Take a deep dive with Dr. Wilson Zehr as we navigate the dynamic tides of innovation, the strategic intricacies of business, and the revival of direct mail marketing. This episode isn't your average marketing talk; it's an academic exploration of the forces shaping industries – all interwoven with practical knowledge to propel your venture forward. Tune in for a riveting blend of thought-provoking ideas and actionable insights.

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast.

• Automation revolutionizing direct mail.
• Easy letter-sending tool with tracking.
• Pub talks: Informal yet insightful entrepreneur tales.
• Bridging theory and real-world application.
• Moving beyond the hammer-nail paradigm.

Resources:

• Zairmail
• DevNoodle

Connect with Dr. Wilson Zehr:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 10:52 - So Tim, once he told me that one of the things that people need, I mean, we always hear people talk in the industry, we talk about you need the expertise, you need people with the skills, and you need people, you need the money, you know, need the finance. But he said the other thing that people really need is heroes. They need people they can look at and said, if that person can do it, I can do it too. And we need more heroes and an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
• 24:30 - And then, you know, the Christensen talked about this idea that when you create new industries, when you're doing disruptive, what he called disruptive innovation, oftentimes, well usually favors the new entrant. Usually the incumbent is at a disadvantage for a variety of reasons, including the reason that it's not always in their best interest to do that. They've got an a market to pretend and defend, to protect and defend, but they also have new ideas, new specialties, in a specific area. And we would need to, I guess we'd need to take time to spend on the curve, but the idea of this model that we built on is the idea that if you're looking very early in a life cycle.
• 18:31 - But one of the interest, the really cool things that you see happening is that students, when you first lay out this project, you know, they just, kind of all the blood drain outta their face and they're like, oh my gosh, what did I get myself into? And they're really nervous about it. And because, you know, like any real world project, like I'm not out of the textbook, any real, real world project project, things are not always clearly defined. There's squishiness and you almost never have complete information, right? There's holes in that information. And you need to use what you have to work with, and you need to make assumptions to do that. So you need to try and make the best assumptions. And it may be that there is no right answer. There might be a series of right answers, wrong answers, depending on who they're for. It may be that, that there's only, you need to pick the least worst of the bad outcomes, right? 
• 32:14 -  AI is gonna kill everybody's job. And what history tells me is that it will reduce some opportunities, especially stuff that's systematic and repetitive, things that maybe people shouldn't be doing anyway. But it'll also create opportunities, and it's likely that it'll create many more opportunities than it actually eliminates. So, I mean, I'm not really worried about that technology at all. I'm more worried about the misapplication of it, people trying to use it to solve problems that's not well suited for than I am about it, eliminating everybody's job.
• 38:44 - I think that the trick for me is AI, just for the sake of AI, everybody today seems to have a need and AI story, but AI for the sake of AI is maybe not as valuable. I, what I'm really trying to do at the most basic level is I'm trying to solve important problems for my customers. And I might use AI to do that. I might not. And in fact, there might be other tools that work more effectively to do that. So that's the question to ask is what's the problem I'm trying to solve?

Dive into a riveting exchange with Pat Alacqua, CEO of Blue Magnet Partners, as he unpacks the entrepreneur-to-enterprise journey. Learn from a leader who's walked the path, scaling businesses, managing transitions, and successfully exiting companies. This episode is a trove of wisdom for any businessperson eager to learn from experience and expertise.

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast.

• Unveil growth tips from an expert
• Scaling and exiting companies
• System and process importance
• Identifying stages in business
• Mental transitions for leaders

Resources:

• Blue Magnet Partners
• Pat Alacqua
• DevNoodle

Connect with Pat Alacqua:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 16:31 -  I think everybody starts a business as much as you love it. You always [have to ask] if you're really going to get value out of it, you really got to say, how can it operate without me? Right. However, all that works. That's why I relate it to most of us. Parents can recognize the importance of letting our kids go. Right. So that's why I think that's a great analogy.
• 19:33 - So we had to, I always say something, as you go through every stage of growth, we as leaders have to learn how to think differently, plan differently, and execute differently. And that's a constant transformation. And our businesses can't make that transformation if we're not making that transformation when we look in the mirror and there's different, we have to be different people as we go through that, right?
• 28:14 - There's 2 ways to look at a business. There is your life cycle of every business is the same. OK, and you go from startup, you go to growth, you go to maturity. OK, where you either end up being, either make some adjustments at that point, and then you either continue to grow or you ultimately have to reinvent, right? because you decline, and that's where turnarounds come in, right? And then, without getting further in depth in that, every product has that same life cycle, if that makes sense, right? And when companies in that stage start to grow, A company might hit that maturity phase, right? Where you got a lot of competition coming in, you're not growing as fast, but the way they keep growing, if they choose to, is the next product.
• 10:33 - You know, when you're starting up a business, right, you're wearing every single hat. What sort of what working on it means is you sort of got to step back and say, okay, where do I need systems? Where do I need process? How do I replace myself? You know, you know, we, we, we all enjoy in, in starting something. We all enjoy doing it and, and accomplishing things ourselves and what we do, right? But, you know, and when you start working on the business, you really start looking at how do I actually replace myself, right? And, what does that mean, and how do you go about doing that?
• 50:56 - Pat A: So I think if you're on that journey in business and you wanna figure out how to get unstuck and tackle some challenges, I, think there's universal insights in that. And it's not all about me, it's about a lot of really interesting successful leaders that okay, you know,there may be some of 'em aren't on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, but quite frankly, they've got some great stories that we just wanted to highlight.
  Josh: I think, like you mentioned, I think that's exactly what we're trying to do with this podcast, too.

