Masters In Marketing Agency podcast

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SEO Blends & Branding Buds: Digital Marketing Brew 36:32

9 hari yang lalu36:32

36:32

Dive into a whirlwind of marketing strategies and personal revelations with Eric Ritter. Discover the essence of blending SEO with top-notch cuisine, unearthing gems from German streets to Colorado's infamous Casa Bonita. This episode serves a delectable mix of agency insights, cultural anecdotes, and the undeniable charm of nut butters. Don't miss out on these quirky takes and valuable lessons! Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Partnering and understanding clients. Rich Dad, Poor Dad SEO makeover. Importance of community and connection. Integrating German philosophies in business. Resources: Digital Neighbor DevNoodle The Search Bar Podcast on Spotify The Search Bar Podcast on YouTube Connect with Eric Ritter: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 38:55 - We work with bigger brands such as Rich Dad, poor Dad came to us, you know, saying, Hey, I'm getting my ass kicked by Dave Ramsey, he's getting a lot more traffic to his website. Can you help us out? We said absolutely. So we did a full audit of the website, worked with his internal team of developers and marketers to kind of say, Hey, this is what you need to do on your website. You have 12 years of like a lot of great content here, but it's kind of a house of cards. It needs to completely be restructured. So we helped with that to restructure it, working with them, helping them through kind of building a new website there. So that's, you know, where we work with people, we work with a lot of creative agencies that don't have in-house SEO or have in-house digital marketing, but they do a lot of creative work. They might build a website but they don't know how to market it. They don't know how to drive traffic there. And my background, right? I got my master's in advertising. So, and my first job was in traditional advertising. 'cause again, from a very small age, right in that walker, that's what I've cared about like TV ads, right? And kind of making that emotional connection with people. So we're really good at partnering with those creative agencies because we understand kind of how that works and how SEO kind of fits in with that because you know, you wanna make a a pretty website but you also wanna get traffic to it and you gotta kind of marry those two things 27:14 - And so a lot of agencies can deliver results. They know how to do it. We all kind of have similar processes, but what really matters to me is are you a good partner? Are you partnering? Are you understanding your client, right? And so that's why I say we don't have clients, we have neighbors, right? Because that philosophy of getting to know someone, you're not just a number. You know, we're actually making real human connections here and we're working together to continue to get better results. And so that's, you know, been important to me in my personal life. And that's something that kind of bled over into professional as well through the agency and that philosophy that we give onto our, our clients or neighbors. 34:42 - I don't wanna nickel and dime the client or I always want to do the right thing, you know, talk coming back, you know, Josh said golden rule and that's like stuck in my head, like the golden rule of like, hey, you know, if it's gonna take us 15 minutes more to make this kick ass for the client, they're not paying for those 15 minutes. Let's do it. Right? That's the right thing to do. And so at the time I was listening to a lot of Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V right? And Gary V you gotta take it with a a take it a certain direction, right? Because he's very over the top sometimes of like, listen, you gotta optimize your day, you gotta be working all the time. You're sitting at home watching Netflix, you could be using that time making yourself better, right?. And at the time he had the message of if you're unhappy with your full-time gig, wherever you're working, find something and make that your side hustle until that side hustle becomes sustainable, then you can make that your main hustle. 19:39 - Alex: Have you heard about the Gemba? Does that mean anything to you? Eric - It doesn't, no. Alex: So in Toyota, basically going to the Gemba is going to the place of work and doing, and that's a huge, in part of Toyota culture and a lot of Japanese culture in general is going to the Gemba to see how work is done so you can understanding of what's happening on the ground floor. And that's a core principle of, of theirs. Eric: Yeah. And I think that's a practice. Very similar practice. Yeah. Very similar to kind of what, what's important to me as well is kind of understanding, you know, I call it in the trenches, you know, 'cause you know, I want people to trust me, you know, just like, you know, I'm in the foxhole with them, right. And who you're gonna trust more than someone who you've been into foxhole and been through battle. Alex: And you're able to see like root cause there really yourself instead of trying to operate from a high level taking just people's work for things. 28:13 - Josh: So I am very much in the same boat of just being kind and whether, you know, it's karma or whatever it is just like golden rule, a million things that kind of point into like, okay, yes, this is what we should be doing. However, you know, sometimes people can take advantage of that. So has that ever been the case where, you know, you are going in this nice kind approach, but someone tried to take advantage of it? Eric: Yeah, no, great question Josh. And absolutely 100%. You know, and it's really a gut punch, right? Because you know, for all of us in life, you're like, hey, if I follow the golden rule, I should get rewarded, right? Like I never, you know, cross the street when it says don't walk and then one time I'm running late and I do run across when it says don't walk and I get caught even though, you know, a million times in my life I've always done the right thing. And you know, so people are like, well why'd I even follow the golden rule? You know, if I'm gonna get in trouble? And same thing with us is, you know, when you give just a little bit in the business sense, there's people out there that can take advantage of that, right? Like, hey, you paid your invoice, you haven't paid your invoice yet. And like, oh yeah, yeah, we'll pay it, no problem. And then all of a sudden you're like 60, 90 days later you're doing all this work and they're like, oh, we're outta business, we can't pay you. And you're just like, oh fuck, you know, all that money, all that work we did, we're not gonna get paid for it. So that's been a really, I wanna say a hard lesson I guess for me as a founder is, you know, kind of being able to walk that line of wanting to be kind, wanting to help people out, but also it's a business at the end of the day, you know, and I have a responsibility to my employees, I have a responsibility to the company to make sure you know, that we are to getting paid for our work.…

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Driving Traffic with Focused SEO Strategies 41:07

