traveling, I studied communications at Tarleton State. I was there for about two and a half years and got my bachelor’s in speech communications. I studied broadcasting. I did a little bit with interpersonal communication. I did radio. I had a very short lived TV show. It was for an internship, and it was before Tarleton had really developed into the amazing communications department that it now has. We did not have that when I was there. I graduated this semester before everybody moved into the new building. Oh, yes. And so it was more grass roots. And, you know, we were in, you know, old dorms in Davis Hall with the with this the small studios that were, you know, multi-functional. It probably had like four or five different purposes. And we would just switch everything out. And, you know, it’s pretty organized. And it was it was a great experience for me. But that was when I had I knew I wanted to do something with media. I wanted to do, you know, something I mean, really in marketing, because with with marketing as, as a foundation, you can build anything if you brand something correctly, if you, if you present it and you have the right tools to to get it out there into the public, it’s really important to, to, to know how to do that. And so for me and my background, it was, it was media and marketing was, was kind of the foundation. But my roots are more in the pipeline industry. Like I said, that’s what I’d grown up around. But, you know, it was on my bucket list to go back to school to, to finish my degree. And so I went back to school when I was 25 and did a lot of really cool things at Tarleton in conjunction with the media that I was involved in. I was also a yoga instructor. I had a really great practice there and met some amazing people and took that with me after I graduated. When I started traveling, I went on somewhat of a gypsy journey and lived in West Virginia for almost two years. I bought a 1988 vintage travel trailer that I remodeled and lived in and taught yoga and did all kinds of cool stuff in the Northeast and took that with me out to Vegas. And the Apple pulled my trailer for the first time actually to West Texas. First. It was a pretty long haul. It’s about 1700 miles. That was my my first long haul was my first time pulling anything. I just decided to to do it all at once. I figured I would learn as I went. And I did. By the time I got to Indiana, I was pretty good.

Rey Treviño [00:16:36] But I thought, Well, that’s not too far from West Virginia. So I seen, you know, the free.

Breezey Clark [00:16:41] You know, but in West Texas or in Texas in general, there’s a lot of straight, you know, good highways.

Rey Treviño [00:16:46] Yes.

Breezey Clark [00:16:46] They don’t have that in the Northeast. And so even on the interstates, I want to say that the speed limit was 55 because of all the hill, hills and curves and is a little bit more challenging terrain. I would not recommend that to be the way that you learn how to build a travel trailer. But that’s how I did it. And that was a chapter in my life where I was really just experiencing things as they came. And so I had gotten a job offer in West Texas, an opportunity to run equipment to build a facility in Orla, which is between peaks in Carlsbad. If you know West Texas, you know, ORLA is and it was nothing like it is now, it’s actually pretty habitable and there’s a lot of luxuries. And also now that we’re not there know almost seven years ago and I mean I had to learn the hard way that. If you didn’t have gas, you didn’t have a full tank leading pagans, you might not make it back because there was one park and you had to be a member or have a code or I don’t remember what it was because I never had it. And so it was very close. Call my first trip out to Orillia, making it back into town. So those were harder times for me that they were definitely what shaped me and shaped that part of my journey. But it was a cool experience. I wouldn’t necessarily do that again, but it was again, it was the bucket list. I wanted to get my degree and I got my degree and decided I’d had enough of that structured living for a while. And so I kind of went on a three spirited journey and learned a lot and did a lot. But when I took I took a break from working in oil and gas and I went out to Vegas and took my camper. And again, that was a some different kinds of mountains to navigate. And that was also really difficult and life changing and scary. At the end of the day, it was scary. I don’t know what I was thinking. And then I had to do it. It was just it was one of those, I guess, moments in my life where I just wanted to see what I was made of. Okay. And made it there. I was in Vegas for about a year. Again, I was still teaching yoga. I still into that and worked in a lot of different nightlife ads. That was that was totally different lifestyles at work. I worked at a lot of different clubs. I worked with a lot of different people who had different businesses out there. I mean, of course it’s Las Vegas. And so this is a totally different conversation.

Rey Treviño [00:19:22] Oh. That’s a different Podcast. Yeah, that’s it.