Discover how Alex Polamero merges his world religion studies with his passion for business to drive empathetic client relationships and significant growth. In this candid conversation, Alex divulges his unique path and the strategies his consulting firm utilizes to not just attract leads but to ensure they're quality, valued, and ultimately, contribute to a significant rise in business valuation. Get an unparalleled look at how a synergy between sales and marketing can unlock new levels of success.

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast.

• Turnkey sales & HubSpot solutions
• The impact of studying world religions
• Strategies beyond lead generation
• Improve business valuation tactics
• Insights on website lead conversion

Resources:

• Ninestone Partners
• DevNoodle

Connect with Alex Polamero:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 1:08:03 - Clients like it when we have skin in the game. For sure. Absolutely. Yeah. And if we can help two x three x or more their valuation on top of their annual revenue, they start seeing numbers in a different, in a different light, right? Oh, and we can help. Now that's a smaller company, right? Let's say like three to 15 million. If we can help the owner get out of being the only person doing all this stuff, that's major, right? Talk about lifestyle change.
• 28:04 - Alex P: I learned a lot from that experience, right? About working with partners about negotiating agreements. A lot of times when you're, buying or selling a business, you gotta think about the end game, even though it's kind of hard. What happens if one of you dies? What happens if one of you doesn't wanna work together? You know, all these things. And also the, the just the power of patience and perseverance, right? Because running an agency takes a lot of effort and there's a lot of, you know, trial and error and, winning and losing and trying to learn from others who've done it, you know, better than I have. So that was my journey.
  Josh: I appreciate you sharing that. Is there anything that you would do differently? Because it sounds like you did think about a few things and how this could go, but yeah. Would you do anything differently?
  Alex P: Yeah, I wouldn't have sold, I wouldn't, so I wouldn't do that. Like two years in business is not very long, right? There are a few key things that I would do. Number one, right? I would start, I creating systems in my business from day one, right? How, so? Scalability is about systems, which people talk about this all the time, right? But I was more of a sales person and technical expert in marketing automation. So I was like, well I can go get business and I could do the work, right? But the creating the systems for replicating that without me, that was the hard part. So I would start that much sooner.
• 22:41 - Alex P: So then how do you align that back to like your worldview for running a business?
  Alex G: I think, all right, let's see. I think let's take it one, one to one initially, like relationship based. Whether it's a relationship with your, your spouse or your child or your partner, whatever, you know, business partner, whatever, take it. I think that, I used to say that communication is the most important. I switched that to expectations are the most important. And I think that dives deeply into how you enter a situation with what expectations you have. And potentially those expectations are not aligned on the other side. So you have mismatch. And that creates, you know, you could take that on the product side as well. And that creates a spectrum of the expectation versus reality is essentially sat user satisfaction, user experience, right? You need to understand that. So that's kind of on a one-to-one level. And also going to a somewhat of a one-to-one level with a product. You, with a product as opposed to the relationship you have with someone else. And I think, you know, take that to a worldview. If we understand each other's expectations, maybe on a worldview we can identify those gaps and at least have a relevant conversation.
• 41:40 - We're we're telling them this is how we're gonna build your company, right? We're leaders in their company with them on their executive team. They love it when we show them a dashboard and it says, revenue going up, Right? Here are the awesome things. Here are any challenges we're facing and what we're gonna do about it. Right? And the shorter that meeting, the better. When we're not meeting expectations, going all the way back to the beginning of our conversation, that's when clients are like, I wanna micromanage and help, you know, solve all these problems. So the, the more we tie our work to actual results, the easier it is for everybody. 
• 21:42 - For us, at the end of the day, it's expectations and satisfaction. Obviously for us. Did we hit the due dates, right? Because we're doing technical work. It's construction a lot of times, right? So did we hit it on time? But that's not really what matters. What matters is the client satisfied? Did we manage expectations we could have delivered earlier and they're not satisfied or we could deliver late and they are satisfied. So we base that on how's the relationship with the client? Are they, are we aligned on expectations and what's their rate of satisfaction? And the more of those we get ultimately will lead to more for us, really, retention is more valuable than the initial sale. 

Dive into the world of B2B marketing with the founder of Maven Collective Marketing. This episode is packed with insider knowledge, from carving a niche in Microsoft Partners' marketing to the value of being a B Corp. Discover actionable strategies and relatable agency anecdotes that will inspire any entrepreneur or marketer!

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast.

