Welcome to Your Brand Amplified, the podcast where we interview marketers, publicists, and brands to learn their stories, what makes them tick, and tips and tricks that make a difference.

It is my pleasure to have Craig Andrews on the show today. Craig, you are the principal ally and founder of a marketing agency called Allies for me,

and I'm really excited to get into how you look at marketing and the

customer journey and that sales journey that word that a lot of us don't like to use sales

right but before we do that let's get into your story

and your journey.

Thank you for being here today.

And it could such a delight to be here.

I've been looking forward to it.

Thanks for having me on your brand amplified. I'm happy that you're here. So I was reading a little bit about your background and I know you've studied abroad, you were in the military, you also were an engineer.

And then how did that shift to Mark? So we're an engineer.

And then how did that shift to marketing goes?

Let's wind it back a little bit.

Yeah, life has not been a straight path for me.

You know, in high school, I was not what the teachers called a model student and at some

point I realized that my 2.54 GPA would not get me into any university anybody had ever heard of.

So I realized it was time for a change in my life and that change came in the form of the

United States Marine Corps.

And so I went in that for six years, fantastic time, one of the best times of my life.

And the Marines took me a lot of places. One of the places it took me most was to Japan.

I lived about 30 miles from Hiroshima. And when I was over there, I started picking up the language.

And eventually went back and studied at Nagoya University.

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