Breezey Clark [00:19:24] But I’m still friends with a lot of those guys. And that was that was years ago that I was there. And so I decided, you know what? I really love the desert and I want to go back to West Texas and settled in West Texas and realize this is this was kind of the happy medium for me. I like the desert climate. Midland is very low-key compared to Vegas and even Dallas. Yes. But it’s also has a lot of access. You know, I love getting on a plane from Midland and going wherever whenever I want to go to Vegas. It’s it’s, you know, about two hour flight. It’s very easy to go and come back. But I have, you know, worked really hard to establish myself in a sustainable lifestyle that I can I can navigate and I can call a lot of my own shots and build the business that I want to has. I really like working with people and even, you know, taking some of my yoga practice into the professional world in a sense that it’s more about feeling connected to your work and having a healthy lifestyle, a healthy mindset and in doing good business. And so I learned that, you know, all the way back when I was at Tarleton, and that was about ten years ago when I graduated. And so it was very, very long journey, very full of adventure. I could go on for days about some of the things I’ve seen and experienced and in how it all came circle. But it did all come full circle when I decided to dive into marketing and go back to the beginning and, you know, make very good use out of my communications degree. And what I learned at that time and how it can be effective in an industry that’s based on being reactive and not necessarily proactive, because that’s that’s just the way oil and gas has always been done. And it’s always been, you know, very fast-paced and, you know, chickens today and feathers tomorrow and, you know, helping businesses that are wanting to, you know, implement more foundation and, you know, solidify the services that they offer. There’s there’s a lot of that. You know, a lot of them do it on their own. Like I said, they have their own marketing departments and they do very well.

Rey Treviño [00:21:35] You know, I want to as we got to bring that conversation back to Midland, you said something I liked, which was, you know, that boom or bust, fear is slowly going away and we’re trying to get to a stabilization, especially out there and be like because because it’s always been a boom or bust on our West Texas in general from Big Spring. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, it’s always been, you know, I got to give because that’s where it started. So I got to give a shout-out to Big Spring. But from there West, you know, it was always boom or bust, you know. How do you feel that with the marketing that’s going on today, how can you help continue to bring that stabilization to the industry of oil and gas as we move forward?

Breezey Clark [00:22:12] Well, I think, you know, again, it’s it’s that rule of thumb that marketing is an investment. It’s not an expense when it’s implemented correctly. And depending on if you are a small locally owned business or a big corporate entity, you have to look at what your goals are and what’s your what’s your KPI, what’s your key performance indicators, what is it you’re trying to achieve? Is it more business? Is it more relationships? Do you want your. To know more about you. You know, of course, it’s always sales. It’s always, you know, at the end of the day, it’s about revenue. But there’s there’s a lot of different levels as far as what you’re trying to achieve. Then, you know, do you want to be the best? Do you want to be number one? You know, do you want to talk about what what it’s going to take to get you into that number one spot on Google so that when people look for your services there, you know, they find you and they can connect that. And if you do want to be the best on the road, you know, you have your trucks wrapped and you’ve got a really nice, you know, physical presence. You’ve got your billboards out, you’ve got your radio ads, you’ve got your website, you know, what’s the next stat? And then you can you can go even further and you can you can continue to grow that with, you know, digital tactics and and learning more about, you know, staying ahead of the trend. Like we’ve we’ve created a trend I see it the the longer I’ve been in and I always say Midland but it is west Texas because in all fairness the first time I told my camera it was all the way out to Packers. It was not in Midland.

Rey Treviño [00:23:41] Oh, wow. you pass Midland.

Breezey Clark [00:23:42] Oh, yes, Yes. Midland was just, you know, a nice, you know, nice thought I had to get to Packers because I had three days to get from Wheeling, West Virginia, to Packers Texas to get signed up, to start work in Orla. And I made it there, I think at 6:00 the night before I was supposed to be at the office. But and so it was a huge achievement for me. I mean, nobody else thought it was that big of a deal because they’re doing that all the time. But for me, my it just followed my trailer across the country.

Rey Treviño [00:24:09] That’s a big deal.