• Insights on B2B SaaS marketing
• Benefits of B Corp certification
• Improving website conversion
• Trail running and mental toughness
• Keys to onboarding new employees

Resources:

• Maven Collective Marketing
• DevNoodle

Connect with Erica Hakonson:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 60:00 - Erica: What I love about this and what I love about the B Corp community is that you are now a for-profit organization that is not just for profit, it's actually for the benefit of your community. And so when we talked about process a little earlier, Alex, you know, one of the things that helped me establish process even further was going through this assessment. ‘Cause it was things we were doing, but maybe not things we were documenting and it was community building that we were doing, but maybe I didn't have it in our staff handbook as something as a policy of ours or a mandate of ours. So we have pro bono volunteer hours that are built into our employees work and some of that we do together as a group. Some of that they find their own passion projects and work on. We try to find organizations that we align with value wise to give our time and energy and skillset. And so I know that it feels like when you're a small business, there's just so many things cooking, how could I possibly get to those pieces? But those pieces sometimes are what fuels us to get to that next step in our entrepreneurial journey. And for me for sure, having that as a part of our mission, having that as a part of our work and mandate and dedicating ourselves to an organization that keeps you honest about that, is a really huge opportunity that I'm excited about this year. Like I said, we're in assessment, we've scored enough to be in assessment and hopefully as we go through the process, we'll then become certified and get to join that amazing community of entrepreneurs and larger organizations that have the same vision and mission of for profit companies not being for profit.
  Alex:Identifying around that purpose is huge. So I think that's, yeah, that's amazing.
• 58:10 - I love the validation that you have on your site. I mean, you have partner client, you know, part partner logos, you have awards, you have scores and numbers and then you have testimonials, you have case studies. The only other thing is I would say that you could leverage on your case study in the, how we did it, I can't get to that right now, but there is, once you show, because you're asking for them to give their email address to get the case study, one of the potential that could be the main CTA on that, but a secondary CTA could be something like, you know, once you show these are the results before they get into the nitty gritty, it could be like, do you want this, you know, want the same results for your company and then whatever that free offer is for that first call. Yeah. 'cause if they identify with the case study and they envision themselves in that case study, then they're gonna potentially want the same results for them. So having that additional CTA for them to potentially, not just download it but to schedule a call with you.
• 46:04 - But if we're staying on the front side of things, I'd say you have a really clear message and helping your ideal audience solve the problem. So I mean, initially just upfront on this, above the fold, like building a website sales machine, who wouldn't want that? I'm an agency. I want that. I, I can have a website that does my sales. Excellent. And you have good calls to action or grow your website, see pricing, grow your website sales. So I would, and even that like little footnote around a free conversion strategy, like a very, very tempting and then you build trust right away by, by getting your brand banner in there to say like, look of all these people that we've helped, these people could look exactly like you and we could help you in some of the same ways. If you scroll down a little bit, I really liked the way you also did clear problem solving for the client. So you gave them a path and those paths are solving their problem. You know, you're either managing an existing website, you're starting a new website, or you're managing client websites. So I feel like all of those were really clear and, and helped me feel comfortable if I came with a problem, you addressed a problem that I would have based on again, who your target audience is.
• 31:34 - I think it seems like in each case you've stepped up to whatever the challenge was. Maybe that's just, that's seems to be just your personality. But I talk with some people all the time that wanna get into entrepreneurship or want to do something and they're waiting for whatever that right thing is or a situation changes and they're like almost crippled by like, there's so many decisions, I don't know which one to take. And I have this, this thought that it's, you just look at the skills that you've acquired can kind of like the talents that you have at hand and then what's the next possible best move, which it seems like you naturally do throughout. And then the clients coming to you stepped up to the challenge.
• 26:45 - So we need to approach it in quite a few different ways. And then we get them doing work quite quickly so that they can put what they're learning to use and then they can get feedback quite quickly as well. So they're, you know, everyone gets scared of the red pen. I mean that's a very old terminology, but like the best way to learn is through getting that editorial feedback or through getting that, you know, strategic feedback and then taking that into the next application. And you can just instantly see growth when you start to apply things that way where you're either surrounding them with tools and knowledge and then they're getting the feedback and then the next time they do something very similar. It's like, it's at a whole new level. 

Dive into a whirlwind episode where marketing melds with haunted houses, tech trends, and a no-holds-barred web design teardown. It's a detailed delivery filled with sharp insights and hilarious ripostes, perfect for anyone looking to extract the secrets behind potent digital growth strategies.

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast.

• Haunted house becomes marketing goldmine
• Revelations from a Revenue Orchestration platform
• Design choices dissected by a web guru
• Mixing tech with creative for strategic success
• Insights on encouraging client content creation

Resources:

• Solid Digital 
• DevNoodle
  
  