24 hari yang lalu41:07

41:07

Dive into an infotainment-rich episode where we drive through everything from weekend plans to wisdom on scaling up your SEO with Steven Schneider. Get under the hood of TrioSEO's success, rev up with strategic insights, and ease into the cornering technique of focusing on high-intent organic traffic—all while getting a sneak peek into a Halloween moose costume and EDM concert stories. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. TrioSEO's unique content focus. Driving organic traffic effectively. Insights on the entrepreneurship journey. The power of patience in business. Steven Schneider's SEO strategies. Resources: TrioSEO DevNoodle Connect with Steven Schneider: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 19:52 - I connected with Connor and he's like a big SEO guy in the space, kind of one of the top people there. So we kind of naturally hit it off, started networking, talking and texting. I met his partner Nathan Hirsch, they're best friends since college. They've been entrepreneurs together for 15 years. They have great success as well and just kinda had this natural flow and rhythm between us and felt like it was just something there. So yeah, one night I was texting Connor and I was just like why don't you guys have an SEO agency? Like this makes so much sense. Like you both have a ton of clout in the SEO space and just business in general. They had just come off their exit in 2019 starting a couple new companies, all this sort of stuff and they're like oh no we have it all mapped out. Like we have a 20 page document that is what we would do, how we would do it. Everything is planted to the T. 55:49 - And then there's optimizing towards human behavior. And the human behavior piece is we go through a process of understanding customer personas that a client has, mapping those out, understanding kind of, which pages relate to which customers and what are they trying to, like, what kind of concerns, questions, buying, you know, buying questions they have as they're on each site. And so we build it to be a sales, a digital salesperson, essentially. We need to answer these questions as we go down the page. And then as we're monitoring for that, we're looking how far down do they scroll. If 50% of the people scroll to the bottom of the page, that's not a good thing 'cause they didn't find what they were looking for. Yeah. They didn't Steven: Have their answer 33:42: I don't know if it's taught, but the one thing that I constantly remind myself of is patience. Like it is the most underrated attribute of an entrepreneur. I would say if you are just very, very patient and thinking years, that's kind of something that we always have. That's why we kind of also clicked is because like the agency within Nate and Connor and I, it was always like, year one is fine. Like we're just gonna hope, like focus on what I said, like processes and team and all that sort of stuff. And I think everyone is so blinded by trying to make a million dollars in 30 days, and it's like why aren't you making a million dollars in five years? It's like, it's like it's gonna be way more sustainable, way more successful and it's probably gonna last, you know, 10 plus 15 years down the road. So I think reminding yourself to zoom out, think about why you started, like no one gets into business to flip it and sell it in a year. And so it's like if you're actually in it for the long haul, like treat it like it's a long haul and do everything else that's very process-oriented and systems-wise so that your life is easier and you can actually scale. But if you're just constantly in the weeds, it's like you're, why, why would you start a business for that reason? 16:48 - That is a feeling you don't want to feel again. Like, you wanna minimize that feeling as many times as possible moving forward. So you're gonna create a system, you're gonna create a process, you're gonna have your team like hone in on that to avoid it. And so it's like that conflict, then let's change. And so if you can go into any situation thinking like that and knowing like, wow, the moment this sucks, like I hate this feeling but what can we do to make sure that we minimize this moving forward? And that is the change that will kind of like compound to become a successful endeavor. 28:47 - Josh: On that note, what do you do with customers who ask for something that you don't specialize in or, or don't have internally? Steven: We have a pretty good referral network so we'll just say like, Hey, we don't do that sometimes like with links right now we're starting to, well white label someone else's agency and bring them in under ourselves so that we can kind of still manage the communication, manage the billing, make sure all the reporting's good. Like it's just easier from the client's point of view where they just work with us, and then we manage everything else. But I think I'd say it's pretty few and far between where people will be like, Hey, I also want to do email marketing and it's a must that this happens. It's like people come to us knowing we do content. I would say the only kind of in discrepancy is when people want to do like local SEO, and that's just like an entirely different can of worms. And so we're like, we have a referral for that, and that's fine…

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From Ideas to Reality: A Journey Through Social Media Education 44:23

4 weeks yang lalu44:23

44:23

Embark on a journey with Jennifer Radke, CEO of the National Institute for Social Media, as she delves into her unique path from entrepreneurship inspiration to leading an organization. Discover how personal experiences shape professional growth, the value of team empowerment, and the art of balancing life’s stress with work demands. Expect insights on mergers, certifications, and the evolving landscape of social media strategy. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Entrepreneurial inspiration from family roots Balancing personal and professional challenges Leveraging team empowerment and leadership Navigating mergers and acquisitions successfully Fostering collaboration in digital marketing Resources: National Institute for Social Media DevNoodle Connect with Jennifer Radke: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 21:29 - I feel like, yeah, having the right environment for people to start thinking about the self-improvement and process improvement of the organization that will then ultimately help them. And then everyone else who's involved or associated with the company or the organization is huge. And I always come back to habits and creating triggers around something like if something happened, let that trigger you to then say, I wanna learn more about this, or I think we can use it in this way. Or just say something that way you can start just like, Celeste, is it Celeste? Yep. I said something about it. Yeah, I would like to do that. Now you have a full internship program, it's amazing. It's just the that little spark. And I'm wondering like, what was that trigger for her? And if that can be kind of harnessed and then be put into can we attach that trigger to something we already do and now, you know, there's a whole Yeah. You know, a whole environment for that to continuously happen. 18:43 - Yeah, that's always a good question and a thought that the leadership should be doing. And most of us, especially entrepreneurs, if we're small businesses, right? We're so busy pushing the business forward that we don't necessarily spend a lot of time doing that, right? I'm fortunate to be in a space that highlights and focuses in on professional development. So you would think that it would be inherent to me, right? Like a secondary nature just to say, Hey, we're gonna push you outside your comfort zone today and learn something new. But it's not because we just get into our routines and we get into the need to grow the business or to serve our clients or whatever the case may be. And so for me, what I recommend now and what we do now is really try to at least quarterly sit down and talk about, hey, what is something you want to learn? What is something you wish you could do more of? What is something you don't wanna do? 43:53 - Most people do think we are an agency. They look past the fact that we are an institute and go straight to social media. You know it all. So here I'm gonna call you and I want you to do my social. That's usually the request, right? They have a marketing need, a social media management need, or they're hiring for positions. All of those I refer out to our community of certified strategists. So I gather some information from, the folks that are looking, what are they looking for, what are the skills that they need? And then I go to my community of social strategists are certified agencies if there's appropriate, right. And I'll make those recommendations or referrals through that process. We also have a job board on our website that is there for our community of strategists who might be looking. But it is a nice resource for an agency who's hiring or a company who wants to bring someone in full-time. 29:50 - What do women in Minnesota do for work? I had traveled about 80% of the time for the last four years within my organization, and I didn't feel like it was well connected to my community. And so I got introduced to the National Institute for Social Media through a friend and a real estate agent of mine who had gone to a business networking international or BNI meeting. And he met the founder, Eric Mills, and Eric was looking for someone to do business development, help build relationships between the institute and colleges and universities. And of course my friend thought of me and I was like, yeah, sure, I could do that while I figure out what I wanna do next. And so I did. So I chatted with Eric, I, I chatted with the investors that he had, and if I'm honest, I wasn't a hundred percent sold right away, right? 45:50 - So a few years ago on our website, we did have a directory where all of the certified strategists could fill in a profile. And if they were looking for work, full-time, part-time contracts, stuff like that, what their areas of expertise were, we actually took that off recently. And part of it was because if the strategists weren't updating it properly and often enough, and so people would not feel like they were getting the right service, right? Because they'd go on, they'd email and it was an old email or something like that. And so we've taken that off for now, but the conversation has come back, right? Like how do we create a place where we can not only showcase the amazing work that our strategists are doing, but also have and facilitate collaboration, facilitate work opportunities? And what that looks like going forward is yet to come. It might be another form of directory. Right now we do have some closed groups. So once somebody is certified, there are closed groups where that collaboration is happening behind the scenes. And if I get a request, I'll put it in the closed group, right? So I have a request from somebody outside, I'll put it in the group, and then those who are interested and available can respond and I can make some educated introductions. But we are thinking about how to make that front-facing. But I wanna make sure it's a good experience for everybody involved, and that takes a little bit more planning this time than what we had before.…

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Finding balance: In-house Expertise & Outsourcing Design 31:50