Breezey Clark [00:24:11] In all fairness, it was also it was nothing compared to the chapter. I was about to begin being a female equipment operator on a location, you know, with a bunch of roughnecks and, you know, men that have been in the industry forever. But I learned a lot from then. And, you know, a lot of them appreciated me and valued me and respected me for what I was doing and what I was trying to do. So it was it was a great experience. But from that time until now, I mean, the whole concept of marketing has evolved and taken its own route. It’s not just someone like me that’s a marketing consultant, but it’s it’s whoever decided that LinkedIn was going to be our way to connect and communicate that you see businesses on a daily basis with their employees posting pictures out of location. It, you know, beautiful pictures of oil rigs where the West Texas sunset in the background was. You know, we’re on location today cooking for everybody. We’re showing our appreciation for our vendors and all of the fundraisers that we do, you know, with all of the golf tournaments and the clay shoots and the organizations that that we have and the luncheons that happen every month and, you know, encouraging more and more people to come to and, you know, get connected and figure out where their place is. Because, you know, one thing about oil and gas, you’ve worked for multiple companies. If you’ve worked in oil and gas long and that’s like it’s probably taken you a little while to figure out what it is you want to do, where you want to be, who are your people, what’s your niche? So you’ve got to go through those growing pains to establish yourself. But as we’ve all evolved together in a power, you know, going through COVID and all the turbulence of, you know, different administrations we’ve hung on in West Texas is stronger than ever. Marketing is a huge factor in the way that we put ourselves out there and continue to try new things and evolve with the, you know, the way that we communicate, like everything is digital now. So being able to get on that not not a bandwagon, so to speak, but, you know, really, you know, stay with it if you need to or you’re going to get left behind. It’s very important to be able to keep up with that and also kind of create your own presence and like I said, how you want to do it. And so it’s not just, you know, one way to, you know, post something on social media or, you know, you set your website and you’re done like there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to keep up with that and to keep you where you want to be and in to stay ahead, because we never know what’s going to happen. And there will still is in there always will be the fear-based news that’s presented, regardless of who’s saying it, there’s always going to be something that we’re trying to integrate into our society, that we should be afraid. But the more prepared we are, the more proactive we are, and the more we work together, the less afraid we really have to be, and the more we can kind of see through some of that. And we know that it’s not necessarily true. It’s not it’s it’s not an end-all. Like, you know, any minute now, this is all going to end that. You know, Midland West, Texas is a very powerful region. And so to amplify that power, we need to be smart about it and we need to make sure that we’re not just defending ourselves because we’re that redheaded stepchild that everyone wants to blame everything on when something goes bad and then ignore when you know things are good, like we are the power source and, you know, we. Ah, the way that, you know, people are able to live their lives every day and it’s something to be proud of and it’s something to, you know, to really lift up. And so, you know, going back to your original point, is it a business expense or is it an investment? I think it’s absolutely an investment of, you know, who you want to be in the future and who you are today.

Rey Treviño [00:28:02] Well, Breezey. You have really today just kind of given us the crude truth of really what marketing is. And you put it in layman’s terms also, it’s like, you know, because sometimes when you get a marketing group that wants to come in and do stuff for you, they’re really I feel like showing you the pomp and circumstance, Hey, we’re gonna do this and this and this, but it’s like, okay, but why? And that’s what you’ve been able to do today. It’s like, Hey, we need you to sit down. We need to understand, we need to do this. We to do that. So I cannot thank you enough for coming on. For people out there that do want to use your services and be able to grow their company through all the great things that you do, how can people get a hold of you?

Breezey Clark [00:28:39] Yeah, absolutely. I would love to help anyone that’s in need of marketing solutions If you are in oil and gas, absolutely hit me up on LinkedIn. That is where you’ll find me. I have all of my contact information on there and would love to get connected to more like-minded people and in more oil and gas businesses that are wanting to take their marketing to the next level. And if you just want to talk marketing at all, you know, please absolutely get with me and give me a call, shoot me an email. And I would love to help you out and help you strategize where you are on your business journey and educate you more on how to be more successful with that.

Rey Treviño [00:29:20] Oh, my gosh. Well, everyone out there, you know, y’all please reach out to Breezey if you can, if you have got some marketing questions. If y’all need somebody to help you always with y’all’s business, I can’t recommend her enough. What she’s doing is really helping out the oil and gas industry and West Texas as a whole. So Breezey. Thank you so much for coming to Dallas to do this. I really wanted to highlight all the great things that you’re doing today. So just thank you so much for coming to the Crude Truth Studio.

Breezey Clark [00:29:49] Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Rey Treviño [00:29:51] And we’ll see you all here next time on another episode of The Crude Truth.