Connect with Jesse McCabe:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 18:41 - So it's like, it's very much driven by like what, what gets measured gets done. Like that's one of my favorite sayings, right? It's like if I'm collecting data on something, I will see progress in some way or another. And I love the scientific method. So like, I guess like how that left brain of like creating software applies to then, like how do we drive people to do and act the way that we want them to act when it comes to like our marketing process, right? Like what I hate and what I will never, ever be is like one of these agencies where, you know, we have this one straight up SEO product and you come in and we're gonna do the same thing for you that we're always gonna do for everybody else. Like that just dr. Like we tried that. It's annoying to me. So like I want to have some sort of agile right process to the way that we are applying marketing. 'cause it's not always gonna work. Like at some point you are going to hit a ceiling if you stay stagnant and just keep doing the same things. 
• 11:11- And so we did that and then like two years ago we get this call from ABC and they're like, Hey, we noticed that you have a pretty popular home haunt. Like at this point we had like thousands of people coming and checking us out. What do you think about, you know, being on this reality show contest thing and basically like this Christmas light show that they have on ABC they did one season or yeah, one season where they like had these Halloween setups. And so, you know, this, the crazy thing is that meant that we had to start building in July to create this display so that they could record it in August. And then, you know, oh sure showed in October. So our neighbors absolutely think we're nuts at this point, right? It's like, what are they doing in July? Anyways, I'm making this a long story, so that's great. It's, yeah, it's awesome. I love it. So it goes, it goes great. We actually like scared the host like so much he fell on his ass. And we ended up winning the show.
• 16:58 - Josh: Do you take anything that's cool from your dev days, and bring it to marketing, you know, best practices, whatever it is? Anything?
  Jesse: Oh, best practices. I don't know about best literally practices. No, but like, I like, I love marketing tech. Like, I love finding new ways that we can use technology and campaigns integrate it with our client stuff. You know what I mean? Like, I'm, right now I'm like way into clay and AI enrichment for, you know, data and like how do we like automate stuff from, you know, coming into A CRM to then like exploring and finding more information about the brand and the person that is, you know, coming to the site and like how does that filter then down into like, you know, sales enablement and, you know, how do we find better qualified leads for our clients? It's all, you know, it's like there's all these new ways of doing this stuff and I just, I love it. I'm working on a WordPress plugin right now to like enhance the experience on our client's websites. 
• 26:50 - I think like when it comes to web design, there's like really kind of like three different types of agencies that do the work. So I think there's like your high-design creative agencies, like, they're typically like B2C kind of agencies where they're trying to always do something different. They're like highly brand-focused, like to the point of almost like changing the brand. And then I think there's like more tech kind of agencies where, you know, they'll find good themes and they'll use those. But the idea is like, we're gonna integrate you and get you like, going with all this stuff. I think a lot of e-commerce companies might use like agencies like that. And then I think like where we fall is we're more strategic. Like I think we have a good balance of tech and we have a good balance of design, but we're not gonna like, do something completely groundbreaking because it's more about like, well  what is this website supposed to be doing for the brand? Like what, how does the marketing team going to use this tool moving forward? Like, how do we get everybody set up so that this becomes a good hub for customers to come learn about who you are. But then like there's an intent, like we want them on some sort of journey that is going to bring value to the organization. And so like, that's really like where, where we end up. 
• 56:34 - Alex: Now this thing they can improve in this way.
  Jesse: And one of the things I was trying to do and I think maybe you guys could apply this for other interviews just like what is the thinking that goes around the difference between products and solutions. So what’s the debate that they’re having around why this decision was made. That was good that you called that out. Maybe you could say like what decision do you think was made to put this there. Because then it goes to the empathy of the person who actually had to put this together. And like maybe they’re going to hear me say something where it’s like yeah we did have that debate. And yeah I lost it you know but at least like it’s like not just saying like their final decision was crap I am literally putting that specific question right into my template, no, I actually until you said it I didn’t I didn’t consider it that way because for me I always hate it because I’m looking at it from the lens of the business owner it’s like I don’t care about your products. Like I have a certain thing that I need to solve I want to I want to find that.

Join us as we unravel the gripping world of behavioral health with Gary Garth, who has transformed personal loss into a mission for systemic change. Expect raw insights on creating life-improving habits, profound industry processes, and the long-term recovery road, all in this intense yet enlightening episode.

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast.

• Discussing the transformative power of planners
• Impact of correctly implemented processes
• The bridge between motivation and discipline
• The holistic approach to client problems
• Finding 'whys' for deep entrepreneurial efforts

Resources:

• Eleva8.io
• DevNoodle

Connect with Gary Garth:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 20:54 Because we all know, like you, you don't wanna be the the richest man in the graveyard, right? Or, you know, you don't want to be have, have no friends, no love, no connection. So I'm, I, for me it's, that's important. And so it starts with these exercises and then it segments into, okay, if you wanna accomplish this, what kind of rituals do you need to establish your morning ritual, your evening ritual, and how do you plan for your week? We all know like, if you don't schedule it, it doesn't get done. So it's kind of like, let me have this planner that's offline that integrated with all your notifications and apps, et cetera, that you can just sit and look at and reflect and that journal and put some thoughts into, if I wanna be here in one year, what does that look like? Where am I right now, what I need to do to get to that point? And you know, I always tell people it's just a, it's just a tool. Nothing is ever gonna be perfect. You look at mine, you're like, well, what the heck's wrong with this guy? It goes up and down and right and left. But it's, that's the journey. And that's the value that you are conscious and aware and working on yourself, I think. 
• 24:55 - So I think you can do several things. You can have constant reminders, reinforcement, like a planner. Another, another big thing I think is like, expression, birds of a feather flock together, surround yourself with the right, setting, the right people that you can feed off. I'm the same way. I'm very, I'm drawn to energy. So, you know, I like to, if I am around people that are disciplined, motivated, determined, I may be not sharing their exact view on things, but you know, it stimulates me and inspire me in the right way. So if you have that opportunity, you should embrace it. But I always tell people, like sometimes people write me, they bought the planner, they're like, I'm here.I'm living in this neighborhood somewhere that I have never even been and I don't have that opportunity. I'm like, you have the internet, my friend, or you have books. Start reading some self, some biographies and start reading and so you can get inspired in a lot of different ways and just program your mind and look at it like a muscle. It takes time basically. 
• 45:43 - I'm selling my shares, stepped out. I was like, shit, am I making a mistake? But I took that money and then I said, I'm gonna go out and change these statistics. 'cause I was looking into the market and I don't know if you know, but you know, because of social media and the whole trajectory of how everything is going, I think there's a lot of people that feel lost and one out of three Americans actually has, or even worldwide and I think, but America specifically is one out of three has some sort of mental challenge and suicides is at an all time high, especially with teenagers that have a teenage daughter. So, you know, it just freaked me out. I looked into the statistics of addictions, you know, with the opiate crisis and it's basically at a state that it kills more people than car crashes and homicides and everything combined. Basically you take all that and it's still the number one killer and it doesn't get any attention in the media. And then I was like looking at my friends and like, what kind of options would they have had? And then I learned that less than 10% of the 24 million Americans alone they have, that are struggling, that are suffering with some sort of addiction, less than 10% gets treatment. And I start wondering why is that.
• 29:42 - Even one year I was like a platinum member with Tony Robbins. But the whole point was, I remember I was this setting and he was like talking about these drivers of we have as people, right? One is, you know, certainty that we need certainty and then there's uncertainty as a second, you know, driver feeling there is significance, which is for me was always very important. You gotta achieve this and love and connection. But it's just like when you really wanna get fulfilled and what could be that lasting driver for your discipline is when you get tapped into the grow and the give. Because when you start growing as an individual, as a professional, as a, then all of a sudden you start, you feel motivated, that fuels your motivation even further. And then when you have the opportunity, the blessing, the privilege to actually give that back to somebody, then it's really rewarding because then when you're demotivated at some point, like, you know what, there's a lot at stake here. I'm actually helping other people. I have a lot employees here. We're helping a lot of clients. And then that can refuel your discipline. So I think if you can get beyond yourself and use those four first for about I'm safe or I need sobriety, I'm bored, I want to feel significant or had love of connection or draw. If you get beyond your ego, beyond that I just say grow and give. That helps with the drive and motivation.
• 39:55 - So I said the same way, you know, you have to have the right strategy, the right processes, then back the tools with it. And then the people's gotta be trained on that. When you have all of that in place, that's when you get the consistent results. And it's just a very tricky industry I'm in. So it's maybe, I think that's why so many people, some there's not a lot of marketing agencies, for example, cater to this vertical because you got legit script, you got hipaa, HIPAA regulations. There is constantly new leg legislation on like changes in the market. And it's very difficult. So clients, prospective clients come to us, say, Hey, want Google ads? I want this cost per patient. And I say like, before we even go anywhere, we have to have this process go through that calculator. I have to ask you all these questions. I'm not trying to interrogate you, I'm just trying to identify what you're doing. Right. What are you not doing? So we can calculate, start with the end goal, calculate backwards, say how can we hit that decide cost per acquisition, for example. And then we have to look at all those different factors and the clients that are savvy, that are data-driven, that appreciate, you know, the detail. I think we work great with them. We haven't had a cancellation, I think in like 18 months.

Dive into the nitty-gritty of SEO success with Nick Rubright from Ranko Media. Discover how a year of behind-the-scenes experimentation can exponentially grow your site's traffic. From industry-nuanced strategies to content that converts, this episode is an SEO goldmine — delivered with a dash of gaming fun and music band analogies!

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast.

• SEO growth can take about a year.
• Outbound reach is key for SEO.
• Effective link building is not quick.
• Content should generate links or sales.
• SEO is competitive just like gaming.

Resources:

• Ranko Media
• DevNoodle

Connect with Nick Rubright:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 27:05 - Nick: But I do, I mean I would imagine other marketing agencies struggle with the story of like that first three months being tough where it's like an experiment and yeah, if clients come in and know that it's an experiment, that's the best client. Like when we had Twilio, they knew that it was an experiment and it's like the client saying that is like super helpful. Because then you're kind of like, oh cool, okay. They know that I'm just kind of experimenting and I don't know a lot of things and you almost have like freedom to mess up, you know? And I think the reason my own projects do so much better than client projects is because I feel like I have that freedom to mess up. Hmm. And any of the projects I've grown to like a million visitors a month, I had the freedom to mess up and it wasn't like, it wasn't like the clients attributed the mistakes to me. They attributed the mistakes to like the campaign and they're like kind of asking me like, okay, well this didn't work, so what's next? And those clients are the ones that are successful like a hundred percent of the time pretty much
  Alex: Because you're able to take risks and like you said, like it's the 20% where where it works. So you need to be able to take a lot of risks to see where's it gonna work in this industry. 
• 44:40 - We don't care about getting traffic to this page. This is just some stat page, right? We don't care about like links necessarily. We care about making money. So the way we make this make money is we go, you know, from this page that has all the links we link to our other resources on the website. So that could be landing pages or content pieces you wanna rank because you know they're gonna make money. Like if it's like, like if you're plen, if you wanna rank for like best buyer intent data, yeah. Top intent data providers, you would, you know, build this stat roundup and link from that to this, you know, intent data providers list and pass the authority there and that one would rise as a result. You wanna do this a lot. It's not like you do one and this one page gets a lot of links and then you're good. That can work in some cases with like content heavy websites, right? But if you have a page that you're really trying to drive authority
• 26:16 - Even though your market is like insurance or like gambling, right? The gambling niche is super competitive, but everyone's paying for links. So it's like, okay, just don't do that and you can win. You know? Like if you just do digital PR the right way and figure it out. And that's the thing is like once you figure it out, it's like, like, okay, now we can just like print links. But the process of like that first three months is kind of a trial. And I think that the first three months of anything is a trial. Like even when I, when I hire a new employee, it's like the first 90 days is kind of like, all right, we're kind of fucking around and like trying to figure out how this fits into this, right? And this is burn money, you know? And then we get to a place in three months where we're like, okay, now we have a lot of stuff that we can forecast off. But I do, I mean I, I would imagine other marketing agencies struggle with the story of like that first three months being tough where it's like an experiment and yeah, if clients come in and know that it's an experiment, that's the best client. Like when we had Twilio, they knew that it was an experiment and it's like the client saying that is like super helpful. 'cause then you're kind of like, oh cool, okay. They know that I'm just kind of experimenting and I don't know a lot of things and you almost have like freedom to mess up
• 37:53 - And not competing brands, right? So HubSpot's not really a competing brands, but they have a blog so they'd be a good one to research close, right? I've written for close before and this has an audience of salespeople. Like you basically want to think like referral traffic, like if I get on this website, are people gonna click through like is it a clickable link? Because that's how Google's kind of looking at it as a vote. So you wanna get votes from these like authoritative sources and you can't pay for these 'cause these guys care about their website and the guy running the website works for a company that, you know, they don't sell links. That's not their thing and they'll, you know, probably get in trouble for doing that. Like they can get fired. So it's not something. They just want interject real here real quick. It makes so much sense when we talk to our clients, we look at like buckets where their leads come from in terms of their partners. Like for example, they may have partners in other industries like attorneys or real estate agents or whatever it is, and they send traffic their way because in what they do in their business, they say, okay, you may need the service go over here. And this is exactly the same thing that's happening here. Someone's reading content here and as part of it, if they're referencing your data, they, they care about that recommendation. Yeah. They're essentially referring your business.
• 49:17 - And I learned that from Twilio, one of our clients. 'cause like one of the campaigns we did like an infographic campaign, it didn't do well at all and we had to pivot, but they were like, well we can use this for other stuff. And I was like, well, what do you mean? And then they're like, well we can have our sales guys use it or like, we can publish it on social media or share it on our blog or something. And I was like, dang, they make a lot of use out of this. So it's not so isolated. Like they're not like, I guess they're milking the investment a lot.
  Josh: Totally. Yeah. I think they're getting like sales enablement out. I mean they're literally getting, they're milking the content to get as, as everyone should be. And I think that lowers not the risk. I don't know if risk is the right word, but when you're able to use it in different, you know, avenues, I think it just gets more value out of the project.

Step into the thrilling world of healthcare marketing mastery with Saul Marquez. Dive into persuasive techniques, podcasting as a sales tool, and get an exclusive sneak peek into the dynamic pre-show banter. Captivating insights and hearty laughs guaranteed!

Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast. 

• Heartfelt philosophy meets business.
• Podcasting as a high-impact sales tool.
• Insights on account-based marketing.
• Stone soup story: value-first approach.
• Aiming for results, not just tactics.

Resources:

• Outcomes Rocket
• DevNoodle

Connect with Saul Marquez:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 32:00 - So the thing that I really wanna urge our listeners to do is to not forget that marketing has four pillars. And we were talking about this kind of bringing it back from the start of the show to now all those tactics are preceded with the strategy pillar. So you start with strategy. Once you have your strategy put together, you now can employ the owned, earned and paid verticals of marketing. And so we're able to help our customers in any one of, and any one of those verticals. But where we start is the strategy. And under strategy, you have some very simple things. Your brand house, which consists of your brand purpose, your brand differentiator, your brand attributes. Then from your brand house, you go down one level and you identify your ideal client personas, your ICPs, you clearly outline their pain points, you clearly outline their goals, common objections to why they wouldn't wanna work with you. And so that becomes another element of your strategy,
• 35:19 - And the earned is all about OPS, other people's stages. So you got your own stages, then you go on ops. Now the beauty of ops is that you don't, all you have to do is show up and add massive value. The people that host you. So Josh and Alex, you guys are hosting me on your stage and I'm grateful for it. And anytime I get an opportunity to show up on someone's stage, my intentions to add massive value. And so you go, you show up, you add massive value. There's publications, there's media, that's other forms  of earned very little. People think about user-generated content. So like UGC is essentially like if somebody, if you write, if you put a social post out there and unsolicited, somebody says, wow, like Alex and Josh did a bang up job on my website, like I'm getting conversions like never before.
• 16:21 - Josh: Okay? So if you don't have a plan,
  Saul: You become part of somebody else's plan. What does that mean? So this is a phenomenal quote that I love, and actually Josh, Alex, I was sharing with you guys with my son, you know, even I want him to know this. And by the way, for anybody listening, it's important that you also know this, if you do not have a plan, you do become part of somebody else's plan. And that is true for your brand, your personal brand, your company's brand. And the stat is very surprising. And that's only 23% of healthcare marketers actually have their content documented inside of a plan. And so what that means is the other 77% are becoming part of somebody else's plan. So the opportunity in this is that if you do put your plan together, there's an opportunity for you to have a competitive advantage. And so that's why I love, that's what I love about that is that the, you have the control
• 40:52 - So we actually started, like our business started as a podcast. Like, I did not intend to start an agency, but guess what happened? I, so this year, we'll hit 2000 episodes on the Outcomes Rocket. Amazing. What a pleasure and privilege it has been to sort of sit down with all these amazing people, all healthcare leaders. Not only have we built an amazing network of just business leaders in the industry, organization, leaders in the industry, the knowledge. And by having all these conversations, I started seeing patterns that there's huge gaps in the marketing business in healthcare. And we decided to address them. Now, one of our main business drivers is our podcast. So we use the podcast to create thought leadership content, but we also use it to meet with our ideal client personas, our ICPs,
• 44:00 - And what that story is all about, and you know, we talk about it at our company, is that sometimes you gotta make stone soup. And what that means is if you show up and you are asking for things, you're not leading with value, people are gonna close their doors, people are gonna hide their food. If you show up offering ideas and value, which is what a podcast does for you, right? You're showing up to offer, not showing up to ask people receive you more, more, more openly. The other thing here is it's the importance of how fast great ideas catch fire. So when you have a really interesting idea and you're creating awesome content, people wanna share, especially if they're part of it. So now you, now they're your guest, now they wanna share. So the network effect of that, like it happened with this stone soup story. Like, it is, that's what happens with your podcast.