19 weeks yang lalu31:50

31:50

Dive into the fascinating world of legal marketing with Doug Bradley of Everest Legal Marketing as he shares his journey. From childhood hustles to creating a specialized agency serving law firms, discover the art of SEO, website design, and why sometimes, collaborating with competitors can lead to success. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Childhood hustles shape a future CEO Building an SEO-focused legal marketing agency Specializing in law firm client needs The pros and cons of befriending competitors Finding balance: in-house expertise & outsourcing design Resources: Everest Legal Marketing DevNoodle Connect with Doug Bradley: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 39:40 - And that's basically as a way to break the barrier for a client, client. You know, our clientele, lawyers, they tend to dive first to try and solve a problem and they usually just, how do I write a check and solve this problem? And they've been bitten by that. And part of our, part of our, our pitch is that if we suck, you can fire us after two or three months. If you think we're full of shit and we can't do anything, you can fire us and take all of our work to the next vendor 13:20 - And the way that my agency is set up is you know when it when a request from a client comes in it go like we're usually getting them done same day especially if it's an easy request. We gotta be able to do the easy things fast because those are obviously the things that the client's asking for. So let's get those done quickly. And I found with a lot of agencies, especially larger ones, even, you know, it's like the old broken windows problem, eventually you get so large that it's hard to even solve just the tiniest of issues. 16:54 - And to the first part, I think like unlike other industries, the agency world, especially the marketing agency world, can be friendly with each other even if you're directly competing because there like truly is enough business to go around. Oh yeah, you nailed, you nailed the more important part, which is the referral part. Whether I don't have enough resources right now to even take on the project that I normally would, or any, or I don't do these services or whatever it is. But like you said, you know, I think a good vetting process and sometimes you just, even if you vet 'em and they turn out to be okay. 08:41 - Doug: I actually started crying because it was like this whole emotional journey of creating something of value that someone wanted to buy. Josh: Alex and I are both entrepreneurs. We both started companies and we both know that feeling of it, there's nothing like the first sale. Yeah. Like, it, it's, it kind of blows your mind of like, I can't believe, especially if it was like your concept or something from the beginning Yeah. That I can't believe, like something from my brain got put onto paper, got executed, and then like someone gave me a dollar for it. 25:15 - We only work with law firms. We know what you need, we know what you want, and more importantly, we know what you don't want. It's really important to know what client doesn't want, thinking, you know, going into a relationship thinking they might want all of these leads for this thing, and then they tell you months later, by the way, we don't do that at all. We don't want any of those. So, so we already have a, a pretty good knowledge of what clients want just because we only work with law firms.…

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Conquering Fears & Creativity in Marketing with Tuuti Agency 39:05

20 weeks yang lalu39:05

39:05

Dive into the story of a former radio host-turned-agency CEO, Shawnda Huffman, as she shares her relentless journey from craving connection to leading an award-winning creative communications agency. Discover the blend of fierceness and compassion that fuels Tuuti Agency's rise in the marketing landscape. Get ready for an episode packed with insights on overcoming fears, embracing the power of PR, and the significance of humility in celebrating achievements. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Shawnda's childhood quest for connection. The transition from radio to marketing. Building Tuuti Agency and its milestones. The role of introversion in leadership. Embracing the "award-winning" accolade. Resources: Tuuti Agency DevNoodle Connect with Shawnda Huffman: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 20:22 - I am a true believer on learning from failure, even though I hate it. As much as I hate when it happens, I'm like, okay, well what do we learn from this? How could we, how could we get better? And so and so, yeah, like I think with, whenever I share that, because to people that meet me who are in my life, they're like, really? You don't seem afraid of anything. And I'm like, I think it's my fear of control. Like to me, I will not allow fear to control me. I won't allow anything to control me. So for me, I categorize that the same. So even though I am afraid, I'm not gonna allow it to control my destiny and kind of what I do. 18:21 - Josh: What do you think is the difference between, you know, you who went through that stuff and we'll call it came out on top, versus someone who let's just say went through a very similar experience and wanted to be successful and didn't, like what would you identify as something that you did or traits or whatever it is that kinda led to your success based on that trauma? Shawnda: I think my number one trait is relentlessness. And I think some people, like, they get, they're really surprised when I say the scariest part of my scariest part of my day is waking up in the morning. I'm afraid of everything, but I refuse to allow fear to control me. 19:60 - Josh: And the quote that I think I came up with is the, your fear of regret should be bigger than your fear of failure. And I, and I think that's kind of what you were saying is. Shawnda: Oh yeah Josh: Should be worried about not trying it more than you should, like whatever the end result is. And, and I think that's kind of what you're highlighting. Shawnda: Yeah. I mean, it, it's kind of cliche to say because I mean, you hear that all the time, but it's so true and it's something to live by. Like I, me, like, even though I am so afraid, I'm afraid to fail, but I'm also knowing that failure is absolutely necessary to become better and get stronger and learn from it. Right? I'm, I am a true believer on learning from failure, even though I hate it. As much as I hate when it happens 35:20 - Sometimes people just deplete me and I need to take like a five day rest. But I also like, I'm okay. Like, people were also surprised because I'm so loud. I'm like, I'm like the megaphone of the business, but really I have to like pump myself up to do those types of things. I'm not just like naturally waking up going, yeah, let's conquer the world. I have to like go okay. Like, just kind of like a transformer, just kind of, you know, work myself into the day. But I'm just not naturally like that. I call it, again, going back to my childhood, is it trauma response? I don't know. I have no idea. 43:43 - So Kaylee is like the master of like grassroots, like if you have, because I think people get, give you, they have a kind of a negative undertone when it comes to pr. They think it's just media coverage and it's not, I mean it's like, it's, it's polarizing campaigns to grab attention for your business and then obviously that free advertising, free media comes, comes along if your message is right.…

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From Career Shifts to Moving Homes: Stories of Change 55:07

25 weeks yang lalu55:07

55:07

Dive into a whirlwind of life changes with our guest, who juggles a new job, a sudden move, and a fresh breakup, all while exploring the dynamic world of marketing. It's an unfiltered peek into the trials of transitions, from tackling workplace adjustments to personal evolution. Tune in for a raw, relatable, and candid conversation. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. New job experiences and changing habits. The surprise of having to move houses. Breaking up and dating scene insights. LinkedIn's untapped potential for connections. Transitioning from athlete to business leader. Resources: Lillian James Creative DevNoodle Connect with Aaron Fulk: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 48:25 - And so it majorly changed the business but it's one of these things that I'm like I had to lose her to become this better leader become this better business and do all of this. And I mean you know I would love to give her a job back but now she's like soaring and I can't match this tech company she's at. And funny enough she's moved 2 neighborhoods over from me. We just reconnected and she's moved 2 neighborhoods over from me. And she's just like she's killing life and I'm so proud of her. But it was definitely definitely probably the most costly decision I've ever made. 20:41 - It's why we end up in our industries because we all, there's a great great Steve Harvey video. It's my favorite video. I watch it at least once a week, maybe still all eight years of my business. I watch it maybe once a week and it's called Jump. And he essentially talks about, you have these gifts, and if you can figure out your gift, whether it is mowing lawns or being a, you know, a comedian, if you can figure out that gift and lean into it, you can make money and a whole career and a whole, you know, become a multimillionaire by leaning into that gift. And I think it kind of goes for the same with networking, right? So as soon as you figure it out in business and your industry and you lean into that, then you become great. 24:06 - Josh: Maybe you already kind of answered this in that last question, but what does your self-talk look like the first time you're going through something? Aaron: Well, this has been a journey too, right? So my self-talk now is I've put enough people in my immediate circle, which is something I didn't have before where I don't necessarily just rely on my self-talk. I rely on like the facts. So I used to be a lot more feelings based and now I'm a lot more facts based, which is also not a always the best thing is a female specifically business owner, right? Because we're sometimes I'll get too fact-based and it can come off as rigid or some people call it bitchy, right? Which I don't always think that you guys have to deal with more. Like some of us women have to, 'cause I've become too facts where I used to be very feeling. So I think now it just becomes more fact-based. There's not too much self-talk that goes in that, right? Like, I'm just like, here's what it is, this is what can happen. What's the worst case scenario? One of my favorite, favorite mentors in the world told me, and she's had her business for 30 years. And she said, I always just figure out the very worst thing that could happen if I mess this up and then I work backwards. And she's like, it never gets to the worst case. So I kind of do a little bit of that and then I don't know, I like that a lot. The same mentor said, if you are doing the best you know how to do at that time, that's all you can do. Alex: Yeah. I think working your way from the worst, you envision the worst and you're like, okay, can I deal with that? Yeah, I can figure that out. And then you just, then you have the confidence to just go forward knowing that like that is the worst case scenario. 56:45 - So LinkedIn is our number one referral source for eight years in a row. Okay? 80% of social web leads in the B2B space come from LinkedIn. While I think that we're better at LinkedIn now as a society, I think it's still the most like unutilized for businesses. I don't think they understand it. I don't think it's ever especially, which is so interesting to me, especially Gen Z, and millennials. Millennials are getting there. But I Gen Z legitimately barely knows what LinkedIn is, which is so crazy to me 'cause they're so good at social media. LinkedIn is the only space on the internet where the Mark Cubans are still checking their own profiles, The Mark Cubans of the world. So we're talking about networking, we're talking about who, you know, you guys, I literally have made some of the most insane connections on LinkedIn of like actual real life, major, major, major, both celebrities, athletes, motivational speakers, because they're there, right? Anyone that understands money knows that LinkedIn's the space to be on. 35:33 - But for me, I think superpower wise is that I think most people with ADHD are just chaotic enough to where it allows people to find them interesting. It allows people to be like, hey, that you're kind of the life of the party or the life of the like, you know, like you're just one of these people like goes, goes, goes enough that people want to want to figure out what's going on. They wanna be around, they wanna be drawn to you a lot of times with ADHD because you have a hard time regulating your emotions, you say exactly what you think, right? And that for, I don't know how many perfectionist friends you guys have, but for your perfectionist friends, they wish they could have a little bit of that, right? So that draws them to you.…

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Mastering Your Market: Inside the World of Kaizen Marketing 50:05

28 weeks yang lalu50:05

50:05

Dive into the riveting world of entrepreneurship with Kyle Barry, a master marketer who's smashing normalcy and fear with his innovative strategies. From the hectic kitchen of a family restaurant to the adrenaline-fueled arenas of professional paintball, Kyle's diverse experiences have sculpted a unique business acumen. Discover how Kaizen Marketing Agency thrives on psychology, data, and passion to deliver unmatched customer acquisition. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Breaking the norm in marketing. Ownership and profits in business. The psychological edge in sales. The value of diversified experiences. Strategies for lasting success. Resources: Kaizen Marketing DevNoodle Connect with Kyle Barry: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 48:04 - I believe that the only way to find truth is to source out as many potential sources as possible. Weed out their personal relations, weed out their personal emotions behind X, Y, and Z, and find out how Malcolm Gladwell and Alex Hormozi talk about business and find the common denominators there. ‘Cause as you start looking through enough information, you'll find that all these things are very consistent across the board. It's why Kaizen has done so well for small to medium-sized businesses. Because in today's world everyone cares about the big fish. Everyone cares about the e-commerce business that's gonna be able to scale to a hundred thousand dollars a month. And they put every bell and whistle on that e-commerce client and they do a 10th of that for the local restaurant when in actuality they're the same structure. You need the same outreach email programs, CRM, support, communication tactics in an e-commerce business as you do in a restaurant. 09:12 - The greatest lesson was definitely getting suspended from high school. 'Cause I printed, I think it was like 6,000 menus out of the printer in high school. And I was like getting yelled at the end of it. Like, you can't do that. And I was like, no, no, it's fine. Don't worry about it. And yeah, my persistency there got me a suspension in school, but enough flyers to be able to go around my whole little town and put the flyers into people's cars, into their mailboxes, which is totally illegal. Didn't know that at the time. Into their mailboxes and everywhere else to start driving my own customers into the business that my father didn't have previously. So that was the best learning lesson I had from outside of learning how to cook. You know, it's a valuable lesson that I'll always have, but the marketing aspect of it is what I fell in love with it. 22:53 - There is zero difference in your brain. The only difference is that in your frontal lobe, if you have a level of dopamine and you're happy, you become excited. If you have a high level of serotonin and you're not happy or you're depressed, you become, you get anxiety from it. You get anxiety from it. So to understand that it's the same exact thing, but you decide how you actually take that feeling and push it out to the world. Change the way I thought a lot about emotions, right? Because if I'm sitting here feeling anxiety and I'm scared and I'm start sweating and I have anxiety, if I can convince myself, no, it's not anxiety, that's excitement. I'm pumped, I'm pumped up so much that I'm nervous about it, use the excitement, hone that excitement and I used to not be able to talk on stage. I used to shake when I was getting sales calls that all of that has changed. 32:16 - Everything that you think, everything that you feel is not part of this world. It's only a part of you. It only relies inside you yourself. You are the wall that defines how the world recognizes you when you put that out into the world, right? Every time you say something, you move your hands, you make a gesture. That's what you're gonna be defined as in this world. So make sure that you understand nobody else in existence controls how you are defined besides you, you are the one that are gonna take the emotions and the thought process and define what that really looks like as a representation of yourself. So as you were saying like that, that left and right brain ideology and the structure of how to see things, it is completely controlled by you. It is the hardest thing in the world to do, to find out how to control yourself and your own emotions past what you naturally feel. 40:27 - But even when we send reports, I just got off a meeting right before this call where, you know, we start off the call with, Hey, you spent $2,000 on your meta advertising, we generated $8,000 in total revenue, then here's the consumer avatars, here's the creative that's working, here's the message test that we put out there. Here's the results of the success that we're having. But it always starts and we're forefront with, you gave me X and I delivered Y in revenue, which I believe is the core value for any agency out there.…

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Navigating the Wild World of NIL: Inside Athlete-Influencer Marketing 42:25