Discover expert marketing insights with our agency experts as they uncover industry missteps, AI’s transformative potential, and the essential balance between strategy and operations. A must-listen for marketers striving for success.

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast.

• Find your niche in marketing
• Leverage AI without losing the human touch
• The power of SOPs in streamlined processes
• Building a referral network for agencies
• Essential questions before buying a service

Resources:

• ZenChange Marketing
• DevNoodle

Connect with Diane Moura:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 28:29 - And something like that, I think can be a real game changer for a lot of businesses, whether, you know, if they're SMB, whether they're a startup, if they're SMBs and they're 10 years in, there's still I think a lot of value there and some of the key tenets are around first of all like, let's make sure that we not only understand the vision of the company, but how are, you know, how are all of the KPIs attached to that vision. You know, if you are, whatever your level is in a company, you should have clarity as to what you're doing and how that impacts the overall company. And so if the executives have KPIs that they're trying to hit and you know, maybe they're bonus eligible, you still need everyone else in the company who is going to have a piece of those KPIs so that it can all be effective. And then there's another, I think, really important tenant that is called right person, right seat 
• 14:45 - Let's make sure that, you know, we start with an MVP, you know, we make sure we test it, we test the market, you're always going to be kind of adding different features. You know, you might do some pivots to some extent, but you have to at least get something out there and get it working first. And the other thing, and this is coming from a marketer, is don't pull the trigger on marketing too soon. So if you don't have a product yet, you can burn through all your cash if you get really excited and you start pushing out all of the marketing that it's going to need. And especially I think with, with SaaS companies, because it's a, it's typically a pretty heavy lift the marketing that's required for SaaS. And if you start to do that too soon, then you know, like things are never gonna be delivered in the time that you think they will. There's always gonna be issues and you know, I worked with a client where they had the front end and the back end development were happening in different parts of the world. And when they finally brought them together, they actually didn't talk. So that was, that was kind of an issue. Had they been a little bit more conservative at the beginning in terms of their spend, they probably would've ended up in a better spot.
• 46:08 - We're not the, you know, give, give me a certain amount of money per month and it's all a black box and trust me, I'm gonna get your marketing done. We're very transparent in the services. So we basically say, okay, here's all the things that need to be done. Now let's have a conversation about what you have the capabilities to do in house versus where it makes sense to outsource and let's look to prioritize. 'cause a lot of SMBs, you know, if you ask them their budget, they really don't know. Some of them are attempting marketing for the first time. So we do need to have that discussion with them and say, look, if you have the people in in house who can, you know, do your own video shoots, great. If you don't, you know, we can handle the shoots for you. You know, if you have your own people who can do social media, you know, do social media, but then maybe engage us just to provide them with some coaching or maybe they're creating content but they're not actually out there doing engagement and you know, maybe they're able to do it for the main brand, but they're not able to do it for your personal brand. 'cause that's like a kind of a, you know, as the founder, you should be top of funnel for your business and so maybe that's not their capabilities. And so then we just, we have a very open conversation with them and we prioritize into phases and then usually that will lead to the engagement.
• 39:26 - And if you're not using that, you're falling behind. And I'm glad that you mentioned, you know, you'll have these unicorns with a few people. 'cause I've always had the thought that AI, if used properly, which you kind of went into pretty deep, which which was great, is essentially a company in a box or a marketing team in a box or like, and there still needs to be that oversight, but you know, it allows you for, and I'll tell you how I use it. Like, I have all these philosophical thoughts and that's why I love getting into Philosophy on this podcast. But I'm not the greatest writer. And what allows me to do is it is not gonna come up with a new philosophical theory, but if I pump in my theory notes, it makes me a good writer and then it makes it a lot easier for someone to read. So, so I, I just think everyone, you know, it is just this tool that makes people more efficient for bad writers. It makes us good writers. 
• 44:47 - Alex: It's really interesting. And the way that you described that, it sounds like you provide a lot of value. Where does that initial kind of discovery before you get to the engagement and where does the engagement start? Is that, that's something we've been talking with a lot of agents is about, you know, there's the initial building, the relationship and discovery. So what does that look like for you?
  Diane: Yeah, so typically, we'll have an initial exploratory call with a potential client because as much as, you know, if you give me an attorney and you tell me their, you know, personal injury attorney, you know, I've, I've probably got 85% of their marketing plan in my head, right? Because we worked with so many of them, but I don't have that extra 15%. So that has to be personalized. So we, we have conversations about, you know, their business and what has, what has worked well, what hasn't worked well, what resources do they have internally. So we're try,  you know, our initial meeting is we're basically capturing that information and we're sharing some things as well, but we really wanna make sure that we focus and target and then we go away and we do our analysis and we come back and we share that presentation that I described to you.