29 weeks yang lalu42:25

42:25

Dive into the dynamic intersection of college sports and influencer campaigns as we chat with Brent Barkin, CEO of PlayBooked. Discover the ins and outs of utilizing athletes to amplify brand messages and learn the secrets to targeting the elusive 18-25 demographic. From pinpointing micro influencers to creating impactful marketing strategies, we're dissecting the playbook for modern brand engagement. Don't miss these game-time decisions in the marketing arena! Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Athletes as authentic brand voices The rise of NIL in college sports Harnessing micro-influencers at scale The evolution of athlete marketing Strategies for targeting 18-25 year-olds Resources: PlayBooked DevNoodle Connect with Brent Barkin: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 35:15 - And it's my personal opinion that that aggregation of their following is infinitely better than paying an Uber influencer or paying somebody with 10 times the following and paying them 20 times the money to do the same thing. And I also personally believe that athletes have a unique value proposition because their voice is really felt to be authentic that if they talk about a product and if they back something just like the uniform they wear that it stands for something more than themselves. So it's that authenticity of their voice that that really enhances the message. 43:11 - I think the worst thing that a marketing agency can do is pretend to be good at something they're not. I think it's dangerous and I think it's stupid. I would rather tell one of our clients that we're working with the brand or group and here's what we're doing. What a lot of them won't do is they won't tell you they're working with a third party. They'll just do it and then they'll just jack the rates up so their margin is the same. So it ends up being much more expensive. And I would say if it's more expensive, it's usually not as productive. 11:47 - I think the main thing is people don't necessarily know what they know, what they want to do, know what, what interests them. And what's so crazy is, you know, the more I do what I'm doing with, with PlayBooked and talk to student athletes, the more you realize how many different types of jobs there are out there in the world and every day you learn about something else that you never knew existed, right? So if you are at that stage, if you're a young person at that stage, I think the main thing is, you know, LinkedIn is a great tool. Talk to as many people as you can. Have one-on-one conversations with people and ask them what they do and if you have no agenda, other than I really wanna understand what they do, how they got that job. Do they like it? Do they not? If they don't, why? And if you're at that age where you're really trying to figure out what you want to do with your life, I think the first thing is recognize that there's 10 times more opportunities out there than you ever thought there were. 31:00 - What that kind of reinforced for me was when people are just on autopilot, that they just get there and they do it. You don't realize how valuable that is for business to have people that just kind of know what they're supposed to do and do it without being told. And that's, you know, functionally you and I then started talking about the value habits and you know, the emotional effort or emotional energy it takes to do something that is, that your brain is recognized as a habit is a ton less emotional effort, physical effort often, and emotional energy. And when I say emotional energy, those tasks, if they require thought and effort and intellectual energy, they drain you. So just like that Roomba definitely imagine Roomba, but the Roomba doesn't have to keep going and being recharged. So if you as a person, as an individual create positive habits for you every day for yourself every day and you layer those habits on top of each other, you, your productivity skyrockets and your energy to do that, to do those tasks really stays almost the same. 25:02 - Brent: We're a marketing company. Well we don't use AI, we only use people and that's right. And then somebody next door to you could use AI and eat your lunch and you're patting yourself on the back that you. Alex: So would you put it as a like the way as he was calling you an efficiency expert, kind of like internally focused on the company and creating efficiencies, potentially saving money. Whereas he was thinking externally, how can we grow, how can we attract new people, do more things? Brent: This was expensive, you know, you hear this all the time, cutting expensive to a profit. So you, instead of a company, the best way to grow profits is to grow your top line. Because even then the percentage you play the law percentages, if we had 10% bottom line profit, and I do twice the amount of money I did twice the amount of profit, right? All my fixed expenses drop as a percent, you know, all the variable expenses will keep going up, but you make more and more money. He was basically saying, I was more focused on how do we save money than how do we make money.…

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Marketing Metrics & Moxie: A Candid Conversation 49:52

30 weeks yang lalu49:52

49:52

Dive into a riveting session with Matt Butler Co-founder & CEO of Bonsai as he unpacks the world of precision marketing. This episode explores the intricate dance between analytics and agency success, from the struggles of justifying ad spending to leveraging first-party data—a candid look at what fuels motivation and discipline in business and beyond. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. SEO and web design referrals Leveraging first-party data Scaling up with Overstory Truth about incrementality in ads Building motivation and discipline Resources: Bonsai DevNoodle The Book of Why Connect with Matt Butler: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 34:02 - I would argue the ones, a lot of the people that have right to complain and don't end up being the most successful people that you meet typically. And I totally agree with you. I've always had this rule for myself of, you know, if you're gonna complain, either do something bad or shut your mouth, you know, like we don't have time for that. Alex: Yeah, 100%. You gotta look for the solutions right away. Like you spend your time complaining. It's just, I know Josh has this thing, he calls it stress-free shampoo. But you should basically, without going into, unless Josh, you want to, but you surround yourself with this like negative thought as you're complaining about the things and you just, you get into the cycle of consistently thinking about it instead of like, I gotta get out of this. What's the solution? Let's just focus on that. Josh: Yeah Matt: Failing is painful and a lot of people, like, I failed constantly, right? And it sucks. And you can put complaining on as a way to like, give yourself an excuse to not feel so bad about those failures 28:05 - Josh: Maybe we should have another podcast just called Fucking Motivation. Matt: Yeah, no, I do like, there's a, there's probably a market for that. No, I the way I would always feel about that is like, yeah, I mean, there'd be times when I would say I wouldn't try to go people into like, you know, razzing me or digging, digging me. But like, I do think I had a little bit more of a spark in the face of like, essentially that, you know, that you mentality as opposed to like, someone lavishing you with, you know, oh, you're great. Isn't this wonderful? Like, I didn't really, I never responded that well to like overarching phrase, but if you really wanted to get my gears going right, go ahead and, you know, like poke the bear a little bit, right? Like say like, yeah, no, you know what, you can't do it. Like I, I knew you couldn't do it right? Then it's like, all right, let's see about that. Right? Like there's, I think, I think that drives people in many ways. I think that's important too. Matt: And I think you need to call on that sometimes too, by the way. So like, there, your motivations and like the thing that will keep you disciplined and focused isn't the same every single day. And there's these periods that, you know, that might be something you need to tap into all the time, right? Like, if you're just like constantly acting like the world's against you 44:57 - That's totally true. We had a few pilot smaller clients maybe before them that were, let's just say that I'm not sure they were really paying clients, but we were teasing out like, well, what is it that we do? Like how do we help an organization understand its information and then build a growth strategy on top of that first party data? But yeah, I mean like that's how it got going. 2020 happened, the pandemic happened, we got into a great relationship helping ancestry kind of rethink how they wanted to orchestrate and measure their marketing success, which then led into like a whole slew of where we're at today around like having an actual solution and technology to do those things and more. 19:12 - Josh: The thing that like resonated internally for me though is like this idea of, I think sometimes people think of discipline and focus as being these sort of skills in a vacuum that you can, you know, oh, you need to have it, you can train it. Matt: It's just a matter of like powering up that discipline bar and then like, or you know, same thing with focus, right? And I think my big, maybe it isn't quite as straightforward as that. The discipline and focus comes when you have like a why behind it. Like a reason that you want something, right? And then there is that element of the belief, right? Like you speaking for myself, I tend to find that if there's something out there that I wanna achieve, if I tell someone about it, that's great. But by and large people don't, they're not necessarily not, no one's necessarily expecting success for you. And that doesn't comes across as really negative. 35:20 - To close out that stress-free shampoo theory, a lot of it is basically like, you know, the people that are really stress, they usually surround themselves with stress-free shampoo and stress-free poems and stress-free whatever. And all you're doing is surrounding yourself with the word stress, even though it says stress free. And I think what Alex was kind of getting at is complaining is the same thing where, you know, you start to complain and then you make it your personality, even though, you know, you don't want to keep complaining, but it becomes you and you post memes about it and you post, you think it's a silly little Instagram post, but you're really like making your personality.…

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Unpacking Success: Self-Awareness, Motivation & Stoicism 47:20

32 weeks yang lalu47:20

47:20

Dive into a dynamic conversation with Deevo Tindall as he spins tales from road rage to the power of microdosing. Is what we know about branding and caffeine all a lie? Uncover life lessons on what truly powers success and get a kick of real talk on stoicism and discipline—all wrapped in a bittersweet blend of humor and insight. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Brand before marketing. Coffee as a societal loophole. Stoicism in modern life. Storytelling as a core strategy. Photography to brand strategy leap. Resources: The Brand Storyteller The Branding Laboratory Podcast Fusion Photography Fusion Photography on Instagram DevNoodle Connect with Deevo Tindall: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: And so I had this idea of what if I could bridge the gap between content strategy and deployment? And so I started like helping clients. It was sort of more on an ad hoc capacity. I know a bunch, I know so many people. And so I knew a social media manager. I'm pretty good at social media myself. I knew copywriters, I knew web developers. I knew SEO people. So I started like plugging and playing little solutions like, let's just take you for example, you know, you had this great content shoot that I had done for you, but you didn't really know how to do that. I was like, Hey Josh, I can take your content. I can put it on social media for you. I can get you on a website. Like all these different things. Well, I don't have a website. Well, I know somebody who can build a website, so let me get you, so anyhow, you can see where I'm going with this. And so one thing just led to an next, and before you knew it, I sort of was getting these different business things, opportunities because I had treated these people just as well as I had treated my other clients. So I was getting referrals and all these things. 41:48 - Deevo: Anyway, I was just genuinely curious in sort of the, the, I'm always been curious about the metaphysical connection. So I've, I grew up with God in my life and all these different religions and so I've never really believed in any one theory. I just had a lot of hypotheses about a bunch of different things. And I'm fascinated by that sort of micro macrocosm relationship of humans and this, you know, this idea of God. And then I started, you know, exploring, you know, there's plant-based medicines and all the different effects and the shamans and things that they espouse to. And then I started diving into like Native American histories and like all the different things that they did. And I was like, you know, the further I went down the rabbit hole, the further I started to realize that the information that we have been given was misinformation in order to guide us down a different rabbit hole of someone else's choosing. Right? And so it's one of the reasons I started my podcast unlearn everything is I started realizing that everything we have been told is a lie. Literally everything we have been told is a lie from politics to economics, to relationships, to sex, to God, to the universe, to literally everything has been a lie. And one of those things that I discovered was that plant-based medicine was also a lie. It has been ostracized so that they could push us into the direction of alcohol. For example, alcohol is one of the single biggest poisons on the planet. Josh: As pharmaceutical, I put pharmaceuticals in there, in there as well. 1:03:20 - You need to get that down so that you, your team, anything that is associated with your business has consistency, clarity and cohesion so that when your customer reads it, they can align with that and they understand the language that you're sharing, the problems that you solve. Because not everybody is your customer, you know, very specific types of people are your customer. And so you wanna make sure that the language that you're speaking to them is the language they understand and that speaks to their problem. 38:31 - And so I know I'm going different direction than you had hoped, but just to be vulnerable, I can tell you that we do always have a choice in how we respond to everything. And I would suspect that the people who have a better outcome are generally the people that choose a more optimal response to everything, every trigger, every failure, every inopportunity, ever anything that ever happens to them that doesn't go advantageously for them. Deevo number one would choose, would choose the lighter response and Deevo number two would choose the blame response. And like, it's your fault that I suck. 39:22 - I think introspective awareness, learning to find a time and a place to be by yourself and understand who you are and how you operate and have some quiet time by yourself is one way. Therapy is another. Finding good group of peers and mentors to surround yourself with. It's very important that you surround yourself with quality people. You become a byproduct of the six people you hang around with most. And if the six people that you're surrounding yourself are assholes, you're gonna become an asshole.…

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Navigating The Chaos of Multiple Startups 46:48

33 weeks yang lalu46:48

46:48

Dive into Rusty Dycus' world of marketing dynamism and entrepreneurial fun as he deciphers the chaos of juggling multiple businesses. From pet rocks to unparalleled marketing strategies, Rusty's zest for building, selling, and the joy behind it all is contagious. Tune in to learn how to transform every wall into a stepping stone for success. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Embrace chaos for business growth Finding fun in entrepreneurial endeavors Insights on effective customer engagement Direct mail as the backbone of sales Strategies for meaningful B2B connections Resources: Olde School Marketing DevNoodle Connect with Rusty Dycus: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 29:24 - If you get done with the end of your week and you have not had fun, you screwed up. So everything that we do, why are we doing it? Why do you do, oh well we need money. Do you really, do you really need as much money as you make? Or do you just like, why do we do what we do? So if you're not having fun doing it, why are we doing it? Money is not even real. Money is just something that we, the government's conned us into thinking that actually has value. It really doesn't, it has no value. We trade our time and energy for nothing. 49:49 - If you're not bow out, get somebody else to do it that's gonna do a better job. You can subcontract and still make a decent margin and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with subcontracting if there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, Josh, I'm just not gonna be the best at that. But you know what, I got a buddy and he's really good at art and he can make your picture and he can do it very well. Would you like me to get ahold of him and see if he'd like to work with you? There's nothing wrong with that at all. So know your own strengths and weaknesses and make sure you're doing for somebody else a good job. Don't take a job on that you're not qualified for. And I see it all the time. I see marketing agencies all the time screw people because they don't know how to help them. They just need the cash flow. They're just gonna take the job and then they hurt the customer and then they never wanna do business with 'em again. And then they got a bad rap on their sheet and then they get to talk to me and they're like, well, I got screwed by this person and this person and this person, and how are you gonna be any different? And that's what we're doing to ourselves. So as marketing agencies do us all a favor and stick to your swim lanes and do what you can do well and do it well and then subcontract or give it away. 15:07 - Honestly, money is not that appealing to me. To me, money is like a brick. I'm looking at money and it's a brick. And how do I take that brick and put concrete on top of it and put another brick on top of that and make something fun with it. So that's all money is to me. It's just a tool, it's a material and I need it to make more. 18:28 - Most of the time the failure comes from me. So everything rises and falls with leadership. If I could teach you to anything, it is that case study right there. If there's a problem in your company, if there's something that's not going wrong, Alex, look at yourself because we are the problem every time. We didn't say the right thing. We didn't motivate the people correctly. We weren't measuring the right things. We didn't employ enough with the right people to move us down the track where we need to be. So always, I'm always looking at these scenarios. I made a major decision 20 minutes ago and I'm moving teams and members around in order to accomplish a better goal that I was the problem. 24:45 - It doesn't matter. It's just business. I'm not on the roof swinging a hammer. Why would I swing a hammer? I I would suck at that. I would cut the board all kinds of weird ways and it would never fit. That's not my strength. So you take strengths and weaknesses and I'm always on, I want to hone my own skillset to where I'm focused on my strengths, not my weaknesses. So when I bring somebody into, I don't care what company, it's, we may have somebody and I employed them for the construction company. We're building a house and I find out that he's better at marketing. I'm sucking 'em over here into the marketing department. It doesn't matter. Put people where they're gonna flourish and then help them grow that.…