Dive into an enlightening mix of marketing mastery and personal evolution with Will Palmer, as he sets forth his vision for transforming legal marketing with Growth Lab. From leveraging CRO to valuing happiness as courage, this episode is a perfect blend for those seeking professional growth and self-discovery in the marketing sphere.

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency Podcast.

• Explore cutting-edge CRO for law firms
• The importance of EOS in business management
• Converting legal expertise into successful sales
• Balancing work, life, and personal happiness
• Building a robust referral network among agencies

Resources:

• Growth Lab
• DevNoodle

Connect with Will Palmer:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our hosts:

• Josh Hoffman - LinkedIn
• Alex Garashchenko - LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 21:49 - Josh: And now I guess to switch gears from a little bit of that fear talk and talking about happiness. 'cause I know it's a topic that both of us really care about, all three of us really care about. And you have a quote on your LinkedIn that's, that I love and it says, happiness is a form of courage. So can you kinda explain what that means?
  Will: Yeah, happiness is a form of courage. I think beyond doing things that scare us, like we just discussed, there's this idea in life to sort of pursue our calling and understand what our calling is and to even understand what our calling is takes courage in my opinion because, you know, it requires a lot of inner work. Who am I as a person? What do I actually enjoy doing? Does what I enjoy doing give me life and fulfillment and happiness? Is that what I'm doing right now? And that certainly was me for many years, you know, in professional sales, selling for a payroll company, learned a lot of great things, had a lot of great people around me and it benefited my career. But you know, that's not giving me joy. I am selling a commodity service and it was all a numbers game with sales. So making those decisions to transition to things with a lot less security because it aligns with my personal values. And that is sort of the definition I think of fearlessly pursuing our calling to get to happiness. 
• 46:07 - Will: Eckhart Tolle, “The Power of Now”, don't read it, listen to it because it's very difficult to read. It's heavy. If you listen to it, it will make life much easier. But that is all about, you know, I get it, mindfulness presence, it's all like a big thing, but there's a reason for it. If you follow Dan Harris, the BC anchor, he's written a bunch of stuff and done some podcasts when he had a panic attack on air on Good Morning America. He's a cool, he's a cool one. So
  Josh: His book some, what's his, the title of his book,
  Will Palmer: 10% Happier is one of 'em. That
  Josh Hoffman: That's right. That's, that was one,
  Will: That's a good one.
  Josh: That he wrote after having the panic attack. Yeah.
  Will: So “The Power of Now” is kinda like that and, but Eckhart Tolle is like one of the OGs about presence and mindfulness and how just basically stop letting the outside world dictate your mood and, and stop letting other people and circumstances you have no control over dictate your pursuit in life. So that's a, that's a powerful thing.
  Josh: Powerful. My favorite topic in life is stoicism. And that sentence is essentially the, the definition of stoicism.
• 20:24 - Will: Well, not a lot hasn't worked. I will say that it has disrupted in a few different ways without going into specifics. The sort of, it's kind of rattled some cages of people that have been in a comfortable spot let's say. And that has been difficult because when you rattle cages to get the best outcomes for everyone involved, yeah it just can be hard. So, but it's necessary. So I don't know that a lot of bad stuff has come of it really.
  Alex: Okay. So like necessary challenges, it's kind of forced conversations or forced certain issues that might have been otherwise kind of, yeah. Just left out there.
  Will Palmer: Cool. You, I mean you have to slow down to speed up with it because we implemented ourselves and a lot of people are like, do you implement yourself or do you pay somebody to do it? We did it ourselves. So that takes a lot of time. And getting into the swing of things, I flew my leaders out to Kansas City to sort of launch EOS, so Oh cool. You know, there's a time and money investment that can feel like you're, if you're impatient like me and type A, you're just like, I want stuff fixed and move fast. And it's like, not yet.
• 39:55 -  Not really. I mean, my last couple years of selling for the national company, I was doing mostly virtual stuff. But it's a powerful thing to be local in a market and not just an inside sales rep and actually have a law firm. I feel like lawyers, when they really do trust a sales rep or a growth consultant, it's like, it's like a baby bird seeing its mom for the first time. It's like, you're my person. I don't care who else is on your team, you're my person, you're here, you're local. I've had lawyers jokingly be like, I know where you live and if you mess with me I will find you. And I'm like, ha ha. Yeah, I know. But I'm like, no, it's true. It's skin in the game. And I embraced that. I was like, yeah, listen, I'm local. If I screw everything up for you then what you gonna go trash talk the BS that's coming out of my mouth? Like it doesn't mean no good. So it's, it's good to have people in local markets that can build trust.

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.

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.
• Stephen 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.