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Marketing Wiz Unpacks Business Growth & Sobriety Journey 47:20

34 weeks yang lalu47:20

47:20

Dive into an insightful conversation with Preston Powell, CEO of WebServ, as he shares his transition from battling addiction to pioneering marketing strategies. Explore the nuances of narrowing a business focus while staying agile enough to embrace lucrative opportunities. This episode deftly mixes triumph, practical business tactics, and a dash of humor – perfect for anyone seeking inspiration on professional and personal fronts. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Overcame heroin addiction Build MRR for growth sustainability Specialize to provide industry-specific value Learning curve steep for business finances Expanding reach beyond behavioral health Resources: WebServ DevNoodle Connect with Preston Powell: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 46:12 - Because more general answer that might apply to just marketers in general is just, is specialized. That's what I would tell to an aspiring marketer. Like, figure out one thing that you like, whether it's, you know, technical or creative or you know, whatever it might be. But just go way down the rabbit hole over there because you'll provide a lot more value. You know, I've tried to make sure that our departments are like highly specialized so that we can provide a unique value that that isn't easy to find. 53:35 - Josh: The day that I realized that everyone's insecure was the day that I became a little bit more secure. And same thing. 'cause like, oh, like everyone's walking around just thinking about themselves and like, about all their little insecurities and everything. So I was like, that makes me feel a lot more secure. The same thing with imposter syndrome. Like if you kind of know that everyone's walking around doing it, there's like almost there hopefully is like a comfort level that comes with like, oh, that's like a normal feeling to have. And I'm not like, that's how progress goes with humans, right? Is you put yourself into Alex: This Yeah. The feeling of uncomfortableness and you wanting to show up. 33:09 - Initial plateaus were around like just not having the organization. So if I was focusing on service delivery, I couldn't focus on sales and vice versa. And then once we got to maybe a 100K we plateaued for a long time because we'd get clients, but we weren't retaining clients as well as we could. So we needed to work on retention. And yeah, there's been a number of plateaus. I think we plateaued again around 200K and exact reasons for each one are definitely somewhat debatable. But, mostly it's just that either you're not set up for growth, like you don't have the infrastructure for it or your focus is in, in the wrong area. 24:35 - I think it depends a lot. So I had a pretty, pretty high tolerance for like, I guess just like the pain that I put myself through and just really didn't have an interest in making a change. So like that kind of struck me. I, you know, I was so far beyond what should have been rock bottom for so long and I wasn't in too much worse a state I'd been in for, you know, the previous several months. But that was just something for like, that stood out to me as kind of like that fork in the road. But it is really hard. So like if you wanna like help somebody out that's struggling, their rock bottom or their turning point could be way higher than that. And hopefully for most people it is. Cause you can, I dragged myself through a lot of things that I didn't necessarily need to, I don't really regret it or anything 'cause I don't know if I would've just subscribed to like doing the right thing when I was in my teenage years and, it just wasn't my personality I, you know, was kind of a troublemaker for a long, long time. So I don't know. 30:05 - It's never worked very well if you go too broad because one like behavioral healthcare is an industry where everybody knows each other. So if I do really good work in behavioral healthcare, everybody hears about it and I get a lot of inbound referrals. So kind of like free marketing there. Also, we put on a lot of events in the space and those are all just great marketing opportunities for us. And we go to every conference. So I've got like five business development people and at any given time I've probably got a couple of 'em in different states at different events…

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From Philly to Fame: Comedians, Controversies & Trends 39:39

36 weeks yang lalu39:39

39:39

Dive into the dynamic twists of business partnerships, the pulse of comedic controversies, and the cyclical nature of trends in politics and fashion. Insights on finding your footing when the industry shakes, marketing mastery, and the secret sauce to managing change like a pro. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Lessons from a business partner's exit Value of contrary opinions in business Transitioning from V1 to V2 self The thin line of business and identity Insight into balancing work and faith Resources: Cascade Insights DevNoodle Connect with Sean Campbell: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 24:42 - I mean, in short, I think what he was getting at, although it's not like you would say this about a second grader, I've said to people since then, I'm pathologically incapable of learning something and not wanting to teach it. It's like my first mo like I was out fishing this morning, that's why I was a little late for the show. If I find a spot where I'm finding fish and my buddy's on the boat, the first thing I do is like, Hey, I was throwing this and I was throwing it over there and why don't you go over there? Right. I've been wired that way probably ever since Father Boivin noticed in me. 57:03 - I'm not saying that's a horrible thing. They're trying to network, they're trying to grow. But at some point there's that fine line. It's like, is your identity the business? You're the only one who knows that maybe your spouse does. They could probably tell you, this business isn't my identity. It would suck if it went away, it would suck. But I'm still me. And I can tell you that if you talk to most business owners, you guys do it on the show all the time. I would say at best 50% of them could answer that question in the positive. Like if they were being honest with you. 'Cause you can see it, you can see it when you talk to certain business owners. Like they have not separated who they are from the business. And that's made a huge difference. 38:10 - So one of the things you go through, I think, when co-founders leave is that you have to be humble. You have to be willing to go to clients who maybe you've worked with for years you wanna say, Hey, why don't you just trust me as I am? But they have legitimate questions. You've been through change, right? And so you have to be humble enough to say like, look, yeah, things are gonna change. It's under my leadership. I understand that trust is earned. We're a different company in some ways than we were before. 38:09 - So now you've got a whole different dynamic of how do you communicate to clients about the fact that your co-owners now in a different organization and he's competing with you, right? So there's a huge amount of, how do you talk about that and how do you do it in a way that, I mean, nobody, a client doesn't really care about our dirty laundry. It's the best way to put it, right? Like the Don Henley song back in the day, dirty Laundry, right? Nobody cares about it. They just wanna know if you're still gonna do good work. 47:04 - Somebody listening might say, you need a board of advisors and you need to go. Our experience with that was not that great, to be honest. We put in a board of advisors in the first company. Now maybe I just picked the wrong people. Right? That's fine. It's really hard to get board of advisors that understand your business, right? I mean, if you're making mistakes that are like classic, you know, like, oh, you know, I bought a new truck as an expense, right? And you need an advisor that says don't do that. Right? You know what I mean? Like sure, I think you can get good advice if you're struggling with business basics, but I think once you get past the business basics, it's really hard to find an advisor that you don't feel is just gonna be reading from like a business book on the Amazon shelf, to you kind of thing.…

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Hustle & Hardware: An Entrepreneur’s Story of Tech and Cars 43:48

39 weeks yang lalu43:48

43:48

Dive into an entrepreneur's journey from the early grind of networking events to the thrill of accelerating a business. Uncover the unique story behind Roosterly, the hustle of raising capital, and the passion for tech, teaching, and fast cars. Here are a few o topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. Selling t-shirts to managing socials. Affiliate program with a car giveaway. The struggle of scaling a business. Websites from 2004 vs. the modern web. AI and digital currency arbitrage. Resources: Roosterly DevNoodle BiggerPockets Podcast Buy Back Your Time Connect with Irfan Jafrey: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 30:25 - There's gotta be obviously arbitrage related to AI. There's arbitrage related to digital currencies. That's how Sam Bankman Fried initially was making a lot of money until he wasn't. But I mean, I think in digital currency, I think in things related to AI, we're gonna see a lot of arbitrage I think in PR, which is a very antiquated industry. No disrespect. We work with over 30 PR firms in North America to help them get their clients in the press quickly. And they all agree that it's an inefficient industry and I think we're going to see a lot of arbitrage there as technology makes things more efficient. 24:10 - Josh: Because it's not very often that you hear actually marketing agencies. Actually, two things I'll say about that. One, marketing agencies don't always raise money. And the other thing I forget. So my other question would be, what was the goal for raising capital. Irfan: Yeah, so I think the important distinction to make is we do not consider ourselves a marketing agency. We do some marketing agency type things, but we raised money. Our capital raise was predicated on the fact that we built a platform to aggregate, curate, schedule, and post content based on combing through a person's LinkedIn profile or Facebook or Instagram profile without them needing to do the heavy lifting. 28:35 - The average person on LinkedIn, let's say at that law firm has five hundred to a thousand connections. If you're sharing one piece of really good content on different times throughout that firm, not at the same time, not at the same day, 'cause it's gonna look robotic and spammy, but you can get, extract 10 X, 20 X, a hundred X of value for that piece of content that you put together. 'cause it's syndicated throughout multiple people. So that's also part of our goal is to create the automation around that strategy so that piece of content, whether it's a press release, original content, curated content, has the largest lifecycle with the most impact. 32:21 - And so if you can imagine the giant waste of time to, well, not really a waste of time, but if you look at the amount of effort and energy that goes into dressing up and going to a networking event in Chicago in the winter time with the snow and sleet and rai,n parking your car with the risk of it getting a parking ticket and meeting people when you're not a social guy to get a business card so you can sign 'em up for something that's $49, it's quite painful. But as silly as it sounds that being able to do that 40 times was a factor in us able to effectively raise money. We had people that signed up and they're like, yeah, I like the service. Okay, so we're a real business, not a concept at that point knowing, sure, we're only making a, a whopping $800 at that point or whatever it was, but it was enough where the caliber of clients that we had was sufficient to showcase to investors that, ah, okay, this is something that a lot of other people could use. Okay. So, that's sort of how we started. 37:01 - Actually no, I would say that about 80% of our business comes through the meta ads that we run. That sort of, you know, Facebook, Instagram, take the rooster really two week free trial if you'd like it. Stay on, there's no contracts. That's sort of the entry point low-risk product to help clients understand if we're a good fit for them and vice versa. They can come back and say, you're fine. Your product sunk sucks. It stinks, I hate it. We don't wanna work with you. And that's fine. Well well you didn't risk, you risked $0. So you took that free trial and it didn't make sense. Or you come back and say, Hey, I really like the welcome book that you guys produced. I like the first couple of weeks of content, here's the changes that I would make. And we're like, yeah, absolutely, we'll make those changes. And then we go from there and then there's a step up to other different products and then they're, they might just come back and say, dude, this is way better than I could do on my own, or our team could do on our own. Keep doing what you're doing. So that's typically how clients get started. Now, 20% of our business comes from a mix of referral, referrals and affiliates. Other agencies, either white labeling us or not white labeling us.…

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Unleashing Your Superpower with ADHD 43:36

41 weeks yang lalu43:36

43:36

Dive into an enlightening conversation as we discuss embracing ADHD as an entrepreneurial superpower, the transformative role of AI in the future of marketing, and why sidestepping "superstars" can strengthen your company culture. Prepare for practical insights on hiring right, leveraging AI today, and strategies for a booming marketing career. Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. ADHD as an entrepreneurial edge. AI's role in modern marketing. Importance of strategy in execution. Avoiding ego-driven superstars. Fractional CMO benefits for businesses. Resources: & Marketing DevNoodl e Connect with Rajat Kapur: LinkedIn Connect with our hosts: Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn Quotables: 39:53 - And a lot of the people out there that are independent consultants are looking for a community and a home where they can hang out. We want to be that community. And then obviously we have a business to run, right? So if we can help those two get together, that ends up being a really good model. I think of it as like a very high-end boutique recruiting service because we'll get clients that ask us the craziest thing, they'll say, well I'm in this industry and I want somebody at this particular thing and they might want this geography. And usually within a week we can find three to five candidates in our community that meet almost all or some of those criteria. 47:23 - Josh: And then a few questions I I tend to ask towards the end. If you had to teach something to other marketers, what would it be? Raj: That's a great question. There's a quote that I have adapted from the Art of War that applies directly to marketing. So it is, strategy is the slowest path to victory. Strategy without execution is the slowest path to victory. And tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. That's straight from that book and it totally applies to marketing. And what I find that happens in the marketing world today is everybody wants a quick ROI. Everybody wants to jump to execution. Everybody wants to get their ads up tomorrow or their social media plan implemented or those emails out as soon as possible. And sometimes it works, but when it doesn't work, it's almost always because you haven't done the strategy work. And the strategy work is never gonna go outta style and it's never gonna go bad. What does the strategy work? It is who are you, who is your ideal customer target? What are their problems? How do you solve them? What makes you unique? That's it, right? That's never gonna go outta style. And so if you think like, you know, in a couple weeks I'm just gonna turn on some Google ads and magically hit the right spot for that decision maker to make that decision, I would tell every marketer to go back to the fundamentals more than they think is comfortable. And that's almost always the right answer. 43:01 - Josh: And I guess I wanna understand, how can you work with other agencies or what services can you partner with other agencies? So in other words, what do agencies tend to reach out to you for? Raj: Yeah, that's great. So most of the time it's strategy, right? So most of the time an agency will reach out to us because they'll say, hey, we're great at the strategy. We can't do the execution that this particular company needs. I think they need a fractional CMO and the arrangements that we have there, I call it a boomerang. So if you're a marketing agency, you already have the relationship and you're able to bring us into potentially place a fractional CMO, you get the first right of refusal on the execution work. Absolutely right. So we have those successful arrangements already and I'm happy to build more of them. 'cause quite often that marketing agency tries to do the strategy strategic work, but they either can't find the budget or they don't have the people and the bandwidth to actually get it done. 39:08 - And what we basically do is we go out in the world, we meet companies who have hit a growth ceiling. They've either gotten rid of their marketing person, they never had a marketing person, they've never really invested in marketing and they're looking to get to that next level. And one of our fractionals can usually come in, help them set a really solid marketing foundation and then be their ongoing marketing leader. But as the name insinuates, it's on a fraction of their time and a fraction of the budget basis. 40:33 - We've built a really good community for those fractional CMOs. We provide them tools, templates, we provide them ongoing coaching. We have a regular speaker series where we have people that educate them on either building their own business or building their own or building theirselves as a marketer. And that's working really well. So I'd say the couple things are, you know, if you're a marketing in an independent marketing consultant and you're interested, go to our website, apply to be part of our community. If you have all of those criteria, I'd be happy to talk to you.